Amira's blouse

The blouse meant first bigger challenge. First of all - it had much more complex embroidery than I had done so far (and last time I ever did any embroidery was grade 8 I think almost 15 years ago.. and I was horrible at it).

Second (and much bigger problem) was that the embroidery design was not constant in manga. It looked nice and in "same style" but not the same. I was just browsing the mangas over and over again to figure out what are the common parts of the design but in the end, I just went to copy machine and copied (with magnification) around 30+ pages, set them on the floor and tried to make sense that way.

The honest answer: no - there was not a common theme or pattern. Some of the manga images, that were next to each other had same kind of pattern but from scene to scene  but they were never same from place to place in manga. Very different and varying (you could argue that she had more than one blouse put :P). Therefore.. I decided not to figure out the exact style from multiply images but I went with the cover of first volume. It only shows half of the sleeve, so.. that was my reference. I used other scenes to see how usually one side correlates to another side and "created" the parts that were not visible on the cover by myself. Let's just say - it took more time and effort than I first thought.

 Then. Starting with the blouse. To be honest, the first try was counted as failure in the end but let's go with the flow as I did. I first cut out the pieces of nice red linen, sewed them together (not the right move, will explain later) and then started doing the embroidery.

Mess in the floor when I try to figure out the pattern

The pattern was very simple as from my research into Turkmenistan national costumes, I did not find any specific patterns but what was stated was that they did not had anything too complex and usually blouses consisted of just simple slightly modified rectangles. So, I went slightly above it for better fit but I did not use any specific pattern from outside sources. From the front I have triangles at the sides to fit better with breasts and on the back, I actually used three pieces (one central, two at the sides) with slight curves for better fit in waist. I could probably have used rectangles there too but I thought, as it is going to visible anyway, that separate pieces give better fit and look nicer. Sleeves were very simple rectangle shapes with matching curves at the top to fit the bodice.

Mock-up. Looks good but way too long

Ah, I just had enough fabric :D

 For the choice of stitch for the emboridery, from my research, I thought, chain is the most suitable. On most of the images from manga the embroidery on blouse was like a line, therefore chain would fit perfectly. In very few rare pictures the embroidery on blouse did looked like satin stitch but that goes into the line of inconsistencies from author. I used the same machine embroidery thread for chain stitch as I used for underwear (3 threads together).

Putting sewn together blouse into a frame and drawing the pattern guide

I started with the blouse, did the collar first, then the bodice in front, moved to back (not the right move, will explain later).. Then I did the sleeves that were not sewn onto the bodice. As I said, the first try was failure.

Not the best embroidery..

The main reasons:
 *I had not use the specific chain stitch tool that was historically used in the area before so I would highly recommend practicing a lot. I would say my first bodice was my "trial piece" in the end.. I just wish I could have chosen easier route.. like just random straight piece of fabric

*The tambour embroidery requires it all to be very stable and tight. As in the image above- it was not. Sewing everything together was my biggest mistake in this step! Embroidery first, then cutting out.
*I tried using machine embroidery stabilizer (to overcome previous problem) but when tearing it off, it just ruined the embroidery and did not worked very well at all. Waste of time!

So, when I finally got to sleeves, my embroidery skill had developed a lot. I finally managed to have nice tight framing of the fabric (as nothing was sewn) and everything looked just so much better.

Actually, if you look one of these, the bottom embroidery around wrist is much better on left one but much lower quality of right one

Close up.

So, after I finished the sleeves, I just could not bare looking on the bodice, I went back to the fabric shop, got more of this red linen and did it all over again. Considering I spent 2-3 weeks on bodice, that was a blow but I was just so much better on this now.

So, first of all - I did not cut anything out before the embroidery. It was huge amount of fabric to move around but it worked so much better this time. Much less tearing and unevenness after the embroidery

 This is the nice compassion of the improvement of my skill. The top one is the second try, the one at the bottom is the first try

 And the back redone. Yeah, here I actually had to do some sewing as I decided to have three pieces but it was still quite flat and in some places I used smaller frame.

Then I did some sewing. First it was the top of the front and backs (and completed the lines at the sides that you can see on back but not in front). Then I sewed the sleeves into the bodice but sides and sides of the sleeves were open. I also needed to add the line for the sleeves. I did not dare to do it before sewing them together to make sure they are evenly distanced from the seam.

