I got the idea of a koukaku harness from arminizewithme, but because theirs sits more in the middle of the back and is actually part of the kagune , and I wanted Naki’s to come out from the shoulderblade and still be detachable, I adapted it.

Harness materials:

elastic

Tools:

needle and thread and pins

Rejoice! The harness was actually really easy to make, even for someone with as horrible sewing skills as I.

This is much easier for people with boobs, as the harness is supposed to rest under your bra (and it doesn’t feel uncomfortable or restrictive at all, you barely feel it), so your boobs are effectively what prevents the harness from moving around and what holds your kagune in place once it’s attached. 

However, if you don’t have boobs, I recommend following this process, but adding another elastic under your collarbone area, and sewing that to both sides of where the straps are at the front. But if that doesn’t work, you might just have to use trial and error to see how you can make it hold.

Sew one piece of elastic in a circle to fit under your boobs. With two other pieces, on both sides, sew the straps at the front around where they would sit at the middle of the side curve of your boob. At the back, the strap should be sewn where the middle of your shoulder blades are.

(^ that’s my knee.)

With a very short piece of elastic, sew a loop above where the strap ends on your right shoulder blade. This is where the hook of your kagune attaches to. This way, you can move your kagune freely at any angle and easily take it off.

And you’re done with the harness!

To be able to wear it, I’m afraid you’re going to have to sacrifice a shirt and a blazer/suit jacket.

Wear your harness over your bra and wear the shirt you’re going to wear for Naki over it. Have someone (or struggle by yourself) feel for the small loop where you’re going to attach the kagune to, and mark that area with chalk. Take the shirt off and cut a tiny hole just big enough to fit the loop through. Put the shirt back on, feed the loop through and do the same thing with the blazer. 

In order to stop the hole from ripping itself wider, use hot glue or clear nail polish to line it. You should only be able to fit a finger through there at most.

If you’re doing this yourself, attach a hair clip to the harness loop. That way it’ll be slightly easier for you to get the loop through the hole in the shirt and blazer.

I recommend that if you’re doing this by yourself, like I did, once you manage to loop it through all of the clothes, use a very big clip to make sure the loop doesn’t disappear back under.

Now when you take the suit and blazer off, do it all at once along with the harness. Same goes for when you put it on, unless someone can help you feed the loop through again.

-

Now for the final part, putting everything together.

Materials:

wire

duct tape

Tools: 

hot glue gun

duct tape

spray paint

So I didn’t take many pics of this process because it was like a few hours before I needed to leave, and I rushed, and there are probably better ways of doing this. I don’t recommend just using hot glue and duct instead of my weird wire frames, because I just don’t think it would be secure enough. It’d only attach to the surface, rather than the inside of the noodle like how I did it.

Elevate the body on tissue boxes or something tall enough, and line the arrange the scales on the body of the kagune exactly where you want them to sit (on the curved side of the pool noodle). Make sure the overlapping scale covers the top of each scale where the curve ends, for each scale before it. (In the pic above, the bottom of the noodle is actually showing a bit, but once it’s attached to the scale it shouldn’t show.)

Mark where the bottom of each scale sits on the body. For scale 1 (round scale at the very top top), allow about 8cm or so where it’ll overlap the end of the pool noodle.

Where you’ve marked the end of each scale, stab 2 straight wires through the fabric and foam (use a needle to push through and widen the area first), but not all the way through the noodle. For each of those wires, wrap (with pliers) two more wires around each of them, and leave legs at a sorta 90 degree angle. Twist the one leg of each section together.

Repeat that for every place where the bottom of a scale would sit.

This now is probably the most annoying part. Start from the bottom scale (scale 4) upwards. Apply duct tape like below:

Pour hot glue over the legs and strap it down with fabric. 

Now pour hot glue all across the duct tape and wire, and very quickly press the scale down onto it, and press it as flat as you can against the body. But be careful not to press the scale too hard, because the shape can be distorted. Repeat this process with all the scales.

