Making of a Ciri Cosplay

By

BlueRose Cosplay

Making of a Ciri Costume The Witcher : Wild Hunt

Introduction Name: Emma Simo Alias: BlueRose Cosplay Previous Awards: 2015 Christchurch Cosplay Cup – Best Novice 2015 Wellington Cosplay Cup – Technical Award

My character choice for this cosplay is Ciri from The Witcher 3. The Witcher series of games has been a favourite of mine for some time and elicited no small amount of excitement and anticipation for the third instalment which was released earlier this year. I began planning a Witcher cosplay in the lead up to release, deciding on a character new to the game in Witcher 3 but already well established in books and other media. Of all female characters in the Witcher series Ciri is one I am most drawn to largely because of her open, down-to-earth personality. Arguably one of the most overly powerful characters in the Witcher universe she is nevertheless constantly pitted against circumstances that she cannot overcome alone. Neither helpless nor to proud to accept help when offered, mysterious but not manipulative, her highest ambition is to be able to live a normal life.

Her character is in stark contrast to the glamorous, ambitious, and manipulative sorceresses who make up the bulk of the rest of the Witcher’s female cast and it is this difference which draws me to cosplay as her. …Plus, you have to admit the character design is pretty darn cool.

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon - what can I possibly say about her? That we call her Ciri for short, that she was born in 1251, that she has ashen hair and a scar on her cheek?

All true, and that's the Cirilla I know best, one I first laid eyes on those many years ago, the one who seemed thoroughly, well, not ordinary, but certainly not as extraordinary as she in fact is.

For Cirilla is also a highly-skilled witcher, heiress to several thrones, the last bearer of the Elder Blood, a powerful Source endowed with exceptional magic talent and the Lady of Time and Space. Her hair colour and date of birth seem... rather incidental now, don't they?

-- Dandelion (The Witcher 3)

Reference Images CD Project Red were kind enough to provide a set of reference images as part of a cosplay guide for a Witcher 3 Cosplay Competition they held to promote the game. For full size images the PDF can be found here.

Getting started Okay so most of these are things I only did partway through. But they are useful techniques that don’t fit into any single category.

Pose Matching: Make a similar pose with dark clothes and similar shoes and use photoshop to make an overlay of the reference picture on your body.

This turned out to be great for creating patterns with the correct proportions.

Fabric sample sheet: Eight different colours of leather. Eight!

To keep track of them all I cut out small squares and taped them onto a sheet of paper.

As I sourced my leather/vinyl/pleather from a number of different places this sheet was very useful to bring shopping to ensure I got the right colours.

Wig

Reference art

Materials

Tools

Arda Wigs – Buttercup in Silver Wig cap Wig clips x2 White hair ties Lots of bobby pins Hair spray

Scissors Comb Wig stand Time: ~8 hours

I have never styled a wig before this cosplay so learned a lot doing it. First thing I learned was that it is really annoying when the polystyrene wig head does not stay in place.

Solution: the stand base from my mannequin, some vinyl scraps for padding and put the three together to make a wig stand. The chair makes it a nice height. Now to work!

First task was to separate out the different sections of hair for the style. A wispy lower layer, the bulk of the hair pulled back to the bun, and from each side sections that are pulled out from he front of the part and join the bun at the top. I also moved the part to the other side and loosened the hair to drape down close to the left hand eye. Then try on and check everything is in the right place.

Wig Next step was to form the bun. First I bought some white hair ties to use instead of the black ones. Easier to hide. I redid the ponytail and side segments and used a little thread to hold the side segments up. Otherwise they tend to blend into the rest of the hair. It made forming the bun a little more difficult but is more accurate. At this stage I also pulled some strands out to hang over the face. The reference art disagrees on whether these are present but in this case I have gone with keeping them in, they are easy to tuck away.

The bun is deceptively simple, and a style I have used on my own hair in the past. From a ponytail take small sections of hair, coil and pin next to the ponytail. Putting the pins inside the coils hides them, which is useful as I couldn’t find any white bobby pins. Repeat all the way around and you get a nice big dishevelled bun with no need for extra wefts or rolls or socks to pad it out. Another try on to check it all fits and mark where to cut the lower layer to.

When cutting the lower layer I made my first set of cuts longer than I had marked, which was lucky because the hair sprang up and curled a little at the bottom after cutting. What I thought would be too long was actually the perfect length.

Finally to curl the face framing strands. Heat resistant wig so I tried a curling iron. Didn’t work. Tried hairspray and a curling iron. Worked wonderfully. Then a good spraying of hairspray over the whole thing, sew a couple of wig clips into it and it is all done. The wig clips are not currently attached but I plan to do so in the next few weeks.

