As many of you know, I debuted a new cosplay while at C2E2. It was my Arsenal cosplay from the TV show Arrow. Roy Harper’s character was honestly the only one I rooted for throughout the entire series and thus it was high on my bucket list to cosplay as him. I made the cosplay and it took a lot of time since I started it back in 2022 and did not finish LITERALLY till the week before the 2023 convention. I am now going to share with you some of the behind the scenes details of making my Arsenal cosplay.
How to Make an Arsenal Cosplay: Jacket and Pants
To start off I wanted to talk about the jacket and the pants since they’re the main pieces of clothing he wears. This required a lot of sewing but specifically with pleather. I did make the entire pants from scratch with a template I found on Etsy and lots of black pleather. It took me about a whole weekend to hand sew the pair of pants which I lined with a soft black spandexy material. It was the most exhausting because I had to sew it all by hand instead of with my sewing machine because the pleather just doesn’t go through it that great. Especially with the double layer from the liner.
As for the jacket I kind of cheated to get it made. I purchased a plain red leather jacket so I wouldn’t have to create the base and added all the flair and recolored it. Then I needed to get red pleather and black velvet to create the front flair of Arsenal’s jacket and a hood. I then used spray on fabric paint I found at the fabric store for the red and black. I also got to add grommets to do the lacing down the fronts. However grommets are honestly peaceful for me to add because I get to just play with a hammer.
These pieces were probably the most exhausting since they took the most time and required a lot of sewing which isn’t always my favorite way to craft cosplays.
Making an Arsenal Cosplay: The Belt and Ankle Pouches
This part was a lot of fun. It was my introduction into sewing with pleather which hand sewing it for small projects is really nice. I had to create the pouches for the different knives, throwing knives, and the batons that would go to my ankles. I also used black straps and red pleather to completely build the belt set up. From there I got to use a mixture of EVA foam and PVC pipe to create the batons, the knives, and the throwing knives which was probably the most fun. You can actually download the throwing knife pattern for free. These were probably my favorite pieces to make and were fairly easy.
Making a Cosplay Mask and Making Gloves for Cosplay
Another piece I had to make for this cosplay was a mask. I found a template on Etsy for this as well and it was incredibly easy to make. All it requires was shaping EVA foam, painting and then adding an elastic strap around it.
As for making gloves for cosplay it was a little frustrating. Typically gloves are really easy to make since you can just trace your hand and sew. Due to a lot of pleather detailing though these took a bit more work and you’ll be able to see it all in the tutorial video I did of it on my YouTube channel.
Customizing Cosplay Shoes
Customizing shoes for cosplay is one of my favorite things. My first time doing it was actually for my Beetlejuice cosplay. It started with finding the right black sneakers. From there I used a leather deglazer and painted spots red as needed. Then I added a piece of silver fabric on the tongue of the shoes as patches. This took the least amount of time by far in comparison to everything else.
Making a Cosplay Bow, Quiver, and Arrows
These I don’t want to talk about a lot. I have a mini guide on how to make arrows for cosplay with wooden dowels as well as full tutorial videos on how I made the cosplay bow and quiver. I do want to mention it was a great time exploring combining different materials together like wooden dowels, eva foam, worbla and pleather.
But that’s really all I had to do with making my Arsenal cosplay. It was a lot of fun and I was super proud of the end result. I hope you like it too and let me know if you try making one.
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