I decided to do the artbook version because I like the artist's original coloring better, so there are white as well as purple butterflies on her dress and the tassel is blue. This is the reference picture used: (http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4431/69526722re8.jpg)

I made a really stupid mistake and put on the flower while looking at a mirror, so the flower & tassle are on the wrong side T_T Will get it right next time!

the slit on this costume goes up really high, so I installed a "Safety system" to prevent "accidents" from happening. I will add pictures & an explanation for this soon =)

The butterflies are painted on with 5 layers of acrylic paint. Wig made from cheap short base wig and 1.5 packs of jet black bulk/braiding hair extensions from doctoredlocks.com, I believe they are 48" extensions. The package said it was silky straight yaki/kanekalon but it felt more hard and plastic-like, I didn't like the texture too much and they didn't feel like normal kanekalon fibers at all. Good thing I was only braiding them, I wouldn't have tried to style it otherwise. I made a total of 4 braids, two long 48" ones for the ones that fall straight down to the thigh, and two shorter 20" braids to form the "loops" around the horns. I wrapped the longer ones around the horn twice first as detailed in the artwork reference picture, and then attached the loops on it. The braids were attached via a combination of sewing + hot glue. I cut a small hole in the wig and tucked the ends of the braids into there and sewed it up to hide the ends from view.

the "horns" of the wig were made from ultralight sculpey, baked, and painted with black acrylic paint and black nail polish (lol). They were then attached to the wig via a hot glue gun. For the paints I just used the cheap 99 cent ones you can get in small bottles at walmart. The dark blue trim on the dress is of dark blue double fold bias tape, the thin 1/4" kind. The chinese knots were all individually handmade out of the same bias tape (omg it took FOREVER 8(!!) and handsewn on (FOREVER +4 MORE HOURS).

The dress is not made of silk, but it is a very soft/smooth nearly-silky like material but it takes paint well. Took me forever to find the right color for it. The dress is made out of 7 peices (not counting the collar) and has two darts sewn on the front to make it more form-fitting, the darts are hidden under the corset.

The corset is made out of 4-way stretch black pleather and lined with the same blue as the jacket fabric, because I bought ~20 yards of it for cheap and it's a fairly stiff/sturdy fabric. As such, I did not need to use boning in the corset. It laces up in the back and I picked a white stretchy shoe-string type cotton cord thing because it looks closest to the shape and size of the white ties in the character sheet.

For the trim on the jacket, I used black satin blanket binding. The jacket is fully lined, but the dress is not lined (yet). I had to custom make the blue tassel out of 2 bunches of embroidery/floss thread because I couldn't find one the right color and length. Thanks to ycysusan for letting me borrow your black thigh-high socks and the flower, and for giving me the corset pleather as well as the corset pattern to trace =)

All in all I am pretty happy with this costume. My favorite part is the bells. I used thick gold cord and sewed on 7 bells on each anklet and I jingle everywhere when I walk XD. For the designs on the jacket I also used thinner gold cord to match the anklets and sewed small gold buttons on top. What's really nice is that the artbook picture shows all the details of the outfit so there was a very nice guideline to work with and very little guesswork involved. I spent a total of about 1.5 months on the costume with rigorous planning and intensive fabric hunting beforehand (I am really picky with color matching and how the fabric texture looks like in photos), and am really happy with how it came out. I installed a long zipper into the dress so it's fairly easy to get in and out of the costume, the hardest part is the corset which is made out of 11 different peices. It takes me longer to do the makeup for this cosplay (~2 hours) than it does to put on the costume (~30 min), since it requires a very ethnic style of makeup.

Thanks as always to "the crew" Bobby, Mike, Tony, Mihn, Super, as well as Ricky, Wilson, any & all else who took my photo :B