Serah Farron Necklace Tutorial

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Hooray I've completed Serah Farron's necklace :D Above is the official photo of the necklace. Below are pictures I've found from DeviantArt, other cosplayers' DIY necklaces. The images copyright respective owners:

reference A

windofthestars

reference B

kitsunesqueak

So having all that as reference, I started with mine.

Materials used:

DAS Modelling Clay
Wire
Strong scissors
Gouache
Necklace chain

I bought DAS modelling clay because it can harden when left to air-dry so there was no need to oven bake it. It's much more convenient that way for me.

First, pull a chunk off and roll it up into a ball, approximately this size.

Then gently shape it into the foundation shape of the necklace, which is round at the top and tapering downwards, getting thinner. If you look at the reference photos, the tail is separate from the head (ref B), or it's attached separately (ref A). But I find that it complicates things and by attaching it separately as in A, and it is susceptible to falling off many times :(

or, it might just be my inadequacy as a sculptor. Heehee.

So! My own solution was simply to just mould it as one structure.

This must be my favourite part of making the necklace. As you can see, there is a blue (or... silver-blue?) gemstone set within the head. So let's make the concave structure!

Simply place your thumb

and press! (gently)

Voila! We now have completed the necklace foundation.

To make the swirly thing around the necklace, take a small piece of clay and roll it into this thin shape.

Proceed to wrap the tail with this, and press it to the body gently. But make sure it sticks well (I found it really annoying to do personally).

Yes I'm aware that the swirling thing is flat and not round, so let's get to that stage! Using your thumb and index finger,

pinch gently~

Repeat that for the whole swirly thing and now we have completed the whole shape of the necklace.

Next get your wires ready. I don't recommend using wires that are as thick as mine. Obviously, I only used what I had. lol. But remember not to get one that's too thin either.

Using your scissors, cut a decent length off the wire. Then poke one end of it down the crown of the pendant and out through the upper-back. And just make a little loop to make sure it's closed tight. Mine's ugly so do it your way.

I'm not much of a crafter so I didn't know what to use to paint clay. But anyway, I bought a small tube of silver gouache. It seemed to work, though sometimes I see a bit of glitter on my fingers after touching the pendant. Just a bit though, so if you're as clueless as I am, and you're not too much of a perfectionist, gouache is the answer, guys!

Oh and I also didn't know whether you were supposed to mix gouache with water. But I did anyway, just a bit of water though.

For the blue gem, I passed by a beads shop and found a round, blue thing. Perfect! It was 50% off too. I put a generous amount of wood glue inside the bowl-like structure, put the gem in, and left it to dry.

Wood glue, in my opinion, was the best $3.50 I've spent. It works on everything and it's very durable. I can't imagine my life without wood glue. If you craft things, invest on it now.

For the chain of the necklace, I bought a weird necklace for $1. The shop was closing down so I made a grab at it. You can buy your own chain, but personally I think it's easier to buy a necklace since everything is already attached.

I destroyed the ring that attached the pendant to the chain with my mighty scissors. You probably should use pliers but I didn't have one so I used what I had. :3

I gave the chain a bit of silver paint since it was quite dirty. It was $1 after all. Then I put the chain through the wire loop on the pendant, and I'm done!!!

That was really fast and quite easy to make!

Oh and yes I am aware that I didn't make an engagement ring, but I was too lazy and the clay kept breaking so I thought... forget it. Yes, I'm not a perfectionist. Hope this tutorial was useful for Serah-to-be's. Looking forward to my photoshoot late September!

Ciao!

Labels: cosplay, final fantasy 13, final fantasy XIII, necklace, serah farron, snow, tutorial

Luka Megurine cosplay

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Luka Cosplay

* Second batch of cosplay photos

* How to make your own Magnet Headphones - tutorial

Hey guys!

Tadaaa!!! Finally I cosplayed!!!

Cosplaying has been a childhood dream of mine. Well not really childhood, but I've been wanting to do it since... since I saw Arisa Mizuhara's photos o_o You can google her. And she really inspired me into cosplaying.

Until now, the one character I really want to cosplay is still songstress Yuna!!! >_<>

At first, I was just on Facebook and I saw this cute Which Vocaloid Are You quiz taken by Sherly (lol) and my result was Luka Megurine. So I googled her since I didn't even know what the heck Vocaloid was. o_O And I thought she was pretty interesting! Then I saw some good cosplay pictures of her and I thought hey, this isn't too hard! So it was decided...

After around 5 days of buying and then receiving the wig (my very first wig! I was so happy), I handcrafted the headphones (tutorial in the previous post) in two days. And two days later, Juen came to my apartment and we had the official photoshoot!

