Oh my god, what? Someone cosplaying Al Gore's anime, Shangri-La?!

I know, I'm striving for something ridiculous here, deciding on a cosplay only two weeks after the show's premiere and without so much as official character sketches in magazines.

I thought it'd be good practice to learn how to make bound pockets and lining a garment though, plus Kuniko shares stats with me (B78/W54/H83), so I couldn't resist.

Costume parts breakdown:

Wig - $22 from Designer Wigs and Cosplay Wigs on eBay
- The wig is 10 inches long at the longest point.

Eyebrows - $1 for white glue and paint
- Obviously my bushy black MAN-brows aren't going to cut it. I painted my eyebrows with a coat of white school glue, then a coat of pink acrylic paint to make them match the wig.

Blouse - $27 for raw materials, $? for patch, 1 week for construction
- I vastly altered the Butterick 5300 pattern for the blouse. It wasn't until after I bought the pattern when I realized that it's meant for well-proportioned women (read: fat middle-aged Americans), so I had to bring out some mad hax to get the pattern to be semi-formfitting on me.
- Overall the pattern was custom reduced to one size below Extra Small and lengthened by one inch. Side, front, and back darts moved accordingly for size Extra-Extra Small. Side darts lengthened by two inches. Back piece was cut down the center instead of on the fold, reducing the width of the finished pieces by 1.25 inches. Side slits shortened. Front facings narrowed by an inch. Front of blouse was altered slightly to accommodate the sailor collar.
- All steps repeated for the inner lining.
- Collar was traced onto newspaper for a guide to making my own sailor collar (I can never resist making patterns for sailor collars). 5/8 inch ribbon used for the front bow. I used super glue to permanently preserve the bow tie. 1/4 inch ribbon used for the collar line. I used the reverse side of the satin ribbon to reduce the sheen. The back details were done on Heat'n Bond-backed 1 inch ribbon, then cut out to desired shape. The center part of the back was done machine-embroidered with a sewing machine.
- 4 gold buttons from La Mode, Style 26962, featuring a coat of arms with a shield with two branches, which is the closest I could find to the reference pictures. Buttonholes are 4.5 inches apart.
- I redrew the patch on her pocket because all reference images I had of her were either too small or not front-on. Twice. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I found out late that the novel and anime versions of the patch are different. Check them out for yourself.
http://atashi.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/kuniko_patch.png
http://atashi.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/kuniko_patch02.jpg
Then I gave the images to someone to digitize and machine-embroider.

Sports bra - $2, from Kmart
- Girls' size 34 by Fruit of the Loom. Was originally a 3-pack, but one was missing, so the price got slashed from $10 to $4 for two pairs. Yes, Kuniko wears a sports bra underneath the blouse, though I have to wear it over a regular bra to get the correct fullness. Wearing the sports bra alone completely squashes my chest.

Wristband - ???

Skirt - $8, from eBay
- It's a regular girls' size 10 skirt that I picked up off eBay months ago. I bought it thinking that it'd be versatile enough for a wide array of school girl cosplays.

Panties - $2 for basic white panties from Target, $2 for fabric pen, 1 day for construction
- Kuniko wears white panties with purple polka dots. Since I couldn't find an exact replica in a store, I simply bought a permanent fabric pen and precisely drew the dots onto a pair of old white panties.
- Sadly this part of the costume will never be seen. I may be able to show off the sports bra since it's not obscene, but panties are going too far.

Socks - $3
- An old pair of basic black mid-calf socks that I have had lying around the closet since time immemorial.

Shoes - $10 for base shoes from Goodwill, $19 + ? for raw materials, 8 + ? days for construction
- I made boot covers for a pair of ordinary shoes. I didn't want to destroy my own shoes so I went and got another pair of sneakers from Goodwill. I used leftover black twill from past projects to make the inner facing and black pleather bought from JoAnn two Halloweens ago to make the outer shell.
- I used guidance from this thread to make the standard Murata Range boots:
http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=81069
- Four pieces per boot, plus four mirror pieces for the inner lining. 12" zippers were installed on the inner sides. The boot covers were glued onto the sneaker with E-6000, under a /cgl/ Anon's suggestion, and that glue is amazing. Two hook and eyes closures were sewn into the top of the boots above the zippers.
- Foam was stuffed into the toes of the boots to achieve the full, rounded look. Hooray for dumpster diving behind the local foam shop.
- The orange detailing is made with craft foam with multiple coats of Sobo glue/white glue/water mix sealed with glossy clear acrylic sealer, glued onto a fabric backing, then glued onto the boot covers with E-6000.

Boomerang - $6 + ? for raw materials, XX days for construction
- Bought something from the dollar store to the center base of the boomerang.
- I bought a giant roll of craft foam for constructing the boomerang. This will be a joy.

Raw material cost: $11 + $5 + $16 + $1 + $6.50 + $3 + $5
- Yes, I'm hitting JoAnn and Michael's once every few days instead of purchasing everything in one fell swoop to make the most out of those 40% and 50% off coupons.
- Goodwill, Kmart, and the Dollar Store are providing the rest of my found wardrobe.

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