2025 recap part 2 - the cosplay projects

 I am not as productive when it comes to cosplay, but that is also because when I make a cosplay project just one project involves everything from top to toe, so it's hard to make just small and quick cosplay projects. For 2025 my plan was to finish my female tusken raider and to make a Toadette cosplay from Supermario. 

The tusken female had been an on and off project for more than a decade, so it was really time to finish it. I got it done in early spring and had it approved in both legions by the summer, so that I could use it for trooping for the first time at Stockholm Comiccon. I really like the costume and it is quite comfortable for being a masked costume. There are quite a lot of posts about the projects here.

The plan to make Toadette for NärCon turned out to be a bigger project than I had planned when my husband agreed to come with me to NärCon and to wear cosplay for the first time. The whole project ballooned, literally when it came to our hats, and in the end it wasn't such a small and easy project, but it was fun and my husband loved it and wore his Toadbert costume more than I wore Toadette. The project posts are here

My husband even got so hooked on cosplay that for comiccon he wanted to go in cosplay, even if I couldn't fit the Toadbert hats in our luggage. The answer was for him to grab his bathrobe, a towel and a tea mug and go as Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. And yes he proved more popular and people recognized him more in his 5 minute closet cosplay than my painstakingly researched and quite expensive Tusken.

Finishing Project Toad

 So as usual in the end stage of a project I'm not as good with documenting what I'm doing, but the project is finished and I will try to scramble up some finishing details.

In the last post I had just made the hats wearable, and it was only on to adding the big white circles on them. I cut out round shapes and then I glued them on, and that is where I hit a snag, and why you should always test things before going all in.

The textile glue bled all through the white lycra and I got really ugly stains, since I had just randomly squeezed the glue on. It being glue it was really stuck though so there was no way I could remove he spotted fabric. Thankfully I had some extra white lycra left, since I had bought too much, and I could just eke out five new circles. I had thankfully only done one hat at a time so for Toadette I knew it wouldn't work. I simply had to handsew the circles on to the hat. I can say handsewing on the big unwieldy hats was not comfortable at all, so it took me a whole day for one hat, because I had to take breaks. It took me some time to get energy to redo the blue hat. I was thinking about if I had to cut out an interlayer to prevent the stains from showing through, but in the end I was too lazy for that and I just sewed the new fabric on top of the old

This is the end result. The stains are faintly visible, but most people won't think about it, so I will keep it at that.

For Toadette's ball plaits I bought styrofoam balls and covered them in the same fabric as the rest of the outfit. Around the balls I have made a net of fishingline, that interweaves with the fabric, that way the weight of the ball is not just hanging from a thread at the top. The fishing line is almost invisible, and I have sewn it onto the main hat. My idea with the glued on hooks didn't work, when I noticed that one of the hooks had already gotten loose. I guess that they were made for static weight, not for the swinging of three balls hanging from it. I have sewn through the foam, but to prevent the fishing line from cutting into the foam I have looped it around empty plastic thread rolls on the inside, to distribute the weight better.

With the balls done I could make a first costume test, because I had sewn the dress inbetween working on the hats. The dress was simple in construction, but lycra is not a forgiving material to work with.

The pattern for the dress is a simple A-line. I made it by tracing a top, to get the neckline and sleeves good, and then to make it wider I added one triangular gore on each side. I then traced the finished dress to make a pattern for the vest. The vest was cut in one back and two fronts edged with a premade gold bias tape. To finish the raw edges of the sleeveholes, but on the dress and the vest I sewed them together and turned the vest to the front.

My dress was finished and it was time to make his vest, and apparently I didn't take any photos of that process. It was a simply e-pattern for a man's vest that I fond on etsy. The outer fabric was lycra, but to stabilize it the lining is a blue cotton canvas. Here the lycra came to the rescue. When I measured my husband the pattern was made according to his chest measurements, but it was too small at the waist. I solved that by removing the shaping darts at the front of the cotton lining, but I could keep them in the lycra, which is also made it stretch really taught and nice over the lining, and looks really good. I skipped the finer details, like welts and buttonholes so the vest is closed with some snaps on the inside instead

Wearable Toad hats

 The hats have been covered, but are still missing the white rounds on them.

We have discovered that it is impossible to fit the whole hat in a selfie, and that we can't kiss when wearing them. The following images are some taken when working on the blue version and some of the pink version.

With the growing size I realized it wouldn't be enough to just trust a good sized head opening to keep them on the head.

The solution was to make a liner out of grosgrain ribbons. That also means that the opening didn't have to fit very tight, since the liner would still keep it from sliding down.

I sewed the lining on to the foam base, with thick buttonhole thread and big stitches, to avoid weaking the foam with the stitches. I then folded the fabric and the foam over the edge and sewed that to the grosgrain ribbon as well.

Time for a fit check. With the ribbon and the fabric folded into it, the size of the had opening had gotten quite a lot smaller. I had to do some cuts in the foam for his hat. For my own hat I wanted to be preemptive and I cut the hole bigger. In fact it got too big, and with a too big headopening the hat slides around too much. It was easier to fix that by simply adding more wadding to the edge, and then removing bits of it until the hat sat snug, but not too tight. On this stage it is important that you don't feel any pain or pinching, I hope my husband was honest when he said it was comfortable (but heavy). If it feels just a tiny bit uncomfortable during the fitting will only get worse when wearing it for a longer time period

Toadette will also have her braids/balls hanging from the hat. For that I have attached clear plastic hooks on the foam base, so that I can attach them to that. I'm hoping that the glue will be strong enough to hold them. Since the lycra doesn't fray I will simply cut a hole for the hook in the outer fabric when it's time to attach the braids.

