New costume under construction- Yuma from Claymore

In September we are going to attend to Tracon and again I felt that I could use a new costume to debute. Actually I started my current project last spring when I was waiting for a confirmation that I could compete in Eurocosplay Qualifiers. I had Amira half ready and needed something to craft while waiting the reply from my manager. I wanted to make an armor costume to balance out the embroidery heavy Amira.

I returned to series called Claymore. It’s basically a shounen manga with half-human, half-monster warriors who all are female, have huge swords and are more or less kick-ass chicks. The warriors called Claymores work for The Organization, where all the leading positions are taken by men. The Claymores are deployed from requests to destroy Yomas, human eating demons who can take the form of a human being.

The character I chose is Yuma, ex-Claymore who is one of the independent warriors who fled from The Organization after truly devastating encounter with more developed Yomas. The conflict had really shady traits which made the seven surviving Claymores to hide their presence and to evade confronting The Organization. The Claymores in The Organization named the seven warriors who vanished from the battlefield as Seven Ghosts, because their bodies were never found.

Yuma was ranked as number 40 in her time in the Organization. And with 47 ranks in the troops there were only seven Claymores who were weaker than her. Yuma feels insecure and powerless amongst the group of ex-Claymores she travels and trains with. After the seven year time skip from the decisive battle it’s made clear that she can easily fight with higher ranked Claymore’s with ease. The underdog setting Yuma has is also one reason why I like her so much. She gains skills and confidence during their encounters, but also remains bit awkward with people and still sometimes underestimates herself compared to the other warriors.

As the opposite of the white uniform the regular Claymore’s wear, The Seven Ghosts have black outfits with light armor with individual looks and styles. I think that they each chose how to equip themselves based on their fighting abilities and self-confidence. Yuma’s outfit is one of the more conservative ones in the group and she has many pieces of armor even if in real life they wouldn’t protect much, but I guess that is just how fictional armors work. Yuma is also a defensive type fighter, which might refer to her “heavy” armor compared to the offensive types who have only few pieces of armor for agility and speed.

Wow, that was probably the longest introduction of a cosplay character I have ever written. But Yuma deserves it! As I said, I like her a lot! Maybe that’s why the costume is almost done already...

I’ve made the armor and the bodysuit and styled the wig. I also did an early make-up test and have started with the sword, which is something I have never done from scratch! I’ve even used some crazy powertools! So I have sword making ahead, sewing the cape and buying new contact lenses. Then that should be it!

Keeping busy

The first thing I noticed this morning after logging in on our account was that our reader count had reached 100! Thank you! I hope that you find and will find the content we create interesting and useful! We actually had something planned for this particular event, but the 200 kilometers between me and Yoki somewhat ruined it.  Instead I give you a photo of us in pants Yoki made for her next costume!

Last month was a busy one for me with visiting our brother and his family on the other side of Finland, birthday parties and my other hobby, theater. They consumed more time than I expected and naturally slowed down my progress with Amir. But I had made my timetable rather crazy to ensure that I keep my pace. I’m now back on track and bit ahead. I actually made some stage props for the performance in advance.

I finished the hat with the cloth wrappings. Despite the amount of fabric on the back of the hat, it fits quite nicely without any fastenings.

I also forced myself to work on the undershirt, because the sleeves and front are quite crucial part of the overall look of the costume. I think I managed to replicate the design pretty well even if it always looks bit different in every frame. I’m currently embroidering the collar and the back of the shirt.

I baked some more jewelry. This time it was the bracelets.

I also styled the prettiest wig on Earth! I still need to braid it and add the accessories.

Peek-a-boots!

Few days ago I started to work with Amir’s footwear. I chose leather imitation for the boots. I bought three different colors: dark brown for the base and blue and white for the decorations. The blue was obviously too dark and I wanted the surface to remain textured, so I applied the light blue color on the pleather with a sponge. I used acrylic paint, because in thin layer it will not crack even if the pleather stretches a bit.

The progress itself was rather similar to crafting basic boot covers, but instead of base shoes I destroyed pair of old canvas ballerinas for their rubber soles. The “cover” I sew on a separate insole before gluing the rubber sole on. I also made another insole from thick felt, which is like a hidden heel inside the boot. This I thought to give not only few centimeters of height to match my proportions but also a better posture.

I had some problems with the fit of the boots on the ankles. I almost added zippers, but then I heard Yoki’s voice in my ears: “Authenticity! Remember authenticity!”

