About this costume

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Selection Process: I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, particularly 6-10 (and 12) if you didn't already know that based on my first cosplay! I used to not be big on cosplaying fanart designs but there is just so much beautiful stuff out there! This is the second SunsetDragon design I have cosplayed. ThermoCosplay initiated the group of FF10 aeons. Bahamut is one of my favorite summons/aeons and I absolutely loved the design. I had planned on entering the masquerade with her as Yojimbo, but stupid me didn't have it done in time to enter (so I ended up entering Wayfinder Moana instead). I still committed and wore Bahamut the morning of the day of the masquerade for a few hours before changing.

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Construction: I always start with the most difficult pieces first - that being the headpiece. Absolutely no clue where to start, I reached out to my friend Amber Brite who graciously walked me through it and even let me use some of her tools! The base is made of sintra, and the horns are pieces of insulation foam stacked together with wood glue and then sanded down to shape. They are attached to the headpiece with some wire and worbla underneath for stabilization. The horns were covered in (not enough coats!) wood glue and wood filler, and then painted with acrylic. Worbla was used to add some details. This was also the first time I casted resin, and made the red gems myself! In between stages of the headpiece, I started on the bodysuit. believe or not, it's my first one. Almost everything attaches to the bodysuit so I chose to make this style for stability. I used Yaya Han's M7398. I hate following directions so I just made it how I figured it would and adjust as I go. While it's mostly good, the crotch area is still bunching so I'll have to fix that. I made the mistake of getting lycra for it so it's all interfaced with plastic boning. The butt cape (SunsetDragon loves butt capes) is a gorgeous chiffon that I roll hemmed on my serger, hand gathered and then attached snaps for the hips and back. I hand sewed the gold sequins to hide the attachments. The purple cape snaps to the back and attaches to gold bracelets. I used fabric and Heat N Bond to make the appliques. The bottom of the cape was a challenge - I tried making my own bias but I couldn't get it the lay right. In the end I used hot glue (I hate doing that but it was the only way it would stay). The yellow stomach scales attach with magnets and the pink scales are made of craft foam and velcro. The capelet was made with a fabric base, and then cutting, painting and heat forming each individual scale, and then hot glued on. The same chiffon is used to make the "sleeves". It fastens with a chain of glass beads. the leggings were white and blue purchased from AliExpress and then dyed purple. Shoes were purchased from Goodwill and then embellished with glass beds and resin gems. The wig was from BERON on Amazon (it stayed beautiful the whole time I wore it!) and I sewed rare earth magnets into it and attached them to the headpiece and it stayed on like a champ! Red contacts are from Uniqso

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