Cosplay,  DIY,  Geek

Cosplay Tutorial: Wonderflex Headpiece

Now, onto the part of the cosplay that I was dreading – making the She-Ra crown/headpiece. How would this stay on the entire day? Would it make my wig fall off? Could I wear this without looking ridiculously foolish? I definitely did not want to discover my photo on the Cosplay Hall of Shame sites.I started off by drawing out the tiara piece that would be around my forehead. That was pretty simple since it’s similar to the Wonder Woman crown. Then I sketched out the side “winged” pieces. Once I was satisfied with this, I cut all the pieces out that I would need (don’t forget you can just flip these over and retrace for the other side – left or right). When drawing these out, I had to remember that the pieces on the side of the headpiece were going to be layered and so I would have to draw them a little bit larger to account for that.

Next, I used the paper templates to cut trace and cut these out on the Wonderflex. Once that was done, I taped everything together on the reverse side.

Next was the blowdrying part. I used the blowdryer just like in my armband tutorial and pressed all the pieces together until they stuck. Once everything cooled, I spray painted it gold just like the armbands. After seeing everything bright gold, I realized that everything looked a little too gold and shiny so I decided to use some rusty/darker colors to make the armor look a little more worn. I had bought a bunch of cheap acrylic paints from Michaels and pretty much finger painted and smudged the pain onto the crown and armor to give it some dimension.

At this point, my main concern was definitely figuring out a way for the headpiece to stay on. Most ideas I came up with revolved around using headbands, elastics, etc. Another good idea I read about a little too late was using a tiara as a base since it already has combs in it. In the end, I decided to use plain metal hair clips from Michaels ($3 for a pack of 20 or so) and duct taped them to the reverse side.

So now was the real test… the first day was definitely challenging. It took a while for me to clip it just right so that I didn’t have to keep adjusting it. In the end though, the clips worked out great and I rarely had to adjust. Since Wonderflex is really lightweight, I didn’t have to worry about the crown dragging down as long as I clipped enough hair for it to be taut. Success!
For details on the red jewel, I pretty much poked around the Target toy section and came across this plastic girl’s ring. It was originally pink, but all it took was a red sharpie to make it red. Since plastic doesn’t glue very well on plastic, I glue gunned a light piece of felt in between the stone and the crown to make it more sturdy. Also, with a little nail polish and glitter, the the clear bubble eventually became the jewel on the dress!
she-ra jewelshe-ra jewels

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