Princess Zelda: Twilight Princes

Twilight Princess Zelda has always been an icon from my childhood. Ever since the game I have been in love with both the character and the dress, so finally, after so many years of idolizing, I decided to actually commit to this cosplay. Obviously this dress requires far my experience in sewing than I had have, so I needed a little bit of help from my mum. So without further ado, here is the process I went through to complete this cosplay.

First I had to break down each part, and figure out the best way to tackle each section. The first thing we started was with the dress itself. I went out looking for the perfect pattern for it.

Zelda's dress is sleeveless, so, to make it easier a dress without sleeves would be the simplest thing to find, however I couldn't find a pattern with no sleeves that included the square neckline, so I settled for a dress which had the length and neckline, leaving us to remove the sleeves.

The pattern we went with was "Butterick B4571" which you can find here.

The fact that the bodice was made separately from the skirt made it easier to draft the purple doublet.
To actually draft the doublet we cut each section of the bodice out of the purple material, without actually cutting the bottom to the right shape. We then had to use a draping drafting method to get the right shape. Because the pattern was not my size we also had to adjust each piece to fit me.

For the fabric we used an unwashed cotton duck. The thing with cotton duck is that it comes unwashed, and when it's unwashed it's stiff, which is perfect for the gown, as Zelda's gown sits stiffly, but flows slightly as she walks.

For the front tapestry I cut the main shape out of the cotton duck. The first one I made was too flimsy after being painted, and any fabric stiffener I used on the back bled through to the colored side. Eventually I cut each bit out of my first tapestry to create a template, which I then used with spray paint.

Update: I went back and redid the tapestry for this cosplayer as I was not happy with the one I already had.

Embroidery
Looking at other people who have cosplayed Zelda, I knew there were two options to do the glyphs on the bodice. I either a) Draw the glyphs on with a paint marker or stencil. Or b) Hand embroider every symbol. I went with the embroidery as I had heaps of white embroidery thread lying around from when my mother did Hungarian embroidery. It took a total of 13 hours to complete the glyphs.

Elf ears
As some of you may know, Princess Zelda has elf ears. Now, being the cheap person I am, I decided to make my own ears, instead of buying them online. On the plus side, they fit me perfectly as they were modeled after my own ears. For the full tutorial, click here

(keep checking back for updates on this piece, as well as pictures of the finished cosplay)

Pauldrons
Part 1 of the pauldron tutorial, which can be found here 
Part 2 of the pauldron tutorial, which can be found here

(keep checking back for updates on this piece, as well as pictures of the finished cosplay)