Because scale 4′s tip is really exposed and doesn’t have anything to back it (the pool noodle stops where the blade begins to become too narrow to hide the noodle’s shape. I even tried to trim the edge of the noodle so it could extend and back more of the blade, but it was too thick and still protruded. So don’t bother doing that. Just hide the body. ), you’ll have to do a the same wire+duct tape+hot glue+fabric process at the very end of the noodle. 

In retrospect, because it was phenomenally easy for the tip of the blade to bend when I was walking around the con (occasionally kicked it because I’m a short person) or bending down to put down my stuff for pictures, the underside of the tip should be reinforced with so much wire. 

Notice how it bent almost exactly where the body ended? 

Duct tape and hot glue at least four thick interwoven wires to the end of it, and glue and duct tape it to where the wire frame contraption of the end of the noodle is.

Test if it bends by trying to bend it yourself, and exert actual pressure, because you need the tip to be able to be stronger than whatever force you’re putting in.

At the end of all of this, if anything under the scales isn’t fully stuck together, just stick it together with more duct tape and hot glue. After all of that’s done, bring the entire thing outside and spray paint anything that’s exposed on the underside.

Clip on your kagune.

And now you’re done! Congratulations! You got there in the end!

Now rejoice in the freedom of mobility associated with having a removable and flexible kagune. 

But continue to cry, because it’s in character, and you miss your aniki. 

Materials for the kagune body:

1 x foam pool noodle floatie

1x keychain hook (the type that you can easily attach and detach something on it)

1x keyring

floral wire (wire paper clips will also work)

red fabric (try for a darker red than the red spray paint used for the scales, but it won’t matter that much in the end because you’d try to not let the underside show)

PVA glue or wood glue (I recommend wood glue because it’s stronger)

tissue paper

duct tape

Tools:

hot glue gun

pliers

Method:

Take a pool noodle and carefully cut it in half sideways (I used a kitchen knife to slowly saw it downwards. I found that drawing a line down each side with a ballpoint pen made sure I could cut even halves), so you’re making it half as thick as it originally was. (I didn’t get a pic of this step, but you’ll see how it looks like later.)

(So I made another mistake here- or rather, an improvement. I realised that I could actually make the kagune detachable from the harness, so you could easily (with the help of someone else) take it off while still keeping the harness on. The following pictures are corrections I made to the process with hasty photoshop.)

You’ll most likely have a keychain that has a hook like this:

Or these:

It really doesn’t matter what you use, as long as it’s a hook and it’s able to attach to a keyring somehow. 

Take your choice of wire (I used a thick paper clip) and use pliers (if needed) to bend it into the shape below and insert it through the keyring at the end of the hook. (The shape is kinda like a bridge with an L shape at the bottom)

Slide (/stab into) it into the flat side of the pool noodle, near the top, so it lies as close as possible to a 90 degree angle within the pool foam. Because it’s evidently not going to lie at a perfect 90 degree angle within the foam, bend 2 more pieces of wire to make a [ shape and 3 more pieces to make a U shape, and stab them in to secure the first long wire. 

Be careful that you don’t make the wire pieces too long, make sure they’re short enough that they don’t stab through the other side of the noodle.

Apply wood glue tissue paper to effectively cement the area.

And now, because you want to be able to move and flex the kagune, you have to make a handle around where your fist would clench when the kagune is attached to the harness. It’s up to you whether you want to do this part before or after you make the harness. 

I got the idea of a handle from arminizewithme’s Tsukiyama kagune tutorial.

(^ ignore the different colors on the pool noodle, when the photo was taken I had already started glueing fabric on.) I made the handle before I made the harness. It’s probably best to do it after, because then you’ll know exactly where your hand will be in relation to the kagune. But I just did it because I was putting off sewing as much as I could (sewing is not my forte).

With the help of someone else (or by laying the noodle one edge of a flat surface and shimmying yourself up next to it), place the area where the hook and wire is located against where your the middle of your shoulder blade is. Extend your arm and make a fist. On the noodle, mark where your hand curves in. (In the pic, you can see it actually ended up being higher. It’s inaccurate because I should have made the harness first.)

