I am calling this a “sort of” cosplay, since I just didn’t have the energy to source all the matching materials and fabrics for this to be a full on cosplay. I still put plenty of time into it…don’t get me wrong.
Here is the character: Maria from the Assassin’s Creed movie. She is an assassin from 1492 in Spain.
She has a bit of a detailed costume, like most, so I had to decide what I had time to get done and how much I was exactly willing to spend on it.
I started out by going to the fabric store to see what I could find. That was not much. I found some silver metal things that I thought could work for the “armor” on the top part. They were very shiny, though, so I used some spray primer in bronze and then a bit of a spritz of gold spraypaint on them. They matched much better after that, and then it was hours of hand sewing them onto some corduroy fabric.
The vest is a gold/silver threaded fabric, with the corduroy on top and then lined in a twill. The sides have leather and eyelets put in to lace it up.
The undershirt is a quilted knit (so…very not period accurate), and I found some appliques that mimicked the look of the Maria costume. There are actually two, with a long lace applique underneath the more detailed one. I machine stitched these on the arms and then completed sewing up the shirt.
Next was the waist corset and the long pointed skirts. I decided to do these in two pieces. I used a fabric that I had in my stash for the top one, then the second two layers were a twill and faux leather-look corduroy. This was just a bit of measuring to get the sizing right. All the skirt pieces are in 4 pieces, which I think is for ease of movement. The top one sticks out a bit too much for my taste, but sometimes they just don’t turn out perfectly.
The cape is a bit unusual as it is shaped around the shoulder and the cape is full on the back. It also has some stitching on it that reminds me of sashiko stitching. I decided to do the over cape piece and then attach the cape along the shoulder seam. That way the cape can be worn over the front or moved to the back. HOWEVER, the weight of the wool tends to pull it towards the back, so it is definitely not ideal. I think they must have used a very lightweight fabric to get this to work. I was going for warmth and what an actual cape would be made with for fabrics.
The hood is a shaped AC hood with a point and then a lot of beading and stitching. I found a lace that I could use to emulate the shape, then I did a lot of hand stitching. Now the hood shape is definitely not perfect. It is too long and narrow. I was trying for a fitted hood, but there just isn’t enough room towards the front. If I had to do it again I would definitely add more width.
The hand-stitching was done over several softball games.
The cape is attached to the vest with a snap and d-ring. It is hard to see the ties in all the pictures of the costume that I found online, so I just made something up. It really almost looks like it is attached to the top in the detail pictures I found since there doesn’t appear to be any ties. I really think ties would end up choking her, too, as the weight of the cloak would have pulled it to the back, so this is what I came up with for it.
Not all of the costume ended up getting made. It still needs a few things:
- The overbelt made from a faux leather and then a thick leather belt.
- The bracers from leather.
The rest of the outfit is some leggings underneath, a pair of my boots and she will have to wait for weapons. Maybe next year I’ll add to the outfit. I’m hoping the growth spurts and done and some reuse will happen here now!
Overall the hardest part of doing cosplay costumes is that the clothes are never normal. Figuring out how to make them is sometimes the longest part. Once I have my head wrapped around the logistics of how to put it all together and what the pieces need to look like…the sewing is the EASY part! Moving onto the accessories, now those are brain twisters, too.
She ended up not wearing the cape to the Renaissance Festival. It was 80 degrees and sunny out, so she ended up ditching the undershirt as the day wore on, too. I also got a new pair of pants made for the boy, too, since he outgrew his other ones for his Geralt cosplay. I want to update that one with new pauldrons that have real chain mail, and longer straps. They are a bit short on him now, and barely fit.
My kids are of the opinion of why bother going to the Ren Fest if you aren’t going to dress up?? Of course, they are a bit lucky in that they have a mom that makes them costumes!
They did get all done up for the comic con, which both of them got complimented on. Geralt was definitely getting more attention, but she looked pretty bad ass, so even if they didn’t know who she was she got some props! 🙂