My photographer and I ^^:

Photography and editing: Juen

Dress: Listy's (thank u ^^)

Accessories and headphones: me

Wig styling & make-up: me

Well those are the more favourite-d photos. I don't really like the last one but many people do so... maybe it's good... not sure. Hahahaha.

After the photoshoot Juen and I went out grabbed some take-away bento and had our group meeting. The weather was so good out! And we both felt real happy because 1.my dream of cosplaying came true 2.Juen's dream of taking cosplay photographs came true. Juen prefers photography over modelling, opposite of me. Hahhaha. And we both talked about how in a single cosplay we gain experience on crafting accessories, wigs, photo editing, modelling, photography etc. And how someone should set up a cosplay school and I would gladly join. Hhahaha. Life would be awesome!

My pink wig is looking lonely up there on top of my cabinet. I want to cosplay again soon if possible! What characters have pink hair and a simple costume? I can only think of

Mayura from Matantei Loki Ragnarok
Serah Farron from Final Fantasy 13

...and that's it. I need some otaku input here -_- !! Suggestions pleaseeee.

Labels: cosplay, headphones, luka megurine, magnet, photoshoot, tutorial, vocaloid

Making of Magnet Headphones

Sunday, April 25, 2010

My Finished Cosplay photos

*Batch #1

*Batch #2

This weekend, I am pretty free ^^ compared to the last few weeks of hell. So I decided to (finally) make the magnet headphone for my Luka Megurine cosplay! Now if you recall, I posted this picture before. This is how the headphones are supposed to look like:

There are actually a whole lot of versions, just depends on how you like it. At first, I wanted to just use an existing headphone and modify it. But the ones I got from my bro were too thick, and had these cables which he told me not to cut off. So I decided to just make the headphones from scratch.

Materials used:

used headband
styrofoam block
black cards
blue/green card
wires
gouache
acrylic paint
wood glue
double tape
lace sticker
normal paper glue
giant scissors
cutter
scalpel
cutting mat
and any other tools

I started with cutting out the basic round shape from this gigantic styrofoam block. Honestly don't ask how I did it. It was as thick as my A-maths book from high school. My cutter died in the process, and I cut myself twice + bruises from using the metallic ruler to saw (yes, frikin SAW) the styrofoam. It wasn't a very pretty process. I recommend just buying a thin styrofoam board (feels idiotic for not doing exactly that).

Next I cut some wires and just pierce them through the styrofoam block. Be careful not to let the wire go out.

Next I took my used headband (which I didn't really like anyway) and pasted double tape all over the top. Then I stuck black card over it and folded it at the bottom. Mine's pretty rough. It's actually better to use fabric but since I couldn't be bothered, yeah.

Oh and don't cover the bottom, since you need that part to keep the headband stuck to your hair (wig). Also keep that in mind when you buy a headband, don't buy one that's smooth at the bottom.

I took even more wires and made the pink intertwine thingy. Mine's not neat at all... Hahhaa. Wires are annoying. I painted them pink using gouache.

Then I cut out 4 round circles on black card and pasted them on the styrofoam. I also painted the sides black using lovely acrylic. The wire for the microphone was also painted black, and I covered the mic with black paper. Black black black.

Next is the fun (but hell) part. I printed out the butterfly template from Fenlaf from deviantart. Bless him. Anyway I printed it on tracing paper, then stuck the tracing paper to a black a4 paper. I just used a scalpel and traced everything to cut out the black outline for the wings. You can do it whichever method you want really.

When one is done, just use it as the template for the other wings since the tracing paper is too flimsy.

A lot of time n backbreaking focus brings you: 4 butterfly wings =)

Then all you have to do is stick one wing on either side of the blue card. Make sure the blue card you buy has colour on both sides or it will make your life more complicated. Initially I wanted to use coloured transparencies but couldn't find them anywhere in Melbourne (fail).

Now you have the pretty wings, stick it to the styrofoam using wood glue (you can use pva or whatever - your choice, just don't use normal paper glue).

Tadaaa. Oh and I also added some blue to the mic, and a black circle above it. Your preference.

Next you have to be careful with this step. Stick the wings to the headband. Quadruple check the angle and height of the wings you want. Nothing's worse than going this far and then realising the speakers don't align with your ears and it's already permanently stuck. Crucial, crucial.

Glue everything with wood glue.

And now to the detailing. I cut out a blue ring and pasted it on the speakers.

Next I printed out the speaker template from sesshy-kun from deviantart. Yay everything's in the internet! ^^ Printed on tracing paper again, for the opaque effect. Up to you, really. This is just my preference. I used double tape to stick the pattern on.