G A R N E T " D A G G E R " T I L . A L E X A N D R O S
Final Fantasy IX
L A D Y . P A L U T E N A
Kid Icarus: Uprising
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The Inspiration
Rynn and I had been looking for a new pair of Competition-level costumes that we could do together. We originally brainstormed making these around 2016, but ultimately pushed them off as too ambitious for what we already had going on in our lives. Then, we decided to pick them up again, and use them for our entry for the C4 2019 preliminaries (Yes, in 2018. No, that's not a typo). This is a set of costumes where I would have been happy to be either character, but this one actually was a nice blend of my strengths and weaknesses that I was excited to tackle!
The Build
The wig is a combination of a Venus in Jade and matching wefts from Arda Wigs. I sewed a new part into the front of the bangs with wefts, as well as thickened up the front pieces. There was a bit of custom trimming and curling involved, but was otherwise a pretty straight-forward wig.
The armor and all the accessories are about 85% EVA foam. Some of the charms on the belt, as well as the spiral pieces in the hair piece and the armor, are made out of a mix of Model Magic and Hearty Airdry clay (a cosplay god-send, being slightly flexible and THE LIGHTEST CLAY EVER when dry). I bought a rotary sander, heat gun, and respirator mask specifically for this project. All the EVA foam is primed w/ Plastidip spray, then painted with Rustoleum Metallic Gold spray paint and acrylic mix of black and gold. The small red jewels were cheap faceted plastic rhinestones that I sanded the facets out of using a fine-grit sandpaper, then colored them with red sharpie. The large red hip gem was cut down from a HUGE clear plastic Christmas ornament, sanded with a fine-grit sandpaper to match the look of the smaller stones, and also colored with sharpie, to match the other stones. I then covered a piece of EVA foam in aluminum foil to create a reflecting backing the mimicked the smaller rhinestones. The staff is mostly EVA foam, with the base staff being PVC pipe. The head and cap of the staff are each attached to PVC pipe connectors with a shorter pipe running through them, making it possible for me to remove the head and cap for transportation.
Compared to the armor work, the sewing part of this costume was fairly simple. I decided to make it as a bodice and skirt combination instead of a single dress, to increase range of mobility. The bodice and skirt are both made out of pale ivory silk dupioni that I've been holding on to for years. The designs on the bottom of the dress, and the top of the bodice were hand painted with a metallic gold fabric paint. The Toga is made of white crepe-back satin, with the crepe side out. The gold detailing I purchased pre-made on AliExpress (a lucky find!) and the gold edging is a taffeta I had in my stock pile. All of the belts, straps, as well as the shoe covers were made from a very nice pleather I got off the JoAnn's Red Tag table.
