Ashura cosplay

Ashura
(Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle) - anime version, episodes 34-36

Made by: LittleBrokenTeacup
Worn by: LittleBrokenTeacup
Worn to: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2008 (premire)

Oh, do I love obscure characters or what?! Ashura lasts a grand total of 3 episodes in the anime (episodes 34-36), and spans over chapters 58-67 of the manga in volume 9-10 (though the Shura country arc technically spans from chapters 53-69). As *most* all of the Tsubasa characters, he was recycled from a previous CLAMP publication, in fact, CLAMP's first publication - RG Veda. Yes, it is in fact a male. (though that is up for debate since the original manga was based off of Hindu mythology and ideas, hence the androgyny.) Anyways, all that aside, Ashura has to be one of my favorite characters of all time (from even before Tsubasa). I was originally going to do his RG Veda costume but, even less people would know who I was then, plus the Tsubasa version was much more elaborate, and I like it. This has to be the most comfortable cosplay I have ever done too!

I should note that, at the time I cosplayed this, I am not overly certain that the English dvds were out yet, so that may have been part of the reason that few people knew who I was, other than the fact that it was a very obscure character. Also, I can't really judge on how popular Tsubasa is anymore in America since I don't watch anime in English. I was also mistaken for an Avatar character (or spoiler character or OC or something).

The only parts of this costume that were not made by me were:
-the shoes ($18 at Belks on sale. I love these shoes actually, they are very comfortable)
-the leggings (borrowed from my mum, they are trouser socks)
-the wig or ponytail ($21 on Amazon.com, do not buy it, it is very tangly and I ended up cutting it apart to make a ponytail)
-the black hair spray ($2 Wal-mart, Halloween section - to match my hair to the ponytail)

Parts made by me:
-the hairpins & hair centerpiece - fiberglass resin, plain hairsticks, gold and red spraypaint and a clear spraypaint topcoat, plus a bit of regular wire to hold the centerpiece on. They turned out a lot nicer than I had expected. I am actually quite happy with the way they look together being that the centerpiece is see-through and the hairpins are not. Only thing I didn't like was when all three sticks were in my ponytail, they converged at one point on the back of my head and made a lovely bruise after the first day, so I had to keep adjusting them out of that spot. The second day I put them in so that they were apart better and didn't converge in that spot. ^_^ The centerpiece has very small holes drilled into it that I put wire into to "tie" it around my ponytail to keep it in place.
-the necklace - copper wire (less than $1 at Lowes for a foot), sculpey, red spraypaint and clear spraypaint topcoat. The wire just bends open/closed from the back and the bead is free moving, but stayed in the center from it's weight plus the weight of the wire. It wasn't stabbing be in the neck either. I forgot it was even on after a while.
-the shoulderpad - inner shaped part of an old bra (yes, it is truly a good shape for this heh), white material, hot glue, gold material, golden-yellow thread, a bit of elastic and a safety pin. I cut an old bra apart and used the molding on the inside to shape the shoulder, sewed the white material to itself (2 pieces to keep the round shape) and glued it to the molding on the underside. The white material was tacked in place and the gold strip was hand-sewn around the edge afterwards. I put a loop of elastic on the inside to give some leeway on movement and safety-pinned it from the elastic to the red part of the chestpiece.
-the top - aka that black thing you can barely see that is over my boobs. stretchy black material, gold trim (premade), gold fabric paint, and the leftover bra strap from the bra I cut apart in the shoulderpad part. It's just made like a cami-top with two layers covering the boobs, and was cut shorter so it wouldn't be seen from the bottom. The gold trim and strap were sewn on and the gold detail paint-work was done afterwards. The full sleeve is actually attached to the very top of the strap to keep it on.
-the chestpiece - white material, stiffener (interface), red material, Velcro, gold trim (premade). The white part has medium weight iron-on stiffener in it and Velcros together on the side (actually kind of on the side... part of the back). The string was made from the same red material and sewn on afterwards.
-the obi - back material (same as the top), red felt, fabric glue, metal button snaps, stiffener (interface). The obi has heavy weight iron-on stiffener in it and the felt was glued on with fabric glue. It fastens on the side with metal snaps that I had laying around. It also has a hand-sewn pocket in the front on the inner side to store small things (like money or an ID)
-the belt - back material (same as the top), metal snaps. Safety pinned onto the obi to keep it in place.
-the sleeves - red material, white material, black material (same as the top), and elastic. The red and white materials are actually jacket liner. They are a very thin material and slick (so they got a lot of nice movement and fell the way that they should have) They were very airy and versatile. The white was cut out at full length and the red is a faux inner sleeve that attached at the very end of the white material. (I was worried that two layers would be too heavy and hot) The long sleeve is attached to the strap of the top piece and the short sleeve has an black covered strip of elastic in it to hold it up, and covered by another piece of black to shape the top of the sleeve correctly. I was surprised that I didn't need to attach the short sleeve to the top as well, the elastic by itself was enough to keep it up and in place the entire time.
-the skirt - red material, metal snaps with red covers, Velcro. It was basically a pleated skirt with side slits all the way to the waistband with Velcro strips that made the sides cover the hips. I used old metal snaps that happened to have red covers to make them blend in with the red.
-the leg ornament - aka that gold strip that you cannot see. gold material and elastic.
-the hidden bag - black material, an old clip, string. I didn't have pockets, so I made a small bag that clipped onto my top under the arm area that tucked into the sleeve so it was unseen.
-the sword - fiberglass resin, Plexiglas, gold spraypaint, red paint, urethane glue, clear spraypaint topcoat. The plexiglas was very thick (and I will never buy that brand again) and was cut into the blade, then sanded into shape with a band-sander (a big sander that plugs into the wall and makes a mess) A hole was drilled at the base to helpt he blade bond to the fiberglass resin. The model of the handle was made from sculpey and cast with plaster inside a box in two halves. The first half was poured with the blade in it, and the second half was poured with the first half laying on top of it. It was later repaired and sanded down into shape with hand sanders. Afterwards it was spray painted/painted and a topcoat was applied.

Oh so many problems happened with the sword. First, during the first casting of the handle, the blade broke. It was replaced with another blade. The handle lost most of its detail in the first pouring because I wanted to save the mold so I didn't have to make another one and after the handle was done, it was impossible to recreate the original detail with the tools I had. During the first pouring, there were cracks that formed when the resin shrunk that were repaired with urethane glue. The blade also had two cracks in it afterwards, but was saved by the overlapping resin that wasn't supposed to flow there. During the second half pouring, a few larger cracks formed and one of the side "wings" broke off. They were repaired with the glue again. While grinding down the sword to shape, the other wing broke and also glued back on. While the glue was drying on the other wing, the sword slipped out of the vice that was holding it and the handle broke into 4 pieces and the blade broke along the cracks from before. and again all was repaired with the resin and urethane glue. I am happy to say that after that disaster, the sword did not break at all during or after the con. ^_^

Note: no patterns were used. All was made from custom patterns (made on big drawing paper) and scratch.

Reference images here: [link]

character & series (c) CLAMP
costume (c) LittleBrokenTeacup