I sadly do not remember exactly what was the problem but those lines were huge amount of work and I redid them at least twice. I think the distance from the seam was the problem. Other than that - just stitch the line and then those little nods after some distance. Making those nods match was also not possible before sewing it together.

Then the lining. That was the moment I was heavily thinking if I would afford the silk or not. It should have been silk but silk was so expensive. I looked on artificial silk but it was not the right color, looked very weird (the quality) and was also much more expensive than I would have liked. So, in the end, it was the common lining material I used. Little unauthentic but practical thinking won - if I would have gone with silk, it would have cost a lot and noone can see it as it is lining. Probably not many people know anyway about the right materials so.. yeah.. something in me feels sad about this compromise.

Stitching the lining together (you can also see my super cute pin holder seal :D)

 

I set the lining, fixed it with pins and handsaw everything together. It all looks super nice in the end and it felt so nice to finally finish it. It took me around 2 months to do it. Most of it was embroidery that is just super time consuming. I spent all my weekend almost non-stop doing it and the first failed attempt was a blow.

The only thing left was how to close the blouse. In one or two images I can see buttons in manga. In majority of images there are nothing as it is easy to draw clothes to be "just on". Historically it is a mix. For the chyrpy it is no question - hook-and-eye closure. I found material about that. I did found other nations around the area who used hook-and-eye for most costumes around 19th century. But buttons were also heavily used on surrounding areas, specially for blouses. So, in the end, I could not find one certain answer for this and I went with "look". As on manga, you cannot see button on the cover, I use hook-and-eye to hide the openings and it would make it easier to but it on and take it off.

Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Amira from Otoyomegatari

(I started working on this dress on October 2016)

So, after Lucrezia Dress and this little feeling inside me that I want to do even better, I was not sure what will be my next project. I do not even remember what was my thinking but at one moment I was sure - it is going to be Amira from Otoyomegatari.

Otoyomegatari is probably one of the only mangas I have ever read (ok, I think I have read two? And then, after watching Attack on Titan, I did read that one too). Like probably everything connected to anime and japan, the influence or the push came from my husband. He said I would love it. The costumes have so much details, they are historically accurate etc. So, yes, I did read it and I did love the costume. Actually, when I was Japan doing the research for my PhD, I actually went to manga shop and bought myself first volume of Otoyomegatari (with first volume of Gangsta manga that was a thing at that time)

Anyway.. Amira. This is really interesting project in a sense that it is almost like doing a national costume as what she is wearing there on the cover is very similar to Turkmenistan national costume. (When I started, I was not aware that author has stated that Amira is from Khazastan. I found out about it during my research when I had decided that her costume is mostly similar to Turkemenistan. I did looked very closely into Kazakhstan costumes in 19th century. Yes, the emboridery was close to that but the colors and the pattern of the coat was still very much Turkmenistan) And I think that was actually the idea - author wanted to show interesting historical costumes and settings in a way that everyone could enjoy and read about them. So, I had the manga as a source material. I had the information about the national costumes (lot of research - my inner scientist kicked out). And actually, there have been quite a few people who have done the costume before (by just googleing I found three-four really good cosplays of the same character. All had different approaches and very different results but it is good to read someone else's experience of the costume making and learn from that before making the costume myself).

As I had never used manga before as a source, I soon found out two main troubles - there is no continuity. Costume may be drawn one way on one image and totally differently on a second one. (That became huge nightmare, to be honest). The second aspect was "wearability". Some aspects of the costume that are very easy to draw are not possible on real life. That was the case especially with leaves.

Okei. I had made up my mind on the costume and I used the cover of volume 1 as my main source of reference. During the project I actually ordered volume 2 and 6 also for easier access to the source as using internet was not as convenient than having manga to switch between pages. In the end, I even actually went and photo-copied some of the pages with enlargement to see the details more freely and having the ability to lay multiply pages side by side to figure out the patterns etc.

I did not use any premade patterns for this one. The main reasoning was that at the time (19th century) the patterns used in the region are so different from the ones you get from Burda or Simplicity. So, I decided to go step further and do the patterns myself, using the same guidelines I found from internet (the magic of costume history - there are actual scientific papers on costumes, how they were made, which materials were used... and probably the scientist on me surfaced and before I even started, I spent days (I think it was more than a month in the end spent purely on research) just reading about the costumes on the area where the manga took place. I think the locations on manga and the locations on real life were little off but the general look of  Turkmenistan costumes was closest to the styles I see on manga).

