Azusa Miura – Floral – Morpho Hydragea
Ah yes, this was the outfit that made me want to make my own idol cosplays. As I as going through various im@s videos on youtube, this was the colorway I wanted to do, but at the time, I didn’t feel I could do it justice because I felt my skills weren’t quite there yet. At Otakon 2013, I was approached by someone who was looking for an Iorie figure. I mentioned that I had the tiny Shiny Festa one to sell. We derped over iM@s in the dealers hall and she invited me to be a part of a Morpho group she was in.
Putting it All Together
Because it was a group project things had to be uniformed. Most of the idols were situated the mid-atlantic. I was doing my shopping in the Los Angeles fashion district during the holidays. The group called for cotton sateen. The problem with shopping for sateen in the very Armenian LA FD, is that Armenians 99% of the time will assume you’re talking about satin. Even store fronts that have “sateen” on their windows mean that they are talking about satin.
However, I was able to find something that had cotton in it (will explain why cotton is important in a bit) and was close to the color we were working with. For something as huge as the LA Fashion district, looking for cotton sateen is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Patterns
I used a McCalls day dress pattern for this project. This was actually the first pattern I ever worked with. silencedrowns (also a Makoto cosplayer) taught me how to read patterns with this one. I took the two bodice patterns and somehow combined it. The black under thingy is from the not so booby version of the bodice and I modded the booby version of the bodice for the blue part. The skirt was essentially the same as I did it with pink floral – take a A-line and make scallops all the way around it. The corset thing was a challenge in my first floral. harzilla had some amazeballs interfacing that I used to stiffen it up a little more. She also had extra notions that I used for the cosplay.
Ombre / Gradient Dyeing
I was originally going to do this in LA with the assistance of harzilla, but I ran out of time. Oops. I followed this tutorial on Rit Dye. I just boiled water in a pot and poured the boiling hot water in a basin. If you notice in the photos, the dye will appear darker that you would expect, but give it time to dry, AND DON’T FORGET TO RINSE!!!
Other Odds and Ends
I did make boot covers for this cosplay, but nearly ran out of time as it got close to con. They’re done, but they’ll have to wait for Otakon 2014. Other members of the group expressed disdain for the boots being the derpiest part of the cosplay. However, I did like glitter spraying the dress. I used Tulip glitter spray and it’s perfect! It totally stays on there – even after hand washing.
The sash-y thing under the corset was made with two strips of black fabric. I hot glued all the jewels on there. There was much cursing.
The necklace used a leftover gem stone from a Rarity cosplay.
Post-Con Fix Ups
I usually blog about cosplay progress before the con, but there’s a few things that need to be fixed. The balls on the corset need to be super glued in (they were originally hot glued). They kinda fell off when a Katsucon staffer accidentally closed the door on me too soon. The straps need to be a little tighter and I kinda want to make the corset a little tighter too.