Cosplay Journal - Chadley (FF7R)

In this you will find:

• Materials used

• Estimated cost (often after coupons/sales)

• ̶M̶̶̶y̶̶̶ ̶̶̶h̶̶̶e̶̶̶a̶̶̶r̶̶̶t̶̶̶f̶̶̶e̶̶̶l̶̶̶t̶̶̶ ̶̶̶t̶̶̶h̶̶̶o̶̶̶u̶̶̶g̶̶̶h̶̶̶t̶̶̶s̶̶̶ ̶̶̶a̶̶̶n̶̶̶d̶̶̶ ̶̶̶e̶̶̶m̶̶̶o̶̶̶t̶̶̶i̶̶̶o̶̶̶n̶̶̶s̶̶̶

Fabric:

• 2 Yards of Jazz Blue Symphony Broadcloth Polyester Blend (~$3.50/yd = $7.00)

• 3 Yards of Black and Blue Plaid Cotton Flannel (~$5.50/yd = $16.50)

• ̶2̶ ̶Y̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶E̶g̶g̶s̶h̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶S̶y̶m̶p̶h̶o̶n̶y̶ ̶B̶r̶o̶a̶d̶c̶l̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶P̶o̶l̶y̶e̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶B̶l̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶(̶~̶$̶3̶.̶5̶0̶/̶y̶d̶ ̶=̶ ̶$̶7̶.̶0̶0̶)̶ ̶

Other Materials:

• 1 Pack (2 buttons) of 22mm LaMode Gold Etched Buttons (~$5.50)

• 1 5” Gold Aluminum Zipper (~$4.00)

• 4” Zipper (~$3)

Other Accessories:

• I wrote up about my Chadley wig here! (~$25)

• Backpack (~$50.00)

• Scarf (~<$1.00)

• Glasses (~$10)

• Sock Stays/Garters (~$10)

• Socks (~$10)

• Shoes (~$45)

I’m trying to do a better job journaling my cosplay progress for multiple of reasons.

1. I hope it will encourage me to complete projects

2. I can reflect back on areas I need to develop skills and research techniques for

3. It allows me to go back to find exact fabrics/materials (if I remember writing those down in the first place)

4. It’ll make me aware how much I spent on materials so I can cry about it.

I ordered online and there’s a 2 yard minimum for online fabric orders, so I have a lot of excess. I also ordered Eggshell Broadcloth that ended up being way yellower than I thought, so I’m forgoing that and just going to use the muslin (shh…).

The Character

Chadley’s shirt has two seams going down the middle and a zipper that goes about half way from there. There’s also a bottom half to the shirt that doesn’t have any seams in the middle. The sleeves have a blue layer that looks more like an under layer than a trim. There’s also the blue for the pockets and the collar.

I drew it out to help me minimize mistakes for this one (I only used the seam ripper 3 times!).

Honestly, I can’t even read my notes.

Shirt

I cut out a basic shirt shape with a yoke on the back for that more “school uniform” kind of look, made the pockets, and added that to the front before attaching the front to the back. The zipper goes only about half way. I wanted to find a white zipper, but black was all I could get.

For the collar, it’s a simple peter pan style, sewing two sides together and flipping that inside out for a clean edge.

I added the gold buttons to the pockets (they’re functional pockets!), the blue layer underneath the white on the sleeves, added that weird bib part of the shirt (not photographed), and finished the bottom half of the shirt.

Shorts

At the time of buying fabrics, I threw in what I could for Chadley’s pants also (for that sweet, free shipping). My issue was that I couldn’t find a pattern match I liked in a material I liked and opted for a pattern I liked in a fabric…. that isn’t great. Flannel shorts sounds like a contradiction. Yet, here we are.

The shorts ended up being cursed or something. I ordered a zipper (just a zipper!) four separate times because it was either canceled or straight up lost! Finally got it on the fifth try, after driving an hour away for a zipper under $5 (why…).

I first used packing paper to trace shorts from my Angus Macdonald cosplay (that in retrospect would have worked for this Chadley cosplay *facepalm*) to use as a pattern.

