Several months before Final Fantasy XII came out, Michael showed me pictures of the released official art. He wanted to cosplay Vaan and he wanted me to cosplay Ashe. I was suspicious that he just wanted to see me in a tiny miniskirt, but I liked the prospect of trying out armor-making.

This costume was extremely time-consuming. I spent six months slowly hunting down what I needed and researching on how to make the costume. The actual costume-making part took two months. Again, I had to deal with inconsistent reference pictures, so I decided to mainly use the official art pictures and cut-scene screenshots but based a few parts, particularly the jewels and armor color, on in-game screenshots because the details were clearer. The jewels are green-blue in the dark but bright blue in the light, just like in the game! =D

I'm not particularly pleased with the design of the clothing parts of the costume, as it looks simple but is in reality difficult to make. The white top caused me a lot of stress and took forever for me to make it fit properly due to the lack of side seams. Collars are my weak point, so making a turtleneck sailor collar that floats, without using a pattern, wasn't exactly fun -_-;. My sewing machine refused to work at random points when making the skirt. When I installed the bra and boning into the white top and denim waist-cover, I broke no less than 5 needles >_>;. I also sewed in wire in the "coattails" to try to make them float, but it didn't work -_-. I did like that I discovered that I could paint pleather with a thin layer of acrylic paint, so I did that for the shoes and skirt to get the exact dark bubblegum pink I wanted instead of the "WHOA!"-bright hot pink that was the closest color available in stores.

The armor-making on the other hand, was especially rewarding, especially for an engineering student =). I made the armor from craft foam, and shaped the armor after heating it with an iron. I added the details by creatively using more foam, fabric paint, beads, Chinese knotting string, and hot glue. After many layers of sealer and paint, I gave the armor a weathered look by spending a LOT of time spreading black paint and then blending it with gold paint. I buffed the raised details with a lighter color to make the details pop out even more. Flexibility was a top priority to me. I'm glad I thought so, as the armor has been stuffed into a backpack, bumped into, pinched, and accidentally squished when I fell on it (lol). However, the only damage is a little peeling paint on the wing tips of the thigh armor because they kept bumping into each other. I spent an incredibly huge amount of time on my armor, but I'm very impressed with the results, especially since it was my first time doing anything like it.

The wig isn't 100% perfect yet because I did not know how thin it was on the bottom when I cut it >_<. However, I love the color, which is #22, "Beige Blonde". Figuring out the right color was a pain, as it is different in several reference pictures. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes the color looks blended, sometimes it looks like one solid color, etc. I've seen the color vary from a platinum/strawberry blonde mix to a golden blonde, so I picked what suited my skin color best.

Thank you, Michael, for making me the resin jewels and pink boot covers. You saved me some much needed time. Thank you to DugFinn for introducing me to the wonders of simple craft foam, acrylic paint, and Fabri-tac, which really is the glue of the cosplay gods =D. I also would like to thank the "Craft Foam Armor Tutorial" (simply Google it for the link). Although I did the process a little differently and figured out my own techniques, the tutorial was extremely helpful for the basic recipe. I highly recommend it for any beginner when it comes to making armor.