Makeup

Reference art

Materials Foundation (liquid and powder) Blush Red lipstick Concealer Black liquid eyeliner

I have never even tried to do special effects makeup before. But I googled how to do scars and gave it a go. A line of lipstick with liquid foundation on either side. A bit of blush to add a little colour around it and a little of black eyeliner pen to add depth.

Also a touch of white eye shadow for highlights. Repeat and adjust for a while and I am fairly happy with my trial run.

For the eyes I spread black liquid eyeliner over he entire lid and then blended it out with black and brown eye shadow and smudged downwards from the bottom of the eye.

There are a few things I have yet to do on the makeup side of things but plan to do on the day. I will shape my eyebrows and darken them, I will add some green contact lenses, and I also plan to look into ways to deepen the scars, probably using Rigid Collodian or liquid latex.

Black mascara Black eyeshadow Green contact lenses* Rigid Collodian/liquid latex* Time: 2 hours

Shirt and Armbands Reference art

Materials Shirt: Calico or sturdy undyed cotton – 1.5m Dark cream satin – less than 20cm Off white thread Off white satin cord – less than 1m 10mm pearl beads – x2 Small shirt buttons – x4 Plain white bra

Armbands: Mid-dark brown leather for armbands 3cm Gold buckles and keepers x2 (or spray paint some) Brown upholstery thread Roll of craft paper and shirt for patterning Time: ~20 hours

In making the shirt I was able to reuse a pattern I had created for a previous cosplay. This had originally been made by copying the body pattern of a shirt and refining to fit through several iterations of mock-ups. Because it is for a fitted shirt and Ciri’s shirt is loose and unfitted I ignored the darts and straightened the side seams. I also created sleeve patterns from the same shirt. My first mock-up fit well in the body but the sleeves were to tight so I added sleeve width when I remade it.

I spent time on making the sleeve cuffs neat, seams are hidden inside the cuff and all other seams are overlocked to prevent fraying and give a nicer finish.

Shirt

Once I had made the basic shirt I used chalk to mark out the neckline and the location of the satin stripe. Because the stripe was higher on the front than the back I cut a curved strip of fabric rather than a straight one to fit the shirt better. Unfortunately I did not pay close enough attention to the lines on the shirt when sewing it on and ended up with a stripe that was badly misaligned at the front. I unstitched this and adjusted it so the stripe meets at the same height from both sides.

The collar was a satin inner layer with a cotton outer layer which narrowed to a point at the front. This was made from a rectangular pattern so that it stands up over the shoulders.

After this the shirt could have been considered complete but I was not very happy with it.

The neckline was just wrong and the stripe didn’t look right either. Also the colour of the satin actually looked lighter than the rest of the shirt, which is not the case in any of the reference images. At this point I couldn’t visualise how to fix the things I was unhappy with so I shelved it for a while.

It wasn’t until some time later when I did my pose matching exercise that I was able to see why the shirt didn’t fit well. I also noticed that the collar did not end in points as I had first thought but instead had square ends that folded outwards.

Shirt and Armbands At this point I was able to revisit the shirt and fix the things I was unhappy with. I changed the collar to the more accurate square edged one, enhanced the scoop of the neck to make it less V-necked and swapped out the satin stripe for a darker cream one. Here is a point where reference art contradicts itself, how dark the stripe should be compared to the shirt differs between pictures, I chose a darker one because it is more striking and found a straight stripe sewn on looks just as good as the curved one. All fairly small changes but they make a big difference.

Then the finishing touches were to attach the pearl tipped tie, and add some buttons to the cuffs. I also added a single fastening button halfway down the front to hold the shirt closed while I lace the corset.

After the shirt the armbands were simple. Two rectangles sewn together to make a band.

There is no topstitching shown on the armbands in the reference so I did not add any, instead I used contact adhesive to turn over the raw edges neatly. The straps are topstitched and fasten with gold/brass coloured buckles and a rectangle keeper. I was unable to find golden buckles or keepers so instead I spray painted some plain ones. The straps are attached to the bands with a line of stitching along the band’s seam, which is out of sight beneath the arms.