Now get two pieces of wire, twist it together and curve it to the width of your hand.

Stab it into both sides of where you want it to be positioned and secure it with smaller pieces of wire in a similar fashion to how the end with the hook was secured.

Effectively cement it with wood glue and tissue.

Arrange the kagune scales on where you want them to sit on the pool noodle, and trim the bottom end of the noodle if scale 4 isn’t covering the noodle.  

Good job. Now you’re done with the frame. 

Now get your red fabric, cut it to the shape you’d need to wrap it around the noodle, and pin down one side.

(I’m so sorry about the quality of these photos. It was the day before the con and I had no sleep.)

You might want to have a seperate piece of fabric for the length of the noodle after the handle, or just cut a slit where the handle will be exposed. Choose whether you want to cover the handle in fabric or not.

Also cut a hole where the wire and hook at the end will protrude.

Apply hot glue to one side (slightly in front of where you pinned it, down the length of the noodle, and pull the fabric over it. Now pin the fabric down the near middle of the noodle, pull the fabric back, then apply hot glue down the noodle in front of where the pins have secured the fabric, etc. Continue this process until the entire noodle is wrapped in fabric (and until the pins make it look like a certain appendage of Noiz’s from DMMd...)

Glue down any unsecured fabric on the edges, and remove the pins once the glue has solidified.

Congratulations! You’ve just finished the body of the kagune. Reward yourself, because there’s still a fuckton to do! :) :) :) (why did i do this. why did i make this kagune. why did i make this tutorial.) 

Onto the next and final part!

Materials for ‘scales’:

6x A4 EVA foam craft sheets (mine was 0.7mm thick- you might want to go slightly thicker)

masking tape (paper based kind)

gesso primer

PVA glue or wood glue (I recommend wood glue because it’s stronger)

red (and green, if you want to be faithful to TG√A ) spray paint

tiny bit of black paint

clear glossy spray varnish

optional: newspaper for paper mache

Tools:

ballpoint pen (so the pen will glide along the foam you’re drawing on instead of stabbing into it)

scissors

x-acto knife

wide-bristle paintbrush

heat gun (/ a clothes iron is another option, but I can’t guarantee how it’ll turn out)

1x those large tubes that posters come in when they get mailed

newspaper

Method:

The frontal view of the  kagune is roughly like this, but I didn’t manage to get the shape that accurately. I’ll be referring to them as scales 1, 2, 3, and 4, as in my sketch.

(The 1st scale (top) and the 4th scale (bottom, the ‘blade’) were both made with 2 sheets taped together with masking tape (make sure its the paper based, not those clear plastic-y ones, because you’re going to heat it up later) because just using one sheet wouldn’t have been long enough for the shape I wanted. Only tape it on the back side of the sheets though, because you don’t want the tape to be visible.

Lay out the foam sheets beside the pool noodle for the body of the kagune so they overlap in the way you’d want the scales to, and draw out each scale on the foam sheets with your ballpoint pen. Draw a straight line down the middle of each sheet while they’re all lined up, so you can make sure the points can be aligned. For scales 2, 3, 4 just mainly concentrate on drawing the points (the v-shape) on each scale, and don’t worry about rounding the end of it off, just draw a v shape on each of the sheets and treat the edge of the sheet as where it cuts off. This is because the scale overlapping each of them will cover the top of each scale.

Also try to make the point of scale scale thinner and longer than the one before it.

Use this time to draw on the thick lines on scale 1. You’ll cut those out later after you’ve shaped everything (if you don’t want to cut them out, you can just paint it.)

Cut the scales out with scissors, at a 45 degree angle.

Now this is where the heat gun and poster tube comes in.

Bring your cut out foam scales and bring them outside or to a very well ventilated area (please please please don’t do this indoors. I know some people often do it indoors and find there’s no problem, but there can be risks, and it’s just not worth endangering your pets or yourself.)   I didn’t actually use a respirator or gloves when I should have, but I covered my nose with my shirt as I did it, and avoided getting my hands too close to the heat.

