Ah, Zoicite. Easily... my least favorite costume. It was a rush job along with the costumes for the three other generals with only my grandmother and I working for a little less than a week... in a house with no air conditioning at the time.

We obviously made each piece four times. We started with the pants, and it was my first time fitting someone else. As well as taking someone else's measurements. There was a lot of cutting and hemming done with the pants, but not so much with the jacket. Both were made from a lightweight poplin, and I still have tons left over so I might remake my jacket. The jacket's torso is lined, though the sleeves are not, just like with my Ryoko jacket. Not left to say with the sewing, except that Kunzite's cape was a bugger and done over the course of 24 hours - sewn together at home, brought to Metrocon set-up for fitting, and finished in the hours I had between getting home from set up and leaving for Metrocon the next day. The belts were all made from black fabric and held together by velcro, but my velcro and I are horrible enemies and my belt refuses to keep the velcro on, leading to a lot of safety pins.

The lines on all the jackets were done with bias tape - it was crunch time at this point, though, so the tape is, I loathe to admit, fabric-tac-ed on. Ew. The shoulder pieces for Kunzite and Nephrite, which I made from Crayola Model Magic and lots of paint, were hot glued on, as was Kunzite's cape. Needless to say, there's a lot I want to go back and fix. The buttons were not added in time for the Masquerade, but I finally got the button onto my jacket and have the buttons for the other generals.

The wig was actually a decision I hated at first, but have grown to like. As might be noted from Saint Tail, Meimi, Ryoko, Koto, and Reno, I have similarly cut and colored hair to Zoicite, but needed a wig for the show. It's led to a lot of jokes which continue to circulate (if anyone wants to cosplay me, I now have the wig for it!), but I do like it more than my own hair and I would have hated putting those curls into my own hair, so all is well.

I need new boots (my current ones have nearly ice-pick heels and aren't very manly... not that Zoicite's particularly manly himself), need to fix the bias tape, need a new belt, and probably need to lose about 40 pounds. Then I might like the costume. Until then, the only light of day this costume will see will be if my other generals decide on a photo shoot finally, or if it's needed again at Metrocon. I do feel pretty awesome in it, though... until I see the photos.

A last note on accessories - earrings and masks. My earrings are so ghetto, they don't actually exist. I don't have pieced ears, and I recently wore clip ons for another costume and aggravated some infections where my earring holes used to be, so I could do neither... so I did something just as dangerous and stupid and colored them on with marker. Oh yes. Best earrings ever. The masks I was actually proud of until I put mine on. I hate how it fell on my face. I made all the masks, paper mache on a clay base, covered in the same fabric as our costumes, and designed on one quarter each with the same color bias tape for each of our respective costumes. The awesome part? Each mask had a tumbled stone for each general - I have so much Zoicite now, it's just so pretty. Each stone was wire wrapped and had the general's first initial in the center. I also had a beryl for Beryl, but didn't get around to wrapping it and it got eaten by my house.