Then it was finding the materials. From my research I knew the fabrics that were used on the region. So, it were the common picks - cotton, wool, silk. I found really nice and strong natural white cotton fabric for the skirt. I think that was the first fabric I committed myself to. Getting this natural (not bleached white) was a problem. Also, lot of those more natural cotton fabrics were very light. I would not imagine that this kind of dress would have had very light skirt. So, it took some time before I got the perfect fabric.

The wool was easy - black for the hat and the robe that is actually called chyrpy. That chypry robe is probably the most intriguing part of the costume for me. The one in manga is way more wider and with slightly different pattern than it used to be in real life but the similarities between those two are unmistakable. I think I found perfect wool fabric on first visit to the first fabric shop when I went for hunt for a wool. It was quite lightweight (as wool tends to be heavy - I think the cotton and wool have similar weight), had nice texture and was not that expensive (considering it was wool. Usually I would have never bought so much wool with such a price).

Then was the red cotton for the shirt and trousers. And here my troubles started. The feedback for my Lucrezia was that the color of reference was off in real life (the printing - I would blame). Anyway. I took the manga cover with me when I tried to find the red. I also had to consider the background. There was a lot of red in national costumes in the area and after my research I found this "Uiran Boyau" that was the main color achieved using locally accessible dies. The die color and the manga were little different (I would say that die was more vivid). But then I saw that on other manga covers the colors were not the same. I saw someone with volume 1 cover from other print than mine - again. The color was different. I was in panic! So, I decided to compromise between the die and my volume 1 cover. And I think what I have is quite good. It is not perfect match. I think the color is slightly too saturated (more like a die) but it was the best I could find after visiting (almost all?) fabric shops in the city over one month. I just felt, at that point, that I have to start working on the blouse or I never will.

In the end, the red I got is this kind of light but still strong cotton with nice texture. And the red also looks like a natural tone that could have been achieved with techniques available at the time for fabric coloring.

The last type of fabric was the silk for lining. I bleed when I looked at those prices. The natural silk, even with 50% off was more for a meter than the wool. The artificial silk had this kind of weird texture and not the right color or had limited amount of it on sale - not enough for the project. So... I made my heard a stone (and said no to the silk) and bought this kind of common lining fabric that was not artificial silk. I went for the overall look. It looks smooth. It is soft to touch, it has the reflection you expect from the silk and it had reasonable price. I mean, it is lining. I was willing to spend a lot of money on wool and that white natural cotton but that was the limit.(specially as almost noone can see the lining ever).

So, I had my fabrics.

The next things I went to acquire before actually starting were the embroidery tools.I had not done embroidery since school.. like 15 years ago? And I was bad at it back then. (I was also bad at sewing and everything crafty. At school reunion I actually met my craft teacher and showed her some of the dresses I have done and she hardly believed that I, who was hardly able to pass her courses, was now able to do that. I think the key is motivation. Back at school, making common skirt or blouse did not sound existing at all. Doing my first ever elf dress for LARP was much more exciting).

During my research I came across different embroider styles used in the area. There were two main common stitches - the chain stitch and so called Turkmen stitch (Also called double chain)

That double chain, done very closely, almost like for filling, was often used with chyryp. Chain stich by itself was also used a lot. There were also some other stitches (satin stitch, also cross stitch..)  plus some stitches that were not so easy to identify (mentioned in literature but never anywhere shown how to make them or had photos where they were used. Only mention. Google had nothing on them either. I came short of ideas how to identify them and I dropped those).

Anyway.. Chain stitches were the main ones. During my research I found that they had a specific tool for the stitching (not only this common needle we would think nowadays). I sadly did not write down the name they had for the tool but I found that something similar was also used in India for sari making, in Ireland and nowadays it is most common with people working with pearls. The tool has many names but I found a nice tool under the name "Tambour embroidery". US company named Lacis has a nice set that I ordered in the end. Took some time to arrive. Took some practicing but wow.. that was much faster and easier in the end than using the needle (I did use the needle at connection points between different pieces were getting required tambourine effect was not easy to achieve).

 I used common cotton stranded thread (also known as moulinè) for most embroidery. On the blouse and on undergarments (where I did machine embroidery before switching) I used machine embroidery thread that is more silk looking (having reflective surface and feels very thin and light but strong)

What else did I get? FIMO clay and silicon mix (for the casts) for the jewelry (that was the hint I got reading other people blogs how they made the jewelry) as the idea I used with Lucrezia (ordering pieces online) did not work here for their really custom shapes.

