Happy Autumn!! Halloween just passed and with that I’d love to share the outfits I made for the girls! I don’t have any pictures of Akira because she really wasn’t into it that day but she loved her outfit, nonetheless!

So without further ado, here are chibi “Advice” era Taemin and Touka from Tokyo Ghoul!

Sephira’s Advice outfit

In my last post, I talked about how excited the girls and I were over the outfits from Taemin’s latest and last music video before he enlisted entitled “Advice”. I let Azriella call which one she wanted first since Sephira always wants all of the SHINee-related handmades all. of. the. TIME. (and I am always happy to oblige😌). When she picked the black and white one, Sephira calmed down and exclaimed that she wanted the white Supreme outfit from the end of the video. I was more than happy over her choice because some of the other ones were much trickier to draft, plus this one had a huge impact because it was the outfit/moment he revealed the huge hip tattoo he had been hiding for at least a year and a half (despite all of us shawols’ speculations that he was hiding something under those bandages/makeup/etc.) So, in short, she’s been planning on this outfit since May😳. She was fully aware that no one would know who she was when she trick-or-treated nor did she care. All she was focused on was that she wanted that Demand Beauty outfit for her birthday and this Taemin outfit for Halloween.

From the beginning of the video, you can see some of the elements from her outfit, but mostly her outfit comes in towards the end. Funny story: when the video was first revealed, Jon stayed up with me till 3am because, as I have mentioned many times, he is also a massive Taemint (Taemin fan) and he ,too, was excited about the release! As we were watching the video, fully enthralled, the part towards the end where he does the hip rolls in the white outfit we got to finally see the tattoo and I fully screamed and pushed Jon right off of the couch!😂😂 Don’t worry: he totally understood and was equally shocked at the tattoo reveal. It was such a memorable moment! Lil shawol, I mean, Sephira was equally 😮 when I showed her in the morning and I’m pretty sure that’s one of the main reasons she picked this outfit for her Halloween outfit!

The garments he used were:

• Undergarments: Supreme

• Cropped Sweater: We11done

• Shoes: Prada

• Hat: Telfar Clemens

• *Balaclava: Sankuanz

Making the outfit

THE CROPPED SWEATSHIRT.
For starters, I began acquiring white stretch vinyl, red elastic, the drawstring, and the white shoes which I held on to months before I got to the drafting. Once it got closer to school starting and Azriella’s birthday, I started rough drafting the edits for the cropped sweatshirt. The glaring issue was that it was a raglan sleeve which I’ve sewn many times but never drafted before!! Working off the Touka sweater pattern of mine, I made a raglan sleeved shirt. If you follow my blog, you might remember the grey shirt Key wore in the “Superstar” music video that I made Sephira for her first day of school outfit. That was my muslin of this pattern. I went up a size to an 11/12 since I wanted the overall look to be a little oversized. I then made the larger edits of deepening the sleeve armscye to basically the hemline and widening and lengthening the sleeves considerably as well (even though I still feel like I could have lengthened them more). I finished it with a vinyl tag on the back, replacing WE11DONE with SEW C1-1BI DESIGNS (it looks better on the shirt than it does written here lol).

THE BALACLAVA.

This was by far the most tedious of all of the items for this look! I wanted to make a mask for trick or treating and when I thought about what I should make, it seemed just fitting to make the balaclava that Taemin wears in the first scene of the music video. I had to draft the balaclava, making edits to shape it to Sephira’s head. Then to make it, I started out using fabric from this sweater material, dying it black. I started doing the embroidery stitches and halfway through (about two hours of hand-stitching later), I realized this looks too charcoal grey to pass for jet black, and I scrapped the whole thing. I bought ribbed knit you’d use for cuffs instead in black and I interfaced and lined just the mouth and nose area so it could function as a proper mask. Then I added in the silver embroidery, trying hard to copy the look from the original.

