“Alucard they called me. The opposite of you.”
Construction Notes:
Castlevania took us completely by storm. I had never played, nor had any interest in, the Castlevania series before we stumbled upon it on Netflix summer of 2017. 4 episodes later and Toggle Photography and I were completely hooked! The beautiful animation, fun wit, and crazy tight story line made us watch it again and again. It only made sense for us to want to cosplay for it at Katsucon 2018, and pray for a chance of getting canon shots in the snow.
I built both Sypha Belnades and Trevor Belmont costumes as part of my yearly 30 day Katsucon Countdown, and paid extra attention to Trevor as his costume had the most details. Later in 2019 I built Alucard to complete the trio!
Quick Jumps:
•Wig
•Coat
•Top
•Pants
•Boots
•Gloves
•Sword
The base wig is a Wig is Fashion LF323. It was so hard for me to decide upon a color, because in unlit promotional art Alucard’s hair is so platinum, but in most scenes in the show, he’s more of a golden, ashen blonde. The process for this wig was: Section out the bangs, steam them upside down. Section out small bits of the fibers that will be the clean parts to overlay on the teased area so it looks clean. Take the middle chunk of the bang, hairspray and tease it to get volume. Lay the nice fibers over, using pins/sticks as needed to hold the front bangs in place, spray them with Got2Bglued Hairspray and set it with heat from a hair dryer.
I started off with Yaya Han and Cosplay by McCall’s M7374 view B as a base. I did a much bigger collar from scratch, got rid of the front flap, and took the front seam in by a few inches on each side. The coat doesn’t close, but it looks the same as the show visually, which is what matters more to me. I ended up taking in the seams on the sleeves for a slimmer, more flattering look. I also have a shoulder pat placed in there as well.⠀
The wool was originally bought for Sypha but I realized it was much too dark! I’ve been sitting on it for a year worrying I’d spent all this money and it would never get repurposed. Luckily it died pretty easily! It ended up weighing 2 pounds so I used 2 bottles of regular Rit Dye in Black with 1 cup of vinegar in 6 gallons of water.
The lining is flipped in the WIPs to show off the gorgeous gold pleather I got from Spandex World. The sleeves are Joann’s Sew Classic Silky Solid Jacquard in Sandstorm. I decided to line the sleeves in this fabric so his arms could slip in easily and it wouldn’t get too hot under the wool.
I literally just sewed a square for this shirt! Men are so stupid easy to sew for!
But in all seriousness this wasn’t a hard shirt to draft. I started with a pretty square base, added a V-neck, normal armholes, and just straight unfitted “bell” sleeves. I took it in at the waist just a fraction of an inch, and I blind hem stitched the bottom and the ends of the sleeves. I added in a neckline facing (serging the edges, and under-stitching it to the collar of the shirt) of the same material. ⠀
I used Simplicity’s 1039 as the base pattern for the pants. These originally had a fly up the front, but I omitted that and moved the closure to an invisible zipper up the side. I did a mockup, slimmed up the legs and added more height to the waist. Once the mockup fit, I cut it up and transferred it to my 2 way black stretch sateen with chalk. I cut it out, and serged all the seams. For the zipper side, instead of serging the two side pieces together, I serged both raw edges, installed the zipper, then went back and straight stitched up the side. This makes the seams by my zipper clean! Don’t forget to baste in invisible zippers by hand first and iron them out!
Once my pants were sewn together, and the zipper was installed, I added in a fold-over waistband. I made sure to interface one side of the waistband to give it structure. You can see in a WIP photo the extra edge the back of the waistband gets ironed over, so I had something to catch when I stitched in the ditch on the front side. I tried to color code what side was what since I show both the inside and outside of each in that photo. A hook and eye finished out the waistband.
I found a base pair of black ankle high boots on Amazon with a similar heel and toe for Alucard. Using the tried and true plastic wrap and masking tape method, I came up with a base shape for the boot covers. I increased the size so it wasn’t so skin tight and moved it over to muslin to finalize the size and details.
I transferred the mockup pattern to my 4 Way Vinyl spandex, cut and interfaced with featherweight. I sewed up the front, marked out my eyelets and placed them in. I attached a facing of the same fabric to the top edge, then glued the seam allowance down, after I had pinking sheared it, in a makeshift under-stitch attempt. ⠀⠀
The 4 Way Vinyl is really troublesome to top-stitch, so I ended up using a Teflon foot, with Sewer’s Aid, with Wonder Clips and sewn onto a paper towel, which got torn off after. The straps were hand stitched to the front, and sewn into the invisible zipper in the back.The laces are a champagne leather cord, cut and glued into the back of the eyelet.
The gloves are done in the same (sticky) fabric as the Boot Covers, 4 Way Vinyl. The base glove was done using the trace your hand and sew around it method. Nothing fancy. Toggle is modeling them for the WIPs, but Woodwarder has slightly longer hands so they fit more snug. I free handed the cuffs, the base shape can be seen in the top left of a WIP photo. They are interfaced, serged, and have a lining that was under-stitched down. ⠀⠀
Toggle modeled, printed (in PLA), sanded, and painted the golden details. I scored the back of each 3D piece with a razor and did the same to the fabric so that the E6000 glue had something to catch onto.
Alucard’s sword was completely modeled and made by Woodwarder! Please go check out his instagram for WIPs and if you’d like, you can purchase the 3D Print File Here. He also made the Morning Star Whip for Toggle’s Trevor Belmont!
LilyBat Cosplay 