I did actually got one piece of the internet. When I was trying to find one coin to use for cast making, I found a full bracelet of antique coins. As it actually was authentic, it was quite expensive for a set of random coins, but the temptation of using authentic real old coins was too big and I ordered it.

So, that was probably the materials/tools I started with.

Later I added pvc for jewelry, wood for the bow,  leather for the boots and quiver.

I actually did some calculations of the material when I had finished my costume for local convention:
In total:

• 7 m of white cotton (skirt)
• 7 m of black wool (+10m of adhesive fabric for strengthening) (coat)
• 5 m (+2 m for redoing) of red cotton (blouse, trousers, undergarments)
• 10 m of lining
• ~1 m of artificial leather (boots)
• ~300 pieces of red cotton stranded thread (moulin?)(8m each, around 2.5km)
• ~50 pieces of natural white cotton moulin? (400m)
• ~1.5 km of natural white satin embroidery machine thread (for embroidery on blouse and undergarments)
• 3 rolls of machine embroidery stabilizer (doing embroidery on wool was nightmare. More of this later)

Posts:
*Getting started
*Underwear
*Skirt and trousers
*Blouse
*Coat
*Jewelry
*Boots
*Accessories
*At Animatsuri
*At Eurocosplay

Lucrezia Borgia dress - start

So, I would say that my first ever really big and complex cosplay project is Lucrezia Borgia dress from Borgias. I missed one year of Animatsuri due to being in Japan duing my research for PhD but as I came back in the end of 2015, I knew I can come to Animatsuri in 2016 and I really wanted to take part of the cosplay competition now when I had seen the event once (2014).

Back then I did really simple cosplay just to wear (and blend in more - as I felt totally out of place) - Irisiviel from Fate/Zero. (The first blog post in this blog is actually about this costume.. I never actually finished that series )

Photo: Kristiina Saar

I loved the char, I loved the anime and I loved the costume but it taught me a lot about cosplay. It does not matter so much how precise they details are if the costume itself is very simple. More elaborate the costume, more attention it gets. The first event taught me that attention actually matters and details matter a lot. So, for my first real try with cosplay I decided to go with Lucrezia.

Why her? First of all, anime is actually not my thing. Animatsuri and all the anime fests, they are great places to wear costumes but that's it. First I thought that you can only cosplay anime but more I learned about cosplay I realized I can do whatever I want. It doesn't have to be anime nor connected with Japan at all nor from game. I can also cosplay movies and shows.

I have always wanted to do renaissance dress almost as badly as I have wanted to do English Elizabethian time period costumes. When I had made up my mind that it will be one of those time periods, I knew it is going to be Lucrezia from The Borgias. I always loved that show for the costumes. Even when I knew the characther and show, the exact costume was much more complex.

Lucrezia wears so many fancy costumes during the shows three seasons that I had hard trouble finding my favorite. You can see and read about all the costumes here. My choice in the end was down to three dresses (the one I chose, the wedding dress and I am not sure what was the third one.. blue dress from season2 maybe). The main factor was that I really liked the ribbon sleeves. So, in the end, I went with the dress she wears in the end of season 2 and the start of season 3. It is this kind of mint green dress (I think) with lovely sleeves and lot of pearls as decorations.

So, now when i knew which dress I want to make, the next step was finding the pattern and fabric. Pattern was easy. I went with simplicity's Renaissance pattern.

I used the main pattern (on the left on preview) as a base but to be honest, I needed very little of it and I could have done it without it. The bodice was the only thing where I used the pattern and I modified it heavily to fit the pattern of the Lucrezia's dress.

The next step was the fabric. The problem was the color of the dress. There are three good quality stills:

 

 

So those were my reference images. In the top images, (season 3) the dress looks goldish, in bottom image (season 2) it looks greenish. There is another dress that looks to be the same dress with slightly modified sleeves worn also in season 2 that looks totally blue (shot during the day). So I had no idea should the dress be blue, green or golden. Also, as green is hard color to photograph and the silk reflects a lot of light, I did a little trial and error with different fabrics and light conditions and took photos until I got a fabric that gave me the most similar result to the dancing image (that i think as yellow but more neutral lightning than season 3 images).

So, I had my green fabric but the pattern was problematic. I tried to find something with similar pattern. I actually even found something but it was silver fabric. So, it would have gone with bluish tones but not with the nice warmer mint green I had. So, I decided to make the pattern myself and I do not regret that at all! This is the only way I could get exact copy of the pattern used on the show.

