Textile printing for the God of Poverty

Our last textile printing projects date back three years, when we crafted four laborious costumes in a year. The first ones were Luminara and Barriss and the second batch was Ivy and Yoshimitsu and they all required printing designs or uniform patterns. After we finished Ivy and Yoshimitsu it was clear to me that fabric printing was something I would't have on my to do-list for quite some time. Apparently three years was the required recovery time for me and I’m back on my knees with printing pastes, templates and tapes!

I’ve started three individual projects this year for spring and summer conventions. One of them doesn’t (thankfully) include printing, but two of them just crave it. Textile printing was the only possible choice for me when facing the problem of not finding suitable fabrics, since they most likely don’t exist at all. And after a long time, I really enjoyed this particular printing project even if I had some small setbacks.

The checkered skirt fabric is for a costume I started about a month ago. Recently I’ve had more spare time than I normally do and I’ve spent some evenings reading and watching new series. Even marathons have occurred. One of the new acquaintances was Noragami and since I'm quite fond of pleated skirts and whacky side characters, I immediately fell for Ebisu Kofuku.

I’ve been dreaming of purchasing screens and all the fancy stuff to go with, but with this project I just used the easy stencil and a sponge technique. I used both emulsion and paste colours to achieve the wanted look. For example the skirt fabric has two sets of stripes crossing. The magenta ones are emulsion based so that they are “sheer” and the yellow ones are made with cover paste.

First I made calculations based on the references, taped the long horizontal lines with blue masking tape. Blue is the best in this case, because it doesn’t stick too strongly to the fabric or leave tacky glue behind. After the horizontal lines, I printed the vertical ones and let them set properly before moving to the yellow lines. The yellow lines cross the magenta ones from the middle. After the colours had dried I ironed the fabrics to set the print.

The costume itself is actually ready with basic white shirt, pleated skirt and matching tie. I finished the garments probably a week ago. The brown multipurpose/-character shoes and black knee socks I snatched fron my closet. I still need to have another look at the wig. I think I need to style  it some more. I also thought about crafting Kofuku's shinki, Kokki.

I took a quick snapshot of the costume with my phone. Shame that the ruffles aren't visible from that angle...

I didn’t have any particular convention in mind when I started to make the costume. I just got exited about Kofuku and her outfit, which finally filled my easy-fun-and-cool summer costume void. You could argue about pleats being easy and fun after you have unpacked them from your cramped suitcase, but I try to reassure myself that irons and ironing boards can nowadays be found from the cosplay dressing rooms in major conventions.

I’m not going to reveal the other costume projects yet. They are still so all over the place and I want to have something real to show before making a fuzz about them. But I will reveal that I'm going to fullfil a costume dream I've had since I started cosplaying... I'm goint to sew my first kimono!

Finishing touches

After the qualifiers to ECC it was clear to me that I would definitely compete with Amira at the finals. But I also knew that I needed to upgrade the costume. I myself had found few flaws on it and after discussing with the judges, I knew what I should place under the magnifying glass.

Photograph: Yoki/ Casualty Cosplay

First thing I wanted to fix was the jewelry. I had little experience with Fimo and other polymer clays prior to Amira, so I naturally chose the wrong paints. Now I know that you shouldn’t choose paints with solvents in them, because they will soften the clay and make it feel tacky and it will never really dry out. This creates the problem at least for me, since all the nice metallic finish paints have some sort of solvent in them. I tried to look for chrome acrylic paints and then just metal acrylics, but nothing fitted my image of the final color.

Thankfully I went to an art store and after discussing with the seller, I ended up trying out something she proposed; I first paint the jewelry with gesso, then acrylic paint with metal powder in it. The gesso and the acrylic paint created a protective cocoon for the clay. And finally I applied metal miniature paint by brushing it very gently to the surface. The seller had advised me to use as little pressure as possible so that the strong miniature paint would not break through the acrylic paint. And it worked!

Also to add some more “real” to the jewelry, I asked my Russian friends for small change coins, Kopecks to use on the amulet and the necklace. Earlier, I had made the coins from Fimo, but I really wanted them to jingle when I move. Using real coins made the jewelry heavier, but this only meant that I had to use stronger thread on them.

Next thing I started was the boots. The first ones were made of pleather and they didn’t have a base shoe inside, which is equivalent to poorly supported feet. I still had the old shoes on at Tracon and after a day walking around in them, I really wanted to make new ones.

I had my doubts with pleather earlier, but I was running out of time before the qualifiers so I had little choice left. I chose pleather since the color scheme was close to the references and it was rather easy to work on. For the new boots I chose wool as the main material. It felt a lot more authentic and would enable same type of appliqué technique as pleather.

I found the perfect shade of jacket wool for the dark, mud colored parts. With the light blue sections I had to cheat a bit and use polyester-viscose felt, which I dyed the same way people dye their wigs. I was hesitant that regular cloth dye would not work, even if the felt was a viscose mix. We happened to hace this perfect colored tube of marker fluid lying around, which was meant to use years back to dye Clef’s wig with. The cosplay never happened, but now at least the dye served its purpose.

