Hello, it's Monday, and today sees the first episode of Mouse Makes
My new cosplay, craft, and baking series, which is coming to Monday's on my channel.
Not every Monday, but Mondays.
This week I'm going to be talking about my Rey cosplay
The main costume that Daisy Ridley wears as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
And there are quite a few elements to this so I'm going to be splitting this walkthrough into three videos.
Part 1 today will be the main costume, so that's the boots, the trousers, the undershirt, and the wrap.
And I'm going to upload Part 2 tomorrow and that will include the accessories
The arm wraps, the bracer, the belt, and the bag.
Part 3, the final part, will be on Wednesday, and that is Rey's staff.
That's quite a task in itself so it's getting a whole video.
That's the plan: three days, three cosplay tutorial/walkthrough type things.
So if you're still here then let's get started with the boots.
These are the screen accurate boots that Daisy Ridley wears in the film.
They're from a brand called Po-Zu and they're a little pricey, £150 at the moment.
I got them in a sale over a year ago.
I'll put a link to them below in case you want to see them or buy them.
They are comfy and I do wear them out of cosplay
Which is good because if you're going to be spending that amount of money on a pair of boots
You want to be getting some wear out of them.
But if you're making a Rey cosplay and you don't fancy buying those boots
Then I think just a general pair of brown calf length boots would look pretty great.
I've seen a few different methods for making Rey's trousers but this is what I did.
They started life as a pair of grey marl pyjama bottoms which I already owned
Beautifully modeled by my legs there.
I think using pyjama bottoms worked quite well although I would have preferred a block color instead of a marl.
But if you are making Rey's trousers then I'd just recommend finding something that looks right-ish.
That you already own or that you can buy for cheap.
Although if you're gonna be using the method that i'm using then they need to be a stretch fabric
And they need to be full-length, not cropped.
So I started by cropping them. I cut them into vertical strips until just below the knee.
Each strip is about 2 centimetres wide.
And then I put them on and just started wrapping the strips of fabric around my leg
And pinning them quite tightly. Try to make sure that the ends aren't too visible.
I'm leaving two of the strips down, the ones with the side seams in
I'll cut them off in the end.
I did this because I thought it might look messy if the side seams were visible when they were wrapped round my leg
And also I had to take these trousers on and off a few times during this process
And it was good to have a guide as to where my foot should be going.
I kept the spare strips of fabric after I cut them off
Because they will be useful for testing the weathering later.
I'm doing this instead of using elastic so it's quite important that the fabric is stretchy
So you can get them on and so they'll stay put when they are on
But if you don't fancy doing this or the trousers you're using are already cropped
So you can't cut them into strips, then you could sew elastic into them
And it will look good.
After this I took the trousers off again and sewed a few stitches into wherever there are pins
To keep the strip's in place.
And then they'll look like this.
Then it's just a case of weathering or dying or painting the fabric to make it look more screen accurate.
What you need to do will depend on what fabric and colour you have already
But if you have the spare strips of fabric from earlier then you can try a few things on them.
What I did was painted them with water and then painted them with very watered down grey acrylic paint
And I did this a couple of times.
I found this was the only thing that got rid of the marl pattern
It did make the fabric quite stiff so I didn't paint the waistband or the strips of fabric at the bottom
Because I didn't want them to lose their elasticity.
But when the whole costume is on you can't really see that these areas aren't painted anyway.
These are the final trousers, this is the bottom bit.
They're a little dark, I maybe should have used a lighter grey when I was painting.
But overall I'm pretty happy with them. It does take a couple of minutes to get them on.
You have to arrange the fabric strips every time to get them to look nice and sit right.
But once you've done that they stay in place pretty well and I think they look pretty good.
Rey's undershirt in the film is a cotton hemp material and it's off-white or kind of beige-y.
But I disregarded all of that and got a cheap, white, long-sleeve cotton t-shirt from Primark.
Like this one, but white.
I got this because it was cheap.
I would recommend getting a long sleeve t-shirt instead of a short sleeve one
Because you can use the excess fabric for things later.