Seriously, after Yoki made her original costume design and after we discussed many times about functionality and authenticity, I’ve started to notice that I've been affected by Yoki’s way of thinking. I felt bit brainwashed when I took Amir’s finished underskirt and took apart the waistband, removed the zipper altered the fit more loose and added cord fastening. But I do like the skirt a lot better now and more than anything it resembles the reference pictures in more detail. Again, thanks go to Yoki!

Needless to say, I also skipped the zippers with the boots. It took some trimming and redrawing, but I got the fit and look right after a while.

The biggest problem ended up being the tips of the shoes. I never thought that finding the right shape for them would be the most time consuming part. It took me two evenings to get them right; everything else from patterns to sewing and details were done in one day. I finally sew the tips on yesterday after three different patterns and trials.

I’m quite happy with the results. I’m still going to darken the brown parts with black shoe polish and add the red details on the top of the boot. The next phase with the costume is to embroider the red undersuit and to continue with the jacket.

Towards EuroCosplay qualifiers

Last spring I made some costume plans EuroCosplay qualifiers in mind. But I was on the move too late and couldn’t arrange days off from work for Desucon, where the qualifiers have been arranged for three years now. Luckily, I hadn’t started the costume or anything else in that matter.

But having to skip the preliminaries bug me up to the point that last autumn I started to gather materials, fabrics and references for the second act. Last week I also confirmed from my employer that I could have the weekend off even if some of our staff members would be on summer vacation. From last August to this day I have been slowly making something here and there, but now I can say that the work has really begun!

Before I chose the character, I went through different aspects I wanted the cosplay to contain: The costume would suit my skills and knowledge about costume making and also have enough challenge so that I could really push myself to try my best. The character would have similar body type and personality if possible. I would have a rough plot sketched for the performance before constructing the costume and that the character, the story and the setting would fascinate me to the extent that I would be nearly obsessed about it.

Last year I totally fell in love with a certain manga and when I decided that EC it is, I didn’t think too long which character would be suitable for the preliminaries. The character I chose is Amira Halgal from manga Otoyomegatari or Bride stories by Kaoru Mori. I try to keep my calm now, because I could easily flip out from all the gorgeousness the manga embodies and just say that it is well worth reading if you are interested in historical setting and romance with beautiful art and leisured storytelling.

The base for the hat was one of the first things I made last year.

I really want to keep the costume as authentic as I could and also respect Mori’s design and art. The clothes I’m making from wool, silk, cotton and linen but with the shoes and jewelry I’m going to resort to more cosplay friendly and modern materials like pleather and polymer clays. Needless to say, there is lot of embroidery going on right now. I try to do it where ever I have the time to pick a needle in my hand.

For reference I chose cover art picture, where the design and decorations are clearly displayed. I had to use my own judgment on the back; it came together based on the front and how it's drawn on the manga.

What I’ve sewn this far is the skirt, the scarf and the vest. Decorations I’ve embroidered on the hat and on the vest, but there are still meters to go. Today I sculpted the positive mold for the earrings and tried to figure out how the scarf is wrapped on the hat. I swirled it and pinned it and I still got no idea. The top is quite alright, but the back is still a mystery.

There is still much to do, but I couldn’t be more excited about this project! Now that these plans are out, I’m going to write progress updates more often than once in five months.

Preview of Yoki's original costume design

Since my costumes are ready and packed away for Frostbite, the last two weekends we have focused on Yoki’s original character and her costume design. Fuyu Jaw're, the character Yoki chose is from the same storyverse as Sio Imano, a character she dressed as at last year’s Tracon and Neva Imano introduced at Desucon.

Yoki had a clear vision of the costume and the materials when she started the project. Everything had to be “real” looking, in sense on natural materials and no shortcut fastenings with Velcro. When we started to draft out the costume, it felt like making and planning a stage costume rather than a cosplay one. But naturally when there is no character sheet with visual appearance, it had to be created through a back story, personality and values.

Because Yoki has busy, busy study schedule before Frostbite, I'm writing this post from the costume construction on her behalf.

The costume Yoki had created in her mind has actually three to four layers, depending on how they are counted; an under suit with leather tabard, a full length robe, a belt with chain accessories and a capelet with a high collar. The components could be worn in different combinations, like tabard over the robe or the under suit with capelet etc.

The robe is drawn based on the pattern we made for our Snowtrooper dusters with few adjustments. The hem is long with an opening over the left leg. The sleeves are wider and few centimeters longer. The bust is the same, but it fastens with small buckles instead of Velcro. The material is off-white linen with pale blue viscose lining.

The capelet was drawn over basic pattern with two folds on the back. It’s made from dark blue velvet, blue viscose lining with silver pleather trimmings. The capelet fastens with similar buckles as the robe.