Corset Reference art

Materials

dozen) Gold decorative studs x8 Press studs x4-6* Craft foam x1 a2 sheet

Black or dark brown lining - 3m Mid-dark brown leather hide Brown upholstery thread Roll of craft paper and masking tape for Flat steel boning 6mm x 5m patterning Spiral steel boning 5.5mm x3m 6mm bone tips x3 dozen Time: ~50 hours 3m Dark brown bias binding Gold grommets 3-4 dozen (need just over 2

The corset pattern was created first by covering myself first in cling film then masking tape and drawing on the lines of the corset based on the seam lines in the reference art. I folded this pattern in half, cut it into the separate pieces and traced them out onto craft paper, adding seam allowances and a little ease around the bottom. No seam allowances on the outermost edges as those will be finished with bias tape.

Corset

Next I made two mockups from lining material, refining the shape as I went. The final mockup was tested with boning sewn into it and then cut up and traced for the final corset pattern.

From the final pattern I first created the lining layer as another semi-mockup – i.e. something I could easily replace if it turned out wrong. I inserted lined and bias tape-bound leather flaps into the lining to hide the corset lacing. It was a little loose but I was able to take in the seams a little and did so for the leather outer layer as well.

I basted the layers together down the seam lines, finding that trying to place hand stitches exactly through the seams was very time consuming, then sewed channels for the boning on either side of the seams. The basting proved very much worth the time invested as it ensured the channels were an even distance from the centre seam both the inside and out.

I then inserted the boning. Flat steel for the front and back bones, spiral steel for the sides. There are two bones for each seam but only a single one around the half-circle curves of the hips. I planned to use flat steel for the side seams too but when I tested the boning in the mockup I found it flattened out my silhouette whereas the more flexible spiral steel enhanced it (see upper right image).

I added bias binding to finish the edges and some brass studs and grommets for lacing. I later added a second row of grommets to allow me to lace it tighter than the first allowed. I tried it on and found it fit comfortably but did have a few issues with wrinkling and gaping at the bottom.

To solve this I took the corset in at the back, unpicking the seams and re-stitching them by hand, and added some inserts made out of craft foam to provide multidirectional tension and smooth out the wrinkles. These craft foam inserts are hand stitched into the lining of the corset as shown below, also very time consuming but as you can see in the bottom left photo they make a difference. The left hand side is without the inserts, the right hand side does have them.

Other than finishing the inserts I plan to add some press stud clasps into the front of the corset to hold the edges flat together over the lacing. I also intend to weather it with black and yellow acrylics and shoe polish.

Gloves

Materials Dark brown pleather – less than 0.5m Tan leather – small amount for cuffs Brown upholstery thread 10mm turquoise bias binding – 1m 2cm gold buckles and keepers – x2 of each

Roll of craft paper and fitted gloves for patterning Time: ~15 hours

The glove pattern was reverse engineered from a pair of leather gloves, and a sleeve part added before cutting it out. The gloves were entirely hand stitched using a tiny blanket stitch and upholstery thread. Sewing the thumb piece on was a puzzle and required some thought to get my head around how it attached so I have shown a step by step for this part here.

After sewing the thumb in I sewed each pair of fourchettes (the long thin pieces that go between the fingers) together and sewed them onto the finger pieces.

Attaching the fourchettes to the fingers was a little tricky to get the line where the two fourchettes joined exactly at the web of the fingers. To obtain this I sewed them on in stages starting each stage at the web of the fingers and sewing out towards the points. I also needed to stretch as I sewed to get all pieces to fit together.

Gloves

After that it was just a much simpler matter of sewing the outside same and the bases for the gloves were done. Luckily I had ensured I had the correct (kitty) supervision while sewing the gloves together and they fit fine.

The final touches were to add the cuffs. I trialled several paper patterns until I was happy enough to cut out the leather. I was able to use a sewing machine for sewing the cuffs together and attaching the turquoise bias binding, as well as for making the buckled straps, but I hand stitched the cuffs to the glove bases, hand stitched the strap on, and finally hand stitched the bias binding down on the inside to avoid seam lines on the outside.

The glove sleeves are longer than my forearms so that when I put them on they wrinkle along their length as in the reference art. The cuffs fit very tightly to my upper forearms just below the elbow and I have had no problems with gloves falling down.

These were one of the first parts of the costume that I fully completed and I am very proud of how they turned out.

Trousers Reference art

10mm aged bronze studs - ~60

Materials Dark brown stretch pleather – 1.5m Dark brown upholstery thread – 1 spool 10cm metal toothed zip Jeans button – x1

Roll of craft paper and skinny jeans for patterning Time: ~20 hours

I created a pattern for the trousers based of a pair of jeans. I took my time doing this making sure I had everything I could marked out correctly, and all the pieces would work as I imagined them to. This took the better part of a day from start to finish, but the result was a good pattern that I can reuse for future cosplays.

