#posts by moi

Originally I was only supposed to be Lili for Cait’s big Yona group, but I had a friend who, in the past, I had talked about doing Yona and King Il with. @toyaniisama was also going to Colossalcon and so I dragged him into the group for fun, and he commissioned me to make his robes and accessories. However!!!! I ended up finding the PERFECT fabric to make Yona’s birthday kimono and basically bit off almost more than I could chew. I bought the fabric and made plans with our Hak and Soowon cosplayers ( @thecaitsmeowww and himinty on instagram) to do a little photoshoot together before the large group shoot.

Now, when I had made the underdresses for fancy Lili and Yona, I had made them to fit both me and Nana so we could switch characters when we wanted to. They required a little bit of extra rigging in order to make them work for two different outfits, but in the end I saved a lot of time and money just reusing the underdresses from the cover art designs! Lili’s new top is made from white peachskin and is sewn to the waist of the underdress, leaving the original top hanging on the inside, but still attached. Yona’s dress just needed sleeves, and those were done easily enough.

Lili’s overskirt is a circle skirt that is finished off with a “waistband” and a snap placket for stability, and then fastened just over the bust. The lavender bias tape hides the seam and the hook and bar closures, to make it look like its only being held in place by a flimsy little ribbon.

King Il’s robes and hat were simple to sew since I had done all the time consuming parts a month prior, aka all the cutting and fitting and patterning. I knew exactly how to craft the hat and therefore was able to guide @automb to do the actual handsewing while I focused on the more complicated parts of the cosplays.

The hat base is formed from a spiral braided cloche I bought for cheap. After ripping the brim off, I was left with a simple dome. The bottom was lengthened with some buckram and a back piece, also made of buckram, was attached to create the nested dome look that King Il’s hat had. The whole thing was covered in several layers of black and red mesh, and then bound off in bias tape. The tassels were then strung on chain and attached to two wooden chopsticks, slipped into the hat, and then cemented into place with a piece of thermoplastic.

King Il’s necklace was made with a gold hoop that had tassels already attached, which I covered with more thermoplastic (the kind I use is called Terraflex, which I like since I can pick it up instore at the Tandy’s Leather near where I live) and then primed, painted and sealed, then hooking the beads and chains on.

The robes are made up of an inner kimono held in place with a obi sash, and an outer robe made of this really nice, matte suiting. I was told later by Stephen that the robes were really comfortable to wear and fit perfectly, so I’m really happy with how they came out!!!

Birthday Yona was its own special nightmare in comparison to Lili and King Il. I used up most of the week I had to finish up Lili and King Il, plus a couple of other cosplays I had planned to wear at the con, and ended up with one day to sew the whole damn thing, underdress excluded.

Luckily by the time I had started sewing Yona’s outer robe and her inner kimono, I had already finished making her birthday tiara and the hairpin Soowon had gifted her in episode 1. I used Terraflex for everything except the beads, and cursed Soowon from the day he was born for having such garbage taste in jewelry.

You can see in my WIP photos that I made the flower from individually cut and placed flower petals (37 petals to be exact) on another chopstick base. The leaves  and butterfly I formed and attached once the main flower was done, and the entire hairpin measures to just under 7 inches in length. I think the trickiest part of making this stupid hairpin was that each petal was so small (about 1cm wide per petal) and the flower itself was about 2 inches wide when completed, so trying to control the heat from the heatgun and keep the flower from melting into mush while making sure the plastics had bonded was just. It was like the opposite of fun. It made me wonder why I was putting so much effort into a dinky little prop but my need for hairpin pictures overcame my hatred for evil little petaled flowers.

The tiara had a similar problem as the hairpin did with the melting and the flower shape when I added in new petals and leaves, but it went a lot easier than the hairpin did. The hairpin took like 15 something hours to complete, but the tiara only took like 5 or 6. Both pieces were primed with spray gesso and then painted in acrylics, gilded with gold paint, and then sealed. My hatred for Soowon was once again reignited when I realized I had to gild a tiny line on the edge of every leaf, petal, and butterfly wing on the evil hairpin. I was so happy with how it turned out in the end though, that all the sweat and blood that went into Yona’s accessories was totally worth it!

Now, for Yona’s inner kimono!! The tricky bit for her inner kimono was in the way it had been structured. The top half is your classic left over right look on a kimono, but below the obi sash the robe splits into two solid panels at the front and back, with a break in the seams at the side. I dealt with this by having the top half essentially act as a wrap top, and having one side “lengthened” with the front panel and when it was all attached and covered with the obi, I had the illusion of what looked to be Yona’s magic anime inner kimono.

The worst part of Yona’s outer robe was of how little I had of the fabric to work with. I had four yards with a beautiful, complicated design that was similar to a border print, except it wasn’t weighted to the edge, it was weighted to the center of the yardage. Figuring out how to lay my pattern pieces to have all the designs match up at the seams, while making sure the designs were placed at the correct levels of the robe (clustered around the hems and sleeves) and trying to squeeze out enough for a full length robe was like a walking fever dream. Not to mention that the fabric had color gradients mingled in behind the design for extra fun times.

The material was also a weird satin stretch that made it difficult to lay out perfectly. In the end, I made the robe interfaced and lined throughout to help give it a bit of weight, so it could drape nice and smooth on my body. I really couldn’t have finished this particular piece without my friends helping me pin this evil fabric together and ironing each piece for me as I cut it out. I’ll always be eternally grateful to you three for helping me out in my time of need!!!!!!!

I think that’s most of what I wanted to cover in this post! I’m kicking myself because although I made earrings for Yona, I forgot to put them on in the rush of getting ready 😞 My wigs are both from Arda, a styled Nina for Lili and a trimmed Luthien for Yona!! I wish you can see more of Lili’s hair accessory on the back of her head, but you can see pictures of that on my cosplay blog.

If there’s anything else you want me to elaborate on with or any questions you have on anything I’ve done here that I might have missed, please feel free to send an ask!!! 🌸