For the base shoe I chose a regular women’s walking shoe. I cut out the tip of the shoe and made new one from felt to make it more flat and also to give the sole a small curve. Then I took a carpet knife and started to slice to the heel to more “boot like”. The heel of the shoe was really distinctively shaped for a walking shoe, as it spread out on the bottom and was over all really bulky looking. It was also too high compared to the reference. The easy solution was to attach the boot cover so that about two centimeters of the heel was left visible and three centimeters were hidden inside as a build-on hidden heel.

I made few alterations to the boots based on the old design. For example I patterned the tip of the shoe differently and made few tweaks on the design also. I have made boot covers earlier and the problem was always how to finish the edges. I finally seemed to solve it!

After the edges of the cover were turned and glued over to the bottom of the sole, I took a piece of real leather and cut it to fit. At this point I cleaned the sole from dirt and dust, spread glue evenly and pressed the piece of leather on place. This neatens the raw edges of the boot cover, hides the modern looking pattern on the sole and is also good materials choice to use since it’s not slippery and will also look good!

I also worked on the skirt a bit to make it bit more finalized. I dug up every piece of linen I had left from the skirt and made bias tape from it. I used the bias to hide the stitch marks inside the hem of the skirt. This was really small deed to make during few evenings in front og the TV, yet it impressed few lovely people on backstage; “You even made bias!” And I was smiling stupidly and squeaking, because I was so happy that someone noticed it! Thank you for that!

Next to working with already existing pieces of clothing, I made something completely new also! I had made the underwear for the qualifiers, but if you have read the manga you painfully know that something is missing… The socks! I was ahead of the schedule at one point, so I decided to try to make them. I kind of knew that I was crazy to even start them, but then again I was so madly in love with the gossamer silk jersey I had purchased and the red and white silk threads and… Yes, it was madness!

I actually had the socks on to-do list for the qualifiers. I’m actually glad that I didn’t make them back then, since I only found the perfect material after the competition. I also think that embroidery is now lot easier for me and that if something was required for that type of fine fabric. It took me about two to three evenings to make the embroidery and few hours to put the socks together and I truly think that they are really nice touch to the costume! I could walk around in them forever, because the material is just so freaking pleasant!

This particular costume is now more or less finished. I'm still hoping that I can get a location shoot organized sometime in the future, because I would really like some sheeps to go with the costume! But for now, after a year, I can direct my attention towards new costumes which naturally have piled up now. I will surely use the costume in concentions to come, because and due to the working hours and crafting it's really comfortable and easy to wear and it's my favorite costume I've ever made... And needless to say, I love the character!

Armor from pulp board and fake leather for Yuma

We have made armor pieces for our Stormtroopers by vacuum forming and for Ivy I build a set from craft foam covered with putty. Now I wanted to try something new and ended up with pulp board-craft foam base covered with vinyl/fake leather.

I’ve seen few Claymore Ghost cosplays before and some have solved the armor issue with “leather” and some with “metal”. I ended up with the leather version, because the Ghosts are more or less never seen or heard of, so silent leather armor would be ideal to stealth and hiding as in metal one would make unwanted noises.

My build started from making patterns. I used regular paper for creating the shapes and fitted them before cutting the pieces from compressed pulp board. After cutting the pieces I carefully made the necessary curves and shaped the pieces so that they would sit on the body tightly. Then I secured the shapes mostly by taping the pieces on to the floor using different household items and sealed and supported the back by gluing thick fiber fabric on the back. I left the pieces to dry over night before the next phase.

Some pieces I just supported by spreading glue on the back while maintaining the wished form, but this I only did for the breast and back plates because they were constructed from two pieces and the smaller ones didn’t need that much support since all the fastenings would be on the top plate.

Then for creating a smooth surface to glue the pleather on, I covered the armor pieces with craft foam. The craft foam I cut slightly bigger than the board, so that the edges would be thin and clean looking. I used the armor piece as the template for the craft foam. The curves on the pieces made the original pattern useless, since the curves distorted some of the shapes on the pattern.

With the hip plate, also known as the butt wings I had to use more sturdy solution, because the shape was really odd and hard to maintain. And I couldn’t find a sheet of craft foam big enough to cover the whole thing. So first I covered the top of the “wings” with fiber fabric, let it dry and supported the narrow center piece from the back side. Then I cut a piece of upholstery felt and glued in on the top.

After pieces had dried completely I spread glue evenly on the piece and set the pleather with two centimeter seam allowances on the top. Needless to say, for the pleather I used the armor piece itself as the pattern. Then I smoothed the surface checking that there were no bumps or bubbles under the pleather before leaving it to dry.

When the pleather was glued and set I heated the glue gun and turned the seam allowances on the back side. The tricky parts were the pointed edges on the armor. And with corners I checked which side should be glued first to get a neat result.

