Until you wear gloves for a cosplay you might not notice how annoying they are! You want your phone out for pictures and connecting with your fellow nerds online, but it sucks having to pull your glove off for every photo op- sometime the crowd on the floor moves to quickly.
I discovered conductive thread about a week before WonderCon 2015 so I whipped up these gloves for the phone-addicted Riddler in our Arkham Starfleet group cosplay. SInce it was in a rush, the stitches are pretty sloppy, but I’m happy to report they worked great!
I found my thread on Amazon.com since I was in a super hurry and needed speedy delivery.
How to Make Touch Screen Cosplay Gloves
All you really need are gloves, conductive thread, and a needle, but you might find a hair curler useful if you have one on hand.
You need something to put in the finger of the glove while you stitch. This is where the curler will come in handy. First, take the foam off the roller.
Insert the frame of the roller into the finger you want to make touch screen friendly.
Whip stitch rows along the pad of the finger you’re working on. You need at least enough rows to cover the pad of the finger.
Once you’re done, you’ll be able to text and take pics to your hearts content ❤
So I did this quick cosplay with ordinary clothes from my closet and a few strategic accessories. That is called a “Closet Cosplay.” Apparently. Thank you Instagram friends for using the power of The Internets to acquaint me with that term. I owe you my firstborn.
Put on my trusty Poison Ivy wig (and my own for real glasses to actually see) and snapped a quick selfie.
Used the selfie, an old con badge, and my mad photoshop skillz to create Pamela Isley’s ID badge.
Slapped a sloppy coat of green paint on this teal bra as a base- note I only worried about the middle part that would be seen.
I like to pin my leaves in place to work out my design and then hot glue ’em down.
Quick & dirty – just covered the area you’d see.
See! Looks good all buttoned up.
I’m obsessed with sharp manicures- I love nude sharp nails for this because the neutral says “professional” but the sharp tips hint at villain.
Last minute I decided I needed a little purse for essentials so I busted out the glue gun and went to town.
For me the most essential part of a DIY Harely Quinn cosplay is an iconic Harley Quinn prop! This is how I made a Harley Quinn hammer (also called a mallet).
MATERIALS I USED
2 Home Depot Buckets
Half of an Adjustable Drapery Rod with a Cool Finial
Worbla
Thick Craft Foam
Sticky Back Craft Foam
Masking Tape
Various Fabric & Ribbon Trim
Drill with 1″ Paddle Bit
Epoxy or Super Glue
Hot Glue Gun & Sticks
Black Spray Paint, Clear Acrylic Spray Paint
Red & White Craft Paint
STEP ONE: BUILD OUT YOUR HAMMER HEAD
I cut the top off of two Home Depot buckets and stuck ’em together. Then I smoothed out the seams with a combination of masking tape and craft foam.
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STEP TWO: COVER IN WORBLA AND EMBELLISH WITH TEXTURE
First I covered the whole thing in worbla for a uniform, paintable texture. Then I used a hot glue gun to add some rhinestone ribbon trim and diamonds cut out from sticky back foam. This added some cool texture to my hammer head- and also cover some seams. 😉
STEP THREE: THE HANDLE
First I covered the curtain rod in worbla and used epoxy glue to attach the finial to one end. Then I chose the paddle bit closest to the diameter of my covered rod and drilled a whole in the hammer head where the handle would be attached.
I applied epoxy to end of the rod opposite of the finial and inserted it all they way through so that the end of the rod hit the opposite end of the hammer head. I carefully held it in place until the epoxy set and my handle was secured to the inside of the hammer head.
I also added a gasket of craft foam where the handle met the head and used epoxy to secure it in place.
STEP FOUR: PAINT IT BLACK & RELAX!
When my fabrication was complete, I spray painted the whole thing black and then finished with a light coat of clear acrylic spray paint. I then I took a break and let it set for a day. It’s hard to be patient but if you let the paint cure your less likely scratch or smudge stuff. 🙂
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STEP FIVE: FINISH IT OFF WITH DETAILS
To finish off my Harley Hammer, I used a couple different techniques. I dry brushed red craft paint over my textured parts and added some Harley touches with a bullseye and psycho laughter. I cut strips of some left over deep red velvet and glued it in a spiral pattern around the handle and added some assorted ribbon details.
Although this mallet could be used for any Harley cosplay, I also made a little hobo satchel that we attached to this mallet to fit the Gotham Hobos theme of a group cosplay.
The Lego Princess Unikitty hat is one of my favorite (and most tedious) millinery craft projects.
I’ve worn this hat for two cosplays, first as Punk Princess Unikitty to Wondercon 2014 and then as a Gothic Lolita Unikitty to Comikaze 2014.
