Cosplay costume!
This is currently a ongoing project with Svena and some other friends. We are making this costume based on the illustration design by Sakizou Illustration, the romantic jewels series. We really love the design and decided to cosplay it. It is the opal series where there is a design for a male and a female character. We challenged ourselves and created another two designs for another pair of male and female characters based on this two outfits.
To me, cosplay is like a form of performance art. It is just like some who like to re-produce some old master's artwork or even use the old master's art work as a kind of 'base' and use the same technique, color, composition or subject matter to create their piece of art. For costumes, i think they are good under two conditions.
1: it is highly accurate and it is very skillfully made and the person is also able to pull it off, fitting into the character very nicely. So basically its high accuracy and believable.
2: It it original or that it is another depiction of the character and the costume is aesthetically pleasing and attractive.
so for this costume, i am going for the second one because we are unable to source for very accurate images and also full images. Hence we take in other cosplayer's designs and edit it further and add in our own depiction of it.
The designs by the original artist is based on these jewels and we choose opal, as it is this special stone that does not give a fixed color but reflects light of many different colors depending on their types. Opal is the one in the last row second from the left.
This is the male version for the Emerald design and we used this as reference because we were unable to find the design for the gentleman representing opal. We figured we could use the lace pattern, the cutting like the puffy sleeves and even the color as reference. The high collar and the ribbon are also points which we would consider including.
For this picture, it is from a different series but it closely show similarities to the romantic jewel opal series. Both have the coral blue ribbons and the lace that is present in almost all of her character designs. The main piece's cutting is also very similar the opal design where it consists of this corset like center piece with a short skirt ( for our costume we will be doing shorts as we thing its a little too revealing) and there is also puff ups on the sides and on the back. Both have a neck piece which we will design it to create may be an original design.
This is another two illustrations from the Afternoon Tea Time series where this designs's color scheme is also coral blue with cream white the center piece is also a tight fitting piece and it also have this puff at the bottom. while the other one has the same base cutting design. And the design of the shoe will also be used as reference for ours.
This design have the most similarity to the opal design. The center piece is very similar together with the color and the stripped coral blue ribbon.
Then we narrow down on the similarity and came to a conclusion: all of the characters have white or cream white hair, like the base color of their clothes. They also have coral blue colors where lace is a must have. Some of the designs also have some green ribbons present and the bottoms are mostly short, and the characters wears high stockings. They usually wear long sleeves or gloves that are not attached to the center piece. all of them wears this choker that has a jewel in the middle ( for us we will source for ones that looks like opal) Finally, There are many tiny details which would be added on too, which are usually bronze or gold.
And then we found very nice photos of cosplays of the character ( we only found those by this cosplayer from japan)
Over on this picture, we are able to get a reference picture of the male costume design and also color reference
very clear view for both character and this is the main image we base our designs on, mostly following the costumes of these two characters with some changes to the costumes like the shorts for the girl and also the back of the costumes which we can't see.
Here is basically the base of our costume and the progress of what we have done. There is the main piece for the girl and under it, is the lace that we've went to source for on arab street.
We choose to use a stretchy white material , because we are still very inexperienced in making costumes ( this is our first). Hence incase it does not fit in some area, the stretchy material can make up for that. And it is a kind of cloth with fury texture which we think will look nice in photos as it does no reflect light too much. We made the top using patterns from magazines and books and added a zip on the back. Then we made the pants separately, adding some elastic to the bottom so that the pants would look a little puffy and also fits her legs well. For the lines visible due to the sewing, we plan to cover that up with lace and accessories to make it look better. And this will be where we change part of the original design.
As for the hat-like piece on the hip, we bought a big sun hat and cut it to size, and added some wire into it so that it can be shaped into place. Then we covered it with the green cloth and sewed it on together with some lace. For this we hand sewed it as it was not possible to sew it using a sewing machine.
This piece is still in progress as it requires a lot of time and i also need the person wearing it to be present as i do not know how to make the costumes to measurements given, so i have to fit it on the person and pin the cloth to them and mark out the areas to sew before sewing.
To me, cosplay is like a form of performance art. It is just like some who like to re-produce some old master's artwork or even use the old master's art work as a kind of 'base' and use the same technique, color, composition or subject matter to create their piece of art. For costumes, i think they are good under two conditions.
