PokemonGo : Team Mystic member (Lana Jay design)

 

Hey everyone! Sorry for the tardiness post wise. I have been all over the place lately, and my emotions have been a little bit of a mess. I'm primarily better now, and I've been getting a lot of work done surprisingly. For today, I'll be talking about how I went about making my team mystic cosplay! Along with my thought process during all of it. If you're interested, please do go through the read more. I'm always thankful when people drop by and read my posts.

 

Here are the original designs. I had a group set up for Anime California, but unfortunately due to time restraints and schedule problems, our Valor was unable to make it. The designs were made by the incredible artist Lana Jay. You can find their work on their Facebook page:

Facebook page

Unfortunately I had encountered a variety of problems along the way when trying to create the costume! I had a very limited time frame of two or so weeks. Although my wig that I had ordered was going to make it in time, I knew that the possibility of ordering a lab coat and blue ankle socks were very, very weary for timing. I had originally purchased frames that matched the designs much better, but they hadn't arrived at my house on time although it was stated to have arrived many days prior. You can truly never know when it comes to mail packages.  So I'll be talking about the process I had gone through a little more.

 

So the socks were purchased at the Dollar Tree nearby my home. As for the lab coat, we purchased it at my school  for roughly $20 with tax (the beauty is that I know that I'll have to use this for class next semester). For the headband, I had found it on my trip to Daiso Japan with my wonderful friends Melissa and J. 

The shirt was a hand me down that actually had a very faded off white color, and had pit stains that I couldn't get out for YEARS. Rather than buying or making it myself, I simply took the shirt and dyed it using RIT dye inside a bucket. I used a very small amount of RIT dye (liquid) in the color turquoise to achieve the color I wanted. It also sat in the bucket for about 20 or so minutes before I had steamed and ironed it, left it alone for a little while, and then took it to get washed. 

For the skirt, I had made a simple pencil skirt pattern and truly did my best to avoid buying a zipper. Sooo...what I did was that I made sure that the skirt was large enough for me to fit in comfortably, and then I had sewn in the ties on the side of the dress so that it tied up and fitted me very comfortably and in a very aesthetically pleasing way as well. 

The shoes are actually a very old pair! I had used these shoes for my very first Kiki costume from kiki's delivery service in 2014. They were pained red, but I had no need for red flats anymore so I painted them the blue color I needed. 

 

Here's a shot of us all from when we were doing errands!!! I had trimmed the wig using a regular pair of scissors and I had meant to go back and soften the edges of the fringe now that I have trimming scissors and scissors actually meant for cutting hair....but I got very laze. 

 

Following this, I knew that it was important for me to have poke balls in the event I would be asked to throw them....so I quickly painted a pokeball form that I kept from middle school! 

 

And to top it off, why not have a team mystic flag?! I had painted a simple piece of linen fabric that was a sample piece for lining choices that a commissioner had asked from me. 

 

Altogether, this is how the final look turned out! I overslept so I didn't get the chance to iron out the skirt or the lab coat very well, but I truly think it doesn't make that big of a difference. The bulbasaur was actually one that me and a couple of friends earned up together at the OC Fair to win and we wanted Heather to hold onto it. She was very kind to let me use it for the cosplay too! 

Well, that ends this post again. I hope it was somewhat interesting. I know that a lot of the costumes that I've been working on aren't as interesting lately, but it can't be helped due to time and money constraints. I'm primarily very thankful that I've been able to get more work done without spending as much money on supplies! Anime California and long beach comic con were very kind to me supplies wise. 

Thank you so much to Kin (Visualist88) for all of the gorgeous photos from Anime California this year! They were stunning and I'm so thankful to have had been able to work with you once again. 

Until next time everyone ! Thanks for reading!