Did you buy a costume but you aren’t satisfied with it? With some modifications like painting, ironing and other quick adjustments, you can make your cosplay look and fit better. If you aren’t sure what to do with your cosplay to make it something you’re happy with, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to cover 7 simple ways to improve your store bought cosplays.
Tailoring
Costumes made in mass are never a perfect fit. With simple tailoring, you can sew and adjust the costume to better fit you. A costume that properly fits the cosplayer always looks better. This is something that often is looked at in competitions so learning how to tailor is a really great skill set to have in general with cosplaying. To tailor your store bought costume, simply put it on inside out and pin the areas you want to take in or map out where you need to let it out or add a gusset. Then you can sew the costume. Make sure to try it on again after making your adjustments to ensure you achieved the fit you need.
Weather
Weathering is a major way cosplayers make their costume more realistic. There’s many different weathering techniques you can try out to help make your store bought costume look better. Try things like airbrushing, washing with acrylics, oil paints, physical wear and more.
Iron or Steam
Often times your store bought costume comes folded up in a package or bag. Thus, leaving it with wrinkles and fold lines that need to be removed. Otherwise your costume won’t look great. Simply use an iron or a garment steamer to help get out those wrinkles and make your costume look amazing.
Improve Closures
Zippers, buttons, clasps and more aren’t always the highest quality or look when it comes to store bought costumes. Simply remove the old ones and sew in a new one. You should purchase better quality closures that look great and better hold your costume together.
Replace Accessories or Embellishments
Gems, patches, decals, jewelry and more often look cheap or fake on a store bought costume. I myself had a Sam mask with rubber button eyes that I removed and replaced with real buttons to make it look more realistic. You’ll want to remove the embellishments or accessories carefully to not damage the costume itself. Then, find higher quality items to add on either by sewing or glue.
Repaint
The paint job on costumes and props you buy aren’t always a good match to the source material’s color palette or it may not be well painted. Repaint your cosplays to achieve the right colors, add shading, highlights and more. You can use an airbrush or paint by hand depending on what you have available.
Add Lining
A lot of times, mass produced costumes are just serged and not lined to finish fabric edges. Make your costumes more comfortable and cleaner on the inside by adding a nice lining fabric to it.
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