Anyway, this entry is about where my sewing and cosplaying skills reach a new level in skill and professionalism.
A little back story about this costume. My group of friends at the time were planning a skit for an up and coming convention. They wanted to perform a modified waltz to "As Long As You're Mine" from Wicked. They had three groups of couples at the time and Colt, the one who was planning the whole thing, wanted to insert the waltz seen in Square Soft's "Final Fantasy VIII". The only problem was that they didn't have a couple to be Squall and Rinoa, the main pair from FF8 and doing the dance without them present would be out of place. The couples they already had were assigned to be characters from other games and had their costumes in the works or almost completed. I happened to be present at the time for this conundrum, and volunteered to be Rinoa if they found someone to play Squall. Luck and fortune was on our side that evening, because after a friend showed up, we asked her and we had our pairing.
Compared to other games made by Square Soft (now Square Enix), past and present, FF8 had to by, by far, the most simple designs and costumes I have seen. Looking back on it, the character costumes were loosely based off the outfits you see in wild west movies; long dusters, leather, cowboy hats. Throw in a sci-fi military academy and you get FF8 with gunblades.
First thing I always do when I'm making a costume, is I look up reference pictures for whatever character I'm doing. I try to find pictures of every angle, pose, and profile. I'm sure my family finds this process quit annoying as I create five different folders and download fifty to one hundred different pictures of one person.
Here are a few reference pictures that were used:
For this costume, I needed:
-light blue fabric
-dark denim
-black tank top and shorts
-white paint
This was my first LARGE costume; as in meaning "lots of fabric for one piece". For her duster, I just went and bought light blue cotton fabric. I did try to find ribbed material, but there was just no luck. I live in a small valley, whose fabric and craft stores appear limited compared to other stores outside our surrounding mountains and the internet just had NO IDEA what I looking for. Plus, I wanted to be able to wash this outfit without fear of shrinking or disfigurement to the costume. The color was the most important thing to me and I got what I was looking for.
Making the duster wasn't difficult. I had patterns that was similar to the costume, but they were TWO different patterns. I want to be a very skilled seamstress, so I "Frankenstein" them. I took the pieces I needed from the patterns and put them together. It took some altering to get them to fit, but I succeeded.
Next came the wings. Every fiber of my being is an anal perfectionist and I didn't want to mess up the wings. I think the main reason I wanted to play this character so bad was because she had wings on her duster and I have a thing for wings. I managed to find a stencil online and copied them onto a stiff piece of poster board.
I had to pin the poster board to the fabric to keep the wings straight and centered. Now, I tried experimenting with a spray paint that has a glossy finish, but the instructions on how to use these things are none too clear and nearly ruined my costume. PANIC ATTACK!! I managed to wash a majority of the paint off, but the ruined wing stain was there. I simply turned the thing inside out and used the other side. I decided to paint by hand after that and the results were much more satisfying.
Sporting my wings:
I used left over scraps of my blue fabric to make her arm sleeves and ran an elastic band to keep them on my arms.
The skirt was probably the most difficult thing I had to make. I don't know why. Its not even a yard of fabric that wraps around my hips. I think the snaps had something to do with it. Mean little buggers if you don't hit them right upon installment. I ended up making three different skirts due to one difficulty or another. I wasn't too happy with the last skirt I ended up keeping for the costume, but I was too angry and too broke to attempt once more. In the end, it looked alright and completed the costume, so I just made a mental note to make a new one after the convention.
Everything else for this costume had to be purchased; shorts, tank top, boots, jewelry and wig. Yes, I had to buy a wig. As you can see in from my blog picture, I am blond and Rinoa has long black hair. Around the time I was making this costume, I had very short hair and there was no miracle on God's green earth that was going to make it long in two weeks. With the aid of my friends who have purchased wigs before, they helped me find one, style it and got it ready in time for our skit!!
Huzzah!!
Here are a few pictures of the finished product:
And here is a video of the performance we all worked so hard for:
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