I matched my seams, added pockets (using a serger), a front zipper and a waist band (using a sewing machine)!

These shorts are a bit bright compared to the character render, but this is the first time I made shorts that had pockets and a front zipper, so whatever!

And that’s it! Making shorts with pockets and a front zipper was way easier than I expected. I’ll revisit to add belt loops at some point, probably (probably not). It’s a simple sewing project that cost me under $200 (mostly due to the bag, wig, and shoes).

Total Cost: ~$187

Feeling satisfied enough with it, I took these phone pics using a greenish light, because I felt like that made me look like I was in the Shinra HQ building or something with all the lights from the Mako~

My phone went off as my sock stays fell…

Cosplay Journal - Burning Rescue Jacket (Promare)

In this you will find:

• Materials used

• Estimated cost (often after coupons/sales)

Materials:

• 4 yards red cotton blend fabric (~$20)

• 3 yards black fabric (denim?) (~$20)

• 1 yard yellow cotton blend fabric (~$5)

• 1 yard yellow vinyl (didn’t use) (~$5)

• Snaps (~$5)

Other Items:

• Wig ($20)

• Boots ($40)

Background Info:

I had known of Promare due to work, but never looked into more than what I had to do. In fact, I was exposed to the keyart and some info prior to its debut in the states, but didn’t think anything of it beyond what I needed to do. Even after talking to those working on the project and its distribution, I simply thought, “oh, another Anime movie.”

Fast forward to September when it was released in theaters. I had seen fanart of it from Japanese fans, and was really interested in the design of one particular character. Because of that plus having heard its name for work so many times, I went to go see it. I drove out 40 minutes out to a theater that was showing this limited released foreign movie. I watched it, and I thought it was okay.

And then I got home.

And then I thought about it.

And then I hadn’t stopped thinking about it.

And then I realized, “Wait. This movie is really good.”

Because of my vocal fanaticism, I was invited to talk about it on a web show and invited to participate in a fan-made zine. I ended up watching it a total of 5 times in theaters (I’ve heard of people watching it 16 times in LA and one case in Japan of someone watching it close to 100 times!):

1. The fated first time (dubbed)

2. Again, by myself (subbed)

3. With friends who wanted to know what the heck I was talking about (dubbed)

4. When it came back to theaters as “Promare REDUX” due to popularity (even after getting extended showings) (subbed)

5. When it returned as a 4DX showing (and that was a WILD RIDE) (dubbed)

After the first showing, I had already bought a Lio Fotia wig (as well as the 1/7th figure statue because I have no willpower), so of course I was going to cosplay for the REDUX showing.

But, I didn’t think I could confidently pull off a form fitted leather outfit, and 12+ belts and at least 4 zippers. So instead I went with making the fire fighting team’s jacket instead and mashing the two concepts.

Construction:

For this, I used my new serger machine (or I guess people also call them overlock machines) for the first time. The machine is pretty scary at first. Not only is it loud, it seems super powerful. (I did accidentally run a pin through it as the serger was also cutting the edges and cut the pin clean through!)

But the most impressive thing is that I actually, sort of lined something, this time. Although, that was a necessity. The red fabric I bought felt and looked too light and was somewhat transparent. So, adding the dark fabric underneath made it look heavy like protective wear.

I found two yellow fabric that I wanted to potentially use. One was almost a reflective-looking vinyl and the other was the same material as the red fabric. I ran a twitter poll and people opted for the latter!

At the same time, my sewing machine kept giving me errors that I coudln’t figure out how to solve. A serger is not a sewing machine. It’s not meant to do what sewing machines do. But here we are...

This ended up being serge’d together in very convoluted ways.

I added the button snaps according to the reference (or at least to the best of my ability) and added additional hidden snaps along the jacket opening and the collar where I wanted a zipper (but because my sewing machine wasn’t cooperating, I had to make due).

For my own indulgence, I added a name tag and due to lack of time, talent, and/or resources, I painted the emblem on the jacket.

