Anime Cosplay tips

[Guest KunoichiOfNight]

I'm sorry if this is not in the appropriate section, but I hope I can get help anyway.

My friend and I want to do some cosplay. This is both our first times cosplaying, so I was wondering if you could help us out. She wants to be Sakura from Naruto, and I'm being Jin from Samurai Champloo. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody knew of any websites where we could get good costumes for a low price (kind of short on cash, you see.) If not, could you give me any advice on how I could make the outfits on a low budget? Again, I've never done this before, so if you could tell me as much as possible, I'd really appreeciate it.

Thanks in advance for the help! :animesmil

[GTK]

How cheap is cheap? ^^;;

There are always cheap costumes on ebay, but the quality is hit or miss (the cheapest Sakura costume was 25... there wasn't anything listed for Jin, as Samurai Champloo cosplay isn't horribly popular.. there was a Fuu costume listed, but it was $60 and I'm not sure if Jin's costume would be around that or not).

For Sakura, the costume is easy enough that your friend could probably draft a pattern from something and make it (I attempted this once because a friend needed a sakura. I got about half way through the top before I decided I hated Naruto and pitched it XD;;; but crooked zipper down the front was the only challenging part... )


As for Jin, you could probably buy the pants somewhere if you looked around (and possible the top)... making it would be harder because they don't sell fabric long enough for kimono and there will be extra seams. They sell patterns for this type of costume also, but it's not horribly accurate (but it would probably work).

The sort of fabric in the quilting section of fabric stores (at least at JoAnns) is fairly inexpensive, so that might be a place to start looking... though don't buy thin fabric just because it's cheap... buy something that's a decent weight so it will look nice ^_^

Fabric goes on sale fairly often, you just have to watch for it (actually, a week ago I got $60 worth of fabric for around $24 ^_______^ yah for coupons).



Generally, it easier to -buy- costumes, but it's cheaper to make them yourself... I've never been happy with a costume I had made by someone else either T_T

[Guest xHaruno sakurax]

[color=hotpink]I made the Sakura outfit just recently (Twice actually, the one in my cosplay gallery is the bad version and I have yet to put the white circle and such on the better version) ^^ Number one, do you have a sewing machine? If you don't, I wouldn't go with hand sewing it, it would take a long time. I just took a cheerleader shirt (one with a collar) and took off the sleeves and made it slightly wider at the bottom and stopped sewing the dress sides together around where your hips start. But it really depends on which verison you want. Sakura with the sleeves or Sakura without the sleeves.

As for the cost, if you go to your local wallmart they may have a sewing section (mine does) and some of them have a 2.00 bin (All the material within the bin is 2.00/ meter). If you find some material you like there, you cold use that. That's about all I can think of and sorry I don't know anything about how to make Jin's costume.

[Sojiro47]

I don't know about Sakura, (I bought a costume off of Amazon for a Friend once) but I know that in my town there is a collectible shop that sells sword gear, such as hakama and i'aido. If there's a place like that in your town-city-thing, than I would check there. The Hakama is what you want. Their also called Kimono.