21st July 2011: From The Sock Drawer I don't care what anyone says, Bartz wears almost knee high socks. Purple and gold socks, to be precise. What a man.

It's actually harder than it sounds to make these things, so they will be half attached to the leggings for ease and to make sure they stay in place while I'm wearing the whole thing. These are the gold bits in action, the ends clipped together using this great popper stuff - you can see the two I will be using on the unfinished gold bit on the desk.

16th July 2011: Princess of Klauserland The tiara! Look how amazing it turned out. I used such incrediable skill, to cut out a piece of foam, stick a jewel on, and tied jewellry string on to fit round my head. Genius.

12th July 2011: A Metrosexual Weapon As I varnish the sword, I found some feathery bits to stick on the end so I can finally cover all the wood. The white bit of foam will be painted gold, then varnished. I'm using clear enamel, which dries super fast and creates a nice sheen.

26th June 2011: I really can't think of a title I've been painting the details onto the sword, lookie! Still using fabric paint, on which I dread to think about how much I've spent.

23rd June 2011: Sword Play Now, this is the first proper weapon prop I've made. well, made -seriously-, anyway. Now, guess what it's made out of? That's right; craft foam. And, to give it its swordy stiffness, a piece of wood from B&Q for 50p. Niiiiiice~~

I cut out the foam shape of the sword and glue gunned them onto the wood, then sealing the edges with glue. It's sturdy but it can't really hurt anyone. Here is a picture of one half of it glued to the wooden stick.

19th June 2011: Totally not a woman ... I made the earrings using more of those beads from before. I swear that Bartz raided his Mum's wardrobe before he stepped out and found himself in the Dissidia-verse.

16th June 2011: Plan Z Well, I decided that the road I was travelling on the shoes front was the wrong one. The further along I got, the worse it looked. It just wasn't going to be strong enough in terms of aesthetics and physically. So, I invested in some bog-standard, faux leather boots (brown). Now, I had no idea if fabric paint would work on them, but to an extent it has. It just keeps crumbling a bit on the blue area, so I'll have to find some sort of sealent for it. The grey part is fabric sewn onto the top of the boots. It's a vast improvement from before!

19th April 2011: Shoes Glorious Shoes Now we come to a difficult decision; what to do about footwear. I think that the shoes make or break a costume, propels it from 'ok' to 'very good'. So I could either modify/build on a pair of boots, or build-up a pair of shoes. I opted for the latter, because it was cheaper. I am using a pair of wedge heels, which look highly inappropriate. But I already owned them, so there.

I had absolutely no idea what to do, having never embarked on such a feat before. I just decided to make a sort of shoe-sock and see where it took me. I added some extra length beyond the toes to emulate the shape of Bartz's boots. It kind of worked better than I thought it would, for such a slap-dash improvisation. Did I say slap-dash? I mean really well planned-out and executed.

I have no clue where to go from here. XDD

16th April 2011: Fabric Paint is the Gift of the Goddess Inbetween the belt stuff and the shoes, I took it upon myself to sort of those hideous leggings that Bartz chose to wear (obviously in a moment of madness, much like the moment when I decided to cosplay as him IN said leggings). With a display of enormous skill and dexterity, I slapped on some masking tape and slathered yes, more fabric paint, in vertical stripes. The end result; vertical stripes which do NOT make my legs look thinner! I apologise in advance for offending you.

11th April 2011: Now We Get to the Innards of the Beast Here you can see the current underbelly of Belt Mark III. The dangly bits are on, the brown bit has been covered in material, and the dagger is currently gluing itself to it. All worked on, on top of The Lion King.

10th April 2011: Secret Weapon At first I just couldn't be bothered to even think about the silly knife he carries. Yeah, go on, look for it on his character design. It doesn't stand out much, does it? I mean the DAGGER, not the great red sword. XD But since I'm actually making somewhat of an effort, I figured I should have a go. The dagger is made from two sides of foam, as is the bit that attaches the sheath to the belt. The sheath is made from the same fabric as the arm thingys. The finished product looks pretty good!

9th April 2011: There is no save data Ok, here is a very blurry photo of me wearing most of what I have so far. If you want your bottom half to look big, then I suggest making a Bartz costume of your own. What I failed to realise is that it only serves to enhance my worst bits, which I'm not really so concerned for myself about as for the eyesight of anyone who will look upon me. You've been warned. XD

Please note: that is Belt Mark II. Belt Mark I was totally cream in colour and too small for my hips. I tried to make another hole in it for the buckle, but it failed. So Belt Mark II, which is perfectly cream and brown (maybe a bit on the dark side though) was purchased and I fell in love with it. Well, it's a waist belt, and I foolishly thought it'd work. After it pinged off a few times, I knew it wouldn't work. So this is the last image of Belt Mark II ever in this form. I took the custom bits off it and now it is a belt which I will use for my personal wardrobe. XDD;

26th March 2011: This is Being Inserted in Retrospect Oh yes, that's right, I started on the top. The evil top that is PALE BLUE. It started life as a mid-blue primark t-shirt, and then gained some lining style material over it in pale blue. The result? It's very tight fitting and almost acts as a chest compressor by itself. Only not entirely, as seen by the photo in the journal entry from 9/4/11. It looks good from the side though!

