When I was coming up with ideas for what costume to make for Otakon 2002, I thought of a ton of characters I’d love to make. I had seen images of the "official" Renamon costume and I suppose that's what inspired me to do this. I knew Renamon was rather popular though, and there would probably already be people out there creating a suit of her. Still, I really liked Renamon and Taomon was pretty gender neutral looking so I decided that was the direction to go in.

I started with the shirt, using a McCall’s pattern (8827) for a tunic and just modifying the sleeve length and adding a collar of my own design. The collar has a hidden zipper in the back of it so I could get away with having the collar pretty close around the neck. The trim on the cuffs is white ribbon. I got the same material as the shirt only in red and backed it with some thermo web, cut triangles out of it, and ironed them on. I used the same technique for the gold designs on the tabard. The edges were all trimmed in gold ribbon. The yin-yang is black vinyl that I painted the white portion onto. I used the iron on adhesive again to attach it by ironing it to the tabard from the inside of the tabard piece.

The pants came next. I found a really cool purple material that was a remnant so I got it cheap. I have no idea what it is called but it was a heavy material but wit ha loose weave so I had to have 2 layers. Again, I borrowed heavily from a McCall’s pattern for drawstring pants. I left a hole in the back for the tail to poke through. I put elastic at the bottoms so they would flair out. I cut triangles of various sizes out of the bottom edge. I sewed along the cut but left it unfinished so it would fray a bit to look right.

For the feet, I took a big block of foam and traced the shape of my Timberlands onto it and then drew out a big foot around it. I carved the foam and covered it in fur. They slide right over my boots. The gold armor on them is foamy with sewn on gold ribbon. I sculpted the 2 little ovals on them in Friendly Plastic and glued them on. I spray. Finally painted it all in gold before I sewed on the ribbon. I added in some elastic and a snap to go across the bottom to hold it all down on my boots. I carved big claws in foam and then covered them in black plasti-dip and glued them in place. They are a royal pain to try and walk in.

I already had a mold for a feline mask so I pulled a new latex mask from it and ordered some orange fur from Mendels.com. Everything else I got at JoAnn's Fabrics.
I first painted the nose in black plasti-dip then I started gluing the fur down on the mask with hot glue. I added in the black and white markings. The ears were made out of plastic canvas I cut and covered in fur and sewed in place. The hat is 1" foam I rolled into a cylinder and shaped and then covered in black vinyl. I added in a small rectangle of the purple from the pants to the back of the hat. The tail is just a tube of the orange fabric with some white sewn in at the tip.

The shoulder pads were the biggest pain. After much deliberation, I finally went with that blue Styrofoam stuff you can get at home depot. I had to glue it together with stuff called Hold the Foam and sand it all smooth so you couldn't see the seams. When that was done, the seams were still a little visible so I smoothed them out wit ha little modeling clay and painted it all in many many coats of liquitex. After a disastrous first attempt at getting them to stay in place on my shoulders with Velcro, I went out and bought some cheap wire coat hangers and bent 2 of them into an armature that fits over my head and rests on my shoulders. The ends of the wires bend up and just stick into the bottom of the foam.