Do you ever have to work on costumes? Live action roleplaying, cosplay or perhaps just Halloween? Below you’ll find five tips from The Leatherbound Geek. You’ll also find a Kickstarter pitch which is a good way to get someone else to make geeky accessories just for you.
At the time of writing, there are 27 days on the clock for Etana and Patrick’s campaign. They’ve a goal of $3,000 and you pick up a necklace or keychain along with a digital copy your name written in Gallifreyan for either $10 or $20.
The Leatherbound Geek’s five costume tips
- Use what you know – Everyone sees the amazing cosplay outfits that devoted cosplayers create, and wish they had them. People make armor, weapons, use bodypaint, wigs, and of course create their own costumes! But maybe you’ve never worked with Worbla, or leather, or foam. Or perhaps you’ve never sewn an item in your life! Figure out what you can do, and have experience with. It’s so much easier starting out to jump off from a point where you have some experience. Maybe you’re really good at working with cardboard boxes. Start there, and build from that point. If you start from something you know, it will be easier, look better and take less time. Then you will know what you need to work on so your next outfit is even more fantastic!
- Find inspiration – If you’re like me, you don’t want to make a cookie cutter outfit. You want to create something special, something that expresses yourself, but maybe you don’t know what inspires you. If you have something you’re trying to recreate that’s a great starting point, but it helps to look at pictures of various outfits until you see something that makes you go…OOOOH!! As an example, I thoroughly love looking at steampunk outfits, and I love dragons and leather. So I made a dragon tail out of leather that was articulated using chains and metal to give it a steampunk-esque feel.
- Create a budget – This might not be too important for some crafters, but sometimes we need to limit the amount we’re going to spend on our creations. Not just so we don’t blow our savings on an outfit, but also so we can be creative within constraints and finding the best possible deals and ways to make something happen. By putting yourself in a large box, you get to easily explore all the nooks and crannies of that box! If you have no limits at all, you might just keep going without planning ahead, and it will just end up as a permanent work in progress that you can’t actually wear out!
- Plan it out – I know, planning seems like it will take away some of the fun, but it really doesn’t. If you need to finish your outfit by a certain date, make sure you are planning for it! If your helmet is going to take you a week but you only give yourself 3 days to do it, you’re going to be stressed out and pulling all nighters. There’s not a problem with an all nighter, but combined with the fervent working you will start making dumb mistakes, like cutting that expensive piece of Worbla ½ inch too small. You can go smaller but you can never go bigger! Plus, if you give yourself some extra time you can see the finished product, and be able to go through and add special little touches that you didn’t think about before and really make it POP!
- Don’t judge yourself – Your creation might not look as good as you were hoping, or worked out as well as you thought it would. Don’t worry about it! What’s the point in beating yourself up about it when you can just say, “I did my best, and now I’m going to go have some FUN!” Enjoy what you made. It’s all uphill from here!
