Hey! So I know some of you were asking for some advice on a Chrom cosplay so at last I am here to help. Sorry it's a bit late, but let's get started!
Here's the front of the shirt! The shirt and pants are made up of some dark blue spandex-ish type fabric, and I got about 4.5 yards of it. The shirt is actually two layers, the under layer being the part with the sleeve and folded collar. I used just a basic long sleeve shirt pattern for that but instead of sewing on both sleeves, I only did the one and just hemmed off the one missing the sleeve. The collar was simple too, I just used YouTube for collar tutorials since I never made one like this but it's very basic and is easier to make than you might think. Now, the top layer is a sort of poncho that I made out of the same fabric that I lined with bias tape as seen above and connected the buttons and other collar to.
Chrom is weird and has two collars, one being the folded one (that I sewed on the bottom shirt) and the other being a sort of Sailor Moon or Anime School Girl collar which I connected to the top layer, the poncho. The flatter, school girl collar was simple to make as well and just used more tutorials on YouTube, you can make these however you want or in what way you want, but that's how I did it! So the funky-shaped poncho went over the shirt and that's the base of the shirt!
The bias tape is actually made by me, I bought the fabric I wanted for it which was some silvery-gold satin and used a bias tape maker to get the even strips of fabric that are free of frays on the outside. Then I literally just hot glued them onto the shirt lol.
The buttons are made of craft foam and worbla and I just hot glued those on as well. Sometimes the simplest/laziest methods work the best!Â
This is the back of the shirt where you can see that school girl collar much better. To get the designs, I used some thinner cardboard/cardstock and cut out the shapes, then I took the same fabric as the bias tape I made and covered the cardboard pieces with it. (The cardboard could be like the backs of notebooks or cereal box cardboard, that's what I used) I tucked the edges of the fabric around the back of the cardboard and glued it down so the fabric didn't fray, then I just hot glued the pieces on, nothing fancy at all!
Here are the pants, I already talked a bit about them in a previous post but here they are again! The base of it is just leggings I sewed, then the part on the thighs are strips of that blue fabric that I put bias tape on and glued together and wrapped around my legs. So they're like an extra layer that I just hot glued on top of the leggings. I also stuffed them with a bit of stuffing to give them that pantaloons shape that Chrom has. (So yes, these are pillow pants basically) The little buttons are buttons that I covered in that same fabric and glued on as well.
Here's the back of the pants where you can see how the fabric is wrapped around from the butt and all the way around the front and to the inseams. It was very awkward to make, but they're comfy!
These are the belts that go around the chest area! I got about 2-2.5 yards of this I think... The base is just some white vinyl I picked up and folded over (and glued) so it had nicer edges. The buckles are made of craft foam and worbla and the buttons are googly eyes that I painted. There's also a decorative button that I sewed onto it as well.
It looks like a jumbled mess now, but if you take a look at a reference of Chrom, this all makes much more sense where everything should be placed! You can also see Velcro on there where I attach it to the bottom part of the belt that goes around the waist, which you'll see in a second.
Only one of the buckles I made actually functions like a buckle in case I need to use it getting on the costume or taking it off, but usually I don't need to unbuckle it at all.
Here is the other belt I mentioned earlier that hangs lower on Chrom's waist and sort of loops around his thighs. You can also see the Velcro here where I keep it attached to the chest belts. Nothing fancy here either, just a strip of fabric with lines on it. The lines are black fabric paint that I very carefully painted on because for some reason, I didn't want to sew on the black lines since it was leather-y fabric. It took a lot of patience lol.
Moving along, these are the gloves and the little wrist band thing that goes on his sleeve arm! I literally bought some gray gloves off amazon, cut them down to size, then made little cuffs and sewed them on (that are lined with the same gray fabric as the wrist band). Then the wrist band is just a strip of fabric I hemmed and sewed in a loop that I just slide onto my wrist. It also has some tiny buckles on it that I believe I bought from Etsy, I just got a little package of like 12 of them since I used them more later on.
Here are the leg things! Leg sleeves? Leg bands? Leg warmers? I have no idea. Either way, you can see that the little buckles come into action again here and I just stuck them through little hemmed strips of fabric, then (you guessed it) hot glued the strips down to the base of the leg thing. The longer leg thing is just sewed in a tube and hemmed, once again nothing fancy there, then the top is a band that I sewed in a tube shape as well and sewed black lines on for details. As you can see, I also added on the cuffs just like the gloves made of that same gray fabric (that I got about 2 yards of). So I made two identical bands with cuffs, but one has that weird leg sleeve thing, otherwise they're exactly the same and just slide onto the legs just below the knees!
