Today I’m going to tell you a little about how I made my Nina Williams cosplay. The truth is that it is a little outfit that I took a while to make mainly because I made a stupid mistake at the beginning (I had to redo the pants) and because I procrastinated a lot.
It just so happened that we were talking about making a Tekken cosplay group when Namco Bandai announced that they would hold a contest for the release of TTT2 in the fall , so I wanted to do this cosplay slowly so that it turned out as best as possible.
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| He aquí el personaje en cuestión. |
I used mainly purple spandex, one dark and one a little lighter for the calves, silver faux leather, pink-purple faux leather and black faux leather. I think this was one of the cheapest cosplays I’ve done this year.
The first thing I made was the leg warmers that later ended up in the trash. I wanted to make them so that there was no side seam on the thighs because Nina doesn’t have one. So I wrapped myself in masking tape, took a mold of my legs and marked where each piece would go. I screwed up a lot because first I took out a pair of closed pants, but, as the fabrics were very elastic, when I opened them in the center to leave that “v” shape (the neckline of the pants, so to speak), everything moved and nothing fit. So I unstitched everything. If it had been for a full-length jumpsuit or a piece that wasn’t to be shortened later, it would have been fine, but the center cut ruined everything.
The funny thing is that the second pair of pants I made was much easier and turned out the way I wanted. I made a normal pants pattern drawing where the purple part would go and where the silver part would go .
Then I joined the two parts of the leg and joined the bottom pieces (which would be purple spandex) so that no seam could be seen on the inside of the leg. I kept trying to make it in a way it has as few seams as possible. But this time it went well.
On the other hand, I made the padded pieces of silver imitation leather and filled them with a thin foam (that bright light fabric) and sewed them to make the reliefs/compartments.
Once the pants were made of fabric and with one of the pads on and finished, it looked like this:
Then came one of the discoveries for me this summer, which was making lycra boot covers. It’s one of the easiest things in the world.
I made a tube of lycra, that is, I took a piece, folded it in half and sewed one side and one end. I was left with a kind of giant square sock. Then I put it on my legs inside out (with the seam facing out), stretching well and with the sneakers (fake Converse) worn underneath. I marked the outline of my leg and foot with pins, took it off, basted it, machine sewed it and that was it.
Then I attached it to the pants, sewed the rest of the pads, put the pink-purple strips on the top and sewed the “private parts covers” (this girl is going to get cystitis).
Both with the pink-purple fabric and with the lighter purple part of the boots, I had a lot of headaches choosing the colors because in some arts they look like that, in the game they are darker, there is a render out there in the one at the top looks purple… The same as always, in the end I did what I thought best.
I only have one photo of the top process (long live me). I made a normal t-shirt pattern, marked the pieces that were in silver and purple and sewed everything beautifully. I made the silver part of the sleeves from a sleeve pattern, modifying it so that there was a hole in the shoulder and then I added the purple sleeves separately.
Then I put the collar on it with all the effort of my heart because I’m terrible at making collars.
With the pants and top made, I had to do another of the big hits of this summer: Paint the camouflage on the silver fabric. The good thing is that, since it has straps on the edges, I didn’t need to finish them in any way. Which filled me with satisfaction due to the energy savings it entailed.
I was looking online and in various stores, but I knew that it was going to be practically impossible for me to find camouflage fabric in purple and silver tones, so I was pretty clear from the beginning that I was going to have to paint it. I was quite scared (I imagined screwing up the paint at the end and having to do everything again from the beginning), but in the end it turned out much better than I expected.
I painted on the leatherette with acrylic paints and used a dark purple, a pink-purple and a silver mixed with a little purple . At first I was paying attention to the distribution of colors on Nina’s clothes, but I ended up looking at random camouflages on Google Images and copied it because there were parts of the model that I couldn’t see well.
I started with dark purple and started painting the motifs in increasingly lighter colors.
Same with the pants.
I think I couldn’t be more satisfied with the result. In addition, the paint stretches with the fabric and does not crack or damage when I put it on or take it off.
Once the clothes were finished, I put on the black leatherette straps. As they are very thin, what I did was overlap two pieces of imitation leather, sew them with the right side of the fabric visible on both sides, run the machine to the necessary width and cut right on the edge.
It turned out to be a pretty credible strap and that way I didn’t have to spend my life turning them inside out like when I make wider belts .
I glued the straps to the top with fabric glue and sewed at junction points and strategic areas so they wouldn’t move. It didn’t take much sewing, really. I also added several studs and buckles that it has.
With the same technique that I always make belts, I made the pink straps for the arms and ankles. And I tried it all on together when I only had to find some cheap gloves, make the knee pads and style the wig.
For the knee pads I used 2mm thick EVA foam and made them in 3 parts each. First I tried to cover them with purple lycra, but I was terrible at it, so I printed them with latex and painted them with purple acrylic. I primed them again with latex after painting them to make them brighter.
I attached them to some purple strips with Velcro glued with our great friend hot glue (or silicone gun).
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| Dejando secar el látex. |
And, to finish, I styled the wig. I carefully combed the ponytail, taking fine strands, tying them with those small and stretchy elastic bands.
It is inevitable that the bottom part will be a little dented, but after putting it on it doesn’t look bad. I was going to put a link to the wig I bought, but it no longer exists on Ebay. I like it a lot because it is not radioactive blonde, nor is it a single color. It has highlights in various shades and looks very natural.
And, well, this weekend I was taking photos with Hídrico along with Dawn, Yurai and Mery. I hope they come out soon because I’m dying to upload them. When I have them I will post some here along with a link to the gallery.
