Photos by Elle on the Radio

We decided to make one of what I did to help out some of my friends and whoever needed it :D

~DenDenSushi

Tools:

• A whole roll of Brown Cotton Belting (can be found at JoAnns or online). And I mean like 15 yards.
• Lots of good sized snaps and a few tiny snaps
• 7 Silver Buckles (Ebay is where I got mine)
• Various sewing materials (sewing needles, thread, hot glue gun, sewing machine, tailor’s chalk, and pins)
• Your Pants and Shirt for the cosplay so that the straps fit to them
• 1 Sheet Gray Craft Foam (or 3 sheets if you want to do the shoulder and back pads)

Step 1: Getting the Damn Things On

Alright, grab those reference pictures because you are going to need them!

I used this one:

But these I found after and they are lovely:

So grab your belting and pins and get ready to pin yourself in. Be sure to wear your pants and your shirt for the cosplay when you do so that you fit the straps they fit to your cosplay. Also, always remember to tape the ends so they don’t fray while you are working.

Start with the belt. Take the end of the roll and wrap it right through your belt loops. Cut it in the front longer than it needs to be so you have room for the buckle. Pin it to your pants so the belt doesn’t move when you start attaching the other straps.

Next is the two leg loops.  Position the belting where you want it on your legs and pull tight so its secure. Again, always cut a little longer than you need it to be, especially since these have buckles. Pin the belting and do the other three just like it.

Now like I said I didn’t do the whole leg pieces yet but I did do half so that whatever could be seen above my boots would be there. Just pin a longer piece to the outside area of your lower leg loop and extend it above your knee and down. Then take a big pin and pin it to your pants. Add the small little strap to the side of that strap and and extend it down at the right angle. Pin it as well. Do the same for the other and you have cheated like me. 

The x in the front. Now, I don’t ever really see them use this strap but it does help secure the straps so they don’t move. I made one, but you don;t have to if you don’t want to. Take on end and pin it to your belt, and cross the other end over your crotch and pin it to the inside of your upper leg loop. Do the same for the other side. Then pin the center of the X since that will get sewn to stay in place.

The butt straps. Pin a strap towards the back of your upper leg loop and extend it around your butt. Pin the middle of the strap to the back belt loop and continue the other side down the other side of your but and pin it. You can do the little side straps there too but I forgot so I didn’t have them on mine, and the buttflap covers it lol I may go and fix it because I’m a bad perfectionist. 

Congrats! That’s the lower straps! Just so you know I won’t be going over the lower leg straps because I haven’t made mine yet. We are waiting till we have the 3DM Gear. But I’ll add those in when I do them.

The Harness. This one a bit more tricky since a lot of it is behind your back. Pin one end near the front of your belt and toss it over your shoulder. Do the same with the other side.

Once you have the two long straps over your back, take one end and pin it to the side of the opposite strap, right near your armpit. Do the same with the other side so you get the X in the center of you back. Make sure you pin the center of the X.

Take a smaller piece of fabric and pin it to the lower end of the long strap and to your belt to get that little side strap it has going on. Do it for the other side as well.

For the lower X, pin an end into the strap that makes the upper X a little bit farther back than where its pinned in and cross it down to your belt. Do the same with the other side. Make sure you pin the center of the X.

Under the armpit should look something like this.

The one farthest left is from the lower X. The one it’s attached to is the upper X. The strap on the farthest right is the main strap.

Now for the piece that crosses over I’ll show two pictures since they fit different on me than on Jason

Take a longish piece of strap and pin it to the right vertical strap where you want it to cross your chest. Take it and loop it around your left strap and then pin it about in the middle or a little longer since a buckle will go there.  

His is right across his chest.

For those of us with a bit more to the chest, you just have to put it higher.

Make sure you adjust anything you need to so that the two long straps and the ones that attach to it have that angle.

And there’s the harness!

Step 2: Marking the Snaps

These are all the intersections that I placed snaps on. What you want to do is take some tailor’s chalk or marking device and mark each side a snap is going on and unpin yourself out of the straps as you go. But only unpin the ones that have snaps on them, leave all the others pinned. 

