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Tomorrow Mod VanitysAlara and I will be going to Tokyo In Tulsa!! Though we (and our group we’re going with) had some rough patches and cosplay malfunctions, we managed to pull through right before the con (except my Yoshiko wig didn’t come in so I’m going to be either Kurosawa Dia or Matsuura Kanan on Friday).

We are very excited and will be posting things after this weekend.

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Lucio (Overwatch) Cosplay by  Neverending Dreamz

Photo by: Calibur Photography

Cosplayer facebook / instagram  

Get the game and comics here

[Follow SuperheroesInColor faceb / instag / twitter / tumblr / pinterest]

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How to make Ram And Rem Cosplay Head Band From Re Zero 

Tutorial by:  Yume No Doll Tutorial Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBKh3ftpNq4

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For those who are planning to start sewing their own cosplays this year this might be helpful: How to take measurements! Waist Front / Waist Back: http://www.sempstress.org/measurement/measuring-the-waist-frontback-waist/ How to Take Measurements: http://makinglatexclothing.com/2008/12/how-to-take-measurements/ Instructions for Taking Measurements: http://mangakaresource.weebly.com/1/post/2011/01/sewing-measurements.html

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Mod VanitysAlara and I (along with a big group) are on our way to see Black Butler: Book of Atlantic in OKC! We are very excited (not very excited for the two hour drive). We are cosplaying casual versions of Lizzie and Ciel (though I’m doing a casual Fem!Ciel)

- Mod Aleressia

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my state of mind

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Tokyo in Tulsa Cosplay Lineup!

Here is our (hopefully) confirmed cosplay lineup for TnT:

Mod VanitysAlara: Friday- Yuri Ha Jahad (Tower of God) Saturday- Snow Halation Yazawa Nico (Love Live) Sunday- Ludora Luciela (OC)

Mod Aleressia: Friday- School Uniform Tsushima Yoshiko (Love Live Sunshine) Saturday- Snow Halation Nishikino Maki (Love Live) Sunday- Ludora Mickey (OC) Also Kurosawa Dia might be a possibility sometime during the con lmao

Both of us are excited to do NicoMaki for Saturday! We also have some friends coming with us that are photographers that will be doing some photoshoots with us, so we are pumped for that!

We hope to see y'all at the con~! ♥︎

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You Watanabe / Love Live! Sunshine

Koi ni naritai AQUARIUM

♡ PRAISE YOU’S BOOTY ♡

PH

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Cosplay Tip:

Think about the level of poof/support your dress or skirt needs and plan accordingly. You may need to include a petticoat, hoopskirt, interfacing, wire or horsehair braid.

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A Cosplayer’s Guide to Colored Contacts and Eye Safety (AKA How NOT To Fuck Up Your Eyes Forever)

I’m a cosplayer, I’ve worn contacts for almost 18 years, and I’ve seen so much horrifyingly dangerous behavior with colored contacts and general eye safety in the pursuit of our hobby that it makes me want to scream. I’ve ranted about this before on Twitter (and often) so I decided to make a megapost about it.

I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ABOUT FUCKING UP YOUR EYES FOREVER. I have seen people LOSE AN EYE or get permanent eye damage from unsafe behavior; I’ve also seen people carted off to the hospital over it. Colored contacts and heavy eye makeup can be entirely safe, but you have to know how to use and wear them properly! 

This post will be very long, but I encourage everyone who has an interest in colored lenses (especially circle lenses!) or cosplay makeup to read it. I don’t want you to lose an eye.

Keep reading

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Cosplay tip #2

Always Iron all the things!

If you can iron it, or steam it, do that. If you cut or sew something with wrinkles in it, the final product is going to have wrinkles in it. Wrinkles make a costume look cheap or unprofessional and effect the overall craftsmanship of the costume.

If you did iron your costume, and when you put it on its too tight, the wrinkles will point to the problem areas where it needs to be let out a little to fit properly. 

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Cosplay 101: Failure is always an option and that’s okay

My niece asked for a rainbow sword for her birthday and how could I say no to that request? She’s still pretty young, so EVA foam is a good choice.

Got the two halves cut out, that didn’t take long. Normally I’d glue it together, but there’s a separate polycarbonate piece that needs to be cut out, so for now, I’ll tape it together so I can bevel it.

That’s a pretty good bevel job! Just needs a bit of heat to clean up the edges, maybe a bit of spot filling, but hey! Battle damage!

The other side isn’t bad either! Needs a bit more sanding and heat to smooth things out, but looks good!

Between the three pictures, it only looks like a few minutes of work. The reality? This was an hour of work. Why an hour?

Because I kept messing up the second side. 

Messing up sucks. On the other three, I probably had the bevel perfect before I pushed a bit too hard, or caught the foam in the sander, or kept sanding when I should have stopped. But I didn’t, and I messed up, and I had to cut a new piece and start over.

And that’s frustrating, especially if you’re on a budget, or have limited time or resources.

But every screw up taught me what worked and what didn’t work. I learned how much pressure I needed to keep the bevel even. I learned the curved edge catches easier on the disc sander. I learned which direction is easier to bevel in. These are things I wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t make mistakes. And now I know what to do the next time I bevel EVA foam and now I know my next attempts will be better.

So fail, and fail repeatedly,  accept you’re going to fail, especially if you’re trying a new skill. But learn from your mistakes and keep on going. That’s the only way you’ll become good.