The final closing and adjustment of the fabric to make it lie as flat as possible was done by hand. It gives a bit of Frankenstein feeling to the seamms, but on the top most of it will be hidden by the white roundel.

Toadette also needs her ballbraids, and with the main hat finished I cut out paper templates to check what size they should have.

And with that it is time to also start on the clothes for Toadbert and Toadette. All in all after the inital building of the hats, the rest has been a more smooth experience than I thought it would be. 

Toad hat covering

 The hats are of course not meant to be white, it was time for them to get a fabric covering. By now the hats had grown so large, both with the raising of the foam and the wadding, so I decided to make a new pattern for the fabric, rather than trying to use the old one.

I simply added a piece of pattern tissue on top of the hat and while feeling with my fingers where the seams were on the inside I traced it on the outside.

Here is a comparison of the original pattern for the foam, and the finished fabric pattern. It is pointier in the top where it will go together, while the bottom is more blunt since that will go to the head opening.

For fabric I used a sports lycra, the kind you use for swimwear. The fourway stretch is very forgiving, and I also liked the sheen of the fabric. When I cut the pieces I didn't add any seam allowance, but then when sewing them together I used 1,5 cm. This was perfect to make the fabric stretch over the hat and take away any bumps.

It still looks bumpy and and uneven here, but that is because I haven't closed the top. I can't do what until I have installed some way of helping with wearing the hat, and I can't do that without my husband since I need to fit that on him. Since I still haven't got the fabric for my own hat that means that I have to make a halt in this costume project. A good thing is that I could just eke out the hat pieces from just 1 m of fabric, so now I know how much I will have to order for myself, since the fabric is quite expensive and I can't see myself using it for anything else I don't want to buy extra fabric just in case.

Supermario toad hats

 So I am making Toadette and Toadbert for me and my husband, from Supermario.

This weekend our cosplay group had a build weekend, meaning the whole Saturday and Sunday could be dedicated to making stuff, and I decided to start with our hats.

The pattern for the hat was developed from a paper patern for making sphere in six parts. I had previously started with making paper versions to see if I could get the shape that I wanted.

This was me trying to get the proportions right from the paper pattern.

This was the shape that I felt happy with in the smal scale. That V-cut out was very important to shape the top and bottom part of the "donut".

After this it was time scale up the pattern, and I did that in cardboard.

Here are the steps in scaling up the pattern, with the pattern getting bigger and bigger. Then it was time to work with foam. I used 5 mm EVA foam to craft the hats. I started with the hat for my husband, and it was definitely a learning curve. For him I made the V cutouts fairly short and wide and it was hard for me to close them.  For my own hat I made the V cutouts longer and thinner. It was much easier, but I felt that I lost some of the shape that I wanted to have.

This was the final results, but I was not happy with them. They feel too much like hats, or squashed donuts, not the tall rounded shape. It is hard to work with proportions for such a non-proportional character like a Supermario toad, but I defintitely felt that I wouldn't be happy with this. 

So for now I have cut the hats in half in the middle, and my plan is to insert a strip of foam there to make them taller. I am out of foam though so I will have to wait until I can buy more before I continue. I am also a bit worried about the hats staying on. They will catch a lot of wind in this size, and even they feel good when we are standing, i amthinkint that we need to be able to attach them to our heads more securely, but not using a strap under the chin or something like that.

The plan after that is to cover them in felt/soft foam before covering them in fabric to get the finished result.

Inspiration is back and is called Project Toad

 After a January that had me doing nothing and feeling no inspiration at all, I feel that it's time to start doing something again.

In fact I'm now so inspired to start with new projects that I have put up a deadline that I need to finish my female tusken soft parts in February, see I even publicly write a date, so that I can start with the other stuff that I want to make.

I'm into two things - project Toad and linen napkins. The linen napkins are for my 16th century camp gear. Earlier this year I got a lot of old linen curtains that were going to be trashed. The linen is a bit too rough and not tight enough to use for clothes, but it will be great for household items. I feel like making napkins and towels will be a great thing to have going, and I can keep on testing embroidery and embellishment on them.

But the main thing is that I have decided to go for Project Toad! My husband has agreed to come one day to NärCon Sommar, and that he can be Toadbert.

Toadbert isn't the most common toad, but I feel that he fits my husband really well. I've given him the mission to find a pair of white trousers, a short-sleeved white shirt and a yellow tail, and brown boots. Cosplay is new to him, and I feel that it will be best to make him wear as "normal" clothes as possible. I will then sew the blue vest and make the toad hat.

I will of course make Toadette for myself. I feel that she isn't too complicated, but I have some decisions to make. How long do I want to make her dress? How long should her ball/plaits be. The length will also determine how big they are. I will get a longer plait with larger balls, but they might also be too chunky if I make them too big. 

For the toad head/hat I plan on starting with this foam pattern for a mushroom hat.

The pattern is from Pretzl cosplay, and is for quite naturalistic hats, but I think I can use the button mushrrom pattern and modify it ino a toad hat. Since a full foam hat is really warm I'm thinking covering the whole hat with fabric, and cut out venilation holes, probably where the white circles are. For Toadette's balls I'm planning on using styrofoam balls that I also cover in fabric.

Cover in fabric migh be trickier than just painting, but that will allow me to use the same fabric in the hat as in the vest and dress, so that it's totally matching. I'm also planning on using a fourway stretch fabric, might make it harder to sew the clothes but will probably be easier to use to cover the foam.

Well that's the plan and I am quite excited, now I only need to finish the Tusken and get my next paycheck so that I can start on Project Toad.