My husband (you can call him Bat) and I are new-ish to the cosplay scene. I've been kind of actively doing it since 2009ish, he's been kind of getting into it since 2012. The first major costume he wanted me to make for him was what you see above. The villain from Final Fantasy VI that I knew nothing about. However, one of my favorite parts of cosplaying is research, so I went a-researchin' and got down to business.
Version 1 was made primarily from poly/cotton broadcloth due to a late start and some budget constraints. Cotton Kefka turned out rather well for how quickly it was pulled together - 2 weekends and 1 all nighter!
At least that was what I thought last year. It looked so drab! So drab! (and my craft room was a complete mess!)
Looking back on it, I'm appalled I let him walk out of that hotel room. But Bat loved it, and that's all that mattered right?)
Kefka is rich. Kefka is hauty. Kefka is a haute couture jester who looks like a full-of-himself royal pain in the ass and I wanted to kick myself for not properly capturing that the first time. So I tore most of it apart and revamped it with silks, taffetas, beads, brooches, gold trim and I am soooo much happier with the end result. (Even if I still have to redo the pants and the boots.)
I was given the wonderful gift of some creative liberties on this redo. So I looked at different Amano drawings and various fan artworks that had some really good costume design incorporated into them. The extra collars and the big puffy white sleeve were my main additions, outside of some extra baubles and jewels.
I took the whole week of Comicon off from work, so I did a bulk of all this sewing the week leading up. I must have gone to Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's every single day for something different, or something I saw the day before and debated on picking up, but didn't, only to sleep on it and realize that whatever I was going to get was worth it in the end.
We splurged a lot on fabrics and such for this. The feathers for his head piece were like $11.00 each...but totally worth it! We used silk for the sleeves, and cotton voile for the puffy sleeve and extra color. The brocade I had lying around. It was actually a dress someone bought me that had been too small since the beginning. I decided it was time to give it some new life. Satin was used for the cape and collar, taffeta and chiffon for some of the scarves. A lot of the tassel was made by hand from crochet thread. Totally time consuming. Small silk flowers were sewn onto the blue fabric in place of polka dots to richen the look up a ton.
EVERYTHING was essential. Kefka is the gaudiest villian alive.
I obsessed like crazy over this costume (the second time around). We were going to enter it into the Masque, so everything had to be beyond perfect. We had details all the way down to some sweet glitterfied press on nails.
The amount of attention we got meant I pretty much did my job. Bat was such a ham that day.
I can't say it enough.
SO. MUCH. BETTER.
Peace!
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