#cosplay process

So here's the bare bones mock up that I filled to nearly the ends. I will not be using all these but I will be painting them all. Total 28 olive beads, 28 sphere beads and 57 red discs.

Now that I have my beads and set up (I have tons of beads left over to potentially make 2-3 more chains) It was time to color with a gold acrylic paint marker. I had two brands to choose from but the DecoColor just popped more for me as seen in this previous test post, The DecoColor is just a bit more reflective and the sheen is sharper compared to UMark Metallic Gold. ദ്ദി ˉ꒳ˉ )

So I wore protective black gloves but I ran into the problem of smudging the paint while I turned it. Thankfully I'm a model kit builder/enthusiast who rattle cans sprues and plastic so I decided to reverse the purpose of my alligator clips. (The black bendy ones ended up being a pain in the ass so I went and grabbed the wooden stick ones from a long since dried project for doing the spheres.)

I waited about an hour then harvested the nuggets. Beautiful! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

After all was said and done, we went from the left, to the right! Shiny and gold! ✦ω✦ Perfect for stealing!

Now it was time to rethread them and viola!

I went with a cross thread through the two end beads to create a seamless sequence and tied about 3-4 knots to ensure it would hold while also hiding the knot in the bead. I did indeed remove about 3 rice beads, 3 sphere beads, and 6 red discs.

And we're stylin! I'm going to try to find a way to make the chain lay a lil more spread like on the hanger without the use of pins as I want to be able to take off the robe (and it'd be a hassle to remove the pins every time) and lift the hood (which would reveal the pins). I'm thinking small snare hooks sewn into the robe and painted red to hide them. (╭ರ_•́) (Also please pardon the hair. I had to throw on clothes for this pic and really haven't fully gotten ready for the day :v)

Bonus of my support creature, Gremlin!

At first I was planning to make a female Vergil cosplay just for fun, but then I decided to enter the cosplay contest of the con I'll be attending, so I had to change it to male Vergil because of the contest rules. They don't accept genderbends/non-canon versions of characters.

However, the only thing that changes between the two versions would be the hair: I'd use a longer hair for the female version. So I tried to cut and style my wig to make it shorter and... I ended up ruining it (╥ω╥) I didn't even take pictures, but it looks VERY weird when I put it on my head. So I just gave up styling and ordered a new one, more similar to Vergil's hair. Thankfully there's still almost two months before the convention, so the wig will probably arrive in time.

Now for the costume itself. I was planning to wear a blue waistcoat that I had laying here because I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out a pattern for Vergil's vest. Everytime I tried to make a prototype, I failed. Until I burned some neurons trying to draw it and FINALLY I managed to make something that worked!

I just feel so smart for creating this from scratch! LOL I mean, I made my own pattern! It looks very clean and I love the result.

I also have been working on the coat's embroidery, since it's a lot of work I try to make little progress everyday. Today I sewn the lapels and it's starting to look more like Vergil's coat. The vintage buttons that I'm going to put on the lapels and sleeves also arrived today, so I probably will be working on these details next.

Here's how the cosplay looks like so far:

Sorry for the low quality photo, my phone's camera is shitty sometimes.

So that's what I have so far. Like I said, sometimes it feels SO frustrating that I feel like giving up, but then when I remember I'll get to be THIS ↓ man for a day, I feel MOTIVATED: