my cosplay

I’m back with part 2 of Mei’s cosplay breakdown! This time I’ll be sharing her boot process. Part I covers her jacket if you want to check that out!

SUPPLIES:

• 4 sheets EVA Foam – 1/2″ thickness
• 1 large roll of thin foam (can be found at Michael’s
• 2 yards of blue spandex
• 1/4 yard of red spandex
• Leftover fur from Mei’s jacket
• Worbla
• Yellow and silver acrylic paint
• Silver buttons

Honestly, the boots were the last project I started, but the first to finish! I was the most terrified of making these, but I’m very happy with how they turned out. My biggest concern was that I needed to be able to wear my comfortable Clark’s shoes (I’ve fractured my foot twice over 3 years, so supportive footwear only!) and slip into the boots, so the structure was going to be key.

The main structure is all EVA foam – we bought a pack on Amazon for $20. Sam really helped with this part :) The bottom base is just an oval, traced over my shoe so there is about 2-3 extra inches of surface area around the sole. It has little raised pieces of foam on the toe and heel where I need to slip my foot in, so when I walk I’m not kicking around in the boot. It’s nice and snug so the shoe doesn’t have any wiggle room. We made a “cage” over the toe of the foot to create the large rounded look of the toes.

The back portion of the boot is the thick EVA Foam, but the entire boot is wrapped with a large sheet of thin craft foam (look for a roll like this). Everything is glued together with hot glue. To cover the toe of the boot, I cut a diamond notch out of the front so it could form around the round end.

Then came the most tedious part of the project, which is covering the boots. I had this great blue spandex fabric, but I didn’t want to just wrap it around the boot – I wanted it to be smooth. So, I ended up covering pieces of foam and sewing the spandex on top. Then I could wrap and glue the foam to the boots. The fabric/foam pieces were layered over a strip of fur, and I added silver buttons for accents.

The silver back piece of the boot is 1/4″ foam that was painted silver and glued to the fabric parts. The last bit of detailing I did was the bottom yellow – it’s worbla that I shaped over pieces of foam, so the bottom of the boots wouldn’t bend at all during the stress of wear. I painted it all yellow with acrylic paints. Then I just glued the fur to the top of the boots.

And voila! I’m extremely proud of these boots; it’s one of the strangest projects I’ve worked on and they came out great. While I am able to slip my foot into the boot, they’re impossible to wear for more than a few yards – they’re clunky and very hot! So I ended up carrying them most of the con and slipping into them for photos :)

Hopefully this tutorial was helpful!

Hi everyone! I thought it would be fun to document my progress of creating Eco Point Mei, my newest costume, before I debut her at PAX East 2019. This post will be in 3 (or 4) parts: jacket, tank & gun, boots, accessories. Here’s part 1!

PATTERN
I’m not good at creating patterns from scratch, so I used Simplicity 1759 as a start. Using wrapping paper with a grid, I traced out the existing pattern into a larger, boxy fit. The grid was key for me to trace out what would become the leather parts, making sure they lined up evenly. I created a mock-up using muslin to make sure my pattern lined up…and it did! I was shocked I didn’t have to create it twice. I left plenty of room for seam allowance.

FABRIC
The jacket has 4 components:

1. Fashion Fabric – “wrong side” of red satin (bought 4 yards, had extra)
2. Red lining (bought 4 yards, had extra)
3. Quilting batting
4. Faux leather upholstery fabric – I used leftover from McCree’s chaps

ASSEMBLY
To start, I cut the out all of the main pieces of red fabric, in the fashion fabric, lining, and batting.

I laid down all 3 layers of the jacket at once (which in hindsight could have been a mistake, see how messy the inside was below). I sewed together any edges that would be showing; the bottom, and front seams, mostly so the layers would hold together. To “quilt” the pieces, I drew my sections in chalk (I think the squares were 4″).

For the leather pieces, I drew the pattern on the back (diamonds instead of squares) and sewed them using a light tan color thread for contrast. To attach the pieces to the red fabric, I folded down each edge and carefully sewed it down.

The sleeves followed the same process as the jacket, except on one arm I added an overwatch patch and painted on “ECOPOINT”. The sleeves were a pain in the butt to attach…too many layers! D:

HOOD
The hood is a completely separate entity and isn’t attached to the jacket. There’s no batting in this; just a thick interfacing to give the hood some structure. I actually used my Shinoa hood as a template for this pattern. The fur was then hand-stitched on.

The last component was the zipper; I used a 26″ separating zipper, though it’s really more for show since Mei’s jacket is kind of folded over and held in place with a belt.

Let me know if you have any specific questions about this! Part 2 will be coming shortly…I just have to finish the props first! :)