I applied a black fabric on the back of the armor pieces to hide the seam allowances and to prevent the white backs flashing from certain angles. But before gluing them on I added Velcro, nylon straps and rubber bands for the fastenings.

Below you can see the whole process made with the shoulder pauldrons. The shoulders were the reason why I chose to cover the pulp board with craft foam; I was able to heat the foam and stretch it on the shoulder without having to make visible darts. And same goes with the stretch pleather I chose as the covering material.

And finally the whole armor with the sword belt. In all, armor made from pulp board is really light weight, clean looking and quite easy to make. All you need is the materials, scissors, glue and exacto knife. And palette knife! I don't know why I haven't realized earlier that palette knife is handy when you need to spread a thin and even layer of glue!

Straightening synthetic hair fiber

I like to re-use and –style my wigs, even if I have a tendency to hoard them excessively. For my new project I bought some straight fiber to match my already existing wig. I was disappointed when I opened the package and saw that the presumably straight fiber was anything but straight. I really didn’t have the time to order a whole new wig and had to start a straightening project for kanelon fiber which weren’t heat resistant. I was bit horrified, even if I have straightened synthetic fibers before. Now I needed to style a really sleek and straight wig, when the troll wig was fine being bit frizzy and messy.

I used almost the same method as with the troll wig, with the difference of using gauze instead of pattern paper.

First I took a small lock of fibers and combed then through with a wig brush. Then I sprayed the lock with water and combed it again.

Then I layered the gauze on an ironing board and misted it with water. On the bottom I placed one layer of gauze and two on the top. The gauze which I used was diaper gauze, which is multi-layered compared to regular one-layered gauze. So if you are using regular gauze, be sure to fold it several times.

I set the iron first on nylon setting, but soon increased the heat to silk setting; one point.

Then I placed the fibers beneath the gauze, holding the loop on my fingers. Then I pressed the iron firmly on top of the gauze as close to fingers as I was comfortable with and pulled the fibers under the iron. This I repeated multiple times, with spraying and combing the fibers time to time. Its important not to press the iron too hard, because you don't want to stretch the fiber, only re-shape them.

On left: the half-way fold after few presses with iron. On right: the fibers with the half-way fold, straight from the package.

For some fibers I decided to iron the really annoying half-way loop/fold, especially if you’d like to make the wefts longer than half of the fiber length. It took few extra presses, but finally the fold vanished all together.

After straightening half of the fibers in the package, I sewed the wefts and handstitched them on the wig. After experimenting with iron-on interface, I’m back with sewing the fibers on tulle. I think it’s because my craft skills have improved and I have much more patience than before with wefts.

On left: wet fibers comparison; straigtened- original. On right: dried fibers comparison: straightened- original.

With straightening the results really depend on how many times you repeat the ironing process. And of course it would be ideal to buy real straight fibers in the first place. My resent purchase from Cybershop was somewhat a surprise, since the first straight fibers I bought from the company before were really silky and smooth. These seemed like crepe fiber, which was carelessly straightened. Gladly I’m a crafty person by nature, so the straightening wasn’t a big effort even it first seemed laborious. I’m still going to continue buying from Cybershop, since their customer service is awesome and this was my first let down in almost seven years.

And here is the wig almost styled, some trimming is still required. I added some length with the wefts and re-styled the whole front with removing part of the skintop and adding long bangs. The wig I used for this project has been seen on Deidara before.

I’m going to make an entry of this "no embroidery for a change, only crafting"- project soon, because... summer holiday! If you have any guesses, feel free to leave a comment!

P.S (Finns) If anyone has problems with keeping wigs on their heads and hasn’t found wig-clips anywhere, Cybershop has three different colors of them and they work miracles! I first used them with Amira’s wig, because regular pins couldn’t support the weight of that massive braid. Also Yoki used them on Fuyu’s wig, since her current Mohawk haircut provides very little fastening surface for pins.

Jewelry, check!

Finally I have something ready and completed! I was bit skeptical about making anything complex from Fimo, but everything went better than expected. I had few problems on the way. Mostly they were sculpting issues with strange shapes and how to achieve them; from solid chunks or by cutting them with patterns from a sheet of clay.

Next to latex molds I used Fimo itself to make molds for the little trinkets for the amulet and earrings. I baked the molds and let them cool. I used talc as release agent. I took a small piece of Fimo and push it in the mold. With right amount of talc the clay popped out almost by itself. After baking I trimmed the pieces with a exacto knife.

I painted the jewelry pieces with metal paint and used black stain to age them. The wooden pearls I painted with acrylics. Finally I sprayed clear lacquer to finish the surfaces.

 Left: coins with stain

I used jewelry hooks to attach the trinkets. I secured them with epoxy glue which I also used to glue on the red stones. I drilled tiny holes for the coins and used stitching thread to hang them from the amulet.

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.