The real kicker was the chainmail mesh top. I had bought 30 yards of chain, laid it out, then had the glaring realization that it was only going to cover about half of the mask🤦‍♀️. So I returned that one and ordered one that was over 80 yards and that was perfect. Ideally, I was looking for something already made since creating chainmail was daunting to me, but I could not find anything usable whatsoever. I ended up getting this glue called “the Ultimate” by Crafter’s Pick and, after 48 hours of gluing, setting, and stitching finished the outer shell of the balaclava. I then used a few of the nose bridges that I bought for making masks for Akira to make the emblem and tacked the mesh to the outside of the balaclava.

[this is an edit I did using the pic on the right to pair up with this Taemin pic for shawol selca day. It took me an exceeding amount of time to get it close to right!]

*For the life of me, I tried searching for the brand name for the emblem on it (Key even wears a suit with the same emblem on it for the Bad Love teasers/album pics) but couldn’t figure it out! I’m just gonna give credit to their stylist for both Taemin’s Advice MV and Key’s Bad Love MV, @punkyspider until I hear otherwise! *edit. My twitter family is so amazing! I put a call out to everyone to figure out who the designer was and Vi (@ diorkibum) was the master sleuth that figured it out! I was so relieved to know who the designer finally was!

THE PANTS.

The pants took a little drafting editing too! They began as the Pudding Pants Pattern in the Solid Rolled Hem version because I really wanted a lot of bunching at the bottom, but the pockets for the Pudding pants are drafted at an angle that wouldn’t work for this look. I slashed the pattern at the hip sides, spread and added seam allowances, and drafted in a regular pocket. For the waistband, I made it cut on the fold instead of two wide pieces. Then I split it in half lengthwise, adding in seam allowances so that I could add in the elastic to create the look of the underwear showing. So basically I made it a double waistband😅.

THE BRA.

It was speculated that he was wearing a sports bra but I later (too late, lol) realized it was actually a long-sleeved crop shirt which I might make her some other time. BUT! In the meantime, I took the Indigo Pattern by Jennuine Designs, raised the armscye a little, and finished the hem with the custom elastic I made using Cricut brand sports flex vinyl. The first attempt at applying the vinyl I totally scorched because it has vastly different settings from regular iron-on vinyl (5 seconds on a loooow setting…). Instead of writing Supreme because that would be boring and is not my style (I like adding in a little personal flare where I can), I wrote out Taemin in a similar font.

FINISHING TOUCHES.

Let’s take a moment to talk about those tattoos. I mentioned that this video was the big reveal of the hip tattoo but Taemin also has a smokey, flaming heart tattoo on his left arm and when Sephira and I started planning out the outfit, she most certainly wanted those to be included! I have a color laser printer which is absolutely fantastic for what I use it for: printing out lots of patterns and edits (I don’t sketch draft IRL, I prefer to do it digitally so that I can get things more precise) but laser printers are never the front-runner when it comes to making anything with it (like stickers, decals, etc.) So you can imagine how ecstatic I was to find laser printer-friendly tattoo paper! I tested it out beforehand which was a good idea because I wrecked about three before I figured out how it needed to be done (it’s super easy; I just thought I didn’t need instructions to know how to rock😎🤦‍♀️.)

Trying to make them look feasibly close to his (particularly the hip tattoo) took some effort! He has a peony tattoo which symbolizes nobility in the Korean study of flowers with some butterflies around it. I happened to have found some vector art of a few separate things and I pieced them together to make the finished look. The heart was actually harder since it was more specific. Again, my twitter family came to my rescue! Jen (@ Obi_Sai) found deviant art for me by TMSY7881 that was perfect!

I was nervous applying them, but they transferred perfectly with a damp washcloth and I sealed them from cracking with an aloe face cream that I had on hand. I’m super impressed with the end result! As long as you don’t wear something dark on top of them (yes we learned the hard way), they last almost a week! She was so attached to the look of them that she was a little sad to see them go! I will be using these again in the future for sure!

The shoe tags weren’t tricky but I couldn’t figure out how to create the look of the Prada label to apply it to the shoes since ironing would melt them terribly. Then I remembered I got removable vinyl in red and white in the bundle the machine came in so that worked out perfectly! Also, this way, I can use it in the future for a different project I have in mind (yes, more SHINee, and this time a whole lot of Key!)

