K/DA Kai'Sa Cosplay Progress Post!!

[updated 09.08.19]

Two and a half years after Mikumo, I'm gonna be very shoddily hacking together working on another cosplay up until Summer 2019! It's K/DA Kai'Sa from League of Legends' "k-pop group" and I gave all my reasons here for why she's personally my favorite member ahah.

Follow along as I have no heckin' idea what I'm doing.

Cosplay can be such an expensive hobby, cries................

✨Expenses:
Butt Pads ----------------------------------------- $11.89  (they make such a difference omg)

Pleather Leggings ------------------------------ $17.50  (30% off wooo)
Black Pleather Fabric -------------------------- $10.00
Metallic Gold Fabric ---------------------------- $2.00
Wig ------------------------------------------------- $28.88
Charm for Choker ------------------------------- $1.69
Gold Bangle -------------------------------------- $7
Purple Lipstick ----------------------------------- $15.26
Purple Eyeshadow ------------------------------ $0  (already owned!)
Black Gloves ------------------------------------- $0  (i'm sewing them lol)
Boots ----------------------------------------------- $0  (inaccurate but idc, shoes are expensive)
Gold Spray Paint & Sealant ------------------ $0  (yay leftover materials)
                                                   TOTAL:    $94.22


✨[12.08.18]

So far I've only bought the leggings (bless Black Friday sale!) and butt pads LOL... This costume is gonna be ALL ABOUT FAKE CURVES. AWWW YEAH.

✨[04.20.19]

FINALLY PROGRESS! TAT I went to the fabric store and got the black pleather and gold fabric!

It's been so long that I forgot how to thread a sewing machine lol.... But I finished this!!! It really took a whole evening—I forgot how much time consuming manual labor even small details take... I sewed the straps as inside-out tubes and it took forever to turn them outside-out haha. And then I hemmed the top of the pants since they were too high waisted and sewed snap-buttons on the straps. /o/

✨[05.23.19]

This is from a few weeks ago oops u__u It's not actually progress but I tested something out to see if it would be a viable solution for the shirt—I tried using some leftover gold spray paint I had on the fabric. Bleeding through the masking tape aside, I actually really like how it looks!!! Too bad it both rubs off and scratches off very easily. Welp, fabric it is for the gold parts then. Why have I had no time to work on this cosplay? :c (Edit: Also tried with a coat of sealant but it mutes the gold color too much.)

✨[06.01.19]

Arm bands and choker (still need to find the charm)! Knocking out the easier stuff first orz

✨[06.13.19]

I finished a glove a few days ago!!!! A bit tight for comfort but I don't want to spend time redoing it. I failed one prior to this—and it made me really glad that I was sewing this before starting on the shirt because it gave me a lesson on how unforgiving this pleather fabric is if you make sewing mistakes. u_u of which I make plenty.....

I've been feeling really nervous about whether I'll finish before AX (and also record CB lines... and I want to do some social summer things too...) so I got started on the shirt today and will make the 2nd glove later on.

Man idk what I'm gonna do; my method of costume-making is 0% technique and 100% guessing as I go along asdkskddkf I hope I can come up with something that looks decent for the gold parts of the shirt.. Screams.

✨[06.17.19]

I couldn't find any downside-pointing triangle charms for the choker at Michael's and was too lazy to go search another crafts store and thought it'd be WAY FUNNIER ANYWAY TO WEAR a pizza on a necklace soooo here we are. I'm going to use gold spray paint and sealant left over from a previous costume!

My wig came and the two little buns turned out, well...see Exhibit A on the left. I don't have gel but I read online that you can use fabric glue on a wig, wooo! You can totally see the dried glue but fuck it, it's better than wearing two Troll heads.

KIND OF???? For now everything's pinned and I'm holding the back together. Still better than how I'm holding myself together. aaaaa.

✨[06.24.19]

Been sewing everyday and making lots of progress! The shirt base is essentially done now! Here's a WIP of the back from when I was just guessing and pinning, then putting it on to check, then adjusting the pins, repeat over and over and over and over because there's no method to my patternless madness..... THE SEWING JOB IS ABSOLUTE SHIT and no one's allowed to look at it from within 3 feet, but hey the straps come off with snap buttons!

