What can I say about this costume? Seriously, I never ever thought I'd have the balls--or the skills--to cosplay the other half of my OTP and the titular character of my favorite manga, bar none. I felt like I would never live up to my own expectations, but after a while, realizing it hadn't really been done before, and wanting so badly to do a homage to a wonderful character, I decided to go for it. I'm really glad I did. :)

I did the poncho first, and it's entirely hand-patterned and drafted. I used a linen fabric for sturdiness and quality; however, I made sure to choose one that sort of looked like burlap. I opted to go for the look from the very beginning of volume 6, before Mary mends Chrono's clothes, so there are intentional unfinished edges that were allowed to rip and fray. The poncho consists of a main part that is essentially a sheet with a hole cut out for my head, and then a "circle skirt" of sorts for the second smaller mini-cape, edged with fringe. I had some trouble with the mini-hood, I'll probably update it in a future wear of the costume. I am indeed wearing his vest--drafted from an entirely unrelated pattern--which is adorned with the same zig-zag red ribbon pattern as the "buttflap", which is held onto my intentionally-baggy pants with two long widths of the darker brown fabric used for those two garments. Arm warmers are hand-drafted and edged in piping-style bias tape. The headband has embroidered diamonds, accented with gold paint, which will probably be redone. The boots are actually custom-made boot covers (my first time attempting them)--the back of my calf is wrapped in a plain length of the blackboard cloth I used, and then I made custom covers for shinguards out of the same material and trimmed them in fur. I secure the shinguards over the backward-facing layer with velcro, and the brown leather accents then fasten around the knee to hold them all together. This is all pulled on over a pair of my generic black boots that I use for most of my crossplays. I was able to borrow the pocketwatch from my existing three Rosette cosplays, for some symbolism and recognition. I styled the wig myself, wore red YouKnowIt brand contacts, and borrowed pointed ear tips from Firewolf826 (thank you!!), who saved my butt when I realized I'd forgotten to order in time.

I was really stressed about getting this done, and was sort of unmotivated the last week before the con (first week in a real 9-5 job), but somehow, this turned out to be one of my favorite cosplays yet. I'm hoping to wear it again, and share it with people for when I finally cosplay Mary of Magdalene, too. :)

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