Snowtrooper: Third step (Part two)

When Yoki talked me in to our Snowtrooper project, she stated that it would be easy, because there is only a few pieces of armor in the costume. Bhah, I say! After some research I confronted Yoki with some drafts and showed her how many there actually were. I have never seen such an impression on Yoki's face, this is actually pretty describing (o.o).

We chose to do the armor parts from PETG plastic using vacuumforming method. The positive, master molds were made of insulation foam and wood putty. You can find the posts dealing with the clothes, equipment preparations and references behind the links.

Third step: Production- Hard components

Our mold making started from sheets of insulation foam. We estimated the approximate measurements based on reference pictures and information. One of our reference sources was site dedicated to Snowtrooper construction, which provided measurements for male size armor. We scaled the measurements down comparing them to our size and portion. When the dimensions of the armor pieces were concluded, the foam was cut to proper sized pieces, stacked and glued with Erikeeper. We cut the rough form after the glue had dried with thin bladed saw or a carpet knife and started sanding. We used different rakes; the final sanding was made with the finest one of course.


For detailing we used craft foam, plaster or foam covered with putty, like the molds themselves. After the piece was completed, we added first layer of putty and sanded it smooth. This step we repeated few times, exposed foam had to be covered, because it would collapse under the hot plastic. We used wood putty because it didn’t smell and could be safely handled. Probably any type of putty will do, but do not use car filler, it will melt the foam. After the surface has been polished with finest grain paper Yoki varnished the molds three times before we went on to vacuumforming. We thought that the varnish would make the removal of the mold from the plastic copy easier. We also used silicon lubricant for that task.


Before vacuumforming we checked how many parts we can make with one sheet of plastic, maximum amount was two. We took notice that the pieces should be somewhat the same height. Big differences on height stretch the plastic unevenly and tears it. We used special, three way bolts as raising pieces. When they were placed under the molds the suction was enabled from every side of the mold. This also helps to avoid the folding on the hot plastic. For us folds formed with strict corners. Sometimes any trick worked, even; they happened never the less. The trick is to try to get them where they show the least.

We had custom made frames and platform for vacuumforming. There are instructions on the internet how to make a vacuumforming studio in home environment. We used regular vacuum cleaner for the suction and a normal stove. Bigger the oven you have the bigger parts you can form. Because the breastplate is rather big, we had to divide it in four different pieces. We did try to make it as a whole, but after five ruined attempts I cried a little and went on and sliced up the mold. If anyone needs unique flowerpots from clear plastic, resembling strangely Snowtrooper breastplate, but with folds and holes, let me know.

Abdomen plate plastication. Please note my pretty hairband.

The vacuumforming is rather quick, but taking the mold out from its plastic pocket and cutting the excess parts out is more time consuming. For cutting we used carpet knife and wore work gloves to avoid bleeding fingers. No joking. Keep your fingers safe, you need them if you'd like to continue making costumes. The other time-eaters were construction the breast plate and building two back packs. The gluing took time with the breast plate and the backpacks were made like the molds, but instead of varnish the surface was finished with glue. We didn't vacuum form them, because then the mold would've been in thousand pieces. I figured that it was easier to do them by crafting.

We painted the pieces with shiny white spray paint. Details were added by painting free hand or with stencils. Please note my ergonomic wposture and Yoki's protective gear aka Smurf hat.

Like the backpacks we made the thermal detonator holders from scratch. The inside is made from insulation foam and covered with craft foam, which is sealed with glue. The ends are insulation foam with putty and three coats of glue. I bended left over aluminum sheets for fastenings and attached them to the holder. Raised details were done from craft foam and sealed with glue before painting.

Velcro on the shoulder parts and breast plate construction.

Different kinds of methods were used to fasten the armors: straps, screws, buckles and Velcro. Assembling the armor will be the subject of my last making of post on Snowtroopers.

This is madness! This is plastic!

Last weekend we reached one huge milestone on our Snowie-journey. We got all the armor parts vacuumformed! Yay to that! It had a price though. Yoki had to endure my mood swings once again and I almost got rid of my right index finger. Gladly, I still have it; instead I have scratches all over my hands. These minor casualties occurred with a carpet knife or my technique with carpet knife, which got people worried when Yoki included a clip of me working on her transmission. I could say that don't try that at home, but then again whittling outwards isn't as accurate when you need to take off millimeters or halves. After saying that, I hope that when Yoki comes over in half way of February, we will be able to have a photoshoot and I still have ten functioning fingers.

At the moment, this is how my workload looks like. I already have trimmed all the parts we vacuumformed. I also added some attachments and assembled the chest plate. There is a sad story behind that, but in short it had to be cut into pieces because our oven wasn't quite as big as it should have. Equipment restrictions should be taken in consideration on the planning phase... Ehem...

