Evangelion Costests/Misato Jacket Tutorial & Uniform/wig review

It's 2015, insert evangelion joke here...

Prepare for many many evangelion cosplays, Depending on what happens with my plugsuit I may make a separate post with it but for now I'll keep them altogether!

 I decided at the end of last year I'd like to cosplay a plugsuit version of one of the characters. I think ultimately Shinji is my favourite character but plugsuits aren't easy to pull off and I don't think I'd quite get away with cosplaying him! I did do a little costest of his uniform using what I had lying around though. I'd like to do it again in the future properly! The same kind of applies to Kaworu, I also did a test for him too.

Which leaves me with Rei, Asuka and Mari. My first choice was Rei 3.0 in her black suit since it seems to be the most flattering and easiest to make in terms of design and material availability (though I also like her white suit) I actually went ahead with buying a wig and materials to do a mock up of her suit to see just how difficult it would be. Plugsuits have always looked like a really daunting cosplay since they are so detailed and the fit has to be perfect.

Here's how the suit was looking, I didn't get very far! Also I have asuka wig on because it had just arrived!!

When my wig arrived though I decided Rei wasn't suited to me, plus she is absolutely perfect for my friend.

I thought I'd post a pic of the wig since I really really like it. It's a good length and a really nice colour. Many I've seen have been too bright and/or shiny and this one looks really nice. Here is my Rei wearing it!

Next choice is Asuka though, I was a bit reluctant with her since for a while she was my least favourite in the entire show (oh dear) but I know she'd probably suit me the most and I grew to like her a lot more. My other friend is also really suited to Mari so it'd be cool if we could all do it as a group!

I ordered Asuka's wig from ebay here.

I wanted the one from Moemall which looks identical (picture robbing going on all over the place of course) to the one I got but the one I ordered was half the price. I've ordered a moemall wig before and really loved it but since I was short of cash I gambled on this cheaper version. It comes with two clip on ponytails and the colour looks really accurate to the anime colour. I will say however the colour is very fake looking and kinda shiny. I'd rather it was a little more natural looking shade of red so I might dye it a little darker so it suits me better.

I also ordered her school uniform to try out since it was really cheap. I got mine here. It's free size and has measurements listed below. It fits me ok, its kinda big on the waist and the back design and pleats make it a bit harder to take in. I've not actually got any plans to wear it anywhere yet though so I'm not really concerned with it right now. For the price I can't really argue with the quality, it does have lose stitching, some of it looks a bit messy and the shirt although it says cotton it most definitely is not. Its really shiny and not very comfortable but as I said it was cheap so I don't mind so much!

My friend ordered a uniform too from another seller and for more money but she ended up getting the exact same uniform so I'd probably suggest either going for a really cheap one or an expensive one as hers was about midrange and the quality was exactly the same as mine which sucks!

I also ordered Asuka's hairclips from aliexpress here. I think they're the cheapest ones you can buy. They have a large clip fasten and stay in the wig pretty well. I will note these are really heavy, much heavier than I expected and if I wasn't wearing a wig I think they'd be really uncomfortable. Mine also have 'NERV' engraved on the back of them but I noticed my friend Rei's did not.

Moving onto the plugsuit side of things....

I've decided to go with the Asuka 3.0 one since I just prefer how it looks (though I'm not looking forward to wearing an eyepatch all day!) In the beginning as I said I was looking into making it however I've found getting 4 way stretch PVC in the UK in Red is pretty difficult. But when it comes to buying suits they're either not very nice looking or really expensive. At the moment I've found a pretty pricey one I'd like to buy once I've saved enough money, but I'm not ruling out making it altogether either. My friends are happy to buy their suits from the same place so that we will all match so if I was to make it I'd have to be careful with what materials I use.

While I wait to magically earn enough money to buy the suit I'm happy working on my OTHER evangelion cosplay which is Misato for midlands expo! I'm making her jacket and possibly a pen pen but we'll see....

I've done a quick costest for her using the wig I got here. It's a nice quality wig and barely needed any styling other than her fringe of course. It's a little on the shiny side and comes up a bit too purple with flash on but overall I'm very happy with it. Apologies for the bad lighting but winter is no good for costesting in haha!

  

Edit - Update with finished jacket process- 

For her jacket I used the same jacket pattern I've used for Mirai, Aoba and the alphas (really has come in handy!) and then as usual altered it accordingly. The details are made with polymorph. I can't remember the material I used to make the main jacket with unfortunately, I think its a cotton mix of something?? The inside is lining and the orange pieces are a furry PVC. The black details are pleather.

After sewing the front and back panels together I then freehand created this template above to cut the orange pieces out for the shoulders. After machine stitching this on I hand stitched on the black lines. 

  

Next was the collar, Although I used pattern style 'B' I used the collar piece from pattern style 'A' and left it flipped up instead of down and added interfacing to it. I also had to make it a little smaller as it was pretty big when I first pinned it down! I made sure to make the reverse side (top facing) side grey like misato's. Next I attached the sleeves which is pretty self explanatory with the pattern. 

The most difficult part is probably the cropping of the jacket to make it look like hers. I had a lot of reference images but depending on what 'era' of nge you go for it differs slightly. I went with a style from the remake films since shes wearing the skirt and top combo I wanted it in (which doesn't appear in the above image hah)

I pinned it roughly how I wanted then sewed the edge and cut away the excess fabric. Next I added the zip which again is kinda differs between images, in some she has a zip, some she doesn't. I actually think its a concealed zip on one side but I'd already sewn it on both. I know that technically mine is not correct as you can see in the top reference images that when zipped up the zip is to one side. I don't think she ever wears it zipped up in the film version? I could be wrong but in anycase I don't think it matters too much.

That's pretty much the base jacket done, I added some lining on the inside and also sewed a false stitch line up the back to follow one on hers (seen below) I also had the option to add the cut away section in her sleeves (since they poof out at the bottom) but I left it out because it just seemed like more hassle for something not really noticeable (you can see it on a few screenshots though etc)

Next up was the details, including these below on her collar and then her patches on the side of her jacket. I don't have any close up images of mine but they were all made sculpting polymorph and painted with acrylic. I have some pictures of using polymorph in my pen pen tutorial if you are interested in seeing how it works. I made her cross necklace in the same way.

I hot glued them to the jacket then did some dry brushing round the edges to make them a little more pronounced.

I think thats pretty much it for the jacket! Everything else was bought (took a lonnnnng time to hunt down an accurate skirt which had to be taken in) and my friend lent me her boots since I ran out of time to order some.

Here's a picture of her outfit I cosplayed (blurry oop) In the film her belt is definitely brown though aha. 

And here's some almost complete costests. I'll be adding my final images taken at Telford to another post and also making one just for pen pen!

-Roo