With the heatgun, one by one, carefully heat each side of the foam sheet until you see it’s shiny and soft. Don’t do this on the poster tube because those things aren’t made to handle high temperatures. (This is a really good and simple tutorial on how foam can be shaped- although they use an iron instead of a heatgun. Up to you, but many cosplayers prefer heatguns. And for heatguns specifically, this part of this tutorial will show you how to heat EVA foam- mine was waaay thinner (0.7mm), and heated up a lot faster than the foam in that video. And I know that video said that an option is to heat it in your oven, but please don’t do that unless you don’t actually use your oven for cooking food- the fumes can be dangerous.) 

After heating one scale, and when you’re actually able to touch it (if its too hot), transfer it onto the poster tube and mould it to that cylindrical shape. With thicker pieces of foam, you might not need the poster tube, but because mine was so thin, it would very easily revert back to a flat shape without something like the tube to solidly shape it to. Also, with the tube, I was able to mark a straight line down the side of it so that I could I could align the straight lines I drew on the foam sheets with it- that way I ensured that the scales could curve symmetrically. Depending on the heat and how thick the foam is, you may have to do this process more than once.

Don’t hold the foam to the tube for too long, allow it to revert to a flatter shape so while it’s still curved, its not actually hugging the tube.

You can see in the pic below that I actually heated up a part of the foam too much. Also, because I had originally used clear tape instead of masking tape to attach the two foam sheets together for scale 1, exposing it to heat actually kinda melted the tape and rendered it ineffective. The top part of scale 1 shrivelled from overheating, and because it was no longer attached to the rest of scale 1, it didn’t hold the shape it couldn’t hold the shape I wanted, so I had to replace it with another piece and do it over again.

(^ I hadn’t heated scale 4 in the pics above, but it follows the same process.)

After you’re done with that, take your stuff inside and leave the scales on the tube. I found that otherwise, it reverted into a flat shape after some time.

I actually made a massive mistake, because I completely forgot that Naki’s kagune had those 4 black oval holes on scale 2. So these next steps will be taken from after I had actually completed the scales and spray painted and varnished it and everything. But you should do this after you’ve done the step of shaping the foam.

Using sticky notes, I marked the point where scale 1 would lie on scale 2. This is so you can see where you should position the ovals so they wouldn’t be covered whilst a) not having to deal with having the keep scale 1 in place b) not having to deal with any pen marks.

To make stencils (because I don’t trust the consistency of my painting skills), I drew the shape of the oval I wanted on a sticky note pad and with an x-acto knife, I cut out the oval piece out. Keep the oval piece and the stencil. I repeated this while keeping the 1st sticky note sheet on the pad, so that I could easily cut out ovals from 3 more sheets from the existing shape.

Note that you’ll want the oval pieces to be from the sticky part of a sticky note, because later on when you’re spray painting, you’ll need them to cover the ovals you painted, while the rest of the scale gets sprayed.

Remember to the keep the oval pieces. 

Transfer the stencils onto scale 2 and stick them on. Use black acrylic paint it on. (Because the pics below are of me doing this after I had varnished the surface, I needed like 2 coats before it applied evenly. But if you’re doing this correctly and painting it onto a foam surface, 1 coat should be enough.)

Remove the sticky note stencil.

(Now back to what I did before inserting my correction.)

I poured wood glue and a tiny amount of water into a cup and mixed it together with a normal wide paintbrush and brush it evenly onto the scales one side at a time (applying it on too thick will result in bubbles). Using wood glue undiluted will allow you to seal and harden the scales with less coats, but I found that it was very hard to apply because it was super thick. 

(Note: dip your brush in a cup of water every time you’re not using it, because otherwise it’ll dry and harden the bristles into one solid clump.)

Allow it to dry (it might take like 30 mins each coat) before applying the next coat, and whenever you can, support the curved shape of the scales by either laying it on the poster tube (I wrapped it up in plastic wrap to protect it, and did the same to my cutting board) as you do the top side, or hold it in place with other items lying around as you do the underside. This will enable the scales to harden in its curved shape, rather than hardening in a flatter shape.

