Yoruichi Cosplay

I watched Bleach for the first time back in high school, and have been a fan for quite some time. I tend to enjoy animes that have a lot of fighting in them, so of course Bleach fits the bill. Better yet, there are a lot of strong, interesting female characters to choose from which really makes me happy.

The hard part was picking who I would like to cosplay, and I had it narrowed down to Nelliel (but her outfit is skimpy) Rukia (I was afraid it would be hard to make her recognizable) Yachiru, Sui Feng, or Yoruichi. Really hard pick, but I ended up choosing Yoruichi because I love her character, and she wears my favorite color; orange. 

Originally my plan was to buy the jacket I would need for Yoruichi, but when I was out with Colie shopping for fabrics and patterns to make my Goku outfit, I realized that Yoruichi had roughly the same design. I could try to make it, it wouldn't be that hard....

The pattern on the left

To say we started cosplaying late this year is an understatement. Everything was kind of late. We purchased our hotel rooms late, starting making things late, Colie and I procrastinated but happily we got things done. Team Colorado needs to stop dragging their feet.

My excuse was that I was very intimidated to make my own cosplay. I have tried to make an outfit before back in college (I tried to make a dalek dress. All evidence of this horrendous attempt has been destroyed, it was pretty bad) so when it came time to actually cut into the fabric everything felt real and final and it was scary. I put it off until January 8, 2017. 

At the time, I was planning on using the same design for Goku, so I didn't correct Colie when she mentioned I was working on Goku. I hadn't decided if I would start with Goku or Yoruichi yet.

Gathering materials was fairly easy. I got orange and white fabric at the fabric store, found some red paracord at Walmart, some tan fat quarter fabric for the leg wraps, hair piece, belt and scarf, and got black leggings and a long sleeve black shirt at a store. The wig I found on Amazon.

CHECKLIST:

__ Wig

__ Hair Piece- Tan cloth, red cord

__ Black Leggings

__ Black long sleeve shirt

__ Orange Jacket- Made, started 1/8/17, finished 3/5/17

__ White shoes- (ordered online)

__ Scarf- tan cloth

__ Belt-tan cloth

__ Leg wraps- tan cloth

__ Pattern for jacket

__ Shoes (found online)

__ Tan/skin color socks (found at Walmart)

All lined up, time to pin it down...and cut...

Once I had things cut, it got a little easier. I believe the first day all I did was cut out the patterns, and maybe started sewing the first part of the jacket. Colie was anxious for me to start, she was very excited about it.

I had to use her often to decipher the pattern hieroglyphics. Even with her help however, I forgot to double check I was sewing it right when I added the sleeves, and as such, had to use my trusty seem ripper to fix my mistakes.

Jacket is inside out, sleeve is not. Oops. Always double check!

Every Sunday I worked on some cosplay, some days getting a lot done, some days barely anything. So come last weekend of February, Colie and I decided to do a Cosplay marathon, where we force ourselves to stay in the craft room for as long as possible, to get as much done as we can.

It took us two of these days to get a good solid amount of this done. I'll make another post about the marathons, we did pretty good getting a bulk of work done.

Before the marathon cosplay day, this was where I was with the jacket. I had the white parts sewn, and just needed to add bias tape to them and sew them on the jacket. 

Finished on Day 2 of the marathon day (March 5) This was 3 fat quarters cut in half and sewn together, to make one long belt.

The leggings. Sewn on March 5, they are lightly sewn into the fabric of the leggings so they will stay put. At this point in time, I just need to fix the thread because you can see it a little in the back.

Yorcuichi's jacket, with black long sleeves under and scarf on top. All finished on March 5. 

I realized a few days after I had finished the jacket, that I could just sew it closed so it stops trying to open up on me. This worked great! 

The wig was another intimidating item. I'm still not sure I am happy with it, but I am a newb so I know there is a ton of room for improvement. I ordered the wig online, and it came roughly shaped, it just needed to be styled. Colie uses this hairspray called Got 2B Hair spray, it has glue in it which helps hold the form. You need to hit it with spray, and then use a hairdryer right after. The heat helps it dry faster and hold the shape.

The wig came in two parts, the short hair, and the pony tail was separate. Wish I'd taken a picture, but it attaches to the rest of the head to make it all look like one piece. 

The shoes were another bit of work. I found these shoes online and had a lot of reviews about how comfortable they were. I did not agree with this statement, but felt it wasn't worth returning. They kept falling off my feet, but I was able to fix this (for the most part) by adding white wide elastic to the shoe. This helps them stay on. I also added some Dr Sholls shoe inserts to try and make the shoe more comfortable. Lastly, not shown here, I got some heal protectors, which protect the back of my ankle from being rubbed into blisters galore. 

After Colie and I were finally done with most of our cosplay, we showed off what we had achieved to one of our amazing friends who has never seen anime, (I call it a fashion show, we show off what we have done, and we order food to eat afterwards, good times). 

Then Colie and I practiced some poses in our cosplay to make sure we can comfortable do certain moves and to see what looks best. The lighting was terrible, so you won't see the final cosplay pictures until after Anime Boston. Well...I'll give you this one:

Photo by Colie