Sheryl WIP 2

The jacket was quite easy to make. I made the patterns using mannequin, which is not something I usually do. I wanted the jacket to have only one short seam on the front  and It would have been hard to make without the mannequin. Overall I'm quite pleased how the pattern came out. 

patterns for the collar front back and sleeve. Though I ended up changing the collar a lot. 

I put some interfacing on the upper back of the jacket and also to the front panels and then just sewed the blue parts of the jacket together. as simple as that. Then I sewed together the lining. At this point I had to make the collar and the cuffs. the Cuffs were easy to make but the collar was a little more troublesome. First I made it as the pattern above suggest... But it didn't work out. Then I curved it.. and It was too flat. Then  I added a narrow straight rectangle between the curved collar and the neckline. And that worked out! and interfacing is put on the lining at the cuffs and the collar.

After the collar was sewn in place I pinned the lining to the blue fabric and stitched them together close to the edge. Then I added yellow bias tape to finish the hem. After that I attached the cuffs to the jacket and added bias tape to them as well. After that I made buttonholes and added buttons. And made all the other tiny finishing  touches by hand.

Tadah!

pretty cuffs :3

The pants/legwear kinda just came together without any problems. I made lining to them as well and I had to add wire to make them hold the shape I wanted.

Lining and blue part.

Wire being added to the seam. It is sewn on the seam allowance

I made a lot of stitching into these, like this perfect stitching which was easy to make....

....and this a little harder stitching to make.

And this is how everything looked laying flat on the floor.. without bias tape and cuffs

The gloves I made using a pattern I found from here. It worked quite well, except the fingers were a little bit too long for my hands.

The belt was made from a faux leather and since it had a little stretch, I didn't have to add any darts to make it fit better. Because I didn't find closure big enough I decided to add boning to the front of the belt. So there's two rigile boning to hold the fabric. 

not too neatly sewn, but there will be buckle to hide all the mess.

The buckle belt I made by sandwiching worbla and craft foam and curved the creation a little. I added wire to the back to make it possible to add to the belt. The decorations for the hat were made with craft foam and worbla. I coated all the pieces with wood glue and then spray painted them. After that I added some highlights with black and white acrylic colors.

I heated the worbla a bit, placed craft foam pieces, added worbla to the top and trimmed the excess.

Then I made the wirethingies and attached them to the back of the buckle with wirblapieces.

sketch, stencil and cut pieces from craftfoam.

waiting for wood glue and paint 

The hat didn't work out as I wanted. I first tried to make it more triangle, but ended up making it round. Then I had to add support to the front to make it stay up and I also added some cotton wool to make it hold the shape better. I'll make another post on the details later~

The first versions patterns...

✰ Animecon 2016 ✰

✰Saturday✰

I was looking forward to wear this cosplay for the whole week. I was really happy how it came out and It looks so good in pictures ˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰  and I really enjoyed wearing the cosplay...  Until the sun decided to say hello...  The whole week had been rainy and cold but on the saturday noon the sun started shining and It was so hot! Just imagine wearing faux leather shorts, belt and fully lined jacked. My belly was so sweaty ●﹏●。 Next time I'll choose to wear this I'll make sure it's somewhat cold day 

Anyways, on saturday was the pokemon musical which was probably the highlight of the con for me. At first I wasn't too excited to see it and didn't think it would have been as good as it was, even though I had heard good things about the musical. I'm just so glad I ended up going to see it. I also went to watch cosplay competitions which were nice, Other than that I pretty much wondered around the con.

I also happened to find the one kitten plushie I fell in love with in tracon X. In Tracon it was sold out so I didn't get my hands on it but now I have her :3

The cute kitten I bought. I named her pallero.

✰Sunday✰

Umi advertizing coca-cola o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

I ended up wearing Umi on the second day of the con because I wanted good pictures of her. And of course I didn't even find a nice place to take photos.. And the photos I did took were really bad because of the direct sunlight and background ;____; argh. I just wanted to have a cute flowery festival feeling background for her.. well maybe someday in the future

On sunday I went to watch group cosplay and cmv competitions, as usual, and also watched a little bit of cosplay date. I've been joking for a while that I should cosplay king julien from madagascar, since I'm quite good at mimicking him. And after watching the cosplay date I got a perfect idea to go as king julien to the cosplay date. I already have all my lines made up and now making king julien is starting to lure me even more（๑✧∀✧๑）

Next time I'll make a second wip on sheryls costume and detailed pics and description on all the costume pieces, so stay tuned~

Sheryl (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

I  have a horrible con fever, but there's still almost three weeks till Animecon. My con fever have already made me start my Sheryl cosplay, eventhough I have so much other things I should be doing instead ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` )  As much as I'd like Animecon to happen right now, I'm happy that I have time to finish my beloved Sheryl (and all the other things also). Anyways here's the progress I've made so far:

Fabrics and other supplies

I started the whole outfit with faux leather pieces (shorts, top, shoes and hat). For the shorts, I altered a pattern I had made couple years ago. I have never made a skintight shorts or any kind of pants, so I have no idea how I managed to make the shorts fit me perfectly.

pattern for the shorts

The shorts were very fast and easy to sew. I didn't want to put a zipper on the front like it  is in most of the pants. Instead I put the zipper on the side. Also, I didn't want any unnecessary visible seams so I decided to use a fabric glue to attach the waistband. Though I did secure it first with stitches to the seam allowances.  I also used fabric glue to flatten the seam allowances because ironing doesn't really work for faux leather. Now the only thing left to do for the shorts is finishing the hem.

Shorts waiting for fabric glue

the seams looks so much cleaner with fabric glue

For the top, I crafted some patterns from scratch by taking a couple measurements. I know this piece won't be visible because of the jacket, but I wanted to make it anyway. I also made the piece a lot wider than it's supposed to be. The patterns can be seen under the text. The top itself is waiting for a zipper, but other than that it's done. I'll take a picture of it when it's completely finished.

Next thing is the hat. So far it looks like it's turning good, but well see about that after It's done. The pink thing you can see in the picture below is craft foam, which I used to add support to the hat. The great thing with craft foam is that you can sew it with sewing machine. Because of that I was able to make a stitching to the cap (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

Sheryl with half a hat.

For the shoes, I used some old pair of shoes which were originally meant for Miyuki (cosplay that never happened). The shoes were black to begin with, but I wanted them to be leather instead of mocha. And I wanted them a little longer. So I made some shoe covers by ripping the weird embroidered flaps, painting the heal black, making a pattern and attaching the cut black leather pieces to the shoes. I still need to finish the edges, but other that my shoes are done!

patterns and shoe progress

I have also made patterns for the pants and jacket but I'll make a new post about them when I start to work on those parts. Until then here's a little sneak peak ~~

yep, these are going to be pants.

☆Plans for 2016☆

Conventions:

♥9.-10.7. Animecon ♥

♥3.–4.9.Tracon♥

New Cosplays:

♥Animecon: Sheryl Nome - Welcome To My FanClub's Night! (not quite sure what this outfit is supposed to be called) ♥

This outfit has been on my to do list for ages! I have a weak spot for uniforms and I adore the red lining against the blue fabric. I'm really looking forward to making the hat but I'm not too keen on making pants. Luckily the pants in this outfit are not really pants. I'm also planning to make the undergarment though the top is not going to be visible. 

♥Tracon: Kuroyukihime - Accel Assault♥

  I'm really hoping to finish Kuroyukihime in time for tracon, but right now it seems like there's too much work left. And on top of that I'm not really making any progress.. sigh.. But if I'm not able to finish her, I'll just wear something I already have in closet or maybe make something easy and cute outfit for some character I've already cosplayed as.

I'm just gonna make one new costume for each convention and wear it on the first day of the con. On the second day I'm gonna wear something I have already worn. For animecon It will probably be  Asuna or Umi and for tracon It will be nurse Luka or Kakashi. 

Making my dreams come true: Kuroyukihime WIP

Instead of explaining why I chose the outfit or anything else, I'm just gonna go straight to the business: Using box cutter, I cut desired pieces from finnfoam. Above you can see shoulder pieces cut. After I had cut everything I glued as many pieces together as needed to make the piece thick enough. I had four layers in hand armor (one layer was 3 cm), two in shoulder pieces and 1 in ears/antennas.

Then I simply sculpted the pieces.  This step took several hours to make and I made several mistakes while sculpting. Luckily you can easily hide all the mistakes with clay, craft foam or cardboard

sculpting hand armor

ear progress

shoulder piece

My little clay mix. I used some old clay I had had laying around for ages and for that reason  it had lost a lot moisture. I fixed that by mixing it with water and it worked just fine. Though I think wood filler would have been better for filling holes and making the surface smoother.

Craftfoam I used add thickness since I had accidentally cut too much. For the corners I added cardboard to make them nice and clean. After that was done I covered all the pieces with tape.

When the bases were made I used them as mold for the worbla. Except for the ears which I only covered with worbla. Worbla was a lot easier to use than I had expected. It is quite forgiving material to work with. 

Heat gun and sculpting thingies~

Here's all the pieces I have made so far:

ears! I just need to prime, paint and attach them to the headband and they are done!

