I first played The Idolm@ster 2 in early 2013. I knew that I wanted to make Takane’s Starry costume from the moment I saw it, but it seemed impossible at the time. Still, I never stopped thinking about it. Years later, with some encouragement from friends, I decided that I would make it happen.
Starry, as one of the three main costumes in the game, has a number of color variations. This version, Binary Star R&B, was an easy choice for me. Not only does it include my favorite colors (there’s a reason that so many of my costumes are pink or blue!), but my phone’s wallpaper used to be this official art of Takane from the card game Weiss Schwarz: http://67.media.tumblr.com/f5748575cdc38ead53ae7b7b0a36c199/tumblr_o7c5a8EQI51urt4v1o1_1280.jpg
There was never any question that I would need to take some liberties with the design. The first major concession that I made was only doing lights on the dress. In the game, the lights on the sleeves and shoes are also flashing, but there was just no practical way for me to do that. The next concession was adding straps. With all of the weight from the lights and everything, there was no way that the dress would have stayed up without them. I initially used invisible straps, but they were not strong enough, so I replaced them. Since they follow lines that already exist on the dress, I think they look very natural. These two liberties brought the costume a lot closer to reality.
It was also a great help that I did not have to do any of my own electronics. I remember just enough from my electronics classes in school that I probably could have made it work, but I decided to do some research into alternatives before I started heating up the soldering iron. It turns out that there are some decent string LEDs available. The ones I ended up using were from Homestarry. With that name, it must have been destiny. They are basically like Christmas lights in that the lights are all strung together and have preset flashing patterns, but they are much more compact and are powered by batteries rather than an outlet.
I used two sets, each with 132 individual LEDs. Around the top of the dress are two rows of 24, and around the bottom are three rows of 64, for a total of 240 visible lights. I arranged the lights such that they formed columns that would be lit simultaneously when flashing. This approximated the chaser pattern that the lights follow in the game. Each set had its own battery pack, both of which I fastened to the inside of the dress near the back of my waist. A single remote was able to control both, which ensured that the flashing patterns could be kept synchronized across the two sets.
I attached these LEDs to the back of long pieces of purple vinyl. I used a hole punch to make a puncture where each light needed to shine through. Once the lights were attached, I glued a 1-inch glass bead over each hole. I painted these beads in advance with a frosted glass spray in order to diffuse the light. These beads created the illusion of individual little light bulbs. I later used the same glass beads to make fake lights on the sleeves and shoes. Since I needed a ton of those 1-inch beads, they ended up being the most expensive part of the project.
To see the lights in motion, see this gif: http://mahoshojodylan.tumblr.com/post/143332694128/
I love the transparent panels at the bottom of the dress. After the lights, this was the part of the design that appealed to me the most. They are made from transparent blue vinyl. Unfortunately, it got a bit crinkled in transit (important lesson: don’t make a costume without knowing how you’re going to get it to the con), but I think it still came out looking really cool. It’s easier to see through in person than it is in photos. The tails in the back are made from the same, though the tips of them and the dangling tags are colored with metallic silver spray paint. The tags are attached to the tails using key rings.
The rest of the dress is made from scuba knit fabric, which was a mistake in hindsight. It had the perfect look for the costume, but, for something so heavy, I should have either stuck to non-stretching fabrics or done a lot more interfacing. There are three hoops of metal wire that give the dress its shape. There is an oddly-shaped one that follows the bottom, an open circle one just above the transparent panels, and a smaller, full circle one a little above that.
All of the turquoise parts of the costume are duct tape. All of them. I would not ordinarily want to use duct tape on a costume at all, but it was a necessary time saver in this case. I think it looks fine. It did what I wanted, and the sheen is completely appropriate for the costume. I did ruin two perfectly good pairs of scissors cutting it all, though.
The inner skirt is a separate piece from the dress. You can’t see it very well in most photos, but it’s a basic, short pencil skirt. I made the stockings from a polyester knit fabric. I already had a pattern to fit my legs from when I made my Sophy boots, so they were quick. Though they are able to stay up on their own, they do have garters as in the design.
The sleeves were made using the same materials as the dress. Again, there are no actual lights behind the glass cabochons on them. The wrist light array has a metal hoop in it to keep it round. For each sleeve, I made a foam band which I wore between the top light array and my arm to keep it from slipping, and they worked perfectly the entire time that I wore the costume. Since the gloves didn’t need to match anything else on the costume, I bought them rather than making my own. They are not attached to the sleeves. The shoes are a pair of cheap nurse’s shoes to which I glued a bunch of stuff.
The flowers on the headband and collar are artificial carnations, which are available in many colors, including turquoise. They were a little small, so each of them is actually two flowers shoved together. The little bow on the headband is like a smaller version of the tails on the dress: transparent blue vinyl painted silver at the tip.
The dress is a little uncomfortable to wear. I cannot sit or kneel with it on, and the straps can dig into my shoulders a little from all the weight. Still, it could be a lot worse. The shoes are comfy, and the wig was surprisingly cooperative. The sleeves limit how I can pose quite a bit, but the foam inserts at least kept them from falling off. I definitely knew going in that it wouldn’t be an all-day costume, so no complaints.
In all, I am very happy with how Starry came out. I made a few bad decisions, and the craftsmanship was not up to my usual standards since so much of my attention was on the lights instead, but it’s easily my most ambitious costume, and I learned A LOT from the experience.