I also added seam lines from the reference art by measuring approximately halfway between the inside and outside seams and using the knees of my jeans as a reference of my knee level. I had to think twice about the seams over the seat and take into account the lack of an inside seam here to get it nicely centred.

I didn’t make a mockup of these because I didn’t have a suitable stretch fabric, but luckily they fit fairly well the first time. The only problem was being a bit loose around the knees which was easily fixed by taking in the side seams.

Trousers

After I thought I had finished the trousers I found there was still a lot of wrinkling especially at the back and around the knees. It was a bit more difficult to take the trousers in again as the studs were already in place but I did manage to do so enough to improve them. Ciri’s trousers are not perfectly skintight, they do wrinkle a little, and I did my best at getting as close a fit as I could.

At the moment I am still having issues with the waistband. It is not quite tight enough to hold the trousers up properly, especially when I sit down and the material which has no vertical stretch isn’t helping. Before Armageddon I will add some belt loops and use a belt to ensure it stays up and looks its best.

Mistakes Were Made!

For the gold studs the soft leg studs are the correct type to use, rather than two piece rivets. I found the rivets are for thicker leather and would not set properly in thin pleather. After I had sewn the trousers together I realised the rivets would not do.

When I went through pulling them out to replace with studs there was only one which did not come out easily when pulled. Rivets would not have lasted a day at a con. The studs will. It turns out replacing studs down the legs of skinny trousers once they are already sewn together is fiddly and boring work; so next time I will get that right first try!

Boots

Materials Tan leather – one second hand leather jacket Boot bases – an old pair of ankle boots with thick heel Light brown upholstery thread

Black lining – 0.5m 2cm gold buckles and keepers – x2 of each Contact Adhesive (ADOS) Craft paper for patterning Time: ~15 hours The pattern for the boots was somewhat constrained by the material I had. As I used a leather jacket I had to place the existing seams in unobtrusive places. I used double sided tape to tape the tallest panels to the boot bases where the seam would be hidden by the strap around the ankle and drew the bottom edge on with chalk. The upper part was essentially as big as I could make it, with the front panels coming to more of a point than the back ones.

I added leather facings and black lining on the upright parts and sewed front and back uprights together. I then cut out pieces for the toe and heel coverings and turned over the top edges and topstitched along the fold.

The straps were simple strips with edges turned over and topstitched, I had to sew several pieces together for these but placed the seams in unobtrusive places near the insides of the legs These were sewn into the upright panels at the inside ankle.

The sole of the boot bases is peeled away to allow me to hide the raw edges underneath.

Boots I also added buckles to the upright parts of the boots and punched holes into the straps.

To prevent wrinkling as I glued the toe pieces onto the base boots I shaped the leather first by soaking it in water and stretching it over the base boot and allowing it to dry on the base. Then it was a simple matter of carefully gluing the separate pieces onto the boot bases with contact adhesive. I attached the uprights first, then the heels and finally the toe, applying contact adhesive to the bases in stages and going slowly making sure I has a few wrinkles as possible. I tucked the raw edges under the sole where I could and glued the sole back down. Where I couldn’t peel the sole off (under the heel) I trimmed the edges with a sharp craft knife.

During my first full costume rehearsal I found that the boot strap tends to pull the upper edge of the boots around, twisting the flaps to the side. This is something I plan to find a way to prevent before Armageddon, but if all else fails I have no doubt a bit of double sided tape on the inside will prevent it happening.

Belts and Decorations Reference art

Materials Burgundy vinyl ~0.5m Reddish brown leather Scraps of dark brown leather

Brass Jeans button Small buckle Upholstery thread (burgundy and brown) Time: ~8 hours

The belts pouches for this costume were reasonably simple compared to the rest of it. For the back pouch I created a pattern but drawing the shape onto craft paper, holding it up to check proportions and tracing it onto craft paper opened up with seam allowances. The front pouch was simply created by measuring the dimensions against myself and creating he patterns from basic rectangles and triangles.

Both pouches are fully lined, the back pouch has leather cord sewn into the front along the bottom edge (not shown) and the back pouch has topstitching along the belt loop.

The button on the back pouch is purely decorative (in fact I chose one with a pattern rather than plain as I felt it fit the look better) and the pouch is fastened with the leather thong on the front.

Belts and Decorations Materials Very dark brown belt Knead-it Shiny gold spray paint Sharpie Time: ~1hour

Ciri’s lower belt is very basic, I simply bought a belt of a similar colour, used knead it to adjust the shape of the buckle, spray painted the buckle and end gold, and drew the pattern on with a sharpie marker. If I can find a proper buckle I will use it instead but so far I haven’t been able to.

