There will always be someone that you feel is better than you. Always. Learn to accept that.
What takes you two days now will, with practice, take you two hours later. Keep at it.
There will be people who tell you that you’re too fat, or thin, or black, or white to cosplay a character. For every one of them, there are 10 who love your cosplay. Don’t listen to the hate.
Keep the first cosplay you ever make. Or at least photos. It will remind you of how far you’ve come later.
Always map out how much fabric you need and buy a yard more.
When you see a $0.99 pattern sale, buy as many as you can. You never know when they’ll come in handy. (It’s also fun to see the crazy high price under “you saved” when you buy 30 $20 patterns for 99 cents each).
When you go to a convention in the first costume you ever make yourself, there will be a 100% chance of a more experienced cosplayer in the same cosplay. And you will want to throw yours away. Don’t do it.
Muslin is your friend. It’s $1 a yard and it’ll help you figure out if the pattern your using will fit before you cut into your $10 a yard fabric.
There is nothing wrong with starting simple and starting small. Know your skill level when you start. Stay relatively inside it and you will be less frustrated and more proud of your work.
A little later, pick cosplays that have aspects you know how to do and aspects you don’t know how to do. Look up tutorials and try new things.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but make sure you try to help yourself first. Keep bookmarks of online tutorial and guide resources.
Don’t be afraid to start over from scratch. If you don’t like what the end product looks like don’t let the hours you spent on it force you to keep it. Rip seams. Re-do hems. Go out and buy more fabric. All the work will be worth it for a cosplay you’re proud of.
Have cosplayers you look up to, but do not try to become them. Become you.
Invest in good materials. Starting with cheap products like $5 scissors means you will have to replace them much more frequently as your experience tells you that they aren’t good enough and you need better. Get better from the start.
Don’t be afraid to cosplay alone.
Get a sewing machine with at least 5 different types of stitches on it. You may not know how to use them now but as you learn you will want them available to you.
There will always be someone who gets more attention than you for the same cosplay. Don’t let that make you bitter. Likewise, don’t let it make you power hungry.
Don’t let notes on tumblr of favorites on deviantart dictate the quality of your cosplay.
Set goals and work to achieve them, like “5 new cosplays this year” or “win something in a costume contest.”
Finally, there will come a day when you become great at cosplay. You will make all your own cosplays and even win some contests. You work hard on all your costumes and you put great effort and skill into making them detailed and perfect. And you will look at someone in a poorly made costume and a ratty wig and something deep, deep inside you, in a place you didn’t know existed, will twinge with elitism. You will not know where it comes from and you will not know how or when it got there. But fight it back. Remember where you started. Because one day that cosplayer may become great too. And they’ll have looked up to you like you looked up to others. Be a role model. Be the cosplayer you would have liked to know when you were starting out. Give back.
This is my personal technique for appliqueing on stretch fabrics. It’s a little different than what I might recommend for everyone–I have to work ‘upside down’ or from the back of my pattern because my machine just loves to drag the spandex around if I stitch on the right side of the work. But, I find this way does give nice clean results, so try it out, maybe! The biggest con would be that it does waste a little fabric when your cutting things away, but spandex patterns generally use pretty small yardages anyway.
So first thing is to transfer your design to the interfacing. I’m using Pellon Stick-and-Washaway 542 interfacing and it’s pretty much the best thing I’ve discovered recently. It’s water soluble, so you’re not tearing away interfacing and causing ripples in your spandex. Don’t forget to mirror your design!
Roughly cut out the interfacing, then peel of the backing and attach to your base fabric. Now that it’s nice and firm with the interfacing, you can cut out the pattern piece more precisely, with none of the shifting that often happens with spandex. I’ve then gone ahead and used temporary spray adhesive to attach a layer of red to the right side of my work (you can see it sticking out in the armhole of the bottom piece. Because there is a lot of red, I just covered the whole piece. The excess will be cut away later.