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Stitchy's 5 Sewing Tips

I had an ask from a follower about how to avoid constant jamming of thread! It got a bit lengthy and I figured I may as well share with the class :P

Before you even get sewing, check your manual, or google your machine type, to look up what the actual number setting of your Thread Tension is meant to be.

1. Re-thread your bobbin into the bobbin-case so that the trail of thread is going the correct way *as stated in the manual*. In my machine, the bobbin with thread hanging off should look like the letter “P” when it’s correct.

2. Always always always use matching brand/fiber content thread on your top and bottom threads. Mismatching synthetics with naturals, or button threads with embroidery, etc— it’s just asking for trouble unless you’re doing it for a specific reason.

3. When you start sewing! Literally every time you begin a stitch, hand wheel the needle into the fabric to “take a bite” before you start up with the foot pedal. This will help a lot. also, be sure to swipe away hanging thread before you really get going, especially if you’re doing something that has the stitch joining back up with itself .

4. CLIP YOUR THREADS CONSTANTLY. I cannot stress this enough so I’ll say it again:

5. CLIP YOUR THREADS CONSTANTLY.

Bonus tip! If you have to do a lot of gathering, there are a few ways to go about it- and its definitely the easiest way to jam your machine if you’re doing it poorly. My favorite way is well suited to making a typical 1:3 ratio gather in a woven fabric:

Set your stitch on a wide  zig-zag 

Place a sturdy thread, like button thread, or waxed thread under your presser foot with a four or five inch “tail”

Zig-zag over the sturdy thread, taking care to not catch it in the stitches.

Pull the thread to gather!

This isn’t appropriate for everything, but it breaks so much less.

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How do you make the corners of your bias tape so clean? Im drooling over how good they look!

Thank you!! I’m pretty proud of them because this time last year I had only recently learned to use bias tape properly at all, and I only learned the mitered corners some months ago, aaaand I’m amazed at how easy it is now that I know how to do it.

To learn it, I deferred to quilters! Quilters are the goddesses of these things. I find in the cosplay community there’s a tendency to look for “cosplay tutorials” when really, quilters, crafters and home sewers’ blogs are great resources.

Merriment Design’s guide

Sew to Speak’s guide

I also find it is useless to pin bias tape ahead of time. It is much easier to get clean results by just sewing as you go.

- Jenn

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Sakizou Terra Branford cape - in total there were between 185-195 flowers on my cape; the flowers were 4 different sizes, made out of 5 different colors of organza, and had 2,000+ beads hand sewn onto them.

My Terra cape got a lot of compliments at Anime Boston and online, so I figured I’d post a sort-of tutorial about how I made all of the flowers. I’ve never written up a tutorial before, so I apologize if anything is unclear or repetitive. I hope this is helpful and good luck!

Organza flower tutorial: Step 1: Make your patterns! I measured out circles of 2", 3", 4", and 5" diameters and then I free handed the basic flower shape that I wanted onto card stock. You want to make your pattern piece on a sturdy material because you’ll be tracing it A LOT.

Step 2: Trace all your flowers onto your organza and cut them out. Each of my flowers had 3 layers of color and 1 top layer of white or ivory, so you need to trace/cut at least 3x as many flowers as you want in the end.

Step 3 & 4: After you’ve cut out your flowers, you can sort them into piles with however many layers you have chosen to use.

Step 5: I used a candle flame to burn the edges of my organza. You have to seal the edges with heat otherwise the fabric will fray. You can use heat to seal the edges of most synthetic fabrics.

Step 6: You’ll have to do each layer of the flower individually.

Step 7: I chose to start with the points between each petal to keep the basic shape of the flower intact. It WILL take some trial and error to figure out how close to the flame you can get without burning your organza TOO much. This distance can vary based on the type of candle you’re using (due to the size of the wick), so I’d recommend using the same candle for the whole process and practicing with some extra fabric before starting in on your flowers.

Step 8: After the middle points are done, burn the edges of the petals.

Step 9: For the very top layers of the flowers, I used the flame to gather the center of the layer to help it curve in and create a space to bead.

Step 10 & 11: Repeat steps 6-8 for all the other layers of the flower.

Step 12: Assemble your flower once all the layers have been burned. I used straight pins to hold each of my flowers together once I was done burning them.

Step 13: This process takes a while, especially if you’re making a lot of different colors and sizes.

Step 14: Secure all the layers together by sewing a bead into the center of each flower. I used glass pearls that I had left over from another costume, but you could use pretty much any kind of bead.

Step 15: I chose to use different colors and amounts of beads to help me differentiate between the sizes of my flowers.

Step 16: Have a place to store all your flowers once they’re complete (I used a medium sized cardboard box). I ended up using a strong glue to attach my flowers to my cape, but you could also hand sew them to your garment.

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Hey folks, costume person Katie here! This week I’m gonna take you through the process of making bows, something super simple yet essential to any cosplayers skillset. Take a gander and in no time you’ll be super kawaii! This is just the basics, but I’m sure you Nobles have some ingenious ideas to spruce up these bad boy’s up into amazing things. And if you do make yourself a bow from this tutorial please share it with us!

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How to Make Zelda’s Pauldrons out of Leather

Photo by Mindfall Media

Here’s an overview of the techniques that went into making these Zelda pauldrons! Although this tutorial doesn’t hold your hand through every step, I wanted to give enough information that a curious reader could easily do more research on their own. If you’d like to know more about leather work, try searching for any of the keywords in these steps to find way more detailed resources on how to apply these methods to your own projects.

Keep reading below for more info!

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