Materials Plaster of Paris Pewter Time: ~16 hours

The cat medallion was the first part of Ciri’s costume I made and was completed before the game even launched. I decided I wanted to pewter cast it using a similar technique to another medallion I had made for my husband. I created the mold by pouring Plaster of Paris into a plastic cup then carving out the medallion shape. This took a while as I found I always needed to go deeper. It is hard to judge the shape from the recess so I periodically pressed blue-tack into the recess to give a copy of the medallion. I also carved in a line for a piece of wire to form a hanging loop.

Once I was happy with the mould I added the wire for the hoop, topped it with a piece of plywood that had a hold drilled into it and filled it with pewter that had been melted over a camp stove. I then used wire cutters, several small files, sandpaper and finally steel wool plus a lot of elbow grease to smooth out the cast over a several hours.

Silver belt Materials Fimo – x8 56g packets 10mm plastic turquiose dome gems – x11 60cm wide black elastic 2 sets of black hook and eyes Black acrylic paint

Silver Acrylic paint Black Felt Leather scraps Time: ~25 hours

For making Ciri’s silver belt I used my tried and true method of sculpting the links from Fimo. I did some trials with this material in my last cosplay and loved it because of it’s strength and flexibility. It is however a pain to paint, though this time around I did not even need to try using solvent based paints and went straight for acrylics. I did two to three layers of black undercoat then dry-brushed silver over top to give a slightly weathered look. I then sealed it with a gloss finish mod-podge.

I initially used two thin leather strips glued to either side of the back as belt loops and threaded through a length of wide elastic to hold the belt pieces but I was unhappy with the messy look. Instead I swapped them out for a felt backing and a single wide leather loop which just looks more professional. It’s not a visible part of the costume but I like everything to look tidy both inside and out.

Weapons Reference art

Materials Fimo – x4 56g packets Sculpey – 6 56g packets Black acrylic paint Silver Acrylic paint White Acrylic paint (for weathering) Balsa dowel (~20mm thick, 20cm long) Chopstick Eva Foam (5mm and 2mm thick)

Light tan leather Brown leather Very pale tan vinyl Red Vinyl Dressed Pine (10mm x 40mm) Balsa 2x 15x80mm lengths for scabbard Time: ~35 hours

The dagger details were sculpted from Fimo onto a balsa wood dowel handle. Into this I inserted a chopstick which reinforced the blade which was made from EVA foam. I sealed everything with several layers of impasto filler – basically thick PVA, and painted them using black and silver acrylics.

I used contact adhesive to glue leather to the handle, and created a sheath from craft foam, covered in leather hand stitched on along one side.

The sword was created from a length of pine, edged with craft foam. This was made entirely using hand tools as I do not have a jigsaw or dremel. I made the cutout using a coping saw, drilling the starting hole with my pocket knife.

Everything else was carved using a craft knife.

I sculpted the details for the sword handle from Sculpey as I had ran out of Fimo and found that although it was a lot softer and easier to work with it was nowhere near as strong. I ended up breaking the crossguard when trying to attach the sword handle to the blade and remade it out of Fimo.

Weapons I also used Fimo to sculpt the sheath caps for the sword and dagger. Sculpey was fine for the handle and chunky details because they don’t have weak points (the handle is reinforced with a pine dowel).

The scabbard was sculpted from two lengths of balsa wood glued together. I was originally going to hollow out the centres of both pieces of balsa but after spending 4+ hours on only one side I gave up and glued thin strips of balsa between the two pieces to make a gap for the sword. Later I found I had made it too tight so I needed to take it apart and cut away a hollow in the other side anyway but it didn’t take as long as it did not need to be so deep.

For the scabbard I cut a length of Red vinyl, drew the circle patterns onto it with a brown sharpie and stitched over them. This took a long time and almost had me feeling quite dizzy by the end. Finally I glued it onto the scabbard, attached straps, caps, and a sword belt made from leather and used acrylics to weather the vinyl.

The sword belt used silver fittings as per the reference art and I added a pair of D-rings underneath the buckle which fasten to a strap on the inside of the corset to hold the belt in place even with the weight of the sword hanging from it.

Final Result So here is the completed costume. It is comfortable (although the corset restricts movement somewhat) and everything feels secure when wearing it. I am quite happy to give my cosplay helper a cuddle without worrying about things breaking if he wriggles.