After you’ve done about 2 coats on scale 1 and have allowed that to dry, you can cut out the thick lines you drew on it. This is so that the lines can be cut out while the parts between them remain firm. And you might have trouble cutting them if you left it after you sealed 7 or more coats. Continue applying the wood glue and remember to now apply it where you’ve cut the lines out.

I ended up applying about 7 coats on either side of each scale(its important to have the same amount on both sides because you don’t want one side to be softer than the other). Other than hardening the shape, the purpose of using wood glue is to seal the foam so that when you use spray paint later, it won’t eat away at the foam. I discovered that I hadn’t actually sealed it enough with 7 coats, so you might want to use more coats.

Here’s a trick: to get them to dry faster, place them under some lamps, but make sure you don’t leave it unattended or leave it for too long, because it’ll result in something akin to a blister in the glue and foam. if that happens, use your x-acto knife to basically perform surgery on the blister to cut it off, which will leave a hole. Try and fill that hole by layering wood glue in that area over and over again.

Optional: after you’ve fully sealed it, if you find that the scales are still a bit droopy and not really holding their shape, you might want to paper mache the underside of it. I was only really having trouble with scale 1 being droopy, and I figured that because it might make contact with my back (turns out it never did in the end), I needed to make it harder. In retrospect, I recommend you put a lot of paper mache on scale 4, because the tip of it was very susceptible to being bent. Especially if you are short like I am, you might sometimes kick it as you walk around.

Don’t do it on the top side. I did that with scale 1 and I am forever hating that decision because it results in the surface being bumpy, and as you can see with the result of the finished kagune, the varnish reflects a lot of light off the bumps. 

The main reason why I decided to use EVA foam instead paper-based things like cardboard or paper mache entirely, is so the surface could look super smooth and glossy.

Seal it with another 5 or so coats if you decide to paper mache.

Once you’re done, apply 2 or 3 layers of primer onto the scales, on both sides. (This guide helped me.)

(^scale 1 isn’t in the picture because I hadn’t primed it yet.)

Now take some newspaper, spray paint, the poster tube and the scales to a well ventilated area. I did mine in my front yard because it was the only well-ventilated area I had available to me, but if you’re able to do in an area where falling leaves and crawling/flying insects aren’t likely to land on your pant, do it there. But I will say it until the cows come home, make sure it’s well-ventilated. Don’t risk your lungs (and more importantly, don’t risk your pets’ wellbeing if they happen to frequent that area). Even if you can wear a mask, your pets can’t, and the fumes linger.

Also, if it’s a sunny day, remember to wear sunscreen! (I’m a mother hen, sorry.)

(I wrapped the poster tube in newspaper. Also wrapped some books in plastic bags to hold the newspapers down and to hold the scales in shape (because they were still a bit floppy, but it didn’t really matter after it was attached to the body of the kagune.)

I’ve never spray painted before, so I used this video as a guide.

If you decide that you want Naki’s kagune to be blue-green like in TG√A, just paint the top side that color, and the underside red.

This is the point where you use the oval sticky notes you kept from the stencil. Stick them on to cover the ovals on scale 2 before you spray paint, and peel it off when you’re done.

Once it’s all done and dry, varnish it with 4 coats, or until it’s as glossy as you want it. The more layers of varnish, the glossier it is. Allow each layer to dry before applying the next later. (Below, I varnished on a different day and used a painting sheet instead.)

And really, while you have to also do this in a well ventilated area (can you tell I’m trying to hammer this in?), try to avoid varnishing in an area exposed to nature, because while you have to sit outside and be paranoid about anything landing on the drying surface, you also have to be wary about rain. It started to drizzle (dried varnish is water resistant to some degree, but you still don’t want it to rain while it’s drying), and I had to hastily move everything inside. I was fumbling around my door and dropped scale 1 (it’s always scale 1 that suffers for some reason...) on my doormat, and spent half an hour picking off lint, cat fur, dirt and leaves. I had to spray paint it again to cover the stuff I couldn’t remove, and varnish it all over again.

And you’re done!