Monday, May 6, 2013

Speak Up so I can Listen

Hey everyone. If you would like me to do a tutorial for a certain Item that you can't find anywhere on the net or in the stores send me a request! I would love to get any sort of requests from anyone. So speak up now or I'm going to run out of tutorials! XD

Mini Hats on a Budget

This is a really easy and simple way to make those tiny hats that you often see Ceil from Black Butler wear. I'm not going to post a tutorial video for this one, but I will if enough people bug me about it. :)

STEP 1: You're gonna have to find a reference pic for whichever hat you want to make, but this is how I made my Magnet Miku hat that she wears on her headphones.

STEP 2: Gather your materials:
  • Colored Fabric (depending on what your hat looks like you will need different colored fabric)
  • An empty cake mix box or any other useable thin cardboard
  • A ruler
  • A pen, pencil, marker, or anything that you can use to draw out your pattern
  • Scissors
  • Necessary decorations for your hat
  • Regular glue, hot glue, or fabric glue, maybe all three
  • Duct Tape
STEP 3: Estimate how tall you want your hat to be. Mine is about 4 to 5 inches tall but I think that's a bit out of proportion for me. :) So do whatever you think is proportional for yourself. The length should be from the top crease to the bottom crease of the box, which should measure to be about 10 inches long. For the rim of the hat I used just a plain 2D circle. You can try to make an actual 3D rim but for starters just use the 2D circle. To find out how big you want the rim to be cut out and roll up your rectangular cardboard piece. Place the cylinder wherever you are going to trace out your circle and trace your circle. Make sure that the edge of the circle is about 1 inch away from the cylinder.

STEP 4: Now you have two separate pieces of cardboard, the cylinder and the circle. Before gluing these two pieces together take your fabric of choice and measure and cut out a rectangular piece for the cylinder, two circle pieces for your rim, and a smaller circle for the top of the hat. Take your two circular pieces and glue them on top and bottom of your circle. Then glue the rectangular piece to the cylinder. 

STEP 5: Take your cylinder and place a bit of duct tape inside so that the hole on the bottom is covered and the sticky side is facing you. Put a bit of hot glue around the edge of the tape then place it centered on your rim (the circle). Let the glue cool, tip the hat upside down and gently shake it to make sure that the two pieces are secure. If the cylinder falls off apply more glue.

STEP 6: Now it's time to decorate! o(^▽^)o Add any sort of decoration that your hat needs. Since the bottom of your hat doesn't have a hole it's really easy to glue it to a head band or hair clips. Just make sure to use hot glue to secure it. 

I hope this tutorial did you some good. Please leave a comment and tell me how this worked out for you. Please leave questions too, they help me improve my tutorials. Thanx everyone!

Vocaloid Arm Warmers :D

This tutorial can be used for any arm warmer needs that you have....I think....^_^; But I do know that you can use it for at least all of the Vocaloids that have arm warmers. Ex. Kagamine Twins, Miku, Luka, ect. The steps are the same it's just that you'll need to change the colors, add/take away a few things, or change the pattern a little bit. :) You can use this tutorial for leg warmers as well, just adjust the measurements add whatever you need and shoopah! Awesome leg warmers.

STEP 1: If you know who Miku or whichever Vocaloid your cosplaying as looks like then you shouldn't need one. But here's a couple anyway. ; )

http://www.giantbomb.com/hatsune -miku/3005-7367/
http://arisacosplayblog.weebly.com/hatsune-miku-default1.html

STEP 2: Gather your materials:

  • Black Fabric
  • Colored Fabric (The color depends on which Vocaloid you're cosplaying as I'm doing Rin, so I'll be using a yellow/goldish color)
  • Elastic, preferably wide but any will do
  • Flexible Measuring Tape
  • Scissors
  • sewing machine or thread and needle
  • Clear Vinyl
  • White Printer Paper
  • A Pen, Pencil, Marker, or anything else that you can use to draw out your pattern
  • Arm Warmer printout (Here's are links to two fairly good pics, pick whichever one you like best: http://dramakana26.deviantart.com/art/Vocaloid-Arm-Design-185960657 http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=218568)
STEP 3: Now we're going to make the pattern. The pattern shape should be composed of a rectangle and two triangles. The height of the pattern should measure up to be (for Rin) from your elbow to about where you can still see the tips of you four fingers. For Miku the sleeve should measure from about your mid upper arm down to where you can still see you four fingertips. The botton width can vary but the top will be the circumference of your upper arm plus two extra inches for seam allowance.

STEP 4: After you've got your pattern measured properly and cut out, take your black fabric, fold the fabric in half, and pin your pattern to it. Then cut out your pattern, there should be two cut-outs of your pattern (one for each arm). If you're making your whole Vocaloid cosplay, or any other cosplay that has matching arm warmers the same color as on the cosplay, from scratch I would suggest that you make sure to use fabric from the same batch or else your color shades won't match.

STEP 5: Now it's time to cut out your colored bands. First make a pattern for your bands. It should measure to be three inches high and the length of either the top or bottom of your sleeve, depending on which bands you're cutting out. When you have your pattern cut out pin it to your fabric, which should be folded in half, and cut your pattern out so that you have two bands when you unpin the pattern from the fabric. Repeat this step for the other set of bands. If the arm warmers that you're making don't have colored bands then use the same fabric for the top band and hem the bottom. If they have some other kind of embellishment or decoration shoot me a comment with a pic and I will see if I can make a tutorial for the decorations.

