Ichigo-Chan

Costume :	Sakura Shinguji
Variant :	Series 1 battle costume
Source :	Sakura Taisen / Sakura Wars
Progress :	Complete
Worn At :	JapanEx 2007

Photos
Information
Comments (1)

Costume Photos

Sakura on the steps

Sakura's sword practise

Reference image

Sakura @ AmeCon 07

Sakura @ JapanEx

Costume Information

General
Cost :	£39
Time Taken :	I don't count the hours, but it didn't took me too long. I estimate over 10 hours, but less then 14 hours.

Description
I really wanted a new & never seen costume for AmeCon 07 and whlist going through my entire Amine/Manga collection Sakura Taisen became the series which I most wanted to cosplay from. The reason is because Sakura Taisen is a very good Amine and game series and I thought it was ashame that there are hardly any Sakura Taisen cosplayers around, infact I never saw one in the UK before. I mainly choose to cosplay as the character "Sakura" because out of all the main characters, Sakura was the one that resembles me the most and she is more recongisable. I originally made the costume for the AmeCon 07, but it debuted at the JapanEx 07 because I never had a costume to wear for the event at the time. So now for the interesting part of how I made the costume.... The bow hair tie was made by cutting 2 long rectangles out of a non-stretchy red fabric and secured together in the middle with an extra small bit of fabric along with an elastic band, so I can easily tie it to my pony tail without worrying about it from falling off. The top consists of 2 layers. The inner layer was a white long sleeved top which I already own about over 10 years ago (and yes it was a really old top that I rarely wear) which I thought it will be go well with the costume, so I sewn an extra white square fabric in the top middle of the costume. The outter layer was abit of a challenge because I took a gamble on everything! I never used a pattern for any part of this costume, so I basically estimated the shape and size, then cutted the material and sew it all together which was not a good idea because one of the sleeves didn't fit, but lucky I had spare parts of the material to make the sleeve again. The yellow orche lining was done by sewing on a thick ribbon brought from Hobby Craft and the circle bits on the top was done by cutting and painting craft foam and it was attached to the costume by a glue gun. I didn't know how to make tight white trousers, so I ended up buying it from a shop called Reveal. It costs me £3.60 including my student discount. The belt on my trousers was brought from an 98p Chinese shop (bargin!) and I used craft foam painted with brown arcylic paints for the under layer of the belt. I have updated the belt for HMV Amine sale day in London in August 07. The boots were probably the hardest task because the boots cannot be brought from the shops and it would be impossible to find anything which is close. I thought of a plan to make boot covers (I got the idea from the Sailor Moon musicals because the actress' wear alot of boot covers). The boots covers were made out of craft foam. I used my own pair of plain white boots for a reference to the shapes that I need to cut out and all the shapes where attached together by using a glue gun. After the attachements, I painted over the boot covers with arcylic paints which gives the boots a nice vibrant colour, then the finishing touch after the paint dried was to slide the boot covers over my plain white boots and overall it turned out quite well and I was pleased since it took me absolutly ages to make!!! The boots have been updated for AmeCon 07 The sword was brought from the entertainers for £1. I was lucky enough to find a cheap plastic toy sword from a toy shop, however the colours were all wrong because it was white and bright orange, so I had to paint over the sword with plenty of arcylic paints and finally adding ribbons as the finishing touch ^_^ Finally since I am not going to retire the costume just yet, I plan to make a lot of improvements. Firstly, I plan to make the hair tie bow again because I have had experince with my Karin costume of how to make a bow stick out. Secondly, I want to improve the inner layer of the top because it didn't go too well with the outter layer. I also plan to make the gloves for this costume because I felt a big part of my costume was missing without the gloves. Also, if possible, I want to buy better white trousers which are not too tight! I got a little paraniod about wearing the leggings because you can kinda see through it and also it shows the shape of my arse from the back. Finally I want to grow my hair longer so it makes my hairstyle look more like Sakura's hair, but my mum is always constantly forcing me to cut my hair short T_T. After the improvements have been made, I only plan to wear this costume for possibly 1 or 2 events before it retires. I'll be sad when it retires because this costume used to be my favourite and there are hardly any Sakura Taisen cosplayers around (I really love to see more cosplayers from the series)