Pattern tile cretaed in Photoshop

So, I just used the middle reference image as it had largest resolution, zoomed in and recreated the pattern in Photoshop. I used a company that can print your own fabrics. Its not very cheap but much better than using the stamping method I used with Jacob Frye costume. The result was amazing but...

Two size tries and first test-print - totally too brown so I added more blueishness

Drawing the patterns was just time consuming and despite having good resolution sometimes it was quite hard to see the exact details and figure out the exact size. i think I managed to get close enough. (Also, in the end, I needed to transform the drawing to vector so there was extra task of learing how to use vectors and modify them)

First print - it was brown on test run and now it is totally blue. Nooooo.. But it was so nice to get a block of your own designed fabric. Loved it :D

The mint green I used in the end and another jade color fabric at right. I considered using the jade fabric but it did not fit with the blue either. So - I spent twice the money to do another print (fabric was cheap but the printing :S Lesson learned: do test prints until you are happy despite it takes time)

It took me two tries to get the right color. I used the exact same kind of fabric for the base of the pattern than the mint green. It is not pure white but has slight warm yellowish tone. So, thinking of printing technology, I first made the pattern slightly more bluish (after testrun that gave me brown instead of green) thinking the yellow will have an effect. The answer was - the yellow had minimum effect but the blue came out so so strong that it did not fit at all. I had just printed almost 3 meters of fabric that I could not use. I was not happy at all.

Plenty of test runs and final fabric with right kind of green

So, I had to go back (that was effort by itself as the company was off the beaten track) and the lady there did many trial prints to get the right color. Despite having the color guidance and printout on paper, they looked different on fabric. Anyway, in the end I had the right color. It was maybe slightly stronger than I would have liked but the printing machine had limits and as I have seen so many times with design works before - printing green is nightmare.

Anyway. Now I had both green and pattern fabric and I was ready to make the dress:

• Start
• Main dress
• Sleeves
• Decorations: Wig, jewelry and pearls
• On convention 

Jacob Frye from Assassin's Creed Syndicate

Two years ago I made a uniform like coat for a friend so he could wear it in a maskball he was going to attend. He actually won the "king of the ball" title in that event and he was back this year (2015) to ask me for another costume to wear in this year event. As the ball is organized during anime convention and there are lot of cosplayers, he wanted to become Jacob Fyre from (then) soon to be realized Assassin's Creed game.

At that point of time (summer 2015) there were very few shots from the actual game. There were few screenshots, some official promo materials and amazing cosplay by someone from Netherlands who had direct access to Ubisoft. I was stuck with working with refrence materials I can get from the internet.

 

The first concept art was good but a lot of details had been changed by the time videos from the game started to come out. So, I used it only partially and mostly used screenshots from the videos as a refrence.

For the base I used Victorian men costume pattern from McCall's

I took the trousers completely from the pattern but modified coat and vest.

For materials I bought last meters of really good fabric I found that also had similar pattern as the wool in the screenshots. The problem - I could only make coat or trousers out if. For some reason I chose trousers hoping I can find similar pattern. And by pattern I mean this on the fabric:

Anyway.. trousers came out fine and I managed to find really neat steampunk buttons for them but I could not find any more fabric with similar pattern or texture.

So, after many unfruitful trips to different fabric shops I gave up and brought random dark wool fabric and some artificial leather and stitched leather.

The stitching was smaller than I wanted but it was the only one they had in quantities I needed it. Anyway.. I could now start working on the coat. It was a lot of fun - I liked all the small details the costume had. Adding rivets. I had some really useful small women bag rivets from old times (when I made the Marie Antoinette dress hat) and they were so useful now. Sadly, I could not find them in any shop anymore so in the future when I might need them, I am out of them. I also made a leather belt with different kind of rivets. Finding so small rivets was hard but in the middle of horrible rainstorm I ran into a small fabric shop and they had small rivets in stock. Lucky me.

