In August I went to DragonCon in Atlanta, GA for the first time. I was so excited about it, and decided that even though I’ve never attempted any significant costume making before, that I wanted to dress up as my favourite character from my favourite video game: Yuffie Kisaragi from Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII was the first video game that I ever got obsessed about, and I always loved trying to get Yuffie as early as possible, and getting her to go on a date with Cloud.
This was a bit out of my league, but I always overestimate my abilities, so what the hell, I gave it a shot. First things first I made some fake leather out of black felt, some wood glue diluted with water, and a bit of shellac. I don’t like wearing leather. Also I don’t own a riveter. Also I’m cheap…
It looks a big junky here, but once it dried up a bit, it had a nice rawhide look. Next I made a pattern for the vest and started cutting out pieces. I knew those old pillowcases that smelled like cat would be useful one day, hooray hoarding!
I didn’t want to be fumbling with buckles all the time, so I attached the straps with velcro, and then glued on some buckles and little metal bobbles that looked like rivets.
Ta-da! Next I tackled the shoulder armor, which a proper cosplayer would probably call a pouldron, but I called “that weird shoulder thingy”. I made it out of clay, which was, in retrospect, a terrible terrible idea. One of many terrible terrible ideas I had during this build. If I did it over I would just make something out of craft foam. I made a mold out of Papier Mâché over a balloon, then made the armor out of clay, painted it silver, and then added a metal look to it with black and silver paints. I also made a broach out of painted clay.
I didn’t get a good picture of the construction of the arm sleeve, but it’s basically a piece of upholstery foam bent into a semi-cylinder and held that way with elastic (and lots of hot glue).
The foam is covered with basic muslin fabric. The shoulder armor is glued to the arm sleeve (and the broach and green straps were glued to the armor) and elastic straps are run down the inside of the sleeve and then attached to the underneath of the chest piece. Most glue. So much glue.
The elastic straps allow the sleeve to settle a little bit, so that it wasn’t tugging. I had fairly decent mobility in this thing, although it was tricky to twist my arm in certain ways. If I had to redo it I’d skip the foam and make a wire frame with and elbow joint instead.
I managed to find a pack of 3 green sleeveless turtlenecks on ebay for $10, so I bought those and then converted them to crop tops. I wanted to have multiple shirts so that I could change them if I got sweaty (I did.)
I don’t have Yuffie’s abs…or legs…but I guess since if I did have her proportions I’d fall over, I’m reasonably happy without them.
Moving onto the bottom half of the costume, I hemmed a pair of loose khaki shorts and then sewed a pair of bicycle shorts inside. Since Yuffie’s shorts are loose and she wears them undone, I needed something to make sure they didn’t fall down! I made the garter straps out of the same felt-leather as for the chest piece and sewed them into some overall buckles.
Making the leg stocking and armored band. I glued a piece of soft black felt onto a fishnet stocking and attached the button part of the garter buckles. I made the armored cuff out of the felt-leather, with clay bits glued on, spray painted it chrome and glued it to the black felt cuff.
I tied it together with some orange fingerless gloves and legwarmers. I was definitely channeling my inner 80s child.
Last bit was the shuriken. I fucked this thing up at least 3 times before I finally figured out a way to make it look halfway decent? Carving foam blocks? How about nope. Cutting foam board? How does knife work again? I finally settled on cardboard, with wood glue used to seal up the edges, and painted chrome, with black and silver paints used again for metal texturing.
In the end, I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out, though I’d definitely do a few things differently next time (note to self, 1″ craft foam will make your elbows sweat so much your arms feel like niagara falls.) I let the shorter parts of my hair hang down around a headband and tied the longer bits back in a braid, so that I didn’t have to wear a wig (again, the sweating, oh my god.)
Obligatory selfie with my boyfriend.
Group shot!
So, now that the con is over…any ideas on how to wash this thing? Febreeze ain’t gonna cut it.