Next weekend I'm going to paint everything, minus the chest plates because they still need some attention. Then I have the backpacks waiting with never ending sanding and fiddly detailing. I'm little troubled about my schedule honestly. I only have two weeks to put the costumes together and make them look presentable enough for the shoot. But I'm going to make it! I'm putting the crazy gear on if nothing else helps.

Doom and sparkles!

Years ago summer was very dry and two young women decided to do something that changed their lives completely. Their first cosplay together, featured in Yoki transmission - The kaksi

Reporting in

January has been really busy and it seems it's going to continue like that. I've had my commissions under constructions and they should be done by the end of the month, plus we have worked hard on our Snowtroopers. Peculiarly, they are actually showing signs of completion. Last few days I have spent finishing the molds which had to be re-done or fixed. Yoki started varnishing them today, so if my calculations are correct we should be able to vacuumform all of the upgraded pieces on Saturday. I had already ordered us some more plastic, which arrived few days ago cut and prepared. We heart Foiltek.

Backpacks still lack putty, sanding, paint and details.

Yoki will probably include some video clips from the different stages of our armor project on her next transmission. When I inquired about the upload date, she mumbled something about shooting it this weekend.

I also dug my other unfinished costumes out from the closet. I left my single cosplays alone and started to unravel the pile from the "pair end". I constructed the base for Luminara's head gear earlier this week and roamed through fabric stores looking the right fabrics for the Jedi duo's robes. I have actually spent months on this task and now I think I'm pretty close. I just wish that wool and velvet wouldn't cost so much.

As trivial information, I estimated that we have spent at least 150 hours on our Whiteys. Phew...

Third part of Akatsuki interviews is out now!

Finally, we could say. We had most of the material filmed last year, but the editing or fighting with this seriously disabled Movie Maker took ages. Still, we did it! Akatsuki interviews 3 is now viewable on Youtube.

We are still kicking

We have been making our Snowtrooper costumes and finally we have been able to finish something. Behold, the thermal detonator holder!

So shiny and new.

Casualties happen before we even get to wear the costumes. Hiron used the old TDH as a hammer.

We have also been correcting mistakes we did in a hurry last year. For example the fastening for armor parts and some corrections to molds.

Velcro is the answer!

The backpack has taken most of our time. Some progress pictures.

-yoki out

Bubbly start for the new year

The topic refers shamelessly to me; I was dressed up as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls next to my two good friends as Blossom and Buttercup when the year changed. But it could also refer to bubbling spray paint, which is not in any circumstances a good thing or fizzy drink containing caffeine, which will keep us going when we try to meet the deadlines with our Snowtrooper costumes. Gladly, our deadline is a relative concept. More defining limit is the time we have snow on the ground, because our photoshoot and vid ideas require it badly.

I have already written about next year’s cosplay plans in few posts, so I'm going to leave them out. Currently we are trying to choose the conventions to attend to. There seems to be too many of them! I'm worried that our usable costumes run out before the events do. It's not a big deal in a way; we like to re-use our costumes, but they just seem to be quite hot to wear at summer conventions. I don't know how we survived last Tracon with Joxter and Muddler.

Back to bubbles or Bubbles more specifically. We got the idea of dressing up as the Powerpuff Girls years back with my friends, when someone stated that we were just like them. We are almost the same height and our hair colors match the characters. When we realised we were going to attend to party themed superheroes, we didn't need to think twice. Because we only dressed up for home party, I took the freedom to buy the cheapest fabrics. I ended up in basic sheet cotton 1 meter per dress. One dress cost about 7 euros. The dresses are not exactly like the original ones. I altered them to look like 70's mod dresses. Also everyone decided on their own what kind of belt and stockings to wear. I was bit hesitant with the role of the cute and weepy one, but gladly these few photos prove that it was somewhat achievable. The pics are published with the permission of the photographer.

Sasori and Deidara icicles

New Akatsuki undies

The material I chose for the undies is 100% polyester, even if it looks like cotton. The fabric is also really elastic. Moving around and doing low, open poses is well enabled. Even with stretch I placed hidden zipper in the side seam. Our previous ones where tricot and they had rubber band inside high waist piece.

I used was regular trousers pattern for the pants. I left darts for tight fit on the hips, took out some looseness on the thights and knees and flared the legs out. Without the shin guards or leg warmers, which ever you prefer, the pants look like cropped hippie jeans. When you tuck them inside the shin part they look great!

