Kudakitsune and Yuffie cosplay props
Back before Wai-con caught up with us, I was planning on posting a couple of pictures of some of the props and such I'd been making. ObviousIy this wound up as one of thost things didn't find the time for, and just about everyone would have seen these already at the con by now. But if anyone's interested in seeing some of the detail that probably won't come out in con photos or hearing me ramble about how things were made, here they are anyway:
A series which I've fallen madly in love with in the past few months is CLAMP's xxxHolic, which features, amongst other things, an adorable little critter called the kudakitsune, or pipe fox. As a little fun project after I'd gotten my Yuffie costume mostly done, I thought I'd have a go at making one of my own.
He's over a metre long and only a few centimetres wide -as you can probably imagine, turning him inside out after I'd finished sewing him up took quite a while. But the best part of this thing is that, thanks to another length of the same wire we used on the Heartless plushie, he's entirely posable, and can be wrapped around arms and necks and such (which are, of course, the kudakitsune's natural habitat ^_~).
And a couple more close up shots of the head:
Since he didn't really go with my costume he wound up sitting on our table for most of the con, and with all the other clutter I don't think he got noticed much. Still, he seemed to go down well with the few other xxxHolic fans I ran into. I'm thinking of making a few more of him to sell at next years Wai-con since he really wasn't all that much work. We'll see how that goes.
On to more relevant props, here's the giant shuriken I made to go with my Kingdom Hearts II Yuffie costume:
Made out of foam core boards, craft foam and sheet plastic [insert worship of Amethyst Angel's prop making tutorials here]. The paint job to give it the tarnished look was done by my ever talented little sis Lisa, who's put up a tutorial based on it here, if anyone's interested in seeing how she does it. The green materia were salvaged from a Christmas decoration. I had pink ribbons wrapped around the arms on the first day of the con to give it the AC/KHII look, but I took them off for the second day since I was back to the original FFVII Yuffie costume by then.
Since it's mostly hollow this thing's a lot lighter than it probably looks, and balances beautifully - you can twirl it around a finger and it'll spin like a pinwheel. The design for this was basically a scaled down copy of nekomiao's even more giant Dirge of Cerebrus version. It took a week or two to make (although it must be said, after making the conformer earlier this year, this thing was a pushover. ^^;)
Not a prop, but I was proud of how these turned out, so here are a couple of pictures of the boots from the first day too:
I know knee high boots exist, but I couldn't for the life of me track down a pair - let alone in a colour that would match my shorts - so I wound up modding a pair of ankle-high converse style sneakers to make these. I've never made shoes for cosplay before, so these were very much an experiemental job, and I'm seriously thrilled that they came out so well. The main trick involved a layer of craft foam under the fabric to help make it sit neatly and give them that stiffer look. There was a lot of work in these, but I'd have to say they were worth every minute. ^_^
Up close you can see probably a few flaws, and they needed a little straightening by the time this picture was taken because I'd been wearing them all day, but the only shame about wearing them was that I don't think many people at the con spotted the fact they'd been hand made at all. ^^;
A series which I've fallen madly in love with in the past few months is CLAMP's xxxHolic, which features, amongst other things, an adorable little critter called the kudakitsune, or pipe fox. As a little fun project after I'd gotten my Yuffie costume mostly done, I thought I'd have a go at making one of my own.
He's over a metre long and only a few centimetres wide -as you can probably imagine, turning him inside out after I'd finished sewing him up took quite a while. But the best part of this thing is that, thanks to another length of the same wire we used on the Heartless plushie, he's entirely posable, and can be wrapped around arms and necks and such (which are, of course, the kudakitsune's natural habitat ^_~).
And a couple more close up shots of the head:
Since he didn't really go with my costume he wound up sitting on our table for most of the con, and with all the other clutter I don't think he got noticed much. Still, he seemed to go down well with the few other xxxHolic fans I ran into. I'm thinking of making a few more of him to sell at next years Wai-con since he really wasn't all that much work. We'll see how that goes.
On to more relevant props, here's the giant shuriken I made to go with my Kingdom Hearts II Yuffie costume:
Made out of foam core boards, craft foam and sheet plastic [insert worship of Amethyst Angel's prop making tutorials here]. The paint job to give it the tarnished look was done by my ever talented little sis Lisa, who's put up a tutorial based on it here, if anyone's interested in seeing how she does it. The green materia were salvaged from a Christmas decoration. I had pink ribbons wrapped around the arms on the first day of the con to give it the AC/KHII look, but I took them off for the second day since I was back to the original FFVII Yuffie costume by then.
Since it's mostly hollow this thing's a lot lighter than it probably looks, and balances beautifully - you can twirl it around a finger and it'll spin like a pinwheel. The design for this was basically a scaled down copy of nekomiao's even more giant Dirge of Cerebrus version. It took a week or two to make (although it must be said, after making the conformer earlier this year, this thing was a pushover. ^^;)
Not a prop, but I was proud of how these turned out, so here are a couple of pictures of the boots from the first day too:
I know knee high boots exist, but I couldn't for the life of me track down a pair - let alone in a colour that would match my shorts - so I wound up modding a pair of ankle-high converse style sneakers to make these. I've never made shoes for cosplay before, so these were very much an experiemental job, and I'm seriously thrilled that they came out so well. The main trick involved a layer of craft foam under the fabric to help make it sit neatly and give them that stiffer look. There was a lot of work in these, but I'd have to say they were worth every minute. ^_^
Up close you can see probably a few flaws, and they needed a little straightening by the time this picture was taken because I'd been wearing them all day, but the only shame about wearing them was that I don't think many people at the con spotted the fact they'd been hand made at all. ^^;