Murumuru cosplay - the final touch! (a small wig tutorial)

Murumuru's costume was super easy to make...until I started to work on the wig, which was a disaster.  My original plan was to attach the two LONG ponytails I purchased from Arda wigs to my Eruka wig.  Let's just say that it didn't work out very well, the Eruka wig had to be preserved for the second appearance of my Eruka cosplay and it was way too thin to work with.  So I had to purchase another wig last minute from cosplay.com (due to the fact that Arda was closed Q_Q).  

The wig took way too long to arrive.  It got shipped out after I made a paypal dispute with cosplay.com.  So, don't buy from them.  

Here's the wig untouched.  It was a lot darker than the "silver" ponytails from Arda.  The quality of the wig was pretty good, except that they stitched up the eyelets in the back where you could adjust the size of your wig.  tsk tsk

Murumuru has this weird bang thing going on where it lifts up and makes a little pocket thingie (this is hard to explain Q_Q) kind of like Sephiroth's hair.  It took me ages to find a tutorial on how to make this happen, but I did find a Japanese tutorial HERE.  It uses a frozen glass bottles to form heated fibers.  Aslo..apparently this type of hair is called the middle M letter (途中Ｍ字).

so I took some hair, heated it up with my hair dryer and then rolled it down with a frozen glass tube I found. Then I teased the down side of the section and brushed the top smooth.  Hair spray was then applied to keep the shape of the "M".

Done with both sides.

I have to say, I thought my job was done after this since the ponytails were clip-on.  I was totally WRONG. There was no way on earth those heavy clip on ponytails were going to stay on that wig.  Especially when I have to make outer decorations for them. 

taken from THIS POST on cosplay.com

Now, the image above is where I got my inspiration to make my ponytails.  However, instead caulk, I used hot glue.  I know that some of you are probably frowning at this point, but I was in such a time crunch that I had to use whatever dried the fastest.  I made two little stubs on the wig and hotglued them to harden.  Then, I took the clips off of my ponytails and carved two pieces of pink insulation foams to fit/hotglue into the ponytails.  Last but not least, copious amount of hot glue were applied to the foam and the stub to hold both together.  You have to be VERY patient and hold the ponytails up until all of the hotglue is dried.  The drying process took about 10min.

After attaching the ponytails, you will notice that your wig has gotten so heavy that it is impossible to put on. Do not worry!  Just sew some wig clips in the front and you are good to go!  It will just hurt a little bit because your hair line will get pulled back really tightly.

Photo courtesy of  David Song

Photo by Stuart

and Voila!  My entire costume :D  More photos will come since Katsuya Weller is awesome and has posted some preview shots of our Mirai Nikki photoshoot already! 

Cosplay Progress - Minene Uryuu Dress

I have finally started making significant progress (enough to warrant a blog post, anyway), so I give you the more-or-less complete Minene Uryuu dress!

Or Uryuu Minene. Whichever. Point being, she likes to blow shit up.

To start, I decided to order a frilly pink dress from Bodyline, because 1) I don't know how to make a dress from scratch and 2) I think I had a hidden desire to completely shred pink lace, because I did so with great pleasure.

So let me begin by saying that I ordered what I later found to be the completely wrong dress for this cosplay. Could I do it over again and save myself much anguish, I would, but instead I took advice from Tim Gunn and decided to "make it work."

Pink is not my friend. Time to take down this lace monstrosity.

It took quite a while to get all of the pink lace off the dress. Here is the result.

I'm pretty sure there was more lace than dress in that thing.

After realizing that the dress was completely not suited to this cosplay and having a brief moment of panic, Mimi had the brilliant idea that I could just turn the dress around backwards so the zipper was in the front and then just alter the neckline from there. Crisis averted! I also cut off the waist tie and altered such that it is a removable velcroed piece.

Just so.

Altered neckline and inevitable mirror picture, huzzah!

Then I had to take in the sleeves pretty heavily, they were way too wide. I used leftover scraps from the waist tie to make the hairpiece. You know what's awkward? When you walk outside to get the mail and forget you're still wearing that hair accessory.

I can stand in the bathroom and hold a camera in front of my face, too! Look how edgy I am.

I'm sorry. The sarcasm doesn't have an off switch.

So what have I learned while making this cosplay?

1) If you're going to alter clothing, make sure you get the right clothing to begin with.

2) Rulers are your friends.

2) Don't try to sew into the dress while you're still wearing it. Just... don't.

And now I just need to make socks like this. And kick Yuno in the face.

Contact and wig reviews for this cosplay will be forthcoming, mostly because 1) I want to wait as long as I can to open the contacts, and 2)I have learned from bitter experience (read: Medusa) that the less you mess with a wig, the easier your life will be.

Now it is time to work on Black★Gold Saw, also known as "how in the hell am I going to make a six foot sword out of insulation foam."

~Kathryn