Now getting to the cape, you can see the little brooch he has that I made out of clay and then painted with acrylics and sealed with mod podge. The brooch is hot glued to some weird rope stuff I found at a craft store, however, I braided the rope so it was thicker, sturdier, and got a similar effect to Chrom's. The other end f the rope is hot glued to the inside of the cape on the edge there, where there is also another decorative button I just sewed on.
Here's the pauldron/shoulder armor! I could have done better on this but whatever. It's made out of craft foam and worbla and I just shaped it to the way I wanted and added on the details. The details are little strips of worbla that I heated up and rolled into noodles, then I just attached them and shaped them to the surface of the pauldron. No glue there since worbla sticks to itself! If it looks uneven, you can always heat it back up and move the pieces around!
I also just glued the pauldron to the cape because I was lazy and when I was looking at references, I didn't notice any straps or anything that Chrom has so that's what I did!
And this is the cape! You can see the black patch in the top right corner there, that's just more Velcro that connects to the back of the brooch, which of course also has Velcro on it. You'll see that in another picture as well. The cape is made up of some nice cotton fabric and it's two layers of the same stuff that are just sewed together. I made sure it was cotton because that's the easiest to dye since the bottom gray-ish part is gray Rit Dye that I dipped it in to gat the worn/burnt/dirty effect. The edges are all trimmed in random directions to give it the cool effect.
After that. I decided to take it up a notch! I actually rubbed that bottom part of the cape in some dirt and grass as well to get some real dirt effects. (which you can't see as well in the picture, but it's the thought that counts) Then I had some help with a blow torch and singed the edges of the cape to get an even more battle-worn and burnt look to it! This was the most fun part of making the cosplay tbh.
Here's the backside/inside of the cape! It's made of that same cotton fabric, but I dyed it blue! (Fun fact I had this fabric and it was dyed blue already before I even thought about making this costume because I was going to use it for something else but never did lol) You can also see the sloppiness of the cape bunched up where the pauldron is because that's where I glued it, but it looks fine from the outside which is where it counts! And you can also see the patch of Velcro on the back of the brooch that I mentioned before so I can keep the cape on and take it off with ease.
Next is the shoes! These were fun to make too! I just used a cheap pair of boots I bought from Saver's for the base and decorated them with the same dark blue and gray fabric from before. I added on some cuffs just like the leg bands and gloves, and of course I covered the front and back with some gray fabric which took a long time to get that smooth effect. With the leather-y boots, I used super glue to glue down the fabric and I only used the super glue along the edges so it didn't bleed through in random spots in the middle.
As you can see, they also have a band that I attached to the cuff part and I used Velcro so I can put them on and take them off easily. The Velcro especially helps keep them on my feet since I had to manipulate the original boots and cut them down to get them to the shape I wanted!
Almost done! These are the fake tattoos I made that I use for his Brand of the Exalt on his shoulder. I'm going to be honest, I went into Microsoft Paint (before I got a tablet and Paint Tool Sai) and took a picture of the brand and just colored it to that light red-ish color that I wanted. Like I said, sometimes the simplest methods work the best! Afterwards, I put the picture onto a Word document and got it to the size I wanted. Before I printed it on the special tattoo paper, I monkeyed around with the shade of red I wanted and the size and printed it on normal paper first to double check everything. Once It was settled, I fit as may little pictures as I could onto the Word document and printed it with the tattoo paper. There are instructions with the package, I just looked up "temporary tattoo paper" on amazon and it was the first one I'm pretty sure. This was an easy part of the cosplay too!
Last but not least, the wig! This is a Magnum wig from Arda wigs in the color dark blue, from what I can remember. It was very easy to style and I know I can always trust Arda to have some amazing cosplay wigs!
Besides the Falchion, that's basically it! The Falchion is made of poster board with foam and worbla details, but since there are 100 million ways to make swords, I won't go into depth unless you guys are interested.
Just let me know if you have any further questions and I'll try my best to answer them! Thank you so much for all of your support and great questions, I'm always happy to help!