I wasn’t sure I was even going to do the hat because I had already spent a lot on the previous Advice outfit and these Halloween outfits plus I have a lot of inspiration from Key’s latest comeback, “Bad Love” that I plan on doing soon! I’m honestly a little scared at the magnitude of outfits I want to make!😳 But, I felt the outfit wouldn’t be complete without it, so I got a basic white hat and made the emblem with my brand initials instead!

Azriella’s Touka outfit

Y’know, it’s a little embarrassing that it took this long for me to make a Tokyo Ghoul outfit. Let’s talk about the easter eggs all over my website that let on how much that anime means to me? My last pattern: yep, I named it after Touka Kirishima from Tokyo Ghoul. And have you ever really looked at my banners? Those creepy little pink masks all over: artwork I made that’s also inspired by Tokyo Ghoul. I think I can say with full confidence that it is my favorite anime. It is gruesome but it also is laden with pathos and explored the human experience in a really poignant way- pointing out that no matter how different we may seem, in the end, we are all very much alike. I highly recommend reading the manga and watching the anime if you’re into it. I have never personally cried so hard (a few times!) over an anime plus I was just so in love with the soundtrack that it lead me to find amazing artists like illion and österreich who I still listen to today. Tokyo Ghoul really holds a special place in my heart, and that Azriella asked to be Touka just made me a little emotional!

That being said…
Generally speaking, anime cosplay intimidates me to the point that I really don’t do much of it. There are tons of amazing anime cosplayers out there; I just don’t aspire to be one of them for two main reasons:

1.) I like to make outfits/clothes; not costumes. If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you might have noticed this. If it can’t be worn on a regular day to school, then I’m not excited to make it. Costumes are such a one-off and I like to make things that my girls can literally wear to pieces. If something I made them makes it through all three girls and ends up in tatters, then I’m pretty pleased. It shows me how loved it was and all of that work brought them endless joy on what may have been just another boring day wearing whatever typical stuff they might have worn instead. That’s my number one reason I don’t seek to become a real cosplayer in that regard.

2.) This is a big one: drawn things do not always translate well to tangible handmades! How did they get those things to look that way or lay a certain way or move a certain way?! They freaking drew them! As someone trying to recreate these looks, I find this infinitely frustrating! So, I just find myself sort of avoiding proper cosplay.

Both of these struggles vexed me in the making of this outfit.

I’ve seen so many people do Tokyo Ghoul cosplay with proper kagune and it either looks incredibly detailed and amazing or it looks like a paper mache project gone terribly wrong. I feared I would fall into the second category so I went with a different approach. The opening credits of the first season shows Touka with this gorgeous, multi-colored, digital kagune and it’s always inspired me more than the original so I thought it might be cool to try it out instead.

Making the Outfit

THE COAT.

This was sort of loosely based on my Senpai Bomber Jacket Pattern but it took a lot of detours. For starters, I made the silhouette longer and more of an A-line like Touka when she goes out in her Rabbit mask (which was the request). I made a combination cowl and hood, making sure to draft the underneath to have a little bit of purple showing, like the original. I added in a zip guard panel and side seam pockets but also zipper welt openings in the back for the kagune insertion (more on that in a bit).

THE PANTS.

I took what I thought would be an appropriate pattern (the Anima Pants by Papercut Patterns in a size between xs and small) for the look I was going for and I didn’t use the Pudding Pants because she is actually outside of my size range! She went from being the girl stuck in a 2T width till she was 7 to the girl who was 13 in my 15/16Y sizing! 😭 In retrospect, I should have just sized up my pattern, but hindsight is 20/20. I had to take in this pattern about 2” on each leg and it still feels a bit too wide for my taste.

THE MASK.

I made a template for Touka’s bunny mask then transferred it foam poster board, making two slits where the eyes would go for the elastic. I knew she wouldn’t be able to wear the mask for trick or treating since Azriella has to wear glasses, so I didn’t worry about making the mask visible or anything like that. I used white vinyl and my Cricut cutter, making the edge of the template for the white marine vinyl about 1/4” bigger than the foam board so that any imperfections from cutting out the foam board (which if you use a heavy duty Exacto knife there should be no problems with getting a clean cut). Then I added the little facial elements like the pink ears the same type of fabric plus stick on vinyl nose and eyes. After that, I threaded 1/4” wide elastic through one slit and out the other, leaving a long trail to tie it in the back of her head. I finished the mouth area with black puffy paint to show a better contrast since it was white on white.

