how to

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Queen of Blades tutorial Step Seven: Molding the smaller pieces (or: how to make stone molds!)

Now, one of the things that was the least stressful for me, stone molds. The basics of making a mold (no undercuts, mold line, the dreaded clay wall…) are covered in the fiberglass mold tutorial, so check that out first, I’m just sticking to what makes a good stone mold in this.

As with the fiberglass molds, make sure there is a key in the stone part of the mold, to help line up the mold with the inner piece when you’re casting. Put a layer of clay covered with saran wrap under your sculpture so that the details aren’t ruined by laying on the table, and make sure to mark out your mold line with a sharpie. Continue reading →

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Final touches on American McGee’s Alice costume: how to

So I finally got around to finishing my American McGee’s Alice costume, it was pretty quick and so here’s a quick tutorial!

Here’s the first part, if you haven’t seen it!

Now, all that I was missing was the skull and necklace. I may have made the skirt a little long; I had intended for it to be shorter with the use of a petticoat but I have not been able to find one locally that suits my needs yet. The one I have makes the skirt HUGE and bell shaped, so that was out of the question.

I had the boots already, Pleaser makes them, but you could probably easily modify a pair of flat knee high boots by attaching several buckles up the length of them. The striped white and black socks I got from a pirate festival, but you can find striped white and black stockings anywhere around Halloween time, or maybe at Hot Topic when it’s not Halloween.

For the skull, we were going to sculpt it out of foam, but came across the perfect skull at Spirit Halloween– it looks really goofy in the above photo (got it off of Spirit’s website) but in person, the jaw was closed and from the front, it was the perfect shape. We cut it in half just behind the jawbone with a vibratory saw, cleaned up the edge with an exacto knife, and painted the eyes a bit more black. Then, I glued the bottom jaw to the top with hot glue, hot glued in a piece of rolled up Magic Sculpt as a rod to attach it to the bow, and then attached it with a piece of velcro.

We couldn’t really find any Omega necklaces, so I printed out an image of the Omega symbol, then used Magic Sculpt to use that as a guide to sculpt it out. We made it about two inches wide.

Make sure to give it a nice shape on the front! Hers is more flat, I think, but we ended up giving it a more dimensional shape. Before it hardens, stick a piece of eye wire in there with a loop at the end so you can put it on a chain. When it hardens in a few hours, paint it silver, and stick it on a chain!

Oh, and the wig! I used Arda Wig’s Inigo in dark brown- I think it ended up being a little too short, but I’m pretty happy with it. It is slightly wavy, so what I did was slowly straighten the hair on a low setting with a straightening iron.

Here you can see it half straightened. Also gently brush the bangs to either side, similar to Alice’s in the game, and there you go!

Socks!

I hope this was helpful to you guys, and if you’re interested in commissioning an Omega necklace from us, let us know! We’ll gladly make you one!

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Guest post: How to make Devil May Cry Dante’s Rebellion Sword

(Today’s tutorial is a guest post from Kevin of Miccostumes.com!)

Dante’s Rebellion sword is sought after by many cosplay fans. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how I made my own Rebellion sword. With this tutorial, you will be able to make it personally.

 Required materials: carbon fiber tube, airplane board, plastic board, pearl board, water putty, acryl pigment, paint spraying outfit including drawing utensil, utility knife (a small one and a big one), white latex, hot melt glue, AB glue (being transparent, it can harden in 4 minutes), abrasive paper (No. 100 to 400 should be all prepared) and watercolor utensil.  Continue reading →

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How to: make American McGee’s Alice 2 Dress

In celebration of American McGee’s Alice 2: Madness Returns coming out today (June 14th!), I decided to see if I could make Alice’s classic dress and apron, and learn to sew in the process. Yes, that’s right, I’ve never sewn an entire costume from start to finish. Most of the fully sewn costumes that I’ve done, I’ve had help from Mario or his mother. So, I decided that I’m going to learn to sew so that I don’t have to ask for help in that department anymore, and I did some research and bought my materials.

(Make sure to check out part two, here!)

Continue reading →

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How to: make the Golden Staff of the Sin’dorei

A good friend of mine and Alice’s had asked us to make a staff to go along with her awesome Blood Elf costume. She felt that we could help her with this and the following is a pretty quick tutorial on a pretty simple cosplay prop.


