Cosplay Tutorial | Sailor V Moon Compact

Today I wanted to share a little tutorial for Sailor V’s Moon Compact! I made this initially back in 2014 but remade it last month for Anime Boston. I documented my process and wanted to share!

((the cute Chibiusa cosplayer is my friend Ashley!))Read on to see the full tutorial!Note: This is a costume prop. It is not functional as an actual compact and is meant to be used as a decoration.

Shaping the crescent

• Using old worbla scraps, heat them all evenly (this takes a few minutes)
• Once the worbla is pliable, begin molding into a ball – but be careful, since it’s hot! To get the moon shape, I rolled the worbla into an oval, and shaped it into a “C”.
• Getting the edges smooth is the hard part, but I’ve found using a flat, slightly curved surface (like my paper bone folder) to smooth out the ridges of the worbla works great. Be patient! This step is important.
• Keep running the bone folder over the worbla until you see seam lines seem to disappear

Priming

Once the worbla is shaped and smoothed, let it cool. I then applied about 5 layers of gesso to fill in any cracks. You can see what 1 layer v. multiple layers look like. You can put as many layers as you want – the idea here is to fill in any cracks to make sanding easier. Pro tip: use a hair dryer to help speed up the drying process.Next, sand away the excess gesso. Again, you can go as crazy as you want here. I used a 220 grit paper to smooth out major bumps. I did not get it perfectly smooth, but major flaws were removed.Since I have no place to spray paint in my apt, and it was freezing cold outside, I painted by hand. If you can spray paint, great! You’ll get a smoother finish in half the time. If not, you can still paint by hand using a few layers and a soft brush.

Basic resin casting

I admit I'm not stellar with casting resin, but I did my best to explain it, one beginner to another!

• Clean your mold out thoroughly
• Spray a mold release (which I’m 90% sure is just WD-40…) into the mold, and set aside
• Mix equal parts resin and hardener (I use this kit). I like to mix in the bottom of a plastic cup with a toothpick, mixing in slow circles to eliminate bubbles
• I’ve always used fabric paint to color my resin; just a few drops usually does the trick. I bought a multi-color pack of small Dye-Na-Flow colors at Jo-Anns. In the yellow batch, I also added some glitter. Be sure to stir slowly to avoid bubbles
• Pour the resin almost to the top of the mold – set aside & don’t touch for 2 days
• If you were correct in your 1:1 resin measurements, after 2 days your gems should pop out!

To finish it off, I simply glued the resin gems, some smaller gems I had laying around, and some gold studs onto the moon. I ended up with a cloudy red gem in the end which I wasn’t too pleased about. So I went with a plastic one I had laying around from a pack – not what I originally wanted, but it still looked ok.If you make this, I would love to see how it turns out!!