Defense Devil, Idamaria Costume Journey!

Hey peeps, I’m back for another costume journey/breakdown entry I don’t know about you, but as a cosplayer myself, I LOVE knowing/learning how other cosplayers do their costumes and props. I might not ever do a costume that required that knowledge but it’s always interesting to know.

 

Anyway, here to share my Idamaria’s Costume journey with you guys ^_^. First off, I decided to cut myself some slack and tailor this costume instead of making it from scratch. Other than the black dress base, everything else is self made.

Mad love the job my tailor did on the dress!

You know how dark coloured clothes can merge the subject into the background?. I found out through this cosplay that sometimes... It's good to use reflective cloth :D The material for Idamaria's dress reflects enough light to sculpt the figure but not too much to blind the photos. The fabric is a sort of polyester satin from Ghim Joo :D.

And mad love the lantern sleeves my tailor and I devised for such sleeves. Okay, more credits to my tailor than me =X We used the same pattern for Eclair too. I shall do another entry for the sleeves in the future.

The golden cross are cut from golden vinyl, added 3d paint to the edge and sprayed. The little knoots/screw thingy are made from.... make a guess!

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Erasers!!!

Yellow cylinder format erasers!!! It must have been the most fun part of the costume. Prior to using erasers, I tried modelling with paper clay. Made a bunch of them by rolling the clay out and cookie cut them out with straws (they are the red ones in the above pic). But the result was very asymmetrical and varied buttons =(

Anyway, the erasers were super glued on and the entire cross motifs were sprayed metallic gold then stuck onto the dress with my trusty fabric glue.  After spraying them I realise how idiotic I was for shelling out $9 to buy gold vinyl , only to sprayed over later.

Made my sword with the cardboard method. The paint job was a disaster and kept flaking (think I should invest in some sort of paint sealent product ) but the sword was ultra light. Kaname and Aira were both super shocked when they tried holding the sword xD

Sliced into my toes while cutting the cardboard. It was really ouch T_T

Tried to save some money by making my cross instead of buying it. It is made out of polyfoam (name?) with a layer of hard cardboard and painted with white nail polish. And I learnt the slow way that despite coating with white glue, the foam is still prone to corroding under spray paint. Had to do the cross 3 times T__T

Made my petticoat myself and though it wasn't perfect, I'm still pleased with how it turned out. Also love my skirt's lace which i bought from korea.

Made the pouch out of foam. Click here to find the template for it.

The gun was made by combining a store bought toy and a cardboard fixture on top of it. Black foam and white paper was used to create the cross like design on the cardboard fixture while white 3D paint was used to write the words. Those words pretty much killed my fingers=_=

Boots are store bought. Was super lucky to have found a identical pair at an affordable price!

Alright, this marks the end of my boring and lengthy costume entry! Please let me know what you think about such costume entries xD

Costume Process: Makoto Kikuchi!

Yo~ I had initially wrote this entry to be posted on my personal blog to share with my friends and well…to just generally complain and rant about this costume. but I thought since I’ve already written it and it is Cosplay related, why not share it here?

The costume was a jam pack 5 day’s HARD WORK! I’d say other than Luneth (FF3), this costume has got to be my worse nightmare ever. I had thought making the costume was gonna be easy since it looks simple enough. But I was SO WRONG!!!!! Argh! NEVER underestimate a 2d costume!

First stage of costuming. Dissecting the costume on paper. I highly recommend every new cosplayer to do this because getting your idea out from your brain and on paper really allows you to take a step back and analyse the costume better.

Wearing the paper draft 

The weird shape and cutting of the top really daunted me a lot but after getting over the initial phobia I managed to come down to a basic one piece dress draft.

I’m wearing the paper draft on the photo above.YEs, I’m a lazy pig so I only do half of the draft (half of the costume, literally) and stick it on myself. Not exactly the best method for a tight fitted costume. Because my costume came out too loose and I had to do a lot of alterations =_=;;;

At this stage the costume really looks like some traditional Chinese undergarment ahhahaa.

 

And for the first time in my costuming life, I actually burnt a hole in my costume. Great work kaika. I tuned the iron to the highest setting because I was impatient and the iron only took 1 second to scorched the fabric.

Thank goodness for me, it was burnt at the extra portions and I could cut it away easily. Otherwise I might really have just thrown in the towel and call quits.

 
Yeay! basic top done!

The white bias at the bottom look innocent enough but they gave me a lot of trouble too. *shakes head* I guess this really shows how poor my costuming/dressmaking skills are =\

The gloves were the next thing to give me yet another headache. Yes, I made the gloves too because I was too cheapo and didn’t wanna buy them . And also because Makoto’s gloves were extra long and had this outturning effect on the top which store bought gloves didn’t have.

My glove pattern. Yeap, on paper again xD

Wasted some good lycra on a glove that didn’t work out and was way too tight =\ But lesson learnt, I gave it more allowance for the next trial and thankfully things worked out better T_T. But I forgot to draft the outturning effect thingy on the gloves so they came out really straight and boring and……un-makotoish. Got me pretty depressed =\

 

Had intended to ignore that flaw and just wear it the way it is but……… after much deliberations, I decided to push my limits and continued to make some improvements to it. If you’re a cosplayer who sews your own costume, you’ll understand how I felt. This horrendous feeling of screw up and how you just feel like you just stabbed your own butt with a chopstick because you are soooooo going to be a cosfu*k because of that little error/flaw.

The next big headache was the 2 holes by the side. They are soooooooooo awkwardly placed, I really squeezed my brain dry trying to figure out how I can sew it nicely and not have it show stuffs that was not meant to. If I placed it too high, it’d show my bra, if I placed them too low, they show the skirt band =_=

Trying on the costume with a fake pocket flap and fake side holes XD. Both are made of paper and stuck on with tape.Was trying to figure out where would be an appropriate place to sew them. I always do this to give myself a vision of the end product so I know how to work towards it.

One of the process I dread most in costuming is wearing and taking out the costume x 9892843474 times. It’s just such a bothersome and repetive task=_=!

Finally got pass the holes!

I’m not really pleased with the final product though. Sigh, I wish I gave the collar design a longer and ‘droopier’ tail. I’m sure it’d make the entire costume classier. And argh don’t get me started on my ghetto tie…..

And the end product below!

 

  

Special thanks to Yuanie for lending me her wig and for helping me soooo much on the day itself.

I love having helpful teammates. Everyone helped so much its very touching *sniffs* T_T And I guess its really this humane spirit that makes me keep coming back to Cosplay. I’m really glad cosplay has allowed me to meet such lovely people =)