Creating a Cosplay Jacket
Cosplay artists like Atticus are inspired by characters across many kinds of media, from manga, to anime, to video games, to film, to literature, and more. We love how Atticus can take inspiration from a beloved character and put their own twist on it to make the finished look more modern and wearable. If you are interested in starting cosplay, follow Atticus' process below, and follow along with their work HERE!
Cosplay Jacket Inspired by Vash from Trigun Stampede
Hello, I’m so excited to share some insights to my process for my ‘Vash the Stampede' inspired jacket! This character is from a series called Trigun Stampede, a manga series created by Yasuhiro Nightow in 1995, set on the planet No Man's Land. I use the Baby Lock Accomplish straight-stitch machine, Flare Embroidery machine, and Celebrate Serger for these projects.
I was thinking about what excited me about the original design from the manga, and what I liked about the new rebooted tv show that recently aired. I love that the original design has complexity in lines over the body. His reboot design is more of a simple rain jacket look- it’s more modern and fresh. I decided I wanted to keep the silhouette of the newer design with nods to the original manga design. This got me looking at Japanese techwear ( A Japanese fashion trend.) This style of fashion is bulky in design with elements of weatherproofing, comfort in bagginess or oversize with strong emphasis on utility.
I love to add lace, or incorporate fabrics with patterns and texture. Here’s what I had collected; A beautiful red and gold floral lace that I intend to overlay on this brocade. This references my character inspiration's love of geranium flowers.
This was my first time digitizing an embroidery file. I’m very visual, so I spent a lot of time making tests. I started off very simple and true to the original design. The more I worked on this piece, the more I wanted texture, and a little bit of something extra. I am taking a simple, animated piece and creating it in the real world, so, of course it should have a bit more interest and detail. I landed on adding a patterned fill to the background and extra stitching around the lettering. This gave a lot more interest when you get up close, but from a distance, it is still a nod to the iconic character. (Embroidery machine: Baby Lock Flare)
I always get a little giddy and excited when I find a lace fabric as pretty as this one. What drew me to this material is how there are a variety of textures with the flat fill stitching and the raised outlines in gold. I especially liked how not everything was outlined.
When I get a lace fabric, it’s usually by the yard. This one was that way too. I had to decide very carefully what pieces I wanted isolated from the fabric and then rearranged them on my jacket.
I never do this in one step! It might be the longest part of my process.
I’ll mark with pins where I want to make the divisions in the material. I sleep on those ideas and cut them out the next day. I always make revisions from my first ideas. I will pin my newly cut pieces on the jacket and again, sleep on it. Sometimes for the layout it can take me up to 3 days to finally decide on a design. When I feel happy enough with how it looks, I hand-stitch everything down while listening to a good audio book!
I originally intended to stitch everything down, but as I worked, I noticed how some of the pieces looked if they were allowed to remain loose. This reminded me of how a plant might naturally grow, and so I decided to leave some of the lace applique pieces free.
Here’s a before and after of the patches with and without the lace applique.
As I closed in on the end of my construction process, I began thinking about closures, and how techwear has lots of straps and fun zippers. I thought to myself… Do giant zippers exist? I was not disappointed when I found this incredible zipper! It’s almost as big as my hand. Finding this and the reflective straps helped me connect this piece back to streetwear.
