Today I’m uploading the Skarlet cosplay process, a costume that seems easy to make, but that gave me one or two headaches.
The story of this cosplay is that Erik had been urging me to do it ever since he appeared as a playable character (my boyfriend is not stupid at all). And I told him no, no and no. Until one day Dawn and Yurai told me to make a Mortal Kombat cosplay group and they must have caught me in a very stupid moment because I accepted, a little reluctantly, but I accepted.
I really like the way Skarlet emerged in Mortal Kombat: in MK2 there seemed to be a bug where sometimes Kitana or Mileena appeared in her red outfit, the fans gave her a name and in MK9 they finally decided to add her as official character.
And the truth is that MK9 is not the title that I have played the most in the saga. Erik and I had a time when we played MK4 almost daily. And look, number 4 is not exactly the best in the world, but it brings back fond memories.
In short: they convinced me to do it and, judging by the little clothing she is wearing, it seemed easy… but it wasn’t! So now I’m going to tell you about the process of this cosplay, which took me two weeks to make.
Luckily Hidrico sent me some renders so I could see the model better, which were very helpful:
Update: Photo shoot here.
The first thing, and the most obvious of all, is that MK girls have big boobs. So I went quickly and buy the most push-up push-up bra I found in the market.
As you can see in the photo, I trimmed the cups a little in the center to leave more flesh exposed. Because it turns out that Skarlet likes to show some meat, well, I wanted to emulate her as much as possible, which is what it’s all about.
 |
| Booby power. |
The fabric chosen for the cosplay was a very pretty and elegant shiny spandex. At first I tried to make patterns, but when I put it on it didn’t fit at all because the fabric is very elastic and didn’t fit at all. That moment was like the woman in the Aire bra ad, when she pretends to put on her bra incorrectly with a look of infernal stress.
Also, Skarlet doesn’t have any darts anywhere and I didn’t want to wear them either. So I asked Dawn for advice, who had already taken her Jade and she told me to use the mannequin. And that’s what I did: I put the fabric wildly on the mannequin, I held it on the sides with pins, stretching it as much as possible and I marked where the layout of the top should be.
As I was cutting and getting closer to the final shape, I was pulling and adjusting to make it as smooth as possible.
And the same for the back:
I was very smart and I didn’t realize at that moment that this woman’s top is crossed in the front. So I used the shapes that came out on the front as a pattern and transferred them to the final fabric including the front flap.
 |
| Silly drawing of the chest part with flap. |
With the fabric issue resolved, I began to assemble the top over the bra.
I added some strips of the same black fabric to the edges.
And, after the black one, came the silver one.
It took me a long time to assemble the strips because I had to make sure that the fabric was tight, that the measurement was correct, blahblahblah. And it was such a sewing experience. I spent two days working just with this. The bad thing about this type of fabric is that you can’t put a couple of pins in and go.; You have to measure, baste, test, adjust, baste again, unbaste… it is very laborious.
One stupid thing I did was, after sewing everything, I glued the excess seam with fabric glue because in some areas it came off and looked horrible.
 |
| Finished. |
Then I put on the ninja mask, which brought me another few hours of endless frustration. Skarlet has the seam on the back, but nothing fit me, so I grabbed a piece of leftover lycra that I had lying around and I started doing tests , almost drowning, until I came up with the shape of what I wanted.
 |
| Squeezing with your hand where the main dart would later go. |
To do it on the red fabric, I faced two pieces of it on the visible side and traced the pattern.
And since the image above looks terrible, I’m giving you another one that I’ve reviewed digitally. That’s what came out. I sewed the sides and that’s it.
Later, I sewed a small dart in the chin area so that it took its shape and didn’t hang.
I adjusted the edges. Instead of sewing, I glued the hem because, as is traditional in this post, the elasticity of the fabric was such that I was afraid that it would become deformed or that it would leave a very ugly mark.
I added the strip of black fabric. I first glued this one and then hand-stitched it along the edges to give it a less sloppy finish (the textile logic in this blog is overwhelming).