These little things are for the puta, his tiny cloven hoofs

Hand armor. these still need a lot of work

Kuroyukihime ♥ + buta pattern

I am slowly starting to make some progress with Kuroyukihime. I have already made a mock up for the bodysuit but it needs some fixing before I can actually start working with real materials. I'm planning to add some boning to the bodysuit to give it more structure and hoping it'll be enough to handle the weight of the wings, so I don't have to make an actual harness. I'm also intrigued with the idea of adding lights to the costume but I'm not quite sure If I can afford them and if I can actually make them work. 

I have also done a lot of planning and researching. I usually like to see how others have made the exact costume to see how they have solved all the problems with the costume, like where they have placed the seams or how they have interpretated the whole costume from 2D to 3D. Then I'll try to mimic the bits I like from each costume I find (WIP material is your best friend here, but also pictures of finished costumes can be helpful). This time I'm out of luck though, because there's only few who have made the costume and no WIP material nor clear shots of finished cosplay  (๑′̥̥̥▵‵̥̥̥ ૂ๑)

I have still managed to get a decent plan how to make the costume and how to make all the armor pieces and from which material. I still need to research how to attach all the armor pieces to the costume, though.  Hope everything will work out as planned (/ ‘з’)/

Besides bodysuit, I have also started working on the hand armors. I have purchased finnfoam (that is insulator used in buildings). I'm going to sculpt it and then use the sculpted finnfoam kinda like a mold for the worbla. Not sure if it'll work out as planned, but we'll see~

I have also almost finished my little buta plushie (Haruyuki Aritas pig avatar). I'm making the OVA-version of it which is almost the same as normal except there is feathers on his ears and tiny wings on his back (though I'm not gonna make the wings because I'm making winged version of Kuroyukihime. which means that Haru doesn't have the wings since he lent them to Kuroyukihime) 

How it looks like - still need to make hoofs

I made the plushie from fleece and I sew it all by hand. I used baby pink fleece for the body and colored the cheeks and the nose with colored pencils. White fleece I used for eyes. I used black thread for pupils, eyebrowns, bellybutton, nostrils and outlining the eyes. I also glued some feathers for to the ears. I'm gonna make the hoofs from worbla

details

tail 

PATTERNS:
I made the patterns for the plushie. There is NO seam allowances so you should add them. If you print the patterns in size A4 the plushie should be around 40 cm. 

How to assemble the plushie

1. Sew FRONT HEAD patterns together from the middle
2. Sew BACK HEAD patterns together from the middle
3. Sew EARS, turn them , sew along the dashed line, add stuffing to the smaller section
4. Sew assembled FRONT HEAD and BACK HEAD together from the sides. At the same time add EARS so that the smaller section is closer to the middle seam. The little marking on the front and back head indicates where the ears should start. Leave a gap for stuffing.
5. Sew BODY patterns together first from the middle and then from the sides, leave a gap for stuffing.
6. Add stuffing and close the gaps. Attach head to the body.
7. Sew together LEGS, and NOSE (remember to leave a gap for turning and stuffing, and after stuffing close the gap). Sew together ARM 1 and ARM 2.
8. Stuff LEGS and ARMS and then attach them to the body.
9. Attach nose and eyes. With black thread, sew all the details. Add also tail (no pattern here but I just made it from rectangular piece of fabric)
10. Hot glue feathers 
11. Add color to the cheeks and nose with colored pencils

★Tracon X★

★Saturday★

On saturday there were so many well done love live cosplays :3 I really enjoyed seeing all of them, especially group/pair cosplays. I was also cosplaying from love live since I was umi. Though I think the outfit I chose to make wasn't the most recognizable. But I liked the kimono inspired outfit so much myself and I still think some people recognized me.

I went to watch only cosplay competitions. The WCS performances were all really good this year and for me there wasn't a clear winner. I also enjoyed myself watching the pair cosplay, or more like dreaming of making some pair cosplay and participating in the competition myself. 

And I also saw tiny black, fluffy  and cute catplushie in the dealers room, but I didn't buy it because I thought it would be there on sunday aswell. But when I started looking at it on Sunday all the tiny cat plushies were gone (ˊ̥̥̥̥̥ ³ ˋ̥̥̥̥̥) I need to buy one immediately when I see it in next con !

★Sunday★

Second appearance of my Sheryl Nome cosplay. Surprisingly, not many pictures were taken of this cosplay. I was honestly expecting more people asking for a photo, but for some reason it just didn't happen. But that doesn't really bother me, since I do understand that not everyone knows the character and people have all kind of reasons not taking a picture. My reason is usually that I'm too shy to ask for a photo (*´ω｀*)  I'm always thinking to myself before the con that today I'm taking pictures of all the cosplays I know and find beautiful... But I end up not having any pictures after the con... oh well... maybe next time 

Tracon was the last con in this year for me. Now I'm starting to work on Kuroyukihime and if it works out well I might take it to the stage ~~


EDIT: forgot to put this gorgeous picture in the end XD