Here you can see that I gracefully hacked off the short sleeves to make it more 'tanky'. Such skill, such talent.

8th March 2011: I May As Well Even though I haven't been working quite so fervantly on Bartz in the past week or so, I might as well update what I have done. I have two things in mind to complete now; the top and the fabric around the waist. I really have tried to work as much as possible from top to bottom ... not a bad plan I suppose! I got a lovely blue shawl from ebay to use as a base for the bit around the waist and painted the design on using, as ever, fabric paint. I've used SO MUCH GOLD. If you can find a close up of the design, then please hide it because I have made it up. It's next to impossible to get it accurate from images so I just thought 'screw it, more artistic licence'. Looks like a weird eye thing, really. I thought about emulating the patterns on Exdeath's armour, but that would just be too weird. Or I could have done an abstract chocobo! Damn ... why do I think of stuff afterwards ... XD

I changed the contrast on the image because the flash made it hard to see all the design, so it's all lighter IRL.

1st March 2011: Onwards And Sidewards Whoa, it's 1st March! One month til Kitacon! Argh! But I'm not doing this cosplay for Kitacon. Oh. Maybe I should concentrate on finishing Sasuke and deciding on the others I'll be doing ... naaah. This is way too much fun/torture.

So I naturally progressed from the arm thingys to the cape. Once I was satisfied that the back plate thing had enough layers of paint on it, I chopped up white and pale blue fabric as the basis of the two portions of the cape. On the bottom edge of the white piece I sewed on these totally slinky beaded tasselly things which came in a strip, which are part of the cape anyway and will add weight to it conveniently. I smooshed on as much PVA as possible and stuck it to the back plate. How professional. BUT it's staying very firm at the moment so it's promising.

I then, on some strips I'd attached a few days before, threaded through my gold chain (Bartz obviously likes Mr T) which will attach it to the top in the completed costume. On the left is a picture of the cape hanging from a light dimmer.

27th February 2011: Needless Arm Thingys And so I wondered what else I could do whilst glue/paint was drying. Instead of sitting there watching it, I decided to make a start on those arm things he wears. Handless gloves, I guess you could call them. The fabric is, ok, a bit dark. This costume was never going to be 100% accurate anyway, due to the lack of up-close images of the details. I think it'll look more striking in the long-run this way however, because the rest is such a wishy-washy blue anyway. XD Plus I got to use random fabric I had hanging around in the house.

First, the right arm. I just dove in and starting cutting - I use measurements less and less these days. BAD GIRL! It's not so bad for small things though I suppose. I made a tube that fitted my lower arm, and then folded back the part by my hand to make that particular triangular shape. Some spare blue ribbon was used to make a finger hole. I added a strip of fabric I had painted gold round the middle, and then the white section afterwards. I attached two threads of beads to it and voila! It was done. The other one was done using the sam principles, but the differences are the bracelet which I have sewn on in 2 places to keep in place, and the grey part nearer my elbow instead of white.

23rd February 2011: Prissy Jewellry And so I ventured forth into the Cave of Making Jewellry.

I bought a fab kit off trusty ebay with my remaining gil. It come with a limited supply of thread, so I used all 4 kinds it came with. Therefore, some part of it are more delicate than others. Namely the bits that hang off the shoulder armour ... I had nightmares about them, so I smothered them in PVA to make them more hardy. Anyway, it wasn't rocket science to thread some beads together BUT it was fun! The bracelet and the belty bit are my favourites that I did. Just to prove that yes, it was indeed me who made this stuff, there's a photo of the kit to the left there. XP

17th February 2011: The Origins Of See-More Butz. Maybe I should start on one of the journal-majiggy things for this, since it's the most ambitious and detailed cosplay I've done all by my onesome. And it's been a blast so far. :D Therefore, this first entry will be set in the far off past ... just over a week ago. (I guessed the precise date.)

I picked Bartz, out of all the Dissidia heroes, initially because a) I have a soft spot of FFV, b) I just believed I wouldn't suit anyone else and c) I didn't think he'd be one of those over-done FF characters that you see all the time. Nothing wrong in that, but this way I don't have many people to trump me on the looking-good in it and the skillz and shizz.

So I plucked up the courage, with a handy suggestion from Kii-chan, to toddle down to Hobby Craft and buy some craft foam. I've never used the stuff before, but it's a god-send. Cheap and light weight. When I got it all home (I got plenty), I sketched out the shape and pattern of the shoulder piece on paper and tranferred it to the foam. I bought some very cute sparklies off ebay and inserted them into the foam as landmarks of the pattern, as can be seen in the image here. I then placed the pattern on using more foam, to build up a 3D effect. Once it was done, I painted it a rather fetching shade of gold using fabric paint, which I was told would work well on a surface which I would need to bend. It took roughly 4-5 layers to get it looking bold, which took some time as you can imagine. I did all of this process to make the back-plate, too. I call it that because I have no idea what it actually is, other than having the cape hanging off it. Which will come later!