Then I made the boots. It was funny because I had already gotten the hang of spandex and it didn’t take me long to make them, but then they gave me the upper part, which is made of hard imitation leather.
I made such a wonderful elastic boot cover shape: a tube. Then put it on inside out and adjust it to the contours of the shoe and leg.
 |
| Tube. |
I made a hole for the heel and adjusted it. Then I tried everything on and it was ready to decorate.
 |
| Tube with shoe included. Clue: heel peeking out of a seedy hole. |
Seams can be made in front, back or in both places. I only made one in front because that’s how Skarlet’s looks.
With the boots on, I marked the shape of the peaked top opening with thread.
And I added the black and silver part in the same way as the top. To sew this type of thing it is best to leave your boots on and sew directly on the leg . This way the fabric is stretched and everything fits in place.
To finish the boots, I made the upper part, which is like black leatherette padding with red trim on the sides. As beautiful as it is MORTAL.
I drew lines on the fabric leaving 1.5cm for the visible part and 1cm for what would go inwards forming the seam.
 |
| Larger it is better appreciated.. |
I pinned it all together and basted it together.
I machine sewed over the basting and closed it on the sides, adapting it to the shape of my leg. It took me about 12 hours to make this: 6 hours of tracing and pinning, another 6 of basting and half an hour on the sewing machine. (Oh, sewing machine, I love you).
To put the red decorations on the sides, I cut the rhombuses in the imitation leather, I glued red lamé on EVA foam with white glue so that it stayed stiff, I inserted it into the thigh pads and I had to sew it by hand because the machine wouldn’t go through there. The thigh shape had to be closed to be able to do it and this was three days of non-stop sewing. I even took it to the park one day.
I pinned all the decorations together. I did this mainly so that the leatherette would not come apart, since it’s opened to cut the shapes.
And, what I told you two lines ago, I sewed it by hand and it was hard as a stone. But I did it.
When I finished that part, I attached it to the boots and hand sewed it as well.
To relax a little, I started making that wonderful loincloth I’m wearing. I made the motif on cardboard, transferred it to imitation leather, cut and glued it on the red spandex fabric.
Finally it was the turn of the armor, which I made of EVA foam. I drew the basic shape, made the lines and went over them with a pen until they were well marked. Yes, it is a very stupid technique, but highly effective.
I added a border with a thin strip of EVA foam glued with cyanocarylate to give it a little more relief.
I primed them on both sides with latex (because I knew I was going to have to soak them in the photos, hehehe. But that’s a surprise), I painted them with silver spray and put their good layers of vinyl latex back on them with a clean brush.
I glued a piece of black EVA foam to the shoulder armor and for the forearms I made some decorations like those on the boots and attached them with a hot melt jet.
 |
| Kunais made by Erik with PVC foam |
Besides, Erik made the ninja swords and the kunai for me(one is missing in the photo because I took it out today and I lost it during the photo session).
The kunai are made of PVC foam (forex) shaped with the Dremel.
The swords are made of wood, the handguard is a PVC pipe and the handles are decorated with ribbons that are used on racket handles. Decathlon doesn’t know it, but between this and armor mats, they are supplying thousands of cosplayers around the world. In fact, there will come a day when they make a living from cosplay, I predict it very, very much.
The sheaths are two PVC pipes. Erik had the great idea of applying heat to them and flattening them a little so that when he sheathed the swords, he turned them and they were stuck.
And with this and some strings, we finished the cosplay.
As she is half naked, it’s an easy costume!! they said… it seems not, but I had to do it in a very short time and some pieces gave me a lot of trouble. But I am very happy with what has come out.
Last weekend I was in Valencia, we went out to take photos of Mortal Kombat and we had a blast, although it was very tiring because it was very hot and we couldn’t all fit in the car, so we went in batches and there were moments of absurd waiting, hahahaha . Mery and Nami joined us in the different versions of Sonya Blade and they rocked it. I must also thank Juan and Adri very much, who were helping us at all times.
Hídrico has taken some amazing photos and I’m crazy for them to come out.
Meanwhile, I leave you with an image of Skarlet’s butt to say goodbye, which never hurts.