Golden Staff of the Sin’Dorei was the requested prop. I was a little heasitaint at first because she asked to make the gems glow!  Overall the design is pretty simple and I was in luck becouse I had just picked up a new scroll saw at a garage sale for $50 bucks!!! Continue reading →

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How to: Make a helm from fiberglass (Char version)

A good friend of Alice’s asked if we would take on a commission for a rather unique and truly identifiable helmet.

Char Aznable from the Gundam Universe.

Finish product before shipping!!  I am aware that there are a few flaws in the helm that have far more to do with my inexperience, then any thing with my process. The following tutorial will show both how I made this helmet and a few tips to avoid a few mistakes I made along the way. Continue reading →

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How to: plan your cosplay costume!

(This post was written by our newest member of Arms, Armor, and Awesome: Skylar, of Lyeric cosplay. You can check her out here!)

Hey everyone! Here is a quick note with some tips on how to prepare and plan your future masterpiece!

This will be a two part tutorial, the second part being about preparing patterns and materials.

The preparation stage of costume creation is probably the most important. If you plan well, it will be much easier, and the whole your experience will be less stressful and more successful. Really, it’s all about researching and organizing!

Tip 1: Gathering Reference Pictures!  

Now is the time to surf the internet to find your references. You should find as many reference pictures as possible. A great cosplay is as accurate as possible. The best thing you can do to guarantee accuracy is to find as many angles as possible. Save this pictures to a folder and print them out. This way you don’t have to run back and forth to your computer.   If you are creating a Warcraft costume, I recommend using www.wowhead.com. They have this great View in 3D feature. To collect the picture, just press Print Screen on the top of your keyboard, and paste the image into MS Paint/Photoshop (whichever you choose). You can also use WoW model viewer.

Tip 2: Decide what details are crucial and which you can be flexible on. 

Accuracy is a great thing, but remember, just because it is like that in game/drawn that way doesn’t mean it works like that in the real world.  This is when your artistic liberty comes into effect! Make it work. Another thing too: search through Deviantart and other pages to see how artists draw this costume. This can give you an idea on how to alter the costume to make it more realistic.

Tip 3:  Ask yourself if this is a costume you can realistically build.

I know there are many amazing costume potentials out there, but make sure it’s within your skill level. If you pick something way to difficult, you most likely will become frustrated and unhappy with it and quit (trust me).

Tip 4: Study your pictures and pick out what material will best suit that aspect of the costume.

Fabric choice, material choice and painting are critical! So make sure you take the time and effort to find out these things. It makes a world of a difference. Also- be prepared! Make a list of things you need to buy in order to create this costume. For some materials (example paper mache) you need a sander to make a smooth surface. Think ahead!

Tip 5: Take risks!

This is the best piece of advice I can give you. If you don’t take risks you will never learn. By taking these risks you can find your own techniques on how to construct items that you may not be able to find on the internet. So take chances! What’s the worst that could happen?

So, this is just a small note of advice I can give you. I hope it can help you a little bit! Part 2 is on its way.

Good luck, and happy costuming!

Lyeric♪


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Witch Doctor collar and other things that go around the neck!

This post will cover the Witch Doctor’s neck rings, leather collar thing (is there a name for that? I dunno.), and necklaces. (Also, the picture above has a different mask than the one I made, I just used it because it has a close up on the necklaces.) Continue reading →

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Female Witch Doctor Clothing (or, the easiest thing I’ve ever sewn)

After squinting at and studying the female witchdoctor concept art for a few weeks, I finally felt sure of what kind of fabric it was I was looking for. Mario and I made a trip out to our local JoAnns, and proceeded to wander around with our cellphones out and the picture up, holding up the picture to every reddish fabric we could find. We decided that it needed to be a good stretchy fabric that would fray and rip nicely, and it didn’t take us long to find it. We only got two yards because really, the costume doesn’t call for a lot of fabric. We also got leather lacing in the same color (lucky for us that it matched so well!), some beads that looked like they were similar to the one in the picture, and a button/claw thing that looked like a tooth that isn’t in the picture, but would help secure the skirt onto me so that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything falling off, since the leather lacing is kind of hard to tie (and would be bulky under the skirt anyway, and I didn’t trust a simple clasp to hold this heavy skirt up. Continue reading →