This project was intended to be a stash-buster, so one of the goals was to use as many leftovers from other projects as possible. When I did have to buy things, I tried to thrift.
Let’s break this one down into parts, starting from the top we need:
- A purple Bandanna
- Studded Choker, with a gold necklace and circular pendant
- White Swimsuit Top
- Black Jacket, with studs on the right lapel, a zipper on the left sleeve, a bull skull on the back, and green lining
- Black Gloves, with giant cuffs
- Bubblegum Pink Underbust
- Black belt, with an extra large gold buckle
- Black Shorts
- 2 black studded thigh belts
- Armored Boots
Patterns I Used
Butterick B5371 “Corset E” – Modification details below
Kwik Sew K3764 “View B” – Modification details below
Necklace STL File https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6037914
Purple Bandanna
I started with an old purple T-shirt and made a cut from the bottom hem to the armpit, resulting in a triangular piece of fabric. Next, I grabbed a large piece of paper and traced the fabric triangle onto it, then I gathered some circles from around the house to trace. Using the interior and exterior radius from a roll of 3D printer filament, a roll of tape, and a small plate, I drew the ring pattern onto the paper and then cut it out to make a stencil. Then I laid the stencil over the fabric and used a sponge to dab acrylic paint onto the fabric. Always ensuring that the majority of the paint was off of the sponge before touching the fabric, to keep it from getting too hard and crusty, watering down the paint also helps.
Studded Choker, with a gold necklace and circular pendant
Choker is made from a piece of scrap stretch twill, 4 inches wide and neck measurement plus 4 inches long. Folded in half long ways, sewn shut, ironed, flipped right side out then ironed flat again and edge stitched for a nice crisp look, and to close off the ends. I sewed some velcro onto each end as a closure, and then measured and marked out 1-inch increments for the rivets. I used an awl to make and stretch holes without cutting the fabric and used my rivet press to attach 8mm rivets, and the choker portion was done. Next the gold necklace, I first 3D printed this file https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6037914 then sanded it, primed it, and painted it gold. Next, I got out some gold beads left over from another project and some yellow embroidery thread and strung the beads on in a nice pattern until I had enough length on each side for it to go from my collarbone to halfway around my neck. Then I took the choker and tied the embroidery thread on each end of the necklace to the back of one of the rivets, and added a drop of superglue to the knot to make sure it was extra secure.
White Swimsuit Top
I was hoping to get lucky at the thrift store for this one, but I did not find a white swimsuit top there, so I ended up buying one as close to white as they had, light pink, and hand-stitching white spandex (leftovers from sailor moon) over the cups to change the color. I don’t recommend doing it this way unless you have no other choice, it was not enjoyable work and it took a really long time.
Black Jacket
To make the jacket I started with the Kwik Sew K3764 “View B” pattern, excluding pattern pieces 1 “front and front facing”, piece 6 “Under Collar”, and piece 7 “Upper Collar”. This particular pattern (without the front/facing) is really great for when you need a jacket that is always open because when you remove those center panels, it can’t physically close and cover up the cosplay underneath. When cutting panels I extended all of the bodice panels straight down, as much as my fabric would allow, making sure I had a lot more length on the back panels than the front, and then trimmed them to length afterward when I could pin it together to test the fit. I drew my own collar pattern pieces by pinning newspaper to the jacket to figure out the shape and then following this other guide I wrote to make it stay standing really tall. Once the back panels of the jacket were serged and sewn together, I cut the bull skull emblem that I drew out from some off-white snakeskin-look leather we had on hand and saddle-stitched it to the center back of the jacket. One lapel needed to be covered in rivets, I marked the intersections of a 3cm grid on the lapel with a fabric pen, used an awl to poke a hole through the fabric and stretch it to size without cutting any fibers and then put 10mm rivets on all the marks, except for the top corner when I put a 10mm snap instead to hold the lapel open and keep it from flopping around. The other side also got a snap in the same place to hold it open. the rest of the rivets used for the pattern on the back and sides of the jacket were 12mm. The liner was cut the same as the exterior, and they were assembled with their outsides together and then flipped right side out after sewing. I did add two large panel pockets to the front lining panels before sewing everything together. The sleeves are unlined, I did sew the zipper to some extra scrap fabric before attaching that to the sleeve so that it could also be a functional pocket if need be. Technically this added some seams to the jacket that were not in the reference images, but I decided that in this case, that’s not something I’m worried about.