1: it is highly accurate and it is very skillfully made and the person is also able to pull it off, fitting into the character very nicely. So basically its high accuracy and believable.
2: It it original or that it is another depiction of the character and the costume is aesthetically pleasing and attractive.
so for this costume, i am going for the second one because we are unable to source for very accurate images and also full images. Hence we take in other cosplayer's designs and edit it further and add in our own depiction of it.
The designs by the original artist is based on these jewels and we choose opal, as it is this special stone that does not give a fixed color but reflects light of many different colors depending on their types. Opal is the one in the last row second from the left.
This is the male version for the Emerald design and we used this as reference because we were unable to find the design for the gentleman representing opal. We figured we could use the lace pattern, the cutting like the puffy sleeves and even the color as reference. The high collar and the ribbon are also points which we would consider including.
For this picture, it is from a different series but it closely show similarities to the romantic jewel opal series. Both have the coral blue ribbons and the lace that is present in almost all of her character designs. The main piece's cutting is also very similar the opal design where it consists of this corset like center piece with a short skirt ( for our costume we will be doing shorts as we thing its a little too revealing) and there is also puff ups on the sides and on the back. Both have a neck piece which we will design it to create may be an original design.
Then we narrow down on the similarity and came to a conclusion: all of the characters have white or cream white hair, like the base color of their clothes. They also have coral blue colors where lace is a must have. Some of the designs also have some green ribbons present and the bottoms are mostly short, and the characters wears high stockings. They usually wear long sleeves or gloves that are not attached to the center piece. all of them wears this choker that has a jewel in the middle ( for us we will source for ones that looks like opal) Finally, There are many tiny details which would be added on too, which are usually bronze or gold.
And then we found very nice photos of cosplays of the character ( we only found those by this cosplayer from japan)
For the female character, the cosplayer uses a cream base with puffy sleeves attached to a white glove then at the hip, there is a hat like piece added on covered with green cloth and peachy cream white lace. Then there is also the coral blue ribbons un the costume.
For this picture, we can see a clear view of the front piece, almost a full body picture.
Here we can have a very clear view of the designs on the hat and the materials used like the green lace and the peachy white lace on both the hat and the neck/chest piece.
Over on this picture, we are able to get a reference picture of the male costume design and also color reference
very clear view for both character and this is the main image we base our designs on, mostly following the costumes of these two characters with some changes to the costumes like the shorts for the girl and also the back of the costumes which we can't see.
Here is basically the base of our costume and the progress of what we have done. There is the main piece for the girl and under it, is the lace that we've went to source for on arab street.
We choose to use a stretchy white material , because we are still very inexperienced in making costumes ( this is our first). Hence incase it does not fit in some area, the stretchy material can make up for that. And it is a kind of cloth with fury texture which we think will look nice in photos as it does no reflect light too much. We made the top using patterns from magazines and books and added a zip on the back. Then we made the pants separately, adding some elastic to the bottom so that the pants would look a little puffy and also fits her legs well. For the lines visible due to the sewing, we plan to cover that up with lace and accessories to make it look better. And this will be where we change part of the original design.
As for the hat-like piece on the hip, we bought a big sun hat and cut it to size, and added some wire into it so that it can be shaped into place. Then we covered it with the green cloth and sewed it on together with some lace. For this we hand sewed it as it was not possible to sew it using a sewing machine.
This piece is still in progress as it requires a lot of time and i also need the person wearing it to be present as i do not know how to make the costumes to measurements given, so i have to fit it on the person and pin the cloth to them and mark out the areas to sew before sewing.
This project thought me how to choose cloth to create different looks like softer ones or stiffer ones, ones with a shinier surface and those with matt surface. There are also different techniques that i learnt like how to make different kinds of sleeves, and ways to create different patterns. The puffy pants was modified from a plain pattern for normal pants and the top was also made without a pattern. I've also 'forced' myself to learn how to use the sewing machine, where different kinds of sewing method for different purposes.
This is a very interesting experience where i tried costume design and making, combining it with one of my hobbies which i really enjoy. If this costume is successful, i plan to make my future costumes instead of buying them as i find that i feel more accomplished if i make my props and costumes myself and is proud to wear it out during events. 
wow, so nice, I like the cosplay costume to death.
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