I was wondering, if there are any cosplay people out there, have any of you thought of (or taken) anime cosplay to this level?

I stumbled apon this website where several girls have made body suits complete with really lovely masks that turn them into anime characters. The website is in Japanese so I can only make out enough to navigate around. There is a very large photo gallery and in some you can clearly see the seam lines on the body suits. The clothing and costumes are worn over the body suit, making it a very flexible piece of kit.

Happy Sabrina

Any ideas on what a body suit like this would be made out of, or a better way of doing it? And how would you make a mask like that which you could see out of? I'm thinking it would have to have some sort of solid form underneath.

Any other thoughts? wow!

OMG, wow. I've never seen anything like that before. It looks amazing!

Amazing but also slightly disturbing

heheh Lynnes the queen of body suits she'd know - basically it starts with a suit from a unitard pattern and then you keep working on it till it fits you real neat - lots of tweaking and stuff in a fabric of the same stretch as the final fabric you are going to use. As for the masks I think you could make a base or even make them out of paper mache

hey its got an english translation section - go into the english version and read her diary she mentions something about the suits there

The translation isn't very good (an automatic yahoo thing that breaks half the website) and the diary is more like a guestbook. I can't find anything written by her.

I did find some information out though. Its called kigurumi cosplay or Animegao which means masked cosplay or anime face.

Well, just looking at this as a costumer (and not being at all familiar with the characters)

The masks on some look quite 'mass produced' as there seems to several people doing the same character and the masks look very similar, so they may well be something commercially available in Japan (but probably horrendously expensive - on a google search I found a comment about them being US$900)

But I did find this site on making a mask...
http://www.geocities.com/ka11.geo/col08/iruka01.html
Scary stuff when they talk about putting a plastic bag over your head and covering it with tape! (Don't Japanese girls need to breathe...) but the rest of seems logical, in spite of the really bad english translation.
It appears here they make the mask out of 'clay', but then they talk about pulling it on, so I'm not sure if 'clay' is the right tranlation here. I'm guessing one of the latex type products would work - Reactor Drone could probably help us out here.
They mention the eyes are set in the mask separately using plastic, with the dark iris being the bit you can see through (mesh like they use in Mascot mouths?)

The costumes look pretty easy - they seem to a lycra bodysuit base (to get that plastic look) with the character's 'costume' (which also seems to be mostly lycra) as separate garment, or as part of the bodysuit.

Sounds like a fun thing to have a go at.
If you need a hand with the bodysuit part, just give me a shout

What I found out is that there are 1 (possibly 2) japanese companies making masks, but they didn't have prices and finding information on there was hit and miss due to language factor even though I can read some japanese.

I love some of those instructions:



oh no! poison gas!

I'm a bit concerned about the plastic bag too, but perhaps something can be put over the hair and a paper mache style with the new "paper clay" would work?

I've never done anything with laytex so I don't know how it would go. The wig is fixed to the mask so it would have to be a fairly solid piece, thats all I know.

The costumes seem to go over the bodysuit in all cases I've seen.

I don't know whether to look more into this style, or to keep doing the traditional cosplay style. It is certainly very cute though!

here's a wikipedia site with a bit more of a rundown on the costumes - I'll see what else I can find

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doller

These guys make stuff and there are prices - not a fantastic looking website but in english
http://www.fantescadesign.com/

And this site has links to all sorts.... look at your own risk further down on the list... however some of those female doll masks are really creepy but amazing in their quality of design check out the photogenic ones eeee!!
http://www.closetmonster.net/links.html#anchor93177

oo The one selling the masks for $300-500 is using a bike helmet to keep it on. I might be able to scrounge up the inner foam of a bike helmet if I commit to attempting something like this. I have a feeling my man would probably disown me though... he doesn't like "cartoons"

Hmm I just realised I've seen that "paper clay" stuff at the art shop where I work a bit. I'll ask Con about it - he gave me a little peice some time back it's very light and claylike but is made of paper - you have to keep it in a bag - once the moisture dries from it it goes very solid - but is slightly furry to the touch similar to how some of those Happy Sabrina masks look.

