I'm probably more proud of the craftsmanship of this costume than any other costume to date. My friends Riicreations and Thorn Queen and I really put in the effort to do things the right way and it shows!
The jackets - yes, we made them and did not buy them! We used the "tobacco" twill from Joanns and ordered custom embroidered patches. (They are SO lovely in person! Well worth the money.) Riicreations made a jacket pattern for us because she is crazy good at that, and we went from there. The jacket is lined, and the pockets are all functional (YAY POCKETS!). We used metal snaps for the pocket closures and the shoulder straps.
Cloak - I forget the fabric we used for these, but the cloaks are also lined. We also used a custom embroidered patch for the back. We used a very simple 3/4 circle pattern and added a hood.
White shirt - bought
Pants - bought, but modified. I took the pants in to fit me tighter, and added elastic stirrups to the bottom to help keep the pant legs from riding up when I put on my boots. I'm glad I bothered to do this, because I don't have to worry about the fabric bunching up throughout the day no matter how much I move around!
We also added heavy duty snaps to the pants to help hold up the thigh belts of the harness. No matter how tight we fastened them, the belts would fall when we walked, so we put black heavy duty snaps through the holes and anchored the snaps to the pants where they are supposed to sit. You cannot see them and they do a terrific job holding everything in place! We also added snaps to the square piece that the thigh belts thread through on the outside of the leg. The reason being, not just to help hold that side up, but to also hold the criss-crossing straps in place that meet underneath that part. This was also a huge life saver!
Butt skirt - Just a basic half oval shape that was hemmed. The fabric is a dark brown suiting fabric. It is attached with heavy duty snaps and a couple of hook and eyes in the front.
Harness - we started to make it, but due to time constraints, decided we needed to just buy it. No regrets.
Boots - These were boots we just found at a local mall and got for a good deal. The part that goes over the knee went too high on our legs (they were almost thigh-highs!) so we took it upon ourselves to cut the knee flap off, cut off about 2 inches from the shin, and re-attach the knee flap to have it sit where it's supposed to. We also took in the front and back seams of the boots to make them more form-fitting. It was a huge pain in the butt to do, but it looks much better (less cankle!).
3DMG
Oh lord, this was a nightmare. Thorn Queen and I were dumb and gave ourselves a deadline that would only give us 1 month to make it from start to finish. We worked our ASSES off, let me tell you. The week leading up to the convention, we had I believe 3 or 4 back-to-back all-nighters (with a random hour of sleep here and there). I don't know how we are alive tbh BUT WE DID IT!
The main material used was 6mm Sintra. We used Junkers's tutorial as a guide, but ended up doing a few things quite a bit differently. Obviously, we went with the anime design since we think it's way more badass, which unfortunately also meant MUCH MORE COMPLICATED GEAR.
We patterned out all the pieces and then drew them onto the Sintra. Then, for a good 2 weeks, Thorn Queen and I scored the pieces by hand because we didn't have any good power tools for it. If you decide to make the gear with Sintra, do yourself a favor and buy a stupid power tool. xAx We gave ourselves numb digits from cutting so much.
The pieces were assembled with super glue since it chemically bonds the plastic.
Reels/exhaust piece - Following Junkers's example, we used a PVC pipe for the base to put everything on. However, instead of keeping it straight, we heat formed it into a \__/ shape. We tried to mimic the anime's design by putting the exhaust nozzle piece and the base of the cones on a platform. This platform also has two arms that screw into the anchor that sits on my back. This is really hard to explain, lol. Just look at the photos to see what I mean. But the PVC pipe is threaded through the bottom of this platform so everything is one solid piece. The platform also has a piece that is heatformed downward so that it tucks between my pants and my pants belt. Then, the 3DMG belt that has the cable shooters on it attaches to the aforementioned part via post screws that we put through each part. In other words, we have the gear belt --> pants belt with holes --> platform's heatformed part all sandwiched together and held together with post screws that go through them all. I realize this will make sense to NO ONE and I'm sorry. Drop me a PM if you want me to try and explain this more.
Anyway, so the exhaust/reel part is made with PVC pipe and layers of Sintra that are all glued together. See Junkers's 3DMG tutorial to get a better idea of the basic construction. If I had to do this again, I would actually replace the filler layers with something much lighter, like foamcore. But whatevs.
Gear belt w/ cable shooters - This is just a heatformed rectangle of Sintra with more heatformed Sintra cut into the shapes of the cable shooters on the end, lol. I don't have any photos of it yet, but the cable shooters actually are semi-functional! I attached cheap plastic retractable tape measures to the inside and painted the tape black. There is a hole in the casing so I can reach in and press the button to retract the tape. Tee-hee. I'll get a photo of this in action soon.
Boxes - Uuuughhhhhhhh these were no fun. These were all made with the 6mm Sintra as well. The brackets and side panels were done with mat board, which wasn't ideal, but became our only option with our time crunch. We plan to go back and redo the brackets/side panels with thinner Sintra. Anyway, this part is pretty straight-forward. I won't go into the parts that ended up being useless, so I'll just explain what you see. We cut a rectangle window into the outside piece so that we could have a fake spring visible from the inside of the box. The panels were all just glued down on top of the window. The spring is actually a plastic vacuum tube that we painted to match the rest of the panel/bracket pieces, and the "spring" is just secured to the side of the box.
How we attached the boxes...again, due to the time crunch, we did not get to do this the way we wanted to. We intend to add magnets to the inside to have them stick to the square pieces on our thighs and keep them from moving around. We have a strap that is tied to the inside of the boxes and glued down along the inside with E6000. We have the strap coming out of a hole near the top of the box, and then the strap goes up under our butt skirts to attach to our pants belts. The back of the box has a string that is tied in a similar fashion, and the string we just tied to our pants belts underneath the exhaust/reel thing. We covered the string with plastic jump rope beads to try and imitate whatever weirdness that part is supposed to be. XD I think it worked pretty well!
Swords - the bases are made with...I think poplar? I cannot remember, but it's a very light wood that is also sturdy. Got it from Home Depot. The base is the shape of the handle and the blade combined. Then we stacked layers of Sintra on top of the handle, paperclay'd the edges to make them even, and sanded. We attached bike brake handles to the outside of the triggers by drilling holes into the brakes and the sword handle, anchoring two wooden pegs into the brake, and then anchoring the other end of the pegs into the sword handle. They are pretty solid, and I can pull the brake handle without worrying about it popping off. :) I did a similar technique with anchoring the screw-like thing that goes into the bottom of the handle for the cord to attach to.
The panels on the blades that give it the utility knife look are mat board, which we also plan to replace with thin Sintra.
I realize I am cutting out a LOT of info. It is just a boatload to try and explain. If you are working on 3DMG and have questions about how I did what I did, please feel free to send me a PM! I will be happy to try and explain this more clearly.