Conclusion:

It may not be the best Burning Rescue jacket, but I felt like I was able to construct this in a way that it could hold up for a while. I was happy that it was well received at the showing, too! But the best thing to come out of this whole endeavor had to be the splurge on the shoes.

I would like to revisit this one day to add a patch to where I painted the emblem and add pockets. I was happy that I got to re-wear this at the 4DX showing, as well!

Cosplay Journal - Annette (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

In this you will find:

• Materials used (not including mock muslin which I buy in bulk)

• Estimated cost (often after coupons/sales)

Materials:

• 4 yards Polyester Black (~$30)

• .5 yards Gold Performance Vinyl (~$10)

• 3 Offray 3/8"x9' Firefly Metallic Woven Wired Edge Ribbon-Gold (~$5)

• 1.5 Yards Gold Trim (~$5)

• Gold tassel trim ($5)

• Horsehair Braid ($9)

Other Items:

• Purse ($10)

• Boots ($20)

• Wig ($30)

FYI, this is not a tutorial. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Background Info:

A few friends in a cosplay group for FE3H were missing a few characters including Annette, so I asked if I could join for Anime Los Angeles (January 10-13 - Ontario, CA).

Annette is an adorable character that loves to sing and bake (opposite of me). Her design, aside from her uniform, is very soft, round, and friendly. Her uniform matches the typical Gareg Mach uniforms (very inline with characters like Lysithea, and nothing too modified like Hilda or Dorothea), but has a pouch that is unique to her.

The Mock-Up:

I made a muslin mockup without a pattern by draping the fabric over the dress form and pining shapes to where I think they're supposed to go.

Construction:

I think what is commonly used is a Polyester/Cotton blend material for the uniforms. However, I went with a full polyester fabric because of the weight and feel of the underside. I feel like I won’t need to add a lining to it. It does appear shinier (oops), but it also appears blacker (Yay), which is also why I went with it.

Using the muslin mockup, I cut the black fabric to the same shapes and begin pinning that to the form.

I used the Offray Ribbon for the details. I’ve seen people use iron on vinyl which produces a nice, clean shape.

Wig

I picked a Peach wig from Arda Wigs because I felt like it matched Annette's hair color closest. I would have picked a straight style but items were on backorder. So I opted for their Ferrari style (wavy) and straightened it with a flat iron. Annette has two loops in her hair for some reason. In order to capture that shape, I used horsehair braid, which is a stiff polyester used to hold shapes in trims. I adhered that to the wig using Got2B hair gel. I left some strands on the side, rather than pulling it back because I like to hide the sides of my face with hair.

Details

My apoxie sculpt ended up drying up and I couldn’t figure a way to salvage it. So I used moldable foam to create the pieces and glued a safety pin to them to pin to the skirt and top. It wasn’t the best sculpting work, but it’d have to do. I was definitely too embarrassed to photograph it close up.

I painted the gold trim black since I didn’t want an excess of the gold. It didn’t quite work, but it didn’t not work… It actually looked kinda cool when it caught the light- like a black gold kind of effect. That, or I’m trying too hard to justify what I’ve done.

I could not find any buttons that had the same shape I wanted, so I painted the button covers black and sewed those on without the bottom half of the button covers. I had the same problem with painting the gold trim, that the black paint didn’t stick well (granted, it was cheap acrylic paint). But shhhh….

Post-Con Thoughts:

At con, the glue ended up peeling off of the boots and the foam pieces and things started falling off. (I even lost one without knowing!) The buttons were extremely loose given the shape and how I sewed them on. The ribbons didn’t capture the look I was going for, either. In the future, I'd like to use 3D printed pieces for the embellishments and buttons. I’ve seen others use iron on transfer for the design, but I wanted something with more texture (which is why I chose the type of ribbon in the first place). I would use a different kind of trim in lieu of the ribbon or embroider the design.

This did end up being cheaper than buying it from a costume/cosplay shop, though, and was really fun to try and pattern myself! I definitely learned the importance of not taking any shortcuts and have ideas to plan out my construction a little bit better.