This is on a different piece, but here me zig-zagging on the wrong side of the work, following the lines drawn on the interfacing. I got pretty good at circles and curves on this one, and the biggest advice I can give is ‘Pivot. A Lot.’ You’re going to have to put the needle down and pivot every couple of stitches on a circle or other tight curve. Don’t try and just swing the stiching around as you go, it doesn’t work well.
Okay, so I forgot to take a picture of me cutting away the extra fabric on the red layer, but as you can see here, I’ve added and stitched a green layer and am starting to cut it away. Just use sharp little embroidery scissors and gently tug the fabric, getting as close to the zig-zagged edge as you can. It takes a little practice, but I’ve gotten pretty good at getting nice clean edges this way. As you can see with the green fabric, if that color’s design is not all over the piece, you can attach smaller pieces of fabric, just making sure it covers the whole area where it is needed.
Here’s the back after all the green and red stitching is done. Now time for pink! As you can see, I attached the red centers to the pink flowers already. It’s easier to put them on first with the rest of the red, then cut out the pink center of the flower (like reverse applique) then to go back and do another layer of red. Changing the bobbin and thread between each layer is a pain.
Here you can see the pink attached, it’s used in small areas so I can get away with using small pieces to reduce waste.
No pictures of this step, but once you’re all trimmed up, go ahead and rinse the work in cold water, and the interfacing will magically dissolve, leaving you with nice smooth applique.
This is all the pieces laid out after being washed out. Before I sewed them all together though, there was one more step.
To reduce bulk (especially where it will be serged together) I cut away the cream base fabric where there was large open areas of the red. In smaller areas I would say it’s not worth it. I did cut the center of the flower away too, just because I ended up with three layers of fabric there.
Ta-Da! All sewn up (and lined and what not) More pictures HERE!
I’m going to show you guys step-by-step how I painted each piece of my armor, using my shinguards as an example. It’s a very simple process - anyone from any skill level of painting can do it! It’s behind a ‘Read More’ so that people who are uninterested are not subjected to 9 photos of no significance.
Above is the final product, below is the tutorial.
Grab some aluminum foil and crumble it into a ball. Not too tight of a ball though! The next step is almost impossible if you do.
Next, un-crumple the ball. Flatten it out into one layer. It’s fine if there are a few holes.
Place it on top of your foam.
Take your iron and firmly press it on the foam and aluminum. My iron was set to 3 (polyester) but the correct temperature may be different for other irons. Just remember not to use steam! Before doing this on a large piece, be sure to experiment and figure out what the best temperature and what the best pressure is. On larger pieces, you’ll have to move the aluminum around a lot. It’s not a quick process.
Now you’ve got this crinkly affect on the foam. Next is painting!
Grab you’re brush, black paint, and a dish with some water. The idea is to dilute the black paint enough so that when you apply it the paint will seep into the divets the aluminum created.
Once the watery paint is applied, wipe it off with a paper towel. Continue to do this for your whole piece of foam.
Now here’s an optional step (of which I haven’t done myself but I’ve known others who have):
Grab the light brown paint and, without diluting it, paint it on. It’s best to use a coarse brush in this case and to try to keep it out of the divets. Wipe some of the paint off.
Remember, imperfections are always good! Uneven paint isn’t necessarily bad so just experiment with it.
Here’s an example of a bracer I did with this method. The first two pictures are an example of the foam I began with and the rest show the end result. I hope this helps you guys out!
Tutorial time: How to sew inset corners! A really useful skill that a lot of people have trouble with. Mastering this technique will enable you to piece together seams with difficult angles, and also help improve your precision and dexterity overall.
There are probably multiple ways to do this, but here is the method I learned from God Save the Queen Fashions when I was her intern.
1. Start by marking the seam allowances on the back of your fabric to find the exact point at which your corners intersect. On the piece which will be the outer corner (blue in my sample) I have marked the entire length of the seam allowance for clarity. I sometimes do this when sewing complex shapes. On the piece which will be inset (pink here), you can just mark the corner itself.
2. This is just three different views of how the pieces should be pinned and positioned. With the right sides of the fabric together, push a pin through the exact corner of your outside piece (blue) and then through the exact corner of your inside piece (pink) so that they are brought together face-to-face at this point. Pivot the fabric pieces until edges line up along the first side you will be sewing, then prepare to feed it into your machine. When sewing, it will be easier to keep the outside piece (blue) on top.
