Creating Two Cosplays for North Texas Teen Book Festival

   I have more hobbies than any normal person should have, to the point where I often struggle to do all of them. Those hobbies include writing, reading, drawing, video games, and cosplaying. Plus, I'm probably missing something on that list. So, when at a new year's eve lock-in, one of the other people attending saw the School for Good and Evil book I was carrying around in my bag, and commented on it, saying she had also read the series and loved it, I jumped at the chance.
   We quickly became friends, and we decided we were going to cosplay Hester and Anadil from The School for Good and Evil. As, the author was going to be at North Texas Teen Book Festival, and we thought that it sounded like fun. So we started working on the costumes for the two characters. Planning, buying materials, etc.

      Hester;

     For Hester, we initially wanted her tattoo showing, that got scratched off the list pretty quickly. The original plan was simple, black tank top, over-the-knee or thigh high socks, red or black shorts, a black and red cloak, and a pair of platform throat stomper-esc boots. That ended up being altered a little. Instead of a pair of shorts, a black skirt, and a black t-shirt with a skull decal on it. The cloak still, a requirement. 

      Anadil;

    For Anadil, we put a bit more thought into her outfit. Lots of holes, that's all we initially wanted. The end decision, a tank top underneath in order to cover the skin that'll be revealed under the highly ripped black hoodie. Majorly ripped black jeans and a pair of my old barn boots. Painted black, with more holes, ripped within their leather. Plus, of course, the traveling cloak on top. Relatively muted color but still to add something to the insane black. 

   

  The next step was buying what we cant make. Shoes, fake piercings, wigs. The wigs were easy to find. A while back when I first started cosplaying one of my veteran cosplay friends recommended a website to buy my wigs from. Arda, very well made cosplay wigs, For Hester, a shoulder-length and somewhat choppy black wig plus some red extensions. If you're curious about the exact wig I bought for her, I bought the 'Magnum Long CLASSIC' in the color Black. For Anadil, Loreli bought 'Le Tigre CLASSIC' in the color Silver.

   After buying the wigs, I still needed a few minor things. Fake piercings, and throat stomper boots. For the fake piercings, I bought a simple set of Fake Nose Piercings from Amazon. As for my Throat Stompers, I initially was going to buy, they were form amazon. 

    Cosplays can be expensive, that's something to remember, but there are always things you can do to cut down on the pricing. I will be updating the processing for the cosplay gathering as it's created, so this blog will have the dates each part was written on.

   I bought the materials needed to create the traveling cloaks and pants for Hester. Overall, I bought 4 different fabrics, varying yard lengths of each. A dark grey, a shiny silver, a blood-red, and a black. And, finally, the pattern needed to create the cloaks.
   As for shoes, I ended up buying a different pair of shoes than expected for Hester. Instead of the throat stompers I expected, I bought a pair of knee-high high heels as well as some over-the-knee socks. These, however, do work for what I want them for. Aka, Hesters shoes, which is rather self-explanatory.

   And finally, the last thing was creating the cloaks. It was rather simple to do, cut the pattern out, pin the pattern, cut the fabrics, sew the pattern, sew the pattern some more, sew the lining to the outside. And ta-da. Completed, to be fair some of this was more complicated than it sounds. My mother helped me finish up the cosplays, as well as helping me figure out the general process. And now, some of the photos from the con of the cosplays!