Final Fantasy X Lulu

[IronSmidge]

One of my dream costumes for years has been Lulu from Final Fantasy X/10. I'm finally confident enough in my skills to tackle her construction, but I have the classic sticking point of her "lace" trim. There's some gorgeous ready-made embroidered panels available on Etsy but I want to enter this for judging so I have to do mine myself. I've always thought her dress was some sort of matte vinyl or leather, but the trim has seemed too delicate to realistically live in, day in and day out, all over crazy terrains. I'm thinking that her dress, which is visibly un-lined in the large, HQ renders when we see in her sleeve, is entirely leather with tooled and hand-tinted embossing shapes at the end. Just... big ol' sheets of leather with doodads stamped at the end.

I suppose my question is, how realistic is my thought to made a tooled and tinted leather border of her shapes? How would I maintain the light pastels and seal the leather from dirt and wear? The dress will be deep grey marine vinyl since I don't think I could find a hide lone enough for her skirt train panels. I'll be stuck lining the dress, though, since this fabric's raw backing is white with bright red logos, not the flat grey a hide's reverse side would be. If I did it this way, I'd be tooling and overlaying individual shapes in separate pieces (unless wiser minds educate me otherwise. PLEASE EDUCATE ME.)

Thoughts? Comments? Insights?

 

[LeClubNerd]

I can't give any insight or help because I can't sew and I can't leather.. but i look forward to what you come up with

 

[George]

Same here,but perhaps this 3d model can provide you with some insights.You'll be able to bring it up closer than any picture would from each side (in either pepakura designer or 3d program):

https://www.models-resource.com/playstation_2/finalfantasyx/model/4084/

I hope that helps and that you get to make your dream costume.Good luck !