Disclaimer - I am not a professional seamstress and everything I share with you I've learned just by making costumes. The corsets you make for your cosplay can tighten your waist a little and form your body in the costume. If you want to reach a body-changing results, you have to invest in professional-made corset with hard reinforcements and construction.
Why should I use a corset for my cosplay?
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I love to make corsets just because it accentuates woman's body perfectly! It fits every woman and even you don't look like a supermodel or you have some kilograms more- you can always form your body womanly and enhance your look perfectly!
Look at the woman on the picture - she is very sexy even she doesn't fit into today's harsh beauty standards!
And as a cosplayer, I dislike showing a lot of my body, but I still want to be sexy - Showing curves is one of the ways how to feel and how to be sexy without showing anything. And it really works! Don't you think?
It is also sometimes the only way to show your womanly me with all the helmets and capes and veils I wear :D
As you can see - I use corsets even in cosplays, where using a corset is not necessary - if you have to put armor on the belly - it can end for you in a bad way - making you look heavier and not so likeable. For example in a Pharah cosplay - the curves are really important in that cosplay, since her character in the games has great curvy, almost unreal body, and the only way how to achieve that, was a tight corset under the armor.
And a small tip: You can also reach curvy body just by making other parts of your armor bigger than your waist - like pauldron and hip armor!
How to make my own corset pattern?
There are several ways how to get your corset pattern - I can show you three of them:1) Download a pattern from the internet
There are some sites, that will give you a perfect corset pattern for free (or for money - but I will show just sites with free patterns) or sites that will help you draw a pattern yourself.But tbh I haven't tried using an existing pattern on my corsets, I always design my patterns.
SITE #1 - download will start when you click on the pictures.
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2) Trace your body and draw your own pattern
This is the most common way cosplayers do their patterns - just wrap yourself up in the food foil and tape your bodyshape all around the foil. Then draw the desired shape of the corset on it and cut yourself out from the tape shell. Cut all the pattern pieces, and trace them on paper - now you have your pattern!
3) Adjust an existing pattern to your own liking
The first corset I made was simply traced off a corset I bought. I bought a cheap corset on ebay (similar to this one for my Demon Hunter cosplay) and I traced just roughly the shape of all the corset pieces on a paper. I cut the paper out, connected it with tape and tried it on my body. Made a few adjustements and my first corset pattern was made! Then I traced it on brown leather, divided the front pieces into two, and sewn it together, made reinforcements and lacing and done.Since that time I made it similarly - I already have a certain knowledge of how the pieces should look like and I just freehand draw them on a paper. I always use different pattern on my cosplay, because every cosplay needs different seams on the corset (compare Xena's corset and Demon Hunter's corset) Then I cut them out, tape them together and try if it fits on my body. I always make the middle part where the waist is smaller to be able to tighten it. I draw on the paper then how to adjust the pieces to fit better and that is how my patterns are made!
Get my latest pattern for Xena and adjust it according to your body in THIS LINK!
How to make my own corset?
1) Choose the right fabric:
First thing you need to do is to choose the right material - keep in mind, that the material should not be flexible - it's purpouse is to hold it's shape, so don't use flexible materials! Also the material has to be firm, so don't use felt or other tearable materials.I usually choose leather, but because some leather kinds are a little flexible, keep in mind to reinforce the material with other fabricfrom the inside. I made a small lit of materials I've used for different corsets:
Paladin: Black Leather with black cotton fabric inside
Pharah: Firm black cotton fabric with black unvowen fabric inside
Xena: Brown leather with black unvowen fabric inside
Ravenborn LeBlanc: Purple taffete fabric with black unvowen fabric inside
Auriel: Dark blue jeans fabric with metallic effect with black cotton fabric inside
Anna Valerious: Black leather with black unvowen fabric inside
Demon Hunter: Brown hard leather (my first corset - look how lame it looks)
As you can see I use a lot of unvowen fabric for my corsets - it is the cheapest fabric available, it doesn't fray, but you cannot use it by itself (because it is not firm enough - it is unvowen) - I use the kind of fabric used on the garden like THIS ONE and it can be bought in almost every hobby store like OBI or Baumax.
And yes, I am using a lot of leather - tbh it is my favourite material. I know it is expensive and animals die because of it, BUT I am using leather bought from second hand shops in form of leather coats or leather jackets for really cheap. Those pieces look mostly really awful and are not trendy anymore. I always buy them when they are on sale and if I wouldn't buy them, they would be otherwise thrown away later. It is the best source for corset leather or leather for smaller pieces of your cosplay and you can actually save money and spare some animal lifes too.Just look at the jacket I've used for Xena's skirt:
2) Choose the reinforcement
There are several ways how to reinforce the corset. A corset without reinforcements cannot effectively shape and form your body. I use two types of reinforcements on my corsets (but of courset here is a lot of more different corset reinforcements from metal, bones and other stuff - if you use metal bones for your corset, it will make it more sturdy and forming)The first type I use is the sew-through plastic reinforcement, that I sew by hand into the seam of the corset. It hugs the seam from both sides then. It is actually a stripe of fabric tihh plastic tubing sewn inside of it. In order to hold it's shape it is necessary to melt the ends of these reinforcements by lighter. On the picture (Pharah's corset) there is every seem hugged with the reinforcement.
The second type is a cheaper plastic reinforcement. It is just the plastic tubing melted together without a fabric part and it is just inserted in the seaams of the corset (on the picture - corset for Auriel). By making a corset you have to make a double seam with a space inside, where you put this plastic reinforcement. This is much easier to do, so I use it for my latest corsets. It is also good to round the end of the reinforcement with a lighter.
3) Other stuff:
Every corset need some kind of a lacing and I use grommet lacing for most of my corsets. That means you make holes in both sides of the corset that are reinforced with a metal grommet and you put your lacing through those holes. I recommend using grommet kits with included piercing/forming tool and/or using a leather piercing shears. Keep in mind, that you need at least 8-10 holes on each side of the corset, less holes more space apart make the lacing uneffective and can bend the corset in unwanted places (Look at the picture of my Pharah's corset - it has only 5 holes on each side and it doesn't hold the shape as much as I would want to). Normally, a corset has a pieces of fabric to reinforce the lacing, but I make it followingly: I make the last corset part a lot wider than I need, and I fold the end inside of the corset, so the lacing has a double layer of fabric to hold onto (That is why my Xena corset pattern appears so wide on the end).
This article was made with support of my Patrons on my Patreon! There will be no time doing this without them!
I hope this article will be useful for someone and if yes, you can follow my work on cosplay (and other stuff) on my FACEBOOK PAGE or TWITTER or INSTAGRAM.
I hope this article will be useful for someone and if yes, you can follow my work on cosplay (and other stuff) on my FACEBOOK PAGE or TWITTER or INSTAGRAM.
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| Photo: Creative Wolves |
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