Nothing much to say about Deidara’s belly shirts. Like every Deidara cosplayer out there and pretty much everone who have read Naruto, I wonder why he wears one. Ignoring the questionable fashion taste, the upgrade is complete!

Video upload: Christmas special

Behalf of myself and Yoki, I wish all the best of Christmas! Casualty Cosplay's Christmas special is now viewable on Youtube.

Present pants

Happy birthday, Yoki!

Three shoots in one bang

We have planned a photoshoot for holidays with our favorite duo up to date; Sasori and Deidara. We still aren't quite sure, which day it’s going to take part though. Even if we don’t shoot outside, the weather dictates the matter. We need sunny or at least bright weather to have a clean looking footage. With our second interview clip we were behind the planned schedule and our camera didn't like it. The “interview part” looks dark and unclean, because we had to work with artificial lights.


Next to following weather forecasts we have made scripts for three different sets; Akatsuki interviews, Sasori-Deidara moments and Christmas special. However, the Akatsuki interviews needs to be tweaked a little. Our memory was bit off with some details on Sasori's and Deidara's plots. I have also been combing and tuning our wigs after they went through a lot with us, rolling down the stairs for example. I can’t do much with Sasori’s wig; I will need Yoki’s head for it, but Deidara’s ponytail I have tried to upgrade. Emphasis on the word “tried”.


The wrapping around the ponytail can’t really even exist. Thank you for giving me a headache with your design, Kishimoto. This far I have tried three different methods with the wrapping and finally I think I have a solution. I need to cut the ribbon and wrap the short pieces separately around the ponytail. To get as close as possible to the reference picture, I couldn’t think of anything else. I even tried to use hilt wrapping instructions as references, but quickly came to a decision that it wasn’t helpful at all. Honestly, I didn’t know there were so many individual parts involved in it!


By the way, have I ever mentioned that I have a soft spot for cheap fabrics? I ended up buying the perfect fabric for Akatsuki pants… and for Deidara's belly shirt. The old ones are starting to rip apart and the color doesn’t appeal anymore. With this rate we might end up redoing these guys in whole. The progress this far surely suggests so.

Welcome for holidays, Yoki! You might end up wearing new pair of pants! No worries, only 3,90/meter.

How we afford cosplay

We have been cosplaying as a duo from 2006. At the beginning we tried to keep cost of the costumes minimum. Because of that, we do not look at the photos of our first cosplay willingly. We look at them if we would like to have a good laugh. But to put it short, we had horrible wigs, cheap fabrics and well… the make-up collection wasn’t something we could be proud of. We even tried to make Yoki’s eyebrows white with potato flour! And the second round with Hitsugaya's eyebrows wasn’t that much better, even if we used white eyeliner. Yoki looked like Santa Claus without a beard in photos! Yoki promised to take our first cosplay as the next topic on her transmission videos on Youtube... which makes me rather scared. If interested in the horrorful first time, keep an eye on Yoki transmissions!

Now we do pay attention to all the things we lacked with out first cosplay. Of course we try to make wise purchases, hunt for discounts and pay attention how much we can spend. Quality is usually expensive, but generally well worth it. I also try to sew our costumes so that there isn’t “something like that” solutions in structures. This hasn’t yet affected to us affording cosplay, but we might someday sell our old costumes and I wouldn’t ask money from them if I didn’t know that they are worth it.

Yoki is a university student and I’m working in clothing industry. Because Yoki obviously has smaller income, I put bit more into cosplay from my own pocket. But not everything, because we have afforded almost half of our costumes with bottle money! I must admit that we have gotten bit lazy with picking up bottles these days, but in the beginning of our cosplay career we did costumes purely on bottle deposits. Now we have about 70 euros left from last summer to be used in the current projects.

To feel like I’m not using only my paychecks on cosplay, I take commissions every now and then. I’ve done normal clothes next to ball gowns and things that you can’t find from stores, like a custom cow bathrobe. Currently I’m making an outfit for “feminine Kakashi”. It’s going to be a masquerade costume for the celebration of last day in upper secondary school.

Then we have our parents. Usually they steal material or hotel bills secretly and pay them or offer some “lunch money” for conventions. They sometimes even come along to photoshoots to act as drivers or assistants. They usually have no idea what we are doing, but turning the camera to right direction or patting your shoulder when you are going berserk, is more than enought. Who wouldn’t love supporting folks?

Every year we try to make a plan for our costumes based on how much time and money they need. Last year we did only one duo, because we had Snowtrooper still in the making and our summer was full of other activities. Next year we are going to break a record; we have planned three duos. One of them is nearly finished. For Snowtroopers we have nearly purchased all we need. We only need to construct few components, put the whole set together and debute the bastards (warm feelings, no?) . For Luminara and Barriss we have also bought almost half of the fabrics already. I almost wanted to put up a party, when I realized that we only need to buy one wig! It’s a blessing money-wise.

