“Please let me join your p-p-party!”
Construction Notes:
Stella introduced me to the super funny anime of the season, KonoSuba! It had been a while since I had watched an anime that was just so many levels of ridiculous. Darkness fit my recent cosplay trend of blonde or orange, and her dedication to defend her friends from cabbage really made her a fun character to cosplay for me. I love being apart of cosplay groups, there is so much fun to be had.
Quick Jumps:
•Wig
•Black Undersuit
•Chest Piece
•Pauldron 1
•Pauldron 2
•Orange Skirt
•Boots
•Sword
The wig is Arda’s Classic Jeannie in Fairy Blonde (CL-056). I really wanted to finally order a small from them, but they only had regular so I took it in in the bottom back an inch or so by hand sewing it. I re-parted the bangs by heat training them. I spiked them with a bit of Tub ‘n Tile so they’d keep their shape. I also trimmed up the long ponytail clip that came with it to a more accurate length. Once it was styled I ombre dip dyed the side bangs and ponytail clip with the smallllllest amount of iDye in Red. I ended up just taking a bottom part of the ponytail clip and braiding it and wrapping it around the ponytail clip when it was on me to complete her look.
Darkness’s black under suit is just a turtleneck bodysuit I purchased off of Amazon. I used a pair of black leggings and a black maxi skirt I already had in my closet. The black hand gloves were also purchased online. I was working with a very tight deadline and these were very simple items to buy.
The chest piece was patterned by wrapping myself in plastic wrap and masking tape. I had Toggle draw out the correct shape of the chest piece and it’s trimmings. I converted this pattern to card stock and tried it on once again to make sure I had all my markings where I wanted them. I then transferred this to craft foam, and covered it in Black Worbla.The cups were made by layering 2 pieces of Worbla on top of a clear plastic half ornament. To make sure the release was fine I ended up using a small dab of olive oil on the surface of plastic. I have 2 pairs of D rings under each arm that I tie together once I’m in it. I managed to glue and sandwich a zipper into the back of the chest piece with the worbla. It has car door jam tubing placed on top as the trim. I used super glue to keep it down, but it didn’t end up holding well during the convention, so I’d recommend E600 instead. It was painted in regular white spray paint and Design Master Colortool in Orange and Design Master TintIT in Sunflower. Note that the rubber tubing did not want to keep the paint on it. If you were to follow my example I would sand down the tubing so it was more receptive to taking the paint. I made a red bow out of bias tape and glued it to the front. The gem on the front is a print from our FormLabs Form 1+, Aang. It’s colored with Colortool in Orange and attached with E600.
The right shoulder piece was made the same as the chest piece. I started with a paper pattern I free handed, then I transferred it to craft foam. Using the sandwiching technique, I did the base shape, then covered the edges in tape and traced out my edging. I converted that over to foam and sandwiched it between worbla as well. I attached the two just using the Worbla’s natural tackiness when heated. Using worbla scraps, I cut out 2 strips to feed through my 2 buckles on the back of the pauldron. I sewed the opposing snaps directly onto my black bodysuit. It’s painted with Design master Colortool in Brilliant Silver, weathered with acrylics, and top coated.
The left shoulder was made completely out of EVA foam. Toggle completely free handed the wing shape, and used the dremel to soften the edges. We also placed a buffer piece of EVA foam on the inside so it rested at the right position on my arm. This one is attached to my shirt with a set of D-Rings and some bias tape sewn onto my bodysuit. It’s colored with regular white spray paint and top coated. Pieces also made out of EVA foam includes the skirt armor and the belt. Giant googly eyes were used for the studs on the belt and it attaches with snaps. The skirt armor is attached with velcro.
The orange and white high waisted skirt started with the bottom half of Simplicity’s 3501 Pattern, as it matched the seam placement. I omitted the godets from the original pattern and adjusted the front panel to match the diamond tipped tabard look. I transferred the pattern to the orange fabric, which is Sew Classics Knit Ponte in Gold from Joanns. I took the first pattern I made, and outlined the white pieces and cut it out to then transfer onto my white fabric, which is left over fabric from my wedding dress! It’s a lightly ribbed polyester I found in the LA Fabric District. The white trim and the white lining are the same fabric. For the lining I was sure to put boning channels in with white single fold bias tape and spiral steel boning to really cinch in my waist and make the skirt lay extra flat. Having the fabric not bunch at the waist really gives it a cartoony feel and is much better for the silhouette overall. I attached the trim to the orange and then the orange to the lining. I was getting poofing issues though, so I went back and top stitched all the edges as well as stitched in the ditch for the edge of where the orange met white trim. There is just an invisible zipper up the back, which I attached to the lining via stitch witch. The arm guards are made of the white fabric and Symphony Broadcloth Cotton in Dark Orange from Joanns. They’re pretty simple rectangles which are filled with a bit of cotton batting to stay plump. The white cord is tacked directly to the orange with thread.
The base shoes are white kids dress shoes (Josmo Oxfords) that I painted with DM Colortool in Brilliant Silver. Yaya Han’s 4-Way Pleather in Silver matches is PERFECTLY. I covered the laced in a piece of foam covered in the pleather, glued on to the pleather with E600. One side of the foam is directly glued to the shoe and the other side has velcro so I can move it to get to the laces. I made just a simple sock out of the pleather for me to wear with the shoes to give them an illusion of being boots.
Darkness’s sword was modeled by Toggle in Autodesk Maya. It’s split into 8 pieces for easy printing. At the time we didn’t have a PLA printer of our own, so we hired out someone’s. Toggle included connectable parts to line up the blade and connected them with super glue. We tried out 2 part bondo (we now recommend using the 1 party spot putty from the tube) and XTC-3D to prep the sword. He primed, sanded, colored and weathered it for me. I really love the leather like look he was able to achieve with the handle.
LilyBat Cosplay 