Cosplay,  DIY,  Geek

Cosplay Tutorial: She-Ra Dress

Now that I’ve given a tutorial about making the armor and She-Ra head piece using Wonderflex, it’s time for the basics – the She-Ra dress! Back in May, I was going through my old closet in my parent’s house and found this awesome dress that I wore back in the ’90s and decided to try it on for fun. Well, although it was extremely snug, an idea for my next cosplay was born. Two months later, I was cutting all the poof and lace off the dress and shortening it about 24 inches.

This dress….

Next Cosplay Idea

Became this!

Although I originally considered using Wonderflex for the front design of the dress, I shopped around and decided that foam might work better. I was almost relieved that I wouldn’t have to be sewing so much in this cosplay compared to my Pikachu and Alice one! I bought a few pieces of plain foam (.99 each) and started planning out the “flower” design on the front – first using paper templates and then tracing them onto foam. FYI – the “jewel” in the center is actually just a round clear plastic bubble that I cut and painted with various nail polish colors to get the right hue.
Paper stencils
Foam Cutouts
Next I laid them all out on this gold satin-y fabric from JoAnne’s, pinned them down and cut around each piece, leaving around half an inch around each one. Now was the tedious part of the construction – gluing all the fabric to the foam. This wasn’t as easy as I thought b/c of the pointy ends and I had to resize almost all of the pieces to not cover the belt (bad planning on my part).
Once I was happy with the size and layout of all the “petals”, it was just a matter of glue-gunning everything together. Although glue guns aren’t exactly the most “elegant” way of constructing clothing, it definitely beat sewing. I even glue gunned the final piece directly on the dress! Kind of ghetto, I know. I did the same thing for the “wings” on the bust as well.
Cosplay Tutorial - She-Ra Dress
As for the belt, I found this cheapy H&M wide pleather belt and cut off the buckle and end so that it would connect to a “V” shape. I sewed the “V” ends together, and then cut it in half so that the two ends would connect in the back with a clasp. Then I covered it in fabric, just like the foam.
Cosplay Tutorial - She-Ra Belt
she-ra cosplay dress

The final piece was the cape. After some horrible trial and error, I googled cape making and decided to go with the “circle cloak” idea. Some people use a full circle, but I decided to go with a half circle since I wanted the cape to only hang in the back and not cover my shoulders. Basically you just need to draw a half circle on a large piece of fabric. This is how long the cape will be. Using the same center point, draw a small circle inside the big circle (about 4-6 inch radius). This is where the cape will fit around your neck. Then it’s just a matter of finishing the edges and adding a clasp. I used snap buttons on a gold fabric collar (since She-Ra wears this gold choker thing).

Cosplay Tutorial - She-Ra cape

Cosplay Tutorial - She-Ra CapeAnd… I think that covers everything in my cosplay. Happy cosplaying!
She-Ra Cosplay

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