The more I look at them - they don't actually look that hard to construct - I'll have a real good read of those instructions and give her a trial run hopefully soon and as for your other half freaking out...hehehe it will do him good

The more I look at it the more I think it would be great fun to give it a go. Perhaps something to start now for the 2007 ball

I haven't used any of the clay things before. Do you think paper clay would work?I imagine if it is sanded smooth and then painted after it hardens it shouldn't look too bad. I think starfirepheonix has played with that stuff a bit, I'll ask her on monday if she doesn't see this before then.



he won't be seen dead with me I think... unless perhaps I make a school girl outfit to go with it!

That is a very cool outfit,looks a bit freaky in the video but the still shots are awesome.

There are so many ways you could do a mask like that.Papier mache is probably the fastest and cheapest option,maybe finishing with das pronto or other air hardening clay.You could even use sculpey and bake it up and if you wanted it really thin and light you could vacform over the sculpt and make a plastic mask.

Getting the base would be one of the hardest things,you could use florist foam to rough out the shape and then coat it with papier mache.The masks look pretty big,I wonder if there's a back to them to even out the wig?

The eyes could be done by getting colour prints of the character's eyes and either coating them in clear resin or just attaching them behind clear plastic lenses.

The resins may be slightly toxic but they don't emit poisonous gasses,I've used them for years and I'm fine

Some are just the mask with a wig attached and some are a full head mask. The full head ones seem to sit better from what I've seen and have like the inside of a bike helmet in the mask.



Oh that sounds even easier. I thought then needed to be painted on with the black part made out of that mesh stuff that you can see out of.





sounds like I will have to start with a paper clay version either way, even if it ends up with vacform at the end and if it works well without then yay

thanks

I'm heading to Tokyo some time next month so I'll check out what prices I can find these for in Akihabra (cosplay central in Tokyo.)

There's also a little bit about Kigurumers in a book I have 'Cruising the anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo' (P. Macias & T. Machiyama, 2004)....

"Kigurumers make a character costume. Then they make a face mask to go with it. Not an inch of actual skin is shown to the outside world. Since some kigurumers cover their faces in layers of cloth, there's a risk of asphyxiation. It's a very dangerous sort of play, like bondage."

Not something I think I'd want to try! But I'll get some prices and photos when I eventually get myself out to Tokyo...

OOer! Yes please - lots of interest over here! Please post what ever you find it would be most helpful - great to have someone one the ground so to speak!

It seems the related Western equivalent is fursuiting.. which means you are going to get a mix of fetishists and paid work (shows in malls etc) and random people who are interested in making and wearing them. So yeah, just be warned some sites might include a bit more than you expect!

Sorry everyone! I did go to Tokyo last weekend but the only shop I found that looked to be selling new cosplay stuff from the outside ended up being an 'adult' shop so I quickly high-tailed it out and didn't take the time to check out if the 7 floors had any anime bodysuits/masks.

I went to a 2nd hand cosplay shop which had the most awesome set of Final Fantasy Advent Children costumes but no masks. Everything at the 2nd hand store was seriously expensive so I dread to think what prices I'd find at the new cosplay stores. My guess is those masks would range into the $200-$300 range.

Cultural note... in Japan these costumes are almost always worn by men. If you see a Kiguruma cossie, chances are good there is a man inside.

If I was going to do one of these (which I wouldn't for myself as it looked quite eerie on the site) I would be making an EVA inner skull cap to build the mask on. The face can be done with a plaster mould and vac formed with thin EVA or even a PVC plastic. The photo below is this technique, but not in the style of these pics.

This was made for a music/dance sort of show. It is carved from EVA foam and it was very light by the time I was finished.

hey hey you got your photos showing!!!

Yep! Finally! I resorted to the photobucket option, I still don't know why I can't put them up from my PC, but now I don't care!!!

is that genie? That is pretty amazing. Perhaps when I get up to making my kirugumi mask I can pick your brains?

Yes, it was made for a song and dance type show. There are a set of hands to go with it as well. I am quite happy to help or advise or demo if anyone wants a hand.

Just some reference pics from some anime statuettes(for those doing this ).

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Even though the girl from cowboy bebop has a more normally proportioned head the profile is very similar to the wider head shape from evangelion.

(apologies for blurriness)

Check this out RD! http://www.depas.org/record.html

Just click through the links there and you'll see a step by step. Its all in japanese though

The nose and mouth area actually comes out quite a way compared to a real head!