When we plan our cosplays we also take in consideration the wigs, contact lenses and supplies we already have. It can bring down the cost significantly. One way for me to think that I use less money is to buy stuff in a whim, like glues, clays and tools. I always try to have all the basic stuff needed in some point of the costume making process in stock.

And sometimes to afford cosplay, it's wise not to think about how much money you have spent on it already.

Moonlit Mireille

In "Moonlit tea party", which is eleventh anime episode of Noir Mireille is wearing white men’s shirt. How convenient! I just happened to have one in my closet! Months ago I found a perfect tea cup from flea market and started to wonder if I should scrape together the tea party outfit. And yesterday I did. It's not much of a cosplay, but a nice snack in this current costume silence. I could have chosen a better occasion for the photoshoot, which pretty much contained me, camera, tripod and a cup of tee about 5 AM. Creativity doesn't ask for the time or the place!


With the shoot, I got an opportunity to see how the styled wig looked with contacts, fake lashes and make-up. The wig is years old, bought from Estonia. It's rather good quality, thick and easy to work with. Tangles fall from the wig with ease or then I just have the patience to comb wigs properly these days. The photos came up nice, even if the lighting was dim and I used my new camera first time with tripod and timing. But the atmosphere mediates. I really tried not to make it sleazy. Well... bed room sets are always sleazy!

Height issues

The six years elementary school lasts here in Finland were horrible for one of the tallest girls in the class. For lunch the class had to line up; short ones first, tall ones last. Sometimes the best bread had already run out when we tall girls got there. The boys were midgets compared to you. You couldn’t ask anyone to dance the slow songs in the disco and you really couldn’t have a crush, because it would have looked ridiculous if you walked hand in hand.

How I view my height today is quite the opposite. I'm comfortable of how tall I am. Me over fifteen years ago didn’t appreciate it, now I kind of love it. Still it took long time to change the way of thinking about a thing you really just need to accept at some point. With cosplay we take in consideration my and Yoki’s height when we choose characters. Usually it comes along rather naturally, we don’t over think it. As a duo we try to respect the height differences, even if we don’t match the heights exactly. Few of our planned cosplays we have dropped unnoticed because of differences were really off. These have been pairs, in which I would have cosplayed a character who is significantly shorter than Yoki’s.

I personally think that I would look really silly, if I even tried to cosplay some cute, little moe character, especially if the character is perceived as a cute, little moe. Some characters have such a strong image, that fighting against it seems futile for me. As an opposite example I must bring up Samara, who is a little girl killed at young age. Still I had no problem cosplaying her, because next to her scary looks the height simply didn’t matter that much. The height usually comes along, if it’s a descriptive feature of the character, like in cases of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist or Allen Walker from D.Gray-man.

In animation and comics, preferably in Japanese ones height usually connects to age and gender. Tall characters are typically male or/and adults. This has probably caused us to crossplay a lot; I’m 174cm or 5.7 feet and Yoki is almost 169cm or about 5.5 feet. Only recently we have found female characters that we can cosplay and feel comfortable in with our bodies. There are strong ladies with a real body out there, sisters.

It doesn’t bother me to see two meter tall Luffy or short Kakashi. We don’t follow the characters sheets slavishly and twit others for not following them. But I must admit, that height issues gets to me sometimes. This happens when I see a great, accurate cosplay. I admiringly slide my eyes from nicely styled wig down to hand embroidered jacket, ribbon decorated velvet pants and BOOM! Dominatrix platform shoes! Like wee-tee-ef! Height is not that important that it should ruin a great ensemble. The illusion is more likely to break because of unsuitable shoes than ten missing cents. Again I call for proportions and self-esteem whether you are missing or having too many centimeters.

You can wear any color on your hair you like or change your eyes with a flip of the fingers. But one thing you can’t subtly change is your height. If I were to add any height for a character I would do it if I can hide the what ever I’m going to use to lift me higher. This would work great with long hems or capes. Or use heeled shoes which would resemble the characters footwear or fit the period of time or the spirit of the series. Photography offers many ways to fool the eye. With cropping, angles or taking the composition with many characters in consideration you can do miracles. If the feet doesn’t show pretty much anything can be used, like a stool to fake height.

So yeah, for a person who really doesn’t think about height, thinks about it awful lot. Doing accurate is a lot of fun. Still there are many things about cosplay you can stress out next to height, which really is something that you can’t do much about… other than stress of course. Height is a perspective thing to say the least.