Firstly I cut the little slit in the front and sewed the edges.
Later on I'll also glue the edges with fabric glue which makes them stiffer
But I wouldn't recommend using glue until after you weather the fabric
Because when I started weathering, the glue kind of dissolved a bit.
If you've looked closely at pictures of Rey's costume from the film, you'll know this isn't entirely screen accurate
But it is easy and it looks okay so I just went with this.
I then cut the sleeves into little cap sleeves. I recommend putting the shirt on and marking where you want to cut first.
And then the left cap sleeve of Rey's undershirt has these little fabric ridges on it.
So to do that I cut strips of fabric from the excess sleeves and attach them
First using glue, as you can see here.
And then I added stitching to reinforce it, which is just as well
Because as I said before, the glue kind of dissolved when I was weathering.
So onto the weathering, I again used the excess fabric from the sleeves to test first.
And I put a very tiny amount of black acrylic paint into a spray bottle filled with water
And then sprayed the top. I did a few layers of this, leaving the fabric to dry each time.
It takes a while but because my fabric was white I was worried about it getting too dark
So I figured using only a very small amount of black paint at a time and layering it up would be safer.
This is the final result.
The edges of the fabric ridges are pretty rough so don't look at those too closely
But they're covered by the wrap when the costume is on so it's fine.
And you can see I've added velcro to the shoulders to attach the wrap, but more on that later.
The wrap is arguably the most complicated part of the costume.
This is the fabric I used, this is what's left of it anyway.
It's viscose, it's sort of the right colour, it's a little heavier than is entirely comfortable
But overall, I'm happy with it, I think it was a good shout.
But again, it's really about what you can find and what you can afford
And this is what I could find and afford.
I bought six metres, I ended up only needing five, but again, excess fabric is your friend.
And the way you wear it is it starts on your front right, goes straight up to the belt
Crosses over to the left shoulder.
Goes straight down your back to your left calf loops, back up to the front belt.
Crosses over your right shoulder and then just fall straight down your back.
So the only place the fabric crosses is here at the front, and the loopy bit is on the left.
The first thing I did was pull the fabric into gathers.
I did this in six places: on the shoulders, and at the four places where the fabric is covered by the belt.
So I put the fabric on, marked where those places were
And then laid the fabric out and started gathering.
I just did a running stitch along where I was going to gather
And then after I'd done that six times, I pulled them all tight until they were about the width I wanted them
And knotted the thread so the gathers couldn't come loose.
I only did one row of stitches for most of the gathers
But at the shoulders I ended up doing three rows of stitches next to each other
To make them stronger, and I pulled the shoulders much tighter than the ones at the belt
Because you don't want them to fall off when you're wearing it.
And then the weathering, again I use the excess fabric to test first.
For this I used the spray bottle again with a tiny bit of black and brown acrylic paint in it
And I let the fabric dry in folds like this so it would go into creases.
And here's the finished wrap, what you can see in shot anyway.
I'm really happy with the creases, I think they look really good
And this is just from letting the fabric dry scrunched up.
Couple of things to note: firstly my weathering method was maybe not the best.
I was spraying the fabric in rows and the fabric ended up being a little bit stripy
It's not too visible but it's not ideal.
So if I was going it again I'd probably either spray it more randomly
Or else I'd hang it on the hanger like this and just spray it as it's on the hanger.
And I also added sticky velcro to the shoulders to attach to the undershirt
Because the shoulders are inclined to fall down when left to their own devices.
So that's the end of part one! We got there, we did it!
If you have any questions or comments about this video then let me know below
I've put a list of the materials I used in the description below, and also a link to the boots
in case you would like that information.
Let's move across to the end screen. Tomorrow I will be walking you through the rest of the costume
And once that video is up it will be down here.
And on Wednesday I will be showing how I made Rey's staff
And once that video is up, it will be down here.
If you want to visit my website or subscribe to my channel, you can do so beside me here
I hope you have a great day, and I will see you soon!