Kirin Armor 02

I'm just titling these with numbers because I expect there will be a lot. XD

Love this picture. I'm so glowy!

My Kirin Armor cosplay, worn at AX '11.

~ ~ Construction notes ~ ~

This costume was so fun to make! I've wanted to make a MH costume ever since I played the first one back in 2004. This costume is a bit of a cheat, however, because I've never played any of the portable MHs, so I have yet to play a MH that actually has Kirin armor IN it. I chose Kirin armor though because I felt it was a)iconic, easily recognizable and b)reasonably within my skill level, unlike pretty much every other high level armor set. I felt this was a good way to express my MH love, and a good introductory to MH costumes in general. I'd love to make another set someday.

I'm really not all that great at sewing, my specialty is definitely crafty things like sculpting and painting. This costume was a lot of that, which cut out a lot of the frustration I usually experience making costumes. I felt like I knew what I was doing for once, LOL.

I found faux snakeskin in silver downtown and decided to start this costume then. It had always been on my list but wasn't bumped to the top until I found that fabric. It was perfect! I hand painted the blue stripes on the silver pleather, as well as the black shading on the red pleather with acrylic paint.

The horn and the buckles on the belt, loincloth and suspenders were sculpted out of Super Sculpey. For the buckles, I made one, baked it, then pressed it into a ball of unbaked Sculpey to create a mold. Once the molds were baked, I was able to press Sculpey (with a teeny bit of baby powder) into the mold and get perfect copies!
The buckles were again hand painted and weathered to mimic the in-game textures with acrylic paint.

The fur was all hand sewn onto the pleather. This costume required a LOT of hand sewing to assemble all the little pieces.

Ironically, the hardest part of this costume is the one part you can't see. I made accurate panties with blue top stitching to match the tube top. They were a nightmare!

The weapons were made out of wooden dowels, wire, model magic and rigid wrap (plaster). I then sanded it down and painted it. I ended up spending only about 3 days total on the weapons and they turned out much better than I thought they would for being such a rush job. However, I wouldn't recommend using plaster for something you have to be carrying around all day, they turned out a little heavy and it made it hard to pose

This was also my first time styling a wig! It's not perfect, but It turned out better than I thought it would.

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Click here for a 360 view of this costume!


Photo by Thanks again man! ^^

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