3. Stitch along the first side, removing the pin before you reach it. On the final stitch, make sure that your needle lands in the exact corner where the pin was. With the needle still engaged in the fabric, lift the presser foot. This is now a pivot point.
4. Pivot the fabric around so that you are looking at the inside of your corner. With a pair of very sharp, narrow snips, clip through the top layer as close as you can possibly get to the needle itself.
5. Pull the other side of the top piece around until its edges line up with the other side of the bottom piece. This opens up the cut you just made. You should be able to fold down the excess fabric fairly neatly if your corner is clean. Once you are in position to sew the second side, lower the presser foot.
6. Stitch along the second side and tie off your thread. Once you remove it from the machine, you should have something like this. The blue fabric is still folded up in my hand in this image so that you can see both sides of the corner.
7. Unfold your fabric, lay it flat, and enjoy the excellent corner you have sewn. If yours isn’t as crisp as you’d like it to be, press it flat with an iron or consider top-stitching, as shown in the first image.
Practice will make you better at this. When I first learned, Cathy made me sew like ten in a row until they looked better than the one in this sample (sorry, Cathy). If you’re having trouble, be patient and keep trying and you will end up an expert.
When making “leather” pieces for costumes, do any of you ever use pleather for both sides of the piece? For things like belts, I often used to sew two pleather pieces together, turn it inside out, and then topstitch it flat. Doing it this way made for a really bulky piece that was difficult to pass through the sewing machine for topstitching, even with the aid of tissue paper underneath. Same goes for any pleather pieces that I thought I could get away with just hemming the edges of a single layer. Pleather is sticky, and it made for some nasty stitch work! There are tricks out there to help pass the fabric under the needle more smoothly, but one thing I started doing instead is that I started treating the underside like lining, and started using cheap fabrics in matching colors instead.
For version 2.0 of my Zidane vest’s leather harness, I decided to “cheat” and use broadcloth in a matching color for the side that will not be seen (the harness will be permanently attached to my vest, so only the outer layer will be visible). Doing this not only cuts down on fabric bulk, but with the broadcloth being the side that’s down, it makes topstitching significantly easier (and cleaner!). Yeah, you can technically see a little of the broadcloth when you look at the piece straight on from the side, but so long as the color matches the pleather, you can get away with it. ;)
This might not work for everything, but it’s an option for things that people will only ever see one side of. I’ve done this with anything I can get away with. I even did this with the gun holster on my Yukio Okumura costume.
Many of you probably already do things like this, and I’m sure there are many more (and probably better) options out there, but this has worked well for me, so I thought I would throw it out there for other people to consider if they’ve never thought of doing it this way before. :) -Pluto Knights
I don’t usually advocate processes like this because I personally find them to be a lot of extra work. I just find it faster to look at a model and measure myself to draw my proportions out then to use a computer to calculate the exact dimensions of every piece of my costume. Especially since how many of us actually have the same proportions as an idealistic computer model?
That said, the part of this tutorial that shows how to extract character models is great. You can view them from any weird angle you want, and zoom in on them to nail down the tiny details. Smite models can be hard to find from every angle-Athena has given me hell trying to figure out what parts of her look like. I decided to try this out so I could get a better look at her spear and shield. What I didn’t expect was that scaling the model size down helped me a ton. A shield is a shield-regardless of if her legs are ridiculous for a girl of my stature-and tackling down those proportions really did give me a good base to start with and saved me a lot of time “just guesstimating”.
LucyCorsetry has LOADS of information and youtube videos a plenty on how to re-size already purchased corsets, pattern one for yourself, and how to train, etc. Her YouTUBE CHANNEL is addictive.
So for my fellow Northern hemisphere dwellers, it’s nearly summer. That means it is probably starting to get hot. Skirt season! Hot damn!
But YE GODS, THE THIGH CHAFING. Sweat plus friction equals pain, redness, and extremely unhappy legs. If you have experienced the dreaded ‘chub rub’, you know how much it fucking sucks.