Making the kagune was something I avoided till the very end. I tend to save the most intimidating thing for last and this time, the kagune were it! I drafted them to be no taller than the length of the holographic vinyl that I had gotten and as wide as that which would be feasible to walk down a sidewalk without being super obnoxious. To make the experience more personal, I had Azriella draft out how she wanted them to look and then I sliced up a bunch of different scraps of Kona cotton solids that I have saved over the years into random pieces.

Once I had my colorful fabric bits, I looked at them behind the holographic vinyl and I had mixed feelings: on one hand, the holographic vinyl had this really cool lighting effect but on the other hand, it muted and distorted the vibrancy of the carefully selected colors. So, I decided to use regular, clear vinyl to contrast the holographic vinyl. Starting with a squared-off shape of the holo vinyl, I sprayed adhesive all over it then placed my pieces down, keeping in mind which things would be showing from the reverse side and also how the layering would look when it was done. When I finished that, I sprayed it again then applied the clear vinyl and used Azriella’s template to cut out the two kagune. They looked great…only one problem: they drooped when I stood them up!😧

Here’s where things get a little crazy: I had to rig this so that these things would stay up on their own with ease for at least the night. I bought black wire in the thickest gauge I could get it (I think it was 14 or 12) and I hand-stitched it to the kagune and it gave it this cool veiny look. I repeat: I. hand. stitched. the. wire. down… through that thick, double-layered vinyl. I’ve never been so grateful for a thimble’s existence since… well… the balaclava I made with all that interfacing I added (for Covid safety).
I made sure to curl the points so it wasn’t dangerous and I added in some dowels and ribbon to suspend it from the inside of the coat, and I finished with a little tacking by the right shoulder on the larger kagune side. I was so relieved it worked! That whole system can come out of the coat so that she can wear it normally but if she ever wants to wear it again in the future, I just have to repeat those steps again and it should be just fine!

the Photoshoot.

[insert ominous music]

I had such high hopes and equally high anticipation about taking these pictures but I felt that they really had to be taken on location, especially the Touka pictures. I had everything finished and packed into the car, 5 minutes late leaving to pick up the girls, and…the rain started🤦‍♀️😒 Now I am the first person to get emotionally invested in the rainy weather that comes from our Pacific Northwest dwellings… I usually cry a little at the first proper rainfall at the end of summer, which signifies to me that wildfire season is on its way out. But! I know it’s selfish, but… I really needed it to be overcast and bright! I could have done with just either of those, alas, it wasn’t in the cards that day. I eventually did get to take pictures a few days later and then again on Halloween, but I am now sharing these with you much later than I had wanted.

If you think that was the only thing that got in my way, you’d be wrong! I also had my computer updated to Windows 11 by a service technician which basically took half a day, and then Adobe did their annual massive update the following day, eliminating all of my workspaces and action presets. OH YOU THINK THAT’S ALL?! Add to that the fact that my 2-days-of-editing work on the photos just disappeared mysteriously (both folders I was saving them in!) so I had to re-edit e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g!!! It was a WEEK!🙄

I think we still managed to get some amazing shots nearby and on location and both of the girls, especially lil shawol, I mean, Sephira had a ton of fun! She got to run through such a gamut of emotions: fierce, hurt (tearful… like Taemin is for the Supreme outfit part), and of course her goofy beautiful self… just like Azriella. I’m so immensely proud of all three of my girls. I might share some of the totally less-than-stellar photos of Akira’s axolotl outfit but please lower your expectations, LOL. She loves it, but she was just not into stopping for a moment to take pictures the few times I tried!

Anyways, I think that covers everything, although I feel like am missing something…🤔 Well, I have a lot I want to do before Xmas comes! I’m hoping to do something really special in December… something that I badly want to do but we’ll see how quick and efficient I am! In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed hearing about this crazy, fantastic process we had creating this years’ costumes, err, outfits!!! Hope you all stay healthy!