Black Gloves with Big Cuffs
I’m still procrastinating on these. I’ll add an update when they’re done.
Bubblegum Pink Underbust
This is the only thing I bought fabric for, I did not have anything the right colour in my fabric stash. I used the Butterick B5371 “Corset E” pattern pieces, but I completely ignored the instructions and did a lot of things differently because the instructions assumed you were building a single-layer corset with no bones and using vinyl as the exterior. That’s just not what I was going for. I built it as a 3-layer corset, fashion layer structure layer, and lining. Boning channels were added on all of the seams, steel plate for ends with eyelets, and plastic boning recycled from an old hoop skirt was used on the rest. The side seams were sewn shut instead of laced so that it only laces in 2 places instead of 4 like the pattern has. The top and bottom were closed with bias tape made from the same pink fabric.
Black Belt, With An Extra Large Gold Buckle
The belt buckle is made from a double layer of Black Worbla with paper as a stabilizer layer in the middle. First I cut the buckle shape out of paper, then a matching shape from the Worbla and wrapped an additional layer around from the other side. I used a metal ruler and a silicone caulking spreader as smoothing tools and painted it gold. The belt itself was made from some long strips of black twill, cut 3 inches wide, sewn together, and flipped inside out. I then cut a long slit with a ‘V’ at the top through both layers, folded the raw edges under, and top stitched it together so that I would have a slot for the pin to sit between two tabs. I riveted the tabs around the center bar on the belt buckle I made, as I had not left enough slack to get them under the foot of my sewing machine with such a bulky buckle. Last I sewed some button holes to be the belt holes for the pin.
Black Shorts
The shorts are nothing special, they were an old pair of black jeans that I got some paint on but kept because they were comfortable jeans. I cut the legs off, folded the hem under once, and secured it with a zig-zag stitch.
Black Studded Thigh Belts
These were almost identical in method to the choker, except the strips were much longer, the rivets are only on the middle 12 or so inches, and I closed them with slider buckles instead of with velcro in hopes of preventing them from slipping when I walk (I’ll probably still carry some skin tape just in case)
Armored Boots
The boots started as an old pair of over-the-knee faux leather boots from my wardrobe. Some of the vinyl was cracking so I wasn’t going to be wearing them anymore. I washed them and then rubbed them down with acetone to make sure that my leather paints would bond. Next, I used a Plaid Leather Studio acrylic leather paint to do a couple base coats of paint, colour didn’t matter in this case but I used white. Then I went over the white paint with ordinary silver acrylic paint, this is a great trick for when you can’t find or mix the colour of leather paint you need. To pattern the armor plates for the boots I drew the individual plates onto some newspaper and taped the paper to the boots to check sizing and shaping. Once I had my pattern pieces I traced them onto some thin veg tan leather and cut them all out with a utility knife. After cutting everything out I beveled all the edges and smoothed them out with an edge finisher before wet forming them all. To start the wet-forming process I first sprayed all pieces with water, then I used plastic wrap to bind all the pieces around a roll of Worbla that would hold their curve until they dried. Similarly, I used some clamps and some other objects I had lying around to bend the other pieces over a right angle while they dried. I then painted the leather with the same paints as the boots, since the leather did not have any dyes, top coats, or finishes I did not need to wash or rub it with acetone to prep it for painting. I painted the back of the leather blue anywhere that I thought the back might be visible. Lastly, the plates were riveted onto the boots.
Cosplay Queries 