Since Wondercon so many people have asked to buy this hat or commission a copy…but I just can’t do it. It’s my baby! With this handy tutorial you can embark on your own Lego Unikitty hat adventure. 🙂
This is a pretty involved DIY project that takes at least 2-3 days to complete mostly because you have to let papier-mâché dry- ugh!!). I suggest setting aside a weekend to tackle it depending on how quickly you paint. So strap in and be ready to get messy.
On top of that, I also had to go back to my original design and make some major changes to improve stability!
What you’ll need:
Cardboard and/or poster board to construct the shape of the ears and head and horn. Shoe box cardboard is ideal.
Craft foam- 1 sheet
Masking tape
Hot glue gun & hot glue sticks
Pencil & black Sharpie marker
Craft Paint for your Unikitty palette (see below)
Clear acrylic spay paint- I recommend Rustoleaum Crystal Clear Acrylic
White primer spray paint
A variety of paint brushes. This multi pack of paintbrushes worked for me. Most important is the angled brush for all the hard lines and a half inch wide flat brush. You may want to invest in extra angled brushes to clean up edges without having to rinse out your brush.
100% acetone nail polish remover
A plastic cup you don’t mind destroying
Papier-mâché supplies:
Newspapers (or an old phonebook!)
Flour
School glue
Water
Whisk
Large mixing bowl
Trash bags
Masking tape
Optional: latex/vinyl gloves
I have made waaaaay too many papier-mâché projects in the last year. Believe me, if you don’t think it through, it can be a bitch- if you’ll pardon my French. 🙂 My Papier-Mâché Tutorial will help you avoid some large messes and mistakes I made along the way. ❤
Fabricating Your Shapes:
I used cardboard to build the shapes for the head and ears, poster board for the horn, and craft foam to build the round lego gasket piece that attaches the horn to the head.
To make the horn, I rolled up poster board until I got the cone shape I wanted.
If I could start over and do things differently, I would make sure that the width of the face block (from front to back) was as wide as my head so I could just cut a hole in the bottom, stick it straight on my head and be done…
…but I didn’t think of that until it was too late so here are the actual dimensions of the hat I made:
These are just stacked up- not glued together yet.
After my papier-mâché horn was dry I wrapped it in masking tape to give it spiral ridges:
Prime Your Pieces
Once your individual papier-mâché pieces are totally dry, cover them evenly with 2-3 coats of white spray primer. (Whatever it takes so no newsprint shows through.)
When using spray paint it’s best to apply one light coat at a time, letting them dry to the touch in between.
Sketch the Unikitty Face
This is where things start to get tricky. You will need to be able to sketch out your Unikitty face on your headpiece so you can paint it.
I sketched my face by hand, but you could also find an image online and then blow it up to the size of your hat.
When I was happy with the face, I folded it in half and chose the best side to be my template for tracing.
Paint, Paint and More Paint!
Paint all your shapes the appropriate colors, and then fill in your face sketch.
Sounds pretty simple, but I have a few tips for you:
Apply colors from lightest to darkest.
Let each color dry to the touch before the next color
Use the acetone to completely clean your brushes when you switch colors
I like angled brushes best for getting clean edges (or touching up edges) on my shapes.
Seal and Gloss
When your paint is totally dry, apply 4-5 coats of Rustoleum Crystal Clear Acrylic to really make your hat look like a plastic lego piece.
REMEMBER: When using spray paint it’s best to apply one light coat at a time, letting them dry to the touch in between.
Congratulations! You have a giant Unikitty head…but not yet a hat. Let everything dry and cure for 24 hours before moving moving on to the next step.
Now it’s Time to Build Your Hat
As previously mentioned, if I could start over and do things differently, I would make sure that the width of the face block (from front to back) was as wide as my head so I could just cut a hole in the bottom, stick it straight on my head and be done…
… but that is not what happened.
When I debuted my Punk Princess Unikitty cosplay at Wondercon 2014, I did cut a hole in the bottom so the block was somewhat contoured to my head.
I ended up attaching the Unikitty head to a thin little headband because my hair wouldn’t have covered much more and I wanted the illusion of the block just poised on my head.
It worked JUST OKAY.
I had to stand perfectly straight and not turn my head too fast or it would fall off… just how you want to be at a con all day, right?
Luckily I used to train in ballet, so that was helpful but a few hours into Wondercon and my neck was killing me!
Here is what the janky headband rig looked like:
Seriously it was so bad, lol!
How I Stabilized My Hat
First, I made a curved piece out of worbla thermoplastic with elastic straps and attached it to my hat with super glue:
To wear the hat I pull the elastic through my wig. (This wig is from the Rhapsody Collection from http://www.dolluxe.com/ <—-srsly great wigs!!!)