A helpful trick is to pin the snaps on each side as you go so you know which side each one needs to be sewn on and not get confused in the bundle of crazingness you just made.

Step 3: Sewing the Snaps

I would suggest sewing the the female part on the strap that won’t be showing and the male on the side that will since the female part tends to cause more bulging on the fabric.

It doesn’t matter how you sew the inside one, but make sure the outside one gets sewn on so you don’e see the threads since it will be visible. 

The same two snaps from the previous picture just reversed. The one that is showing doesn’t have the bulge or the thread marks.

Once you get the snaps on, snap it into place and trim off the extra fabric. Since this fabric unravels a lot you need to carefully hot glue the edges so noting will come undone.

Step 4: Getting the Buckles on

I ordered my buckles from the ebay site I linked in the tools section but feel free to find them anywhere.

All you do is slide the buckle on.

Then stick the nub through the fabric to where you want it to sit.Then finish threading the fabric through. For now, just pin each side around the buckle to keep it in place.

For the two large straps, you need to make pieces so the buckles fit on right. Just cut two small pieces of fabric and attach a buckle onto it for now. 

Step 5: The Craft Foam

The Leg Loop Holders. I used about three pieces of gray craft foam for the little extra touches. Now I know on the sides of the leg loops its criss crossed, you can work out how to do that but since mine will be covered up, I just went with functionality. I just cut the foam into a rectangle and cut two vertical lines on the top and bottom. Then I slide it onto the two leg loops. Make sure you reinforce the slits with hot glue because Jason’s broke on him after taking a few steps but mine with are glued on worked fine. You can glue the fabic to the foam to keep it in place if it shifts too much

The Shoulder Straps. This is optional but I found it to make the straps but more comfy so I highly suggest it. I just cut two thinner pieces of craft from to fit on my shoulders. I cut one horizontal line in the top and in the bottom and slid them on. (You’ll have to take your pins out to do it so make sure you mark the places you do so you can pin them back after). Glue the fabric to the craft foam.

The Back Strap. Again, optional but really comfy. Take the full piece of craft foam and lay your harness against it. You want to just cut out a little bit to make an X bust still keep it big, since the piece takes up a good part of their back. Make sure to keep the front two long since you will glue those to the shoulder straps. Cut a horizontal line on each end and weave it through. Glue down the center and glue the fabric to the craft foam.

Its not fully accurate I know. But I wanted my straps to be secure and having that space in the middle like they do wouldn’t do that for me. But you can mess around with it if you want ^^

Step 6: Finishing Touches

Once you have all the snaps on, all the craft foam on you can start to sew and glue the buckles on.

The sewn parts. All you need to do is take all the places left with pins and sew them together. I just sewed a box around them so they were secure. Also, cut the excess and hot glue the edges like you did with the snaps. 

The buckles. They are really easy to get on but you have to do them in the right order or it gets difficult as I learned. First, sew as underneath the buckle as you can on the side that was not the fabric that got pulled through.

Next take your hot glue gun and glue the underneath end down and seal it. Then glue the horizontal metal bar in the center, then press it down on the fabric underneath so it doesn’t move on you. Third, sew the part of the strap in front of the buckle down. Fold the excess over and glue it so it stays folded and so the edge is sealed

The weird buckles. Take those two makeshift buckle pieces you make and position them on the belt so they are exactly over the vertical straps going up your front. Sew as best you can the bottom of the buckle strap to the bottom of the belt. Then hot glue the buckle to the belt like you did the other buckles, and finis the top the same way as well. 

I put little snaps on the since of the buckle strap to the vertical strap so it stayed down. 

The belt. You want to sew the upper part of the whole belt to the pants so that you have a firm base for all these straps. I sewed it with the straps attached so I could know when I needed to leave a space for the straps to get attached into. To close up the front I just used two sets of snaps to keep it secure.

Keeping those leg loops up. The outside of the loops stay up pretty well, but the inside slips down. So take your snaps and sew one in for each loop so that the loops are held up by the pants right on the inside seam of the pants.

And with that you should be done!