Terra Branford Work Log

It is finally finished. I have been working on this cosplay for a whole 8 months. But it was so worth it. I am a huge fan of the oldschool Final Fantasy games and Terra has been my dream cosplay for years, but I always thought I'd screw it up since her design is so freakin' detailed. It did take a long time to make this, but I'm pretty proud of the result.

When making a detailed cosplay, it is always best to start with the basics. The first thing I did was to search for a red fabric with a slight shine to it like the one on the original artwork. In the end I decided to use a dark red velvet fabric. I created a pattern for a tube dress out of my own measurements and transferred it to the red velvet. On the top it is hemmed with a white stretchy fabric and on the bottom it is hemmed with a light yellow fringe border. 

At first I wanted to embroider the flower pattern onto the dress. But then I realized two things. First, my velvet wasn't really suited for embroidery. Second (and that is the actual reason for my failure) I have absolutely no talent for embroidery. Well, you have to know where your limits are. Ultimately, I painted the flower pattern onto the dress with several layers of fabric paint. I tried to work with different shades of the same color, so that the flowers look more three-dimensional. 

I spent days trying to figure out the arrangment of the different pieces of fabric that are tied around the waist. After several trials, I was finally successful. After figuring out the right shape and size of the different fabric pieces, I worked on the details. I painted the patterns onto the fabric pieces with fabric paint, sewed the green/gold brooch onto the center and hand painted several beads for the left side of the belt.

The dagger which is attached to the right side of the belt is made of model magic and was painted with acrylic paint. I also glued a greenish gem to the top of the hilt. The sheath of the dagger is covered with the same yellow fabric which I used for the belt.

The gloves are made of the same dark red velvet as the dress. On the top they are hemmed with the white stretchy fabric which I also used for my dress. At the bottom they are hemmed with a gold satin fabric. I made the gloves without a pattern. I started out with two tubes of fabric and adjusted them by cutting, sewing, cutting some more and then sewing again, so this was pretty much a trial and error process. When I was happy with the shape, I made the bracelets out of a green and a red shiny fabric. For the right glove I made a bracelet out of blue pearls. The flowers on the gloves are again painted on with fabric paint.

For the cape I dyed two pieces of a cotton batiste fabric because the gradient on the inner half of the cape is slightly different from the one on the outer half. On the inner half the gradient goes from a light yellow to purple. On the outer half, the top is also colored a light yellow, but then it goes from a light pink to a light purple. When I was happy with the color, I painted the flowers onto the outer half of the cape and then sewed the two pieces of fabric together. For the fringe on the bottom I took some more of the batiste fabric and frayed the edges. Then I dyed it purple and sewed it to the bottom of the cape.

The cape would have been finished at this point, but I wasn't really happy with the flowers. So I decided to make some flowers out of different shades of pink organza fabric. I cut out many circles in different sizes and then burned the edges (a few times also my fingers) with a lighter. I gathered the circles to form flowers, finished them of with a bead in the middle and sewed them to the cape. Finally, I hand painted some beads and closed the cape in the front. 

I got the shoes from ebay for about one dollar. I painted the lower half of the shoes with gold fabric paint and made a boot cover out of dark red velvet and some gold satin fabric. The flowers are (again) painted on with fabric paint.

The wig is a light green curly wig from the ebay shop Wig Fashion. It is approximately 30" long (80cm). I was really happy with the wig. The fibers where very soft and easy to brush out. However, the wig hair is not very thick. Nevertheless, I gladly didn't have any trouble with creating a ponytail. It was a little tricky, but with the help of a tutorial from Epic Cosplay I managed to get a decent looking ponytail. I then cut the front parts of the wig and curled them with hair rollers and hot water because they were too straight for Terra's hair.

I made various hair accessories out of pearls, fabric and fringe and attached them to the wig. The beads in the front are glued to the wig with hot glue. 

The sword is made of a PVC hardfoam board and modelling clay and is painted with acrylic varnish. If you want to know how exactly I made it, you can find a tutorial here.

Photo credit: Benny Cosplay Photography