Series: Final Fantasy XIV

Costume Creation:  When this job was first announce at JP Fan Fest in 2019 I immediately starting working on patterning out the cosplay that night! I began with the Embroidery that is on the 3 skirt panels. It was my first time ever doing hand embroidery and took approximately 200 hours and 3 solid weeks of work just on that step. Then I moved on to the last bit of embroidery that I noticed was on one of the arms. The underside of the skirt is a fabric painted design.

For all of the jewelry I knew I needed a mix of different methods to accomplish secure and good looks. I knew I would be moving a lot in this cosplay and tried my best to make every single tiny joint as stable as possible. For most of the jewelry I sculpted them by hand with Model Magic, made molds of them, and then cast as many pieces as I could with Resin. I tried to focus on resin casting the biggest pieces and also some of the smaller joint pieces because I needed them to be extremely strong and unbreakable. Once I ran out of resin, I casted the remaining jewelry using hot glue. They end up looking the exact same after painting but some are more stable than others. The side half circles, the necklaces, and the other arm (non-embroidered) jewelry are all craft foam covered in Plastidip for flexibility and then painted gold like the rest. To attach things like the belt together, I made a strip of craft foam and piece by piece, glued on each piece of jewelry until it was one long big strand as intended for the design. To attach other pieces together, I used chain links so the cosplay had room to move and flow freely while I walked and danced to flow more naturally.

The shoes were completely cut up from the base shoes I bought from the thrift store for cheap, covered in the red fabric, and created a fake looking wedge heal for the outer edge since I didn’t buy them as a wedge.

The chakrams are 1” Pink insulation foam, cut, sanded, scultped Model Magic, glued on all sides, 3 layers of wood glue for sturdiness, and painted to finish.

For some added detail and knowing I didn’t spend too much on the cosplay so far, I bought specialty chains so that all of the gold chain used on the cosplay wasn’t all the same. There are 4 different kinds of chains added as details on the back especially that add more to the cosplay and variety.

The wig is Stevie Classic Light Grey from Arda Wigs

Cost: $90

Created: April 2019

Work time: 2 months

Status:  Active

Worn at: Yeticon 2019