For Momocon, I upgraded my Alastor cosplay a fair amount, so I'm going to go over all the improvements one piece at a time, so buckle up! This will be a long one. The first and biggest piece was the coat.
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| Pretty sure I had gone insane by the time I finally finished this thing |
I created the coat from a McCall's pattern (Costumes M7003) and heavily modified the shoulders of the pattern. I used some vintage red corduroy I got at a thrift shop as the main fabric and the sleeves & lining fabric is a wine red poplin. The love how well the corduroy worked for the look but my god is it a warm fabric. Atlanta was 95 F Momocon weekend when I wore the cos, so I melted like a little Alastor popsicle.
After getting the base coat done, I used a thick gauge sculpture wire & super stiff interfacing to give the coattail structure. Also, I added wire and padding into the shoulders to get that signature exaggerated shoulder look. Creating structure in cosplay is what I call a "Fuck around and found out" process. Basically you do a bunch of adjusting and hope it works out. (lots of cursing) Compared to the cutting & sewing parts which is (mostly) an "exact science" process. But once you "found out" the perfect shape *chef's kiss* It's amazing.
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| The wire in the shoulders |
The finishing touches was the strips and the white edging around the lapel. I used bias tape for both but sadly the tape for the strips was the wrong color, hot pink-ish instead of a coral. (the issue with buying online) Since I was pressed for time, I went with the hot pink strips, loosely sewn on for later removal. I got the coat completely done, from cutting to fully sewn, in 24 days. Since I have a full-time job I have no idea how many of those days were actually used on sewing but I'm proud of how fast I got it done. That being said that last day was an all-nighter, the night before the con. (Yes, I was a zombie the first day of the con, lol) SUPER CON CRUNCH!! Fueled by coffee and a Hazbin music playlist, I finished the last stitch on the coat at 5am to the song Insane by Baasik & Black GryphOn. Most of the night involved hand sewing in a half asleep hazy with shitty AC so naturally, the night involved hand slips that cause me to stab myself with needles and sweat running into my eyes causing me to tear up. (There was also a lot of cussing) So, this cosplay contains my blood, sweat, & tears literally.  |
| The finishing details |
Instead of wearing the red dress again, I created a canonically Alastor shirt. I bought a red button up and attaching black strips to it in a cross shape. For the bottom I created a roughly 1930's style skirt. A black skirt with a red ruffle round the bottom, sort of like a mermaid dress. To keep in line with the Hazbin's aesthetic, I exaggerated the ruffle and added horsehair braid (not make with actual horsehair anymore) to the hem to give it a nice bounce and flare. I love the skirt I make but after wearing it for Momocon I realized the fit needs majorly adjusted. It continuously slipped down all day but luckily I had a body shaper on so I didn't flash anyone my panties, lol. I rearranged my Banzaicon wig by taking out and resewing the wefts so that most of the black wefts were at the bottom and the red ones at the top. I also gave the wig a little trim. I'm currently working on a canonical Alastor wig for my next con.
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| Sewing in wefts is a major pain in the ass |
For the shoes, I used the same ones as Banzaicon but I painted on the red wingtips and the deer hoofprints on the bottoms. For an added flare I painted the bows red too. They were original all black and I was debating on what type of paint to use to paint them. I was especially wondering about what to use for the deer prints, since I wanted them to last. Well as luck would have it, a guest at work was wearing a pair of Louboutin heels (Bold choice for walking around an aquarium, her poor feet.) After see those heels, I had an epiphany that someone must sell red paint for restoring luxury heels with red soles, like Louboutins. Sure enough, found a $12 jar of "Walk on Red" sole paint on Amazon. It works beautifully! 
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| I'm stupidly proud of how well I free-hand painted that deer print |
The rest of the cosplay was less muscle work but more brain work. I decided to actually install LEDs into the microphone walking stick thingy. I found flickering green LEDS with leads and already installed resistors on Amazon that were perfect. After getting a $20 soldering kit and some push switches, I soldered up a simple circuit. I Dremel-ed a few hole into the back of the bottle part of the mic and strung the lights, battery, and wires through it and taped the switch to the stick part. The last adjustment made to the mic was using a red plastic net (The kind oranges come bundled in) on the top of the mic to mimic a mic grille.  |
| Sorry buddy! |
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| Yes, I know my soldering suck ass |
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| The 9V that powers my mic LEDs, Very well hidden |
I also put the LEDs into the palm of my righthand glove. I used conductive thread and fabric to create a circuit that connects when I press the side of 2 of my fingers together causing my palm to light up green. If you're interested in this kind of thing I highly recommend the book, Make: Wearable Electronics: Design, prototype, and wear your own interactive garments. It's a super cool area of electronics to explore, especially for cosplayers!
Finishing up with the accessories! I made the bowtie with black velvet and wire. The red middle part (gem?) is red UV resin with mica powder. The monocle was made with the same technique as the first one, but I used the right colored wire this time. Also I tinkered with the ear piece shape to make it fit better and create the floating look. Instead of using an actual chain again, I used wire and beads to make it look more like the floating ball chain from the show.
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| Freshly made resin gem |
For the fake teeth I used theatrical teeth paint (Mehron ToothFX in Nicotine) to paint them that "I haven't brushed my teeth since I died" yellow. The teeth I used are Dental Distortions Grell FX Fangs. They were original bought for a Kirishima cos which was meant for Momocon 2020...So yeah that didn't happen. I'm still gonna make a Kiri cos someday. The contacts were costume made by Samhain Studios. They did an amazing job, and I got them in a month after ordering. I highly recommend them! They also have Husk and Angel Dust contacts. *IMPORTANT SIDENOTE*: Please talk to your eye doctor and do research before wearing costume contacts especially sclera contacts. They are safe if you use them correctly and your eyes are healthy enough to wear them.
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| One of the glass bottles my Alastor contacts came in |
The Fuck-it Bucket I originally wanted to make moving ears for the costume. At first, I thought about servos and an Arduino but my coding skills are too weak right now and I wasn't sure about the weight of the setup. So I went with the fun, low tech option of puppetry. Sadly due to time and material limitations, I wasn't able to implement them into the costume before Momocon. I ended up wearing normal ears and the moving ears went into the Fuck-it Bucket until next con. They other thing that went into the Bucket was my sound effects and voice modifier. I got the sound effects working at the con but I didn't have a good way of implementing the electronic parts into the costume at the time. The voice modifier just never worked right and I'm still tinkering with it.
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| The unfinished sound effect board |
Not related to the costume but I also created a "contract" and printed it poster size to get Vivziepop to sign at the con and made her a scrappy cursed cat Alastor plush as a gift. The plush was so fun to make!  |
Hover over image to read the fine print |
I'm still working on the things that got thrown into the fuck-it bucket and I have plans to cosplay at a few small cons over the next few months. Thanks for reading and until next time don't sign any sketchy contracts! -Ko
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