Some random cosplay fun

This weekend's task yielded several nice results. I can now produce puffy sleeved dresses, socks, boots, ribbons and gothic lolita dresses. Hooray. However, the most important development was how to get better results on wearing down the thick black construction paper without creating severe defect prone wear from crumpling and folding. The old method involved crumpling carefully, unfolding, then rolling it along a thin bamboo stick to weaken it further. The success rate was around 80%, with not so desirable wear lines showing up as a result. It did produce soft paper that worked well for frequently folded aspects like shoulder and elbow parts of clothing but with a high rate of failure.

The newer method skips the crumpling and goes straight to the rolling. It takes 4-5 passes with the bamboo stick, with the occasional alternating direction to wear down the fibers in all directions. You get a nice, semi-weakened paper that can easily be worn further for more flexible applications or left alone for more decorative, static elements. I fold over the weakened paper and use my fingers to rub the area near the fold against itself to get it to become softer. Still not desirable, but it saves me from having to crumple a large pointy sheet.
The large bottom flaps are done with the newer method, leaving a smoother appearance. The top used the old method, and some wrinkled parts are visible. The boots are also done with the older crumpled paper method, but can certainly be done with the newer one.
Dress isn't too stiff that it's unposeable. Still needs some work to get it to allow the full range of movement the doll's joints have.
The reference model used to construct the dress. One of the more difficult Mizuirogakuen models. Provided enough information from constructing it to adapt to the dress.
"I'm bigger than you are!"
There's not a lot of interesting poses you can have with a dress like this, and I figured a gun wouldn't fit too well. (Variety or lack thereof was needed for this set, I figured)

M60E3 and boots!

Presenting today's work: boots. They're technically modified socks... I developed a sock like outer covering that fits over her feet and lower legs and into the shoe. Cheating, but it sure gets around the design difficulty of full on boots that require fasteners or actual cloth. Aren't workarounds great?Well, the other, older item Hotaru's playing with is the M60E3. It needs some paint. And ammo. Haven't bothered making an ammo belt or box to go along with it yet. Might not ever.
Oh yes, did I also mention the tie? Tying ties was bad enough when I had to do it myself (and for other people too, on that note), but tying a stiff 1/6 scale tie isn't fun. Flops around too much. As you can also see in this picture, her "boots" allow a good degree of freedom.

Damn, the tie is really stiff. At least it makes her look good. Maybe I should redo this shot with her in a schoolgirl outfit with frilly skirt and a bag...