17th August 2010: Seam lining The inside of the dress was fraying like mad so I brought some white cotton tape (about an inch wide) which I sewed over the fraying seams as a sort of lining to protect the dress fabric from wasting away on the inside. I did this on and off for nearly 2 years... On the train to Amecon I finally finished- about time! Better late than never eh?

12th August 2010: Nunchaku complete I bought a black chain from B&Q which they cut to my desired length (30") and attached this to the wooden poles using wire staples which had been painted black to match the chain. My mum's partner helped me to hammer the staples in as I would prob end up splitting the wood...

And so now I have Selphie's Flail! I'm really pleased with how this prop turned out and it was quite simple to do. I have a lot more scope for posing now =)

11th August 2010: Nunchaku progress The nunchaku are nearly done, I just need to add the black chain. I'm wondering if they might be slightly too short in length... but I'm sure it'll look okay. I can always re-make them otherwise.

I started off with a long wooden dowel which was sawn in half then the ends were sanded to neaten them. I put on a couple of layers of red craft spray then the black detailing was done using electrical tape to give it a neater finish. If I hand-painted it I would prob end up with un-even rings ^^' I'm finding electrical tape to be pretty useful for props lately lol

10th August 2010: New zipper pull I'm still not entirely happy with it as I think I'm rubbish at sculpting clay lol but at least it looks better than my last two attempts.
After re-checking the references (fully animated ones being limited and blurry at times) I noticed the zipper pull is attached to the top of the zip on a little metal loop/ oval. I originally had mine stuck onto the top of the zip (which caused some issues... see info box) so now I wanted to attach it differently. I got some thin silver head pins and pushed one through the top of the zipper pull to make a hole before I baked it. Once the clay was hard I put the pin back through the hole and used pliers to shape it into the loop (a rather wonky one). With some help from my mum's partner we got the old zipper pull off the zip so I could put the loop and new zipper in it's place.

It's not great but it does the job and looks better than before so yay =)

22nd May 2010: New zip I finally got around to getting a new zip in the dress that is actually long enough, no more annoying gap at the bottom horray! I first tried to hand-sew it in myself but I messed it up >_< So my grandma un-stitched it and put it through the machine for me.

I need to make a new zipper as my old one broke (and it wasn't that good anyway..) and I STILL haven't finished sorting out the fraying seams on the inside of the dress oops.
I have no plans currently to wear this costume again but I like to make sure my cosplays are kept in good condition and up to date.

18th July 2009: Green contacts After the success of my brown contacts for Rinoa I ordered some bright green ones for Selphie =) Freshlook Colorblends in "Gemstone Green".

20th October 2008: Necklace There is no close-up image or an official detailed description of her necklace. Some say it's a flower, others a shell, someone else said a four leaf clover... who knows. I guess you can use a bit of artistic license with this one so I just brought a small silver flower necklace from Claire's Accessories that looked suitable. A lot of people say it's the same as her zipper pull but from studying (squinting) at the images I highly doubt this.

19th October 2008: Dress label On the Selphie figures it looks like she has a label (small white square) on the back of her dress so I cut some white cotton fabric to size and sewed it on.

18th October 2008: Boots I bought a pair of brown knee high boots and painted the soles black. I spent ages looking for just the right buckle and straps to put around the top of the boot. Strappy boots are in fashion at the moment but couldn't find anything suitable or cheap... Slim brown belts don't even seem to exist where I can buy two. In the end found some suede (would have preferred leather-look but ah well)brown boots with buckle and straps on ebay and just cut the straps off them and glued them to mine. Seems a lot of money to spend and waste of a pair of boots but hey that's the price for being picky. My sister can have the boots once her feet grow a bit more anyway. I cut off the tabs used to pull on the boots and re-used them as the strap loops.

7th October 2008: Test Photos of everything done so far including the wig.

7th October 2008: Zipper pull I made her shell-like looking zipper pull out of Sculpey oven bake clay. I have decided that I don't like making things with clay and I'm not very good at it lol Oh well. When gluing my "creation" to the normal zipper pull I tried to avoid getting glue on the zip itself as I still need it to open. Unfortunately I failed and the zip is now stuck. Bugger. I can pull the dress over my head for now but kinda need to sort this out...

EDIT- Issue has been sorted, see more recent journals.

29th September 2008: Wig I commissioned the wig from Seph Noir and it looks amazing! All I did was pick the base wig and the colour, she did all the ordering and styling. I highly recommend her for wig commissions =3

29th September 2008: Dress The dress was commissioned by Dream Angels who did excellent work with my Rinoa duster and arm-warmers. The general length, fit, design and colour are perfect but I was disappointed to find the zip doesn't reach the bottom of the dress and the bust is slightly baggy (I found this with my Rinoa duster actually). I might see if it can be adjusted one day but for now I just wear a padded bra underneath so it's not too bad.

1st September 2008: Hair and face reference Hair and face reference.

1st September 2008: Reference images Reference images