Eirika from Fire Emblem

Photographer: Vladimir
**This costume has been sold!

Playing Fire Emblem was loads of fun, and I loved a lot of the costumes! When I first saw Eirika on the cover of the game, I thought, "That is a great skirt! I love how flouncy it is." And I thought, why not cosplay it? So, I got it done in a month!

The armor and sword-making were new to me, but I think it all turned out very nicely. The breastplate armor and shoulder pauldrons were the hardest part to make - it was quite difficult to make a flat piece of foam turn into a curved piece of armor. I used Penwiper's tutorial for the craft foam armor, but I ended up adding acrylic paint to the glue mixture in order to get the yellow color of the armor. The design on the breastplate is white muslin painted gold. I put the earrings together and painted some frosted drop beads gold to match the other decorations in the costume. The wrist wrap is white bias tape painted gold and secured with Velcro. The opposing wrist cuff is craft foam with a wire frame, painted with Gold Rub 'n Buff and overlayed with gold-painted muslin. The sword was made using Paperclay and muslin layers, leather for the edging and underside of the hilt, a cardboard tube, a wooden ball, and the blade of a toy sword.

The shirt consists of red stretch jersey and gold-painted bias tape up the center. The skirt is white stretch ponte with a white lining layer. All the edges are overcast and the seams finished. The cape is ivory stretch twill that is glued directly to the shoulder pauldrons. For the boots, I had a pair of red strappy heels that I cut apart and converted into mules using clear vinyl, then I made some thigh high boot covers out of the red jersey with elastic at the top for staying power. The red jersey fingerless gloves were new for me, too, but they turned out very well.

My favorite part of the costume would have to be the belt. It was my first time working with Paperclay, specifically "Delight." After figuring out the design from the pictures (which all vary), I sculpted the clay and let it dry and sanded, then secured the gold-painted horsehair rope and toggle end to the back with more clay. After painting and sealing the clay, I etched the design into the front with a seam ripper. I then added painted beads and bugle beads to the rope and added the toggle clasp to the end. It really is quite pretty.

The wig is a base wig with extra wefts sewn in for thickness. It was also my first time curling a wig, but I had some help from Kukkii-san from Cosplay.com and she really helped me make it look great and natural!