STEP 6: Now to sew the colored bands to your arm warmer. For the top bands I find it easier to thread the elastic through as you're sewing. Of course I do most of my sewing by hand, so if you have a machine please comment and tell me how you would thread the elastic through. Then for the bottom bands you sew straight across. Now before you actually sew the bands you'll have to fold and pin them. First, choose which side is going to be the front and which is going to be the back. Then you'll pin one edge of the colored fabric to the edge of the black fabric so that there is no colored fabric hanging off of the edge of the black and unpin then repin it in place about half an inch below the edge. Then fold the colored over the edge so that there should be about an inch and a half is hanging over the edge. Before you pin the other side, fold the unpinned edge half an inch then pin using the pins that you used for the other side. Then sew band in place. Repeat for all bands.

STEP 7: Set aside your arm warmer and get out your clear vinyl. You'll be cutting a rectangle piece for the electronic looking things on the front. Your vinyl size will depend on your arm warmer size. But you want to place it so the top of the vinyl is 2-4 inches away from the bottom of your top band and only an inch or two away from the top of your bottom band. The width of your vinyl should be about half the width of your arm warmer. I sewed mine on by hand but I think sewing it with a machine is a lot better because the vinyl on mine is kind of loose because I sewed it on by hand. Ok, when sewing you want to leave the top unsewed so that you can slip the paper into the pocket that you've made with the vinyl. 

STEP 8: Now that you've sewed your bands and vinyl to the main piece take your two edges and pin them so that they are inside out. Pin your edges and then sew along your edge. Make sure to pull the two ends of the elastic so that the upper band fits around your arm comfortably. Then cut the excess elastic though make sure to leave half an inch so that you can sew your elastic to the fabric. Sew the edges and the elastic when that's done take your arm warmer and flip it inside out so that you can see the vinyl and the seams are not showing.

STEP 9: Print out the arm warmer picture, slip it into the vinyl pocket. If it doesn't fit correctly, DO NOT RESEW! Either cut the paper or adjust the size on the computer and print it out again.

STEP 10: Repeat steps 3-9 as many times as you need/want. You might want to repeat step 2 if you're trying to mass produce for friends. :)

And there you go! A completed arm warmer just for you or a friend! I hope this tutorial has been helpful to you. It took me a really long time to write this tutorial, almost two months! So enjoy your arm warmer, comment and tell me what you liked about my tutorial. I would love to receive requests from anyone and everyone. :D

Miku's Leek :D

Alright, here is an awesome tutorial from me, awesomerichgirl$$, on how to make Miku's leek. This is something that is very easy to make and it doesn't take very much skill to complete. :)

STEP 1: A reference pic is not necessary but here's one for those of us that just need one. :)

STEP 2: Gathering materials, Here is a list of stuff that you will need to get:
  • A Small bowl
  • A bottle of Elmer's Glue (for this project you can also use paper mache if you like)
  • News paper
  • Office tape
  • Blank White Paper, preferably printer paper because it's easier to work with
  • Scissors
  • Wax Paper
  • A Cardboard Tube, like the ones left over after you use a roll of paper towels or gift wrap
  • Dark Green, Light Green, and White craft paint
  • A Craft Paint Brush

STEP 3: Take your stack of white printer paper and cut them into strips about 1 inch wide. They can range from 1-2 inches if you would like. After you have done this put your stack off to the side, we'll use them later.

STEP 4: Now to make the rough shape of your Leek, take your news paper and wrap it around your cardboard tube. You can make your Leek as long or short as you like. I would recommend it to be at least as long as your arm. Each time the news paper goes around put a dab of glue to keep the news paper from unraveling. You can either glue or tape the end of the news paper once there's three or four layers of news paper around the cardboard tube. Now make another news paper tube about half the length of your first. This tube will be the part that protrudes off to one side of your leek.

STEP 5: You should have the longer paper tube still on the cardboard tube and the shorter one off to the side. Take the smaller tube and tape it a little more than half way up the longer tube, so it looks like the shorter one is merged with the longer one. Don't worry if it looks a bit odd because in the next step we'll get rid of it.

STEP 6: Next take the Elmer's Glue and pour half of the bottle in to your small container/bowl. Take your strips of paper and coat them in the glue one at a time. After you coat one strip in glue place it on the news paper. Make sue that it's all smooth and that there's no bumps or anything like that. Keep repeating this process until there is NO NEWS PAPER SHOWING because if there's news paper showing it'll look tacky, and that's not the look that we want. ^^;

STEP 7: After you've covered the whole thing with no news paper showing I would go over and add another one or two layers just for durability. After you've done that you let it dry, you can put it outside if it's sunny, or you can leave it inside near a fan, or you can blow dry it on a cooler setting. It takes about half an hour to an hour depending on how many layers you put on. It may take a longer or shorter amount of time depending on which method you chose.

STEP 8: Now the fun part! Painting! :D I would suggest that you pair the whole thing white, then paint the connection part light green and the rest of the top dark green. Let the paint dry before taking your leek off of the cardboard tube. Keep adding layers of paint until it looks like how you want it to look. :) You can use craft sealer if you want, I don't use it personally just because I don't want to buy a thing of craft sealer, use it once and then have to throw it away because of disuse. :P

Okay! Now you have an awesome looking Miku Leek to use for whatever reason you decided to use it for. :) I will try to get the tutorial vid up as soon as I can, but I have no idea when that will be. ^-^;