Noel Kreiss: Making sandals out of booties.

*All pictures have bigger versions for your enjoyment

This weekend, my bff came over, for a weekend of cosplay prepping, since I'm helping him with his first cosplay, I feel so honored to be able to help others with their cosplay.
Friday we made his patterns, and Saturday we drove out to get the fabric, and I myself got things for Noel /some pretty amazing fabric! we got our stuff ready and then we started working.

Since I wanted a break from embroidering, I decided I wanted to start on Noel's shoes, since I really like making shoes and boots, maybe because it's both crafting and sewing.
The base is an old pair of booties I've had lying around, and figured they'd be good. I know his design is flats, but with all the girls in my group wearings heels, I couldn't handle being the male AND the shorty.
I added a foam tip, to make the shoe a little wider and half-an-inch longer, comparing with my flat boots.

Then onwards to the covers, I've decided using two types of pleather, a very textured and another with a sleek look. Kaito's shoes only had two places with stitches, but since Final Fantasy's designs are so detailed, I figured I should get as close to the original as creatively possible.

God were we messy or what? ANYWAY before cutting into the original fabric for the leg-covers, I made a rough copy, wanted to see if my idea for the design would actually work. With a little touch-ups it did.

I left the the bottom free, to fit properly around my foot and the base.

And this is the result of an evenings work. All I need is to put in laces and the last piece around the ankle
I'm very satisfied with these, they've already turned out way better than I imagined /eventhough it looks like I have clowns feet on the second picture, wth? and they're really comfortable to wear and easy to walk in.
Hayes complimented me a lot on them, making me feel so humbled, I'm just happy I could actually make something this good.

Today, Sunday, I started stitching again, starting on another new color, it's moving forward! Oh yeah~
And Hayes got to finish his T-shirt for Maqui, his first, and damn, it's really well made, and I'm so proud!

Argentine and Noel's patterns

I got a little of my cosplay-motivation back, and I started up on Argentine again.
Cut out the pieces for his halter neck, but since it's plain black, I didn't feel the need to take any pictures of that. Other than that, I finished the top of his pants, there really wasn't a need for it, but I added an elastic waist, mostly so I'm sure that they won't suddenly fall off, since the fabric is a little heavy.

On the pictures you can see the white "Y"'s, which I was sooo close to ragequitting when making, but god does it look good on the pants, I can't even. Worth it!


Today and yesterday, my sweet and lovely partner, helped me getting some speed on Noel's embroiding, since I'm getting a little stressed about finishing in time, so many small details on this costume that needs to be made, since you really can't fake jewelry, dip-dye and embroidery too well.
So I chose my colors, agreed with the design and size, and then we got crackin'

The design is much nicer in real life, than I thought it would be, and seeing it, makes me really happy that I chose to do it this way, and not just put pieces of fabric together.
But as you can see, getting all this work done also means I'm running out of thread faster than I thought I would!  So have to order a new batch soon.

the First Stitches (Embroiding)

Today I received my embroidery stashes from the Felt Fairy, I bought this in a bundle of 33, for 8usd, with shipping, AMAZING, the cotton threads are really thick and soft, perfect for what I'm going to make! I'm so happy about my purchase!

SO! What's the thread for? well I think I might have mentioned it before, it's for Noel Kreiss. He has a lot of embroidery work on his shirt and pants. At first I thought about getting very textured fabric, but I knew it wouldn't look and feel the way I wanted it to, so I decided to do it the hard way.

First I found scrap fabric that's NON-stretchable, thick, but not heavy. Sketched up the collar and added colors, to be 100% sure I wouldn't f**k up, and for the thread to blend better.

After doing that, choosing the color of thread, /btw, I hate that yellow color, oh god yellow why you such an ugly color?
It's always best to line up your stashes to see if you think the colors will fit good together, or if you need a lighter or darker shade.

After that, pulling two strands out, of the thread of the stash, and get knocking. /I will work on this day and night, otherwise I just know I won't finish!

I'm already disliking this, just because I hate tedious jobs, but I must overcome this challenge!

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And just a picture to show you the hopeful end result!

Working on the little things

Since I'm a master procrastinator, I need to have several projects to work on, or I'll never finish or get to anything. Right now I'm working mostly on Noel Kreiss and Argentine.

Argentine is actually close to being finished, but as I said, I procrastinate.
These few photo's I took are just to show how I added the 'pattern' to the outer jacket, and from that point on, I really haven't taken any pictures, because everything is pretty much straight forward, which is why I can say at this point, I'm sure I'll be very happy with the result!

I'm not Richie Rich this month, so I have to work with what I got, and since Noel have SO MANY /many many many many minor details, pendants and embroidery, I figured I'd at least get started on something I have the materials for.

Got out my foam, cut it into circles and added small pricks of hot glue around the edges, added some designs to the neck-pendant and then layered it twice, with an all-around glue that dries clear.

Afterwards I added two/three layers of silverpaint, until I liked the coverage. And this is the finished result.

The hardest part about making these was the patterns /also made with hot glue since the full character image and in-game shots leaves A LOT to the imagination, so I kept it as simple as I could, without making it boring.

So that's my progress for this time.

Sings words without Promise.

So here's a bunch of somewhat proper pictures of me and Mie's SDotP cosplays.
We of course choose to have the pictures taken the day that the temperature dropped drasticly, and these cosplays are definitely not the warmest at all, so we were both uncomfortable, but had to get at least SOMETHING out of our agony, and this is it. /We'll have another shoot some other time.
And thank you MustacheRanger02 for enduring it as our photographer!

How do I feel about this cosplay? Overall, I'm surprised I was able to pull something like this off, there's some things I wanted differently, but that's basic design, that I really couldn't waver from.

As soon as the cosplay is on, it's not really the biggest bother to walk around in, as long as I got a grip on the wing /which I hate and don't want to talk about ever.

It's not a costume I'll revamp ever, I think. But I'd very much like to make the original Shaytan design some time.

*click images for better quality