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The Hero’s Closet

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Published on December 10, 2014 at 512 × 512 in Large Blog Image

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Hey there!

I’m Gillian, a cosplayer, writer, editor, and occasional illustrator with an unruly fabric habit. I love patternmaking, fabric manipulation, embellishment, and big, ambitious projects.

My book The Hero’s Closet is available now!

Tifa’s sonic strikers done! I wanted to do somet

Tifa’s sonic strikers done! I wanted to do something different from her default glove set, and I happened to have bits and pieces of all four leather colors in my stash already. I also love the weird lines and padded details on this pair, which made for a nice little patternmaking challenge and construction puzzle.

These were started back when I did @kathleenconahan’s Tifa costume about a year ago, and when I finally dragged them back out last week it turned out there was only about a long weekend of work left in them. The entire pair is assembled by hand with lapped seams and bitty little backstitches, because hand sewing is relaxing and wrestling tiny little pieces of soft leather through my machine is not. I still have to give my spiffy new wheel-style roller foot a try, but that’ll have to be the next weird little project.

#finalfantasy7cosplay #ff7remake #tifacosplay #cosplaywip #cosplaybuild #glovemaking

Spent the weekend building Tifa’s heavy-duty sus

Spent the weekend building Tifa’s heavy-duty suspenders and I’m pretty pleased with how they came out! The straps are veg tan leather, dyed with water-based dye so I could do it at midnight in my living room. The wider tabs are a thin goatskin garment leather, with light buckram glued between the layers for stability and wool felt shoulder padding. There’s also a hidden bit of elastic in the shoulder so the rigid leather straps have some give to them; hoping this makes them a little more comfortable to wear and also helps them stay put with movement.
Still have to work out attaching them to the waistband/belt; I want them to be fully removable for convenience/washability but still accurate to the art. I think I’m going to make the belt next so I’ll have it for testing when I come back to these.
#cosplaycraft #tifalockhartcosplay #tifacosplay #cosmaker #cosplaywip #leathercrafting

I got a little bit sneaky with the closure for the

I got a little bit sneaky with the closure for the lower torso armor, since I wanted a seamless look with those wraparound straps but I also wanted to be able to...put it on. So the vest closes with a zipper from the back waist up to about shoulder blade height, which is completely covered by the back armor (sewn to a floating panel that’s caught in at the back neck and armholes.) After I zip down the back, the side straps wrap around and snap in front, and the chest strap closes with a swimsuit hook (which makes it more stable for attaching the shoulder armor and other junk later.)

The nifty thing is all that armor actually makes it a little easier to put on than the mock-up was, since it prevents the vest from bunching up as I wiggle into it. As long as all the attachments for the other pieces work out the way I’m hoping, I’ll be able to get into and out of this thing by myself.

The fit looks a little sloppy on the form because in real life I guess I’m a little broader and squarer through the ribs and upper back. I’m happy with how it fits on me, but I’m making a note of this before it comes back to bite me when I’m trying to drape something later.

#cosplayarmor #armorattachments #leatherarmor #fantasyarmor #cosplaycraft #cosplaywip

The payoff for my satin stitch hell on Ciri is now

The payoff for my satin stitch hell on Ciri is now I can dash off a pair of these little jerks in about three hours (give or take another hour of nitpicking the symmetry.)

This is one of those cute little details that some game artist probably thought nothing of and nobody in their right mind would EVER design on a real garment. See how the little emblem crosses a seam? I don’t do a lot of machine embroidery but I bet a lot of them would just outright choke on the differences in thickness there, and in any case you’d have a hell of a time hooping it because it has to be done on the almost-complete garment. If it was all on one piece, the embroidery could have been done flat, before assembly, and made everyone’s lives a little easier. As it is, the only other way to do this would have been to embroider a patch and sew it on. Which is not what it looks like in the art!

Of course, this is me, so I require very little prompting to dig out the hand embroidery needles. Seam lumps aside, this was a pretty straightforward little design without any additional padding or anything. The main trick was transferring the tiny design, and I ended up printing out a vector version and glue sticking it onto wax tracing paper. Then I used cardboard shims on each side of the seam to level the fabric enough for a clean transfer and cleaned up the result with a gel pen. The hardest part was maintaining symmetry, since the lines are so tiny that a tiny little difference in interpretation can significantly change the look of the result. They’re not perfect, but after some ripping and tinkering I’m calling them close enough!

#tifacosplay #cosplaywip #handembroidery #handsewing #cosplaydetails #cosprogress

Stealing my own thunder a bit but holy heck dudes

Stealing my own thunder a bit but holy heck dudes check it out. My sister @kathleenconahan commissioned me to make a Tifa for her as well, and while mine’s still in progress hers got shipped out at the beginning of this month. She just sent these photos of the whole thing (which are way radder than anything I can get while holed up in my brooklyn cave, lbr) and I’m beside myself with glee.

Kathleen made her own earrings, materia wristband, and gloves, with hand-etched aluminum plates. I made the skort, tops, leather vambrace, belt/suspenders, socks, and arm warmers. 📸 by @jeremysilvertongue

#tifacosplay #tifalockhartcosplay #ff7cosplay #ffviicosplay #finalfantasycosplay #leatherarmor #cosplayarmor #cosplaycommission

After a couple years of doing lots of heavy leathe

After a couple years of doing lots of heavy leatherwork and armor and not a lot of bright colors, I wanted to pick something completely different for my next build. The new project is almost purely needlework, with lots of fiddly hand sewing and crunchy construction, but it’s definitely not a comfort zone build and she’s got a couple of surprises in store. *evil cackles*

Anyway, please enjoy some padstitching while I work on the sleeves and wait for the collar binding fabric to show up.

#cosplaywip #cosplaysewing #cosprogress #handtailoring #handsewing #padstitching #coatmaking

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