After patterning and assembling the main foam armor components of our Kat cosplay, as well as prepping her romper/jumpsuit outfit for decoration, we moved into the second stage of our build. With the major costume elements ready, we moved on to some of the more decorative, detailing tasks for our cosplay. Kat’s lunar form outfit has a lot of glowing detail that we still needed to create before we could attach them all to our base pieces. Once we took stock of all the details we needed, we figure out everything we needed to tackle next: Kat’s corset decorations, her romper’s sun detail, and her long scarf. We also needed to get our foam armor pieces sealed and painted during this stage. Here’s how all of the painting and details came together.

STEP 1: Creating Kat’s Corset Details

When we were researching Kat’s outfit, we realized that she wears a metal corset-like pieces with a spiraling design over top of her black romper. There were a few ways we could have approached this element, like painting or sewing the corset details onto the romper we altered, but in the end, we decided that using foam tubing would help us achieve a result that would look the most like Kat’s actual lunar form outfit. Because we wanted the corset to be light and flexible, we ended up sourcing the foam tubing we needed from SKS props, and it worked out perfectly. Here’s how we made the corset:

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1. First, we cut the tips of the tubing into points to match Kat’s design. We marked them first so we knew how long to make the points and cut. We then rounded out the edges on the belt sander.
2. Because some of the ends of the corset needed to curl, we added some darts just like you would when making rounded parts when sewing. To do this, we just cut some triangles wedges out of the foam and then used contact cement to glue them back together. With the wedges of foam missing, the tubes curled back into themselves the way we wanted.{% gallery “crm_gallery2″ label=”Step1Gallery2” %}
3. To make the piece of the corset decoration that looks like a sun, we used foam clay, which we also got from SKS props. To start the sun, we printed out a picture of the sun detail to scale with the size we needed. Then we sculpted the foam clay directly on top of the picture to get the design exactly right. We set that aside to let the clay dry into foam.
4. We would use CosBond Attach & Build to attach the corset pieces to the romper later on.

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STEP 2: Making Kat’s Scarf in Multiple Pieces

The nice thing about cosplay is that the pieces you make don’t actually have to function the same exact way it does in-game. Kat’s long scarf, for example, floats behind her in midair as she’s navigating in zero gravity. However, to make things easier for ourselves both while we’re making them and while we’re wearing them, we decided to make Kat’s scarf in multiple different pieces instead of all in one like it actually would be. We planned how to make the long scarf wings separately from the infinity scarf that goes around Kat’s neck. We knew we were still going to look accurate, so this was going to be our best option. For the scarf, we decided it would look best if we actually did a bit of sewing at this point, so we broke out the sewing machine and got to creating. Here’s how we made the scarf:

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1. To start, we looked at our references images to get an idea of the shape of the scarf. We measured the proportions and decided how long we wanted our scarf to be. Using that measurement, we drew out the shape of Kat’s scarf on a big piece of construction paper. We folded the design in half to cut it out to make sure that the shape was even.
2. Once we had our paper pattern, we laid that onto our black scarf fabric and traced the shape on with a chalk pencil. We made sure to leave an extra half inch of fabric for sewing our seams. We folded the fabric in half so that we could get two pieces of fabric to cover the pattern shape.
3. We also used our pattern to cut out interfacing to sew inside the scarf for extra structure. Then we cut out both the fabric and interfacing and ironed them.
4. With everything cut out, we could sew the fabric pieces together with the interfacing inside. Once everything was sewn together, we flipped everything right-side-out again, and our basic scarf piece was assembled.{% gallery “crm_gallery4″ label=”Step2Gallery2” %}
5. Because the scarf has gray details on top, we decided to save ourselves some sewing and add them using Attach & Build. To make them, we created a pattern for their shape and cut them out of construction paper. We traced the pattern onto gray fabric, then cut enough strips of Attach & Build to cover them. We peeled one side of the release paper and stuck the strips down on top of the design. Then we traced our pattern on top of the Attach & Build and cut out the shape. Then we could peel the other side of the release paper and stick the design straight onto the scarf. For the best hold, we went over the designs with an iron.
6. We then connected the scarf wings to a neck strap that came with the jumpsuit/romper that we could wear later.

STEP 3: Sealing and Painting Kat’s Foam Armor

Finally, we needed to finish off the decorations and details on Kat’s armor before we could move on to our final steps. The armor pieces that go with Kat’s lunar outfit are pearly white and blue, so we found the appropriate colors of paint and bought as much as we thought we needed. We needed to do multiple layers of paint in order to achieve the correct colors and finish, so we set up cardboard in our spraying area to catch any overspray. You should always remember to use spray paint in a well-ventilated area. So we gathered up all of our foam pieces, including the armor, tubes, and sun decoration, and got started. Here’s how we sealed and painted Kat’s armor:

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1. Before painting, we needed to seal our foam to strengthen it and keep it from soaking up all the regular spray paint. Because we were going to be painting them white, we decided to seal the foam by applying several coats of white Plasti Dip. Plastic Dip lets the foam remain flexible and light. We applied four coats and let everything dry.
2. For the white coat of paint, we wanted a pearlescent finish so that the pieces would appear to glow. We used a pearlescent spray paint over top of all of the foam that we sealed. We applied a few coats until the color looked right and let dry.
3. When the white paint as dry, we went in with a pearly blue acrylic paint to add the blue parts on Kat’s armor.