_________Jam
_________Costume Stats
Character Name: Jam Kuradoberi
_________Reference
Series: Guilty Gear X-2
Specifics: main outfit
Cost: $60
Time: 30 hours
Started: July 2004
Completed: July 2004
Worn: Northern Anime Fest 2004, Toronto Cosplay Picnic 2004, Anime Evolution 2004, CN Anime 2004,
_________Information
I was supposed to make this costume for Anime North 2004. I was a little late. *nervous laugh* Ah well. Better late than never.
_________In Progress
This costume was actually quite difficult challenge for me -- especially since I still haven't figured out how to use store-bought patterns. ><; Trust me when I say that making something fitted is hard when you're making up your own patterns.
The main body of this costume took three days of work. Thanks to Sakura, who helped me out when I needed an extra pair of hands. I needed help pinning the fabric to make it fit right, and had some help with the hand sewing as well.
I made the sleeves baggier than most people since that's how baggy they were in the reference and because I like baggy sleeves. ^^; The "belts" on the sleeves were made out of over-sized bias tape and belt buckles I picked up back in May. The skin-tight black sleeves under the over-sized sleeves were made out of the old sleeves off of one of Sakura's black turtlenecks. I altered them to fit and added gold piping along the edge for the detail.
The skirt is three pieces of fabric sewn together to get the proper shape. The opening at the front has velcro and snaps on it so I can take it on and off with ease.
This was my second time using bias tape, and it definitely turned out well. It made my edges extra crisp and clean. ^^ To make the circular detail on the costume, I made iron-on decals using fusible webbing and some black fabric. It took my three tries to get it right, but I'm very happy with the final result.
The detailing on the skirt was made the same way so that the color would stay constant. It didn't turn out as clean as I would have liked, but it's nice regardless.
When I first made the costume, I didn't know the gold-thing in her hair was a tea can, so I made it out of plastic liquid paraffin bottle that I covered with gold vinyl and added white piping to. Since I didn't want to use my real hair, I bought a long brown hair extension and made her loop of hair with it. I attached the loop to the gold hair accessory. Since I didn't want to ruin my base wig, I used velcro to attach the gold accessories and the loop of hair to the main wig.
The boots were... annoying. I had a pair of boots I could ruin, so at first I thought to paint them. This worked at first, but soon the paint began to chip. So the next time around, I made boot covers and glued them to the boots. I didn't use the right kind of glue so it fell apart. ><; Thankfully, Sarcasm-hime gave me some advice about vinyl/shoe glue, so the latest version of the boots came out wonderfully. ^^
This costume didn't cost as much as I thought it would because I was able to use red fabric Blue Rose left in my basement. It's my favorite fabric, but I only had a limited amount, so I have very little room for mistakes. Ah well. It all worked out, ne? ^^
_________Misc
I wore this costume quite a bit during the summer of 2004. Although, it wasn't until Anime Evolution and CN Anime that I was really proud of it.
_________Images
Anime Evolution 2004
CN Anime 2004