Sadly I do not have any images of the process, only this one really bad quality shot done with a phone when I tried the coat on my sister:

With the vest I had much more trouble - mainly due to the fabric. I tried to find something that is green and has "same looking" pattern. Soon I realized this is hopeless. I started to look anything in right green tone with pattern. Again, nothing. So, in the end I decided to print the pattern by myself. I did some googling and somewhere people made stamps and used those to apply pattern. It sounded little complex so in the end, I drew the pattern and printed it out in old fashioned slide film (you know, the ones that were used before powerpoint). It was strong enough to enable me to use carpet cutting knife to cut out the pattern. Then I used piece of fabric and white fabric paint I got from local craft store to apply the pattern, one stripe (few repetitions of the pattern) at the time. It was a long process and the slide and the cuts lost their quality more I used them but:

First tries. Getting the paint consistent right was little "trial and error"

More fabric filled with the pattern

After spending two nights on the floor and watching tv while applying the pattern I had enough fabric for the vest. I then tried it at midday's sun and later user iron to make sure the color is not going anywhere. It stands the ironing and washing.

What to say: it was very time consuming process but I did not know better option back then (now I know a company that can print on fabric using custom files, so I could have had this printed...). It was cheap at least. It took time and the quality of the pattern application was varying but it looks all right.

Finished vest. Both the vest and the jacket have their sides covered with really nice dark silver bias tape.

Anyway. Quickly I made the tie and added a ribbon to the top-hat as I was off to Japan for 4 months and I needed to finish the costume before it. So, I actually never saw him wear it before in September he sent me the pictures from the convention where I wore the costume:

Photo by: Sabīne Tarando, Elīza Eikert

Photo by: Kristiina Saar

First post

So, let's make few things sure first. No, I am not huge anime fan. To be honest, I had really bad assumption about animes but that has changed a little. I like sewing. I like making nice costumes and wearing them. I am seasoned larper and that used to be my reason and excuse why spend sometimes hours behind sewing machine. To be honest, when I started larping, I was horrible at sewing. It was the need for make my own costumes that made me try and like with everything else, you learn while you do. So, I learned and I think now I feel myself quite at home in the sewing world (except button holes.. they trouble me).

Anyway, my boyfriend is huge anime fan and is actually in organizing theme for local largest anime festival and I think there came the idea that mm.. if I am going to that convention, maybe I could do a cosplay (and hide that I do not belong in that world). That gave me the push to go on and try something new.. trying to copy something from animation and transform myself into anime char. I have no idea what comes out of it.. Let's see.

Anyway.. I decided to go with Irisviel from Fate/Zero (mm.. maybe because there are only very few animes I have seen and somehow I liked her, quite a lot to be honest.) Then there were few options for different outfits but I liked the casual one with red blouse the most. Also, when googeling around, it did not looked that too many people had tried it. The one with white coat seemed to be the most popular one.

So, the first thing I did was ordering myself few things I cannot do myself: that includes wig and boots.

As I have no idea how things are done in cosplay world (and I actually did not told at first to my boyfriend that I am going to do it), I just went with my own gut - searched for the wig in ebay and got myself cheap wig from China. To be honest, it looks awful currently but then I googled for few tips and I think I might be able to salvage it.

The other thing I ordered were the boots. I found quite many online shops offering those fancy looking boots but one actually looked great on the picture and they took into account all your measurements (I was worried that might be the problem.. I never find boots easily).

So, I was actually really excited when the boots arrived. They look gorgeous and fit super well... but.. I have no idea how but they had very weird black spot on them. I contacted the seller, tried to remove them but nothing helped. So, they promised to make a new pair of boots for me. Okei.. that should work.. Another month of waiting and new pair of boots arrive - one boot is brilliant - no marks. The other one - even more uglier black spots.. Like what? Anyway.. I gave up. The quality and the fit was brilliant but I think it was the packaging that hurt and even if I mentioned it specifically that I suspected the marks came from that, they packaged the boots the same way second time.. So.. I have two sets of boots and only one boot that is okey.. I will see what I can do with it, later..

Next thing I need is the brooch. That was actually I think the hardest thing. I googled around (again) and there was somebody selling those brooches made out of clay. I thought that might be little too heavy and I most say I did not liked the images they showed me of the same broach made previously.. So, I thought about some other options. One of my friends studies leather work and I asked her if she is willing to do that commission for me. So far, so good.

So, my next step was to come up with a design so that she could work on it. Some screenshotting from the anime and some time working with photoshop (maybe not the best tool for it but I'm very handy with that program) and I had design, measurments and did some mock printups to see if the size is correct.

Mock printups.. First one had too small sides. Second one looks perfect

Final design

So, I sent the final design to my friend and I will see what she says - I hope it will be possible for her to make that kind of brooch.