Cosplay Puffy Pants

My friend (the one in the Wartortle outfit in the picture below) asked me.  How did you get/keep your pants to puffy.  

 Time for some cosplay magic! Well first you need to start with some Hammer Pants.  The pant legs aren't straight, nor flared. Instead it's pretty much a silly bubble.

Oh look? some left over tulle, several yards in fact.  Wrap several layers into a loose circle and tie it off with (oh look some leftover) ribbon.  

Next slip in one of these bundles in each pant leg/sleeve.  What's great is tulle and ribbon is completely machine washable, and completely squish-able into boxes for storage.  Or repack-able into plushie stuffing for future projects.

YAY!
Thank you Cowslip for such amazing Pokemon Gijinka Cosplay designs. http://imgur.com/a/DDxvd#16
And DTJAAAM for this wonderful picture http://www.dtjaaaam.com/

Minion Goggles

As you can see I have a base pillow thing that will soon become my Minion (Despicable Me). Along with some spare parts of all stuff.  

• Blank Minion Body
• Stretchy Black Elastic
• Mason Jar Lids (2x)
• White Eyes, using white fleece
• Black Pupils, using wood circle pieces that are painted black

Using the Mason Jar bases I am able to make perfect cirles for the eyes

These wood blocks were suppose to be pendants, an unfinished project that is now re purposed for the pupils.

Measuring the goggle headband right on Dave (Minion's name is Dave)

Glue the headband to the mason jar lids

Using the Mason jar rings to make the goggle frames and we have MINION GOGGLES

Worbla Armor - Embossed Technique

 Here's a sneak preview of the Diablo III Barbarian Tier 5 armor I am building. All of these pieces were made using a thermoplastic called Worbla.

One reason you might use Worbla instead of Wonderflex to create your cosplay armor is in the unique ways that you can manipulate Worbla.

Here's how I create a embossed look on Worbla armor. This technique is more cost-effective than layering extra Worbla on top. Instead, you are layering your less-expensive (and easier-to-cut) craft foam.

You need:

Sheets of craft foam (in two contrasting colors)

Worbla (available from cosplaysupplies.com or yayahan.com)

Heat Gun

A pointy wooden tool

Sharpie for drawing your design

Good scissors
Elmer’s glue
A surface to work on that the Worbla will not stick to (I use a piece of glass shelving from IKEA)

First, cut out your design in craft foam and glue it to your craft foam pattern piece. Then layer Worbla over the craft foam and use a pointed wooden tool to press the thermoplastic down around the edges of the design. Let’s see an example:

This is going to be a plate that wraps around the outside of my upper arm.

Here I layered my design in green foam over yellow. The yellow will become my pattern piece for an upper-arm plate.

First I heated a piece of Worbla, then stuck the pattern piece on it with the green design side against the shiny side of the Worbla sheet.

Then I flipped it over.

Here you can see that it helps to use contrasting craft foam colors because you can see the darker green design through the plastic.

Next, I used the pointy tool to press the heated Worbla down around the design shapes and get nice, smooth edges.

The Worbla cools and hardens pretty quickly so I heated and worked on one quadrant of the piece at a time.

After finishing the relief, I heated a second piece of Worbla and stuck it to the back of the craft foam. Then I pressed the edges together to seal in the craft foam (sandwich!) and trimmed the excess.

Save your Worbla scraps, you can heat them up and use them for decorations, like claws and scrollwork!

Lastly I heated up the whole piece and curve it into shape around my upper arm, then let it cool.

Here is the completed piece after adding the spike and painting it.

In this last image you can see the hand plate on which I used both the craft foam relief technique and also layered strips of Worbla for the edge details. Here it is easy to see the visual difference you get – with the relief technique you will have smooth, rounded edges, and with the layering technique you will have sharp edges., which looks great for border outlines.

Did you know? Worbla (or "Worbla's Finest Art") is made from renewable natural raw materials is also known as Rhenoflex RX 5050 which was originally engineered by a German company for the purpose of industrial shoe-making. You can buy it in the U.S. from cosplaysupplies.com or yayahan.com

Softening Crafting Leather

Leather found at craft stores isn't high quality, rather think, and minimally treated. If you ever find it in an misbent shape or curly from being wound on a spool, fear not, it's quite easy to fix.

I purchased a spool of leather cord for some necklaces, but they came out with this intense curl which was hard to straighten.

Didn't think you can put it in hot water?  Well if it's not fancy treated, you actually can.  I soaked the leather in hot water, a treatment also used to soften the leather before stamping, a method I learned from some real CowBoys!

Hang to dry.  But be careful of the position in which it dries, it will keep it's shape as well.  My ending strands ended up with a fold in the middle, luckily I didn't mind because that's where my pendant for my necklace is going to sit anyways.

TaDa, from Curly to Straight (ish)