I also bought a pink wig for a super kawaii version of Unikitty…but for now I’m enjoying the platinum. 🙂
You can see from the pics below how you could easily get through the wig between the wefts:
I just pull the elastic snug and secure behind my head with a safety pin. Between the snug elastic and snug wig, my hat is perfectly stable all night long! Even dancing all night at Club Cosplay with Jack of All Nerds!
Some Special Recognition ❤ ❤ ❤
When I made the Unikitty hat, I never intended to write a tutorial… hence the extreme lack of step by step photos (sorry).
A special thank you goes out to Cindy A. for inspiring this tutorial. As the first person to ask for details, my emails to her forced helped me to organize my thoughts. 🙂 Then Cindy and Katherine made AMAZING Unikitty and Angry Unikitty hats of their own!
Using the wig for a snug fit has worked like a charm. ❤
Succinct writing is not always my forte but I’m kinda wiped out so here’s my best go at it:
Girls tired of seeing girl cosplayers only representing the sexy side of women.
Girls drink a lot of wine and hatch a plan to do the most sexualized characters we could think of in a whole new way.
Gotham Hobos are born and I send my early costume sketches to Jimmy at Been Better comics for a cartoon rendering:
Old friends meet new friends and several months of crafting (and giggling) ensue.
Crazy Cat-Lady Catwoman was the first to take shape:
Then Homeless Hippie Poison Ivy started to come together:
And last, but not least, everybody’s favorite certifiably insane girlfriend, Hobo Harley Quinn, came to life:
Hopefully con-goers would see us and get a chuckle. Hopefully, a few gals would see us and think “hey that’s cool, I don’t always have to be sexy to be awesome.”
As long as we were having fun we were stoked!
We never thought in a million years we’d win anything- all day we went back on forth on whether we should even enter the official cosplay contest hosted by Nerds Like Us!
So you can imagine how stoked we were when Gotham Hobos actually won Best Group Cosplay!!! There was lot’s of squealing and jumping up and down, lol.
Best of all we made friends with some very talented, creative and awesome female cosplayers who are not afraid to cosplay outside the sexy box, so to speak! All in all, it was a fantastic experience and so much fun.
I could not have had two better partners in crime than Ms. Natasha and BHArtDesigns!
Today marks the end of my first month at my new job with a new company! I am beyond happy. I feel like I have so much creative energy that I might explode. Good thing I have plenty to do on-the-clock and I’m working on a fantastic group cosplay for Long Beach Comiccon in September. If you want to see all the cosplay crafting madness unfold give me a follow on Instagram @jojossocreative. When I’m crafting I like to post progress pics to Instagram pretty much in real time! Because TECHNOLOGY. ❤ XOXO
My friend Jimmy (who happens to write/illustrate a great web comic that you should totes check out) is going to the Labyrinth Masquerade tonight! I’m super jealous because I can’t go, but I’m living vicariously by playing Fairy Godmother and sending him of with a custom made masquerade mask. He was just looking for something simple, but since Jimmy is a super fan of The Joker (from Batman) I was inspired to go for a Joker mask with a definite jester vibe.
Here is my journey to the finished product. Enjoy!
I knew I wanted to build out a custom shape for my Joker and I thought a store-bought mask, craft foam and scrap pieces of Worbla would do the trick. Once I played around with my materials a bit, I came up with a concept design and started building my piece
Next it was time to cover the whole thing with a papier-mâché . In the process I decided I wanted a slightly different texture for the hair and tried a new technique. Some tissues did the trick, but since they are so absorbent it took almost twice as long to dry as regular newspaper. Very happy with the results though!
After the papier-mâché dried completely it was time to get down to painting. First I primed it with white primer from my total spray paint crush- Rustoleum. Then I used acrylic craft paint to do the rest and silver liquid leaf for some shinier accents.
I sealed all my detail work with Rustoleum Crystal Clear Acrylic (My absolute favorite glossy sealer of ALL TIME). Once a few coats had dried I added some 3d accents for texture. Since I was going for a masculine look, the only rhinestones I used were black. For other accents I opted for iron-on metal studs…only I just used hot glue to attach them.
Some inexpensive chattering teeth on wire gave me that extra Joker pizzazz to really put my mask over the top.
The very last thing to do was attach the head strap. I attached black elastic to either side with epoxy glue and used hot glue to create a loop at the end of each piece of elastic. Using the loops I was able to thread through a piece of ribbon for an adjustable fit. I also found the mask rubbed uncomfortable against my nose but it was an easy fix. Just a regular makeup sponge attached with hot glue.
Added a few matching embellishments to a Joker smile-on-a-stick that I made before and voilà!
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