Description

I really wanted a new & never seen costume for AmeCon 07 and whlist going through my entire Amine/Manga collection Sakura Taisen became the series which I most wanted to cosplay from. The reason is because Sakura Taisen is a very good Amine and game series and I thought it was ashame that there are hardly any Sakura Taisen cosplayers around, infact I never saw one in the UK before. I mainly choose to cosplay as the character "Sakura" because out of all the main characters, Sakura was the one that resembles me the most and she is more recongisable. I originally made the costume for the AmeCon 07, but it debuted at the JapanEx 07 because I never had a costume to wear for the event at the time.

So now for the interesting part of how I made the costume....

The bow hair tie was made by cutting 2 long rectangles out of a non-stretchy red fabric and secured together in the middle with an extra small bit of fabric along with an elastic band, so I can easily tie it to my pony tail without worrying about it from falling off.

The top consists of 2 layers. The inner layer was a white long sleeved top which I already own about over 10 years ago (and yes it was a really old top that I rarely wear) which I thought it will be go well with the costume, so I sewn an extra white square fabric in the top middle of the costume. The outter layer was abit of a challenge because I took a gamble on everything! I never used a pattern for any part of this costume, so I basically estimated the shape and size, then cutted the material and sew it all together which was not a good idea because one of the sleeves didn't fit, but lucky I had spare parts of the material to make the sleeve again. The yellow orche lining was done by sewing on a thick ribbon brought from Hobby Craft and the circle bits on the top was done by cutting and painting craft foam and it was attached to the costume by a glue gun.

I didn't know how to make tight white trousers, so I ended up buying it from a shop called Reveal. It costs me £3.60 including my student discount. The belt on my trousers was brought from an 98p Chinese shop (bargin!) and I used craft foam painted with brown arcylic paints for the under layer of the belt. I have updated the belt for HMV Amine sale day in London in August 07.

The boots were probably the hardest task because the boots cannot be brought from the shops and it would be impossible to find anything which is close. I thought of a plan to make boot covers (I got the idea from the Sailor Moon musicals because the actress' wear alot of boot covers). The boots covers were made out of craft foam. I used my own pair of plain white boots for a reference to the shapes that I need to cut out and all the shapes where attached together by using a glue gun. After the attachements, I painted over the boot covers with arcylic paints which gives the boots a nice vibrant colour, then the finishing touch after the paint dried was to slide the boot covers over my plain white boots and overall it turned out quite well and I was pleased since it took me absolutly ages to make!!! The boots have been updated for AmeCon 07

The sword was brought from the entertainers for £1. I was lucky enough to find a cheap plastic toy sword from a toy shop, however the colours were all wrong because it was white and bright orange, so I had to paint over the sword with plenty of arcylic paints and finally adding ribbons as the finishing touch ^_^

Finally since I am not going to retire the costume just yet, I plan to make a lot of improvements. Firstly, I plan to make the hair tie bow again because I have had experince with my Karin costume of how to make a bow stick out. Secondly, I want to improve the inner layer of the top because it didn't go too well with the outter layer. I also plan to make the gloves for this costume because I felt a big part of my costume was missing without the gloves. Also, if possible, I want to buy better white trousers which are not too tight! I got a little paraniod about wearing the leggings because you can kinda see through it and also it shows the shape of my arse from the back. Finally I want to grow my hair longer so it makes my hairstyle look more like Sakura's hair, but my mum is always constantly forcing me to cut my hair short T_T. After the improvements have been made, I only plan to wear this costume for possibly 1 or 2 events before it retires. I'll be sad when it retires because this costume used to be my favourite and there are hardly any Sakura Taisen cosplayers around (I really love to see more cosplayers from the series)

Comments

Awesome XD it's good to see sakura Taisen cosplay actuly being cosplayed and cosplayed well XD

by yami-no-neko on Wednesday, 9 September, 2009 - 11:11