Not anymore, bitches.
Slap on a pair of Bandelettes. They come in black, white, red, beige, and brown if you want lace – and trust me, you want lace – or black and beige if you want a solid fabric like the ones pictured above. But the lace is sexy as fuck. Trust me. Go with the lace. It isn’t the horrible and itchy stuff, it’s nice.
So what you do is you measure your thigh right at where the chafing happens, right at the thickest part of your leg. You compare that to the Bandelettes sizing chart, you pick your size, and you’re off. I bought a pair (Beige Onyx, size C) and they don’t move around on me. No slipping. But also, no digging in! I can wear these for hours and they’re still very comfy.
You slide them up into position and they just… stay there. And they protect your gorgeous thighs from the ravages of summer rubbin’.
They’re lightweight, so you don’t feel like you’re wearing a ton of extra fabric. They’re washable – handwash and hang dry, but still washable! Did I mention they’re sexy as fuck?
SEXY. AS. FUCK.
Seriously, if thigh chafing is an issue for you, try these. I am loving my pair so far.
Dude I got a black and a white pair and they are MAGIC. Get them now. Don’t just “like this so that I’ll always have this as a ref” or whatever. NOW. They look great with shorts too. The lace isn’t uncomfortable at all and it looks super cute. I have HUGE thighs and I am one size below the largest size so if you think they won’t fit you, they probably will. I’m probably gunna have a pair in every color by the time the summer is over. Get them get them get them. End of PSA
A different eyebrow blocking method for dark brows
Start off with alcohol on a cotton pad, clean off the eyebrow area.
Make sure that the glue is washable and non-toxic.
Apply the glue to the hairs in all different directions.
Use a clean spoolie brush, brush the hairs at an angle (almost straight up, but not quite).
Take a bit of water on your finger and smooth out the glue.
Use an orange eyeshadow to help block out the brow, while the glue is still slightly wet.
Use the handle of the brush, and gently roll over the brows.
Repeat the glue/eyeshadow steps a couple more times.
Use a yellow colour-correcting concealer, and blend it out across your brow into your skin.
Use a powder-foundation and sponge it across your eyebrow area. Apply more colour-concealer if needed. Then apply some more powder-foundation, and then set the makeup with a setting-spray.
Cold spray paint can clog up and spray out in clumpy, ugly blobs rather than a fine mist. Heat them up by immersing the bottom half of the cans in warm water (hot tap water from a sink works well). Once they’re at the recommended temperature, make sure to shake the cans thoroughly to distribute the heat.
Caution: Do not heat the cans to an overly high temperature or place them in front of an open heat source. Too much heat may cause the paint cans to rupture.
A note on safety to add to this:
Please do not attempt to warm up your cats by placing them in warm tap water and then shaking them. They will not be as happy as your spray paint.
An actual addition: the can of spray paint I have next to me (you mean most people don’t keep a can of spray paint on their computer desk? :P) says to not heat the can above 120F (48C). Though it isn’t even heat all over the can, if your hot tap water is warmer than that, let it cool slightly before attempting this. And then turn down the heat on your water heater because that’s dangerous to have it that hot! (Tap water, like spray paint, should also be below 120F)
It also says to keep it above 50F (10C), so that’s a good baseline number on when you should bring your paint inside. Thankfully, it won’t implode from cold at any natural temperature on Earth, but it’s not good for the paint.
Good things to remember! It might also very from brand to brand, so make sure you read the label. Having a thermometer to check the water temperature is a good idea too.
Two very cool tumblr users, @cat101495 and @sonnytheplant, made a comprehensive Con Survival Guide/Convention Tip Document. (It’s five pages long!) It includes things from this blog PLUS things they have added. If you are interested, check it out here!
Need to add extra wefting to your wig to create a certain style? Here’s a guide to help you get started! We’ve taken wefts from the back of one Nyx in Butterscotch Blonde and added them to another! Our wigs are so thickly wefted that the wig we harvested from is still wearable! Don’t have another wig? Don’t worry, we sell wefts in many colors!