The pants are done too whew!!!! I thought this would be one of the easier parts of the costume but my stubbornness caused it to be extremely time consuming and troublesome... Instead of buying gold ribbon or bias tape, I insisted on matching the shirt's gold parts by making strips out of the gold fabric.... which turned out to be the most fray-prone fabric I've ever worked with... and also "too much" glue would go right through the fabric and stain it. :( It was a lot of measuring, pinning, cutting, gluing edges to prevent fraying, folding, pinning again, veeeery carefully applying just the right amount of glue, pressing it with a hair iron, and then veeeeery carefully gluing and ironing it onto the pants. There are ugly glue stains everywhere. Lmao.

I keep forgetting to mention this before but through the entire month of June, I've been doing casual ab exercises and on a sorttt of diet since my body is part of the cosplay, SIGH. It's been a [sad] month of intense discipline and no I don't have abs but I think it's been causing my rib/lung discomfort so there's that!

Fome gave up half a day of his very busy life to help me out yesterday and I'm so grateful. Q__Q With AX coming up in a week, I'd be exponentially more worried right now had he not volunteered his brain and efforts. I've considered many different ways of crafting the gold sections of the shirt—from masking and spray painting, to cutting out fabric and gluing the edges (frays and stains too much), to trying to hem the edges (I don't understand how to cleanly hem curves), to making black strips to surround each gold piece (would've been somewhat clean but inverts the design; the gold should be over the black rather than under).

But Dr. Fome, Ph.D suggested that we go with the breastplate approach by gluing the gold fabric onto poster paper, and then he made the pieces of the two circular parts while I got to work on other things—bless his soul. QuQ <3 I'll then glue those onto some pleather fabric and sew that onto the shirt base, so as to not potentially damage it with glue bc I sure as fuck ain't remaking it--

Today I tried on and lightly modified the wig! Redid all the braids, cut the front braids shorter, and figured out what to do with the bangs. Left side is what I did and right side is manufacturer's default.

HERE WE GO...!!! All that's left now is to finish and attach the rest of the breastplate fragments (13 pieces left to make.. bitter laugh), pray to every holy deity that they look decent once attached, make the 2nd glove, apply sealant on the pizza charm, and I'll be freeeeeeee.

✨[06.28.19]

Progress update for gold pieces~

What I feared about this method came to be—the circular parts don't curve enough so eventually I figured out that I needed to sew in the corners! See what I mean about 0% technique and guessing as I go along? Had to sacrifice the evenness of the black gaps which I was reluctant to do but............big thing I realized is that I need to stop worrying too much about all the little flaws in this costume (OH THERE ARE SO MANY) and not spend too much time trying to make things symmetrical or try to rid of every fraying thread—because it all won't matter anyway if I don't finish this cosplay in time or if I'm too exhausted to wear it. T___T And probably no one's going to see it anything close up and long enough to care about all the little ugly flaws, right..........

(photo blurred bc too much fraying and glue stains are visible asksdjfsjd)

I actually had a lot of fun making the gold fragments uvu! Almost wish I could just keep making more instead of moving on to the scary sewing that could potentially ruin the cumulation of all my past few weeks' hard work. :'D [Edit: Should've been more careful what I wished for because guess who made a few pieces wrong and had to redo them......] I'm glad that Fome suggested using hot glue for these bits.

Upsides of using a hot glue gun:

- kind of actually fun!

- doesn't stain the fabric so I can be as messy without worries!!

- NO WAITING!!!!! AWESOME

- feels powerful

Downsides of using a hot glue gun:

- big bubbly blister from burning me hand OWIE!!

- messy

- SO MUCH COMMITMENT. Literally seconds to attach what's going to be glued down permanently before it dries. And then it's a waste of glue. A lump that's in the way.

- i've been misled to feel more powerful than i actually am

Very minor thing but to attach the charm to the choker, I made a loop out of a metal pin and wrapped the backside with part of a bandaid so it doesn't scratch my skin hehehe.

✨[06.30.19]

OMFG. INCESSANT SCREAMING.

It looks like garbage up close but it's done.

However my sewing machine is no longer trustworthy and I keep having to redo the gloves so I'm thinking I may just hand stitch 'em during the 7 hour roadtrip down to Anime Expo whenever I'm not driving. :c Also just wanted to note that I started and have been listening to Yugioh 5D's while working on this costume and I've made it to episode 109.

✨[09.08.19]

I FINISHED AND WORE IT AND HAD AMAZING PICTURES TAKEN AND EDITED BY MY FRIEND MURAMATSURI PHOTOS AAAAAA. I did indeed hand stitch the gloves during the roadtrip lol. The top looks like crap up close but it looks pretty cool in photos, I'm happy.

[ You can find the rest of my photos in this post! Thanks for following this messy ass journey! ]