The belt has satin band with a metal ring on as a decoration and lacing on the back. The belt is supported with two layers of iron-on interfacing and plastic boning next to the eyelets.

The under suit is just a basic, sleeveless top with two piece “skirt” from dark grey linen. The skirt part is constructed from two separate rectangular shapes, front and back, which attach to each others with small buttons forming one sophisticated loincloth.

 

The tabard is made from silver fake leather with fabric interfacing and viscose lining. The front is constructed from over 30 individual strips. On the back is lacing with plastic boning. Connecting the front and the back is three bands of pleather on each side.  

The wig is silver grey, almost waist length beauty. It doesn’t need styling more than combing, some balsam spray to keep it from tangling and hairspray to set everything so that Yoki won’t have a mental breakdown with all the hovering hair strands.

The base make-up is rather basic; foundation, fixing powder, eye shadow, mascara and eye liner. The turquoise triangles on the temples were painted with Grimas water make-up and fixed with transparent powder. The eyebrows were our major concern. We were worried that we couldn’t get them light enough to match the wig. We thought of using the glue stick- acrylic paint method. because Yoki’s eyebrows are dark. But we had to give up the idea, because we wanted to keep the look natural.

In the end we went with white khol, which actually worked really well. Even if the real color is slightly visible, it fits to the darker shades on the wig. Or then we just happened to have a suitable lighting. At Frostbite the finishing touch will be turquoise contact lenses, which are the same brand as my green ones. So another lens color review coming next month with hopefully loads of photos from the costumes and from Frostbite in general!

Desucon Frostbite within sight

First convention of the year 2013 is approaching steadily. Desucon Frostbite will be held at Sibelius Hall, Lahti for the second time in mid-February. We are going to recycle a bit and have two new costumes to debut. Even if our blog have hibernated through these cold winter months, we have been productive at our workroom!

First costumes are from Moomin TV series. Yoki will wear Snufkin, which dates back to 2008 and I’m going with my "new" Alicia costume. I’m currently adding some wefts to the wig to make it fuller and slightly longer. That is actually the only update the costumes need.

The second costumes are from different sources. Yoki is crafting an original character costume from her stories with white robe and blue capelet. She will also be wearing a white wig, her ultimate pet peeve. Thanks to my hoarding abilities, we had a perfect color and style on our storage for the costume. There is still work ahead with the undergarment, but I'm quite confident that everything will be ready in time.

I'm still not sure how my second costume will turn out or rather if I get one important component in time, so I'm going to get back to that later. But if everything goes well, the outfit will be cool!

Even if Yoki’s costume is still under construction, we were able to fit the robe. The pattern for the robe is altered based on our Snowtrooper dusters, only with different cut on the front and slightly wider sleeves. Yoki put on the robe and then suddenly… cosplay.

We both burst into laughter. With her new haircut Yoki looked exactly like a character from a comic book we’ve had for ages! Well, for twenty years or so. We had to dig up the comic for comparison. Does anyone else have weird moments with accidental cosplay?

Introducing Na’Gath and plans for Tracon vol. 251

It happened that I went blue today and asked Yoki to take some pictures of my latest cosplay. Meet Na’Gath, a carefree shaman based on World of Warcraft female troll. The garments are actual item designs in the game… I might have spiced them up a bit.

Based on the two hours I wore the costume, I say that this cosplay is rather comfortable, possibly because I chose a bodysuit over bodypaint. For the face and neck, which are the parts I had to paint, I used water soluble products from Grimas. I didn’t fix the paint and I could have concentrated more with the make-up, but in all it turned out quite well.

 

It doesn’t show up too well in the pictures, but I’m wearing a pair the blue fake eyelashes I accidentally found while looking for some bling to put on the pointy ears.

It’s possible that my costume will be the only one from the three we’ve been making that will debut at Tracon. It happened that first we had to drop the show competition because of unexpected setbacks and last week more followed. One of our trolls and three other party members might have to skip the occasion, but it’s quite alright. If we won’t make it to Tracon this year as a group, we will book another convention for the trolls next year. Thank goodness, there are so many conventions in Finland nowadays. 

But I and Yoki will be strolling at Tracon in few weeks for sure. Yoki will be portraying her original character design and possibly dig an older outfit from our costume crowded closet. For the first time we will swap costumes, as I have been thinking of wearing Saya Otonashi from Blood+, which Yoki wore at last Desucon. For the other day, my choice of costume is probably Na’Gath. Altough, based on the expession, Kuura seemed not to appreciate the troll in me.