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| the magician's looking glass: WhiteMage_1's Cosplay |
| Another convention, another costume... Ambitious, or just pure madness? |
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| Cosplay: |
| Conventions: |
| Miscellaneous: |
| Tifa Lockheart // Tifa Lockhart Final Fantasy VII My second costume. In between working on my RED XIII costume, I somehow picked up the idea to make this costume. I thought it was madness to try and make a costume for CNAnime, seeing how long it took me to make one for AN, but Tifa's costume was deceptively simple in its appearance, so I decided that I might as well go for it. I was worried, though, since I'm not particularly *cough* curvy. When I was on my way to the subway in costume...one guy asked if he could be my boyfriend, however. O.o;;;; That was a little awkward, considering I'm not very attractive -_-;. I think it turned out well and some people commented that it was one of the better Tifa costumes they've seen. Considering how over-done this costume is, I think that's a high compliment. |
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| Costume Stats: Start: July 2001 || Finish: August 2001 Length of Process: 1 month, approximately Creator: WhiteMage_1 Appearances: Canadian National Anime Expo 2001 Approx. Cost: $35 Future Appearances?: Anime North 2002 (?) |
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| Construction: Shirt: What started it all off. I was looking for something to wear and decided on a white tank-top. When I was taking it out of the drawer, I was struck by the sudden realisation that it could be used for a Tifa costume. Thinking nothing would come of it, I decided I might as well try and see if I could make the costume, just for fun. Skirt: I bought it at Goodwill along with a longer version, in case I needed to use the fabric for making the tops of the black gloves (I thought I might just make the brown/red gloves and make separate arm wraps instead of buying black gloves). I should have altered it to make it look more like Tifa's skirt, but I ran out of time and didn't want to wreck it. Suspenders: One of the hardest parts of this costume. I thought it would be easy to go out and find a pair of them at a secondhand clothing store, but I was sadly mistaken. They're impossible to find! p-q Luckily, my dad was nice enough to let me borrow a pair of black suspenders he has. I adjusted them so they fit me ^^; Belt: I picked this up at Goodwill at the same time as the two skirts. I debated for a while as to whether or not I should paint it silver, to make it more accurate, but I decided against it in the end. Gloves: I found a pair of black opera gloves that were 50% off at an outlet mall. That's really lucky, since those things are pretty darn expensive O.o;;. I cut off the fingers, but didn't have time to hem the edges, so they're starting to come apart a little. I searched high and low for brown gloves, but in the middle of summer, there aren't any to be found. Eventually, I decided to hack up a pair of (what used to be) brown gardening gloves. I remembered them being much more tight, well-fitting and brown...but I guess gardening and so on changed that. They were a little umm..dirty and I didn't have time to wash them before altering them. Afterward, I hacked a styrofoam ball in half for each of the gloves, glued them on and painted them bronze to complete the gloves. The only problem was that the opera gloves were a little too short (they only went to just below my elbow, instead of part way up my upper arm). Armour: I found a bag of rings people use as part of the lids when making jam, figured I could fit my wrists through them and had my dad buy them for me. I must say that I think that's the best possible solution I could have ever found for the metal bracelet/bangle type things all the characters in FFVII wear. They were silver, so I didn't need to paint them. I bought small rhinestones at Michael's that were mostly the right colours for Materia and glued three onto each bracelet. Eyes and Hair: Luckily, I managed to pick a character who had the same colour hair and eyes as me. Well, to be honest, I wouldn't have bothered making the costume if it had been otherwise. I borrowed some hair spray from my aunt (I own no sort of hair styling products, aside from your average brush) so that my hair wouldn't go all over the place, as it had with my Makoto costume at AN. I normally part my hair in the centre, but a week before the convention I started working on getting it to part on the left, like Tifa's does. I managed to pull it off reasonably well and tied my hair with a red satin ribbon, under which was a regular hair elastic. Footwear: I read in a cosplaying site that it's recommended to always wear pantyhose with costumes and I bought a couple pairs at a dollar store (since I never wear them regularly, I only needed them for the costume). They were a little big, so I needed a few bobby pins to get it to work right. I already owned a pair of black socks, so I wore those overtop. I had seen a good pair of brown hiking boots at Goodwill the first time I went there, but when I went back after deciding to get them...they were gone already. I ended up borrowing a pair of my dad's (which were a little big, but characters in FFVII have huge feet anyway ^^;;;). I used masking tape and tin foil to add the armour plate on the left boot. Afterward, for an added touch, I rolled tin foil into little balls and stuck them onto the armour, where the bolts would be. Earrings: The one part I missed out in this costume. I ran out of time before the convention and couldn't find any clip ons that would do. I'd hoped that my ears would be pierced by the end of August, but no such luck. |
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| [Tifa Lockheart] |
| [Photos of Costume coming soon (relatively soon)] [Full-size pics as soon as bandwidth allows] |
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