Sailor Moon Costume - Sakura Con 2015

JuJuBean · Jan 28, 2015

I'm putting together a Sailor Moon costume for Sakura Con this year and I'm so excited about it! I'm a huge fan of the whole series and absolutely love the 2014 reboot (Sailor Moon Crystal). One of the things that I like so much about it is the art and costume design of the characters. For comparison, here are images of Sailor Moon in the original anime, manga, and the reboot:

The main costume similarities between the manga and reboot anime versions appear to be in the details - the brooch, the hair pieces, the choker adornment.

I am a beginner at sewing, so I ordered a base costume to start from. Specifically, I ordered this Sailor Moon costume from Milanoo:

I haven't ordered from this company before (I think they are based out of China), but they certainly appear to have a good selection of base costumes, zentai suits, etc. I will post photos of the costume once I receive it. I'm thinking that it will need quite a bit of modification to get it to the quality level that I want it to be at. I'm anticipating the need for some tailoring and I will be making my own accessories/jewelry/prop pieces. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the knee socks that come with it and pair them with red heels or if I'm going to try to find or modify boots for this costume.

For the pieces that I'll be making, I'm thinking that I'll be using a mix of materials. I really want to try a few new techniques with this costume - maybe casting for some of the pieces? More to come!

Laika · Jan 29, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

Glad to see a cute costume among all these superheros, soliders and monsters on this site

I did Sailor Pluto (orignal anime version) last year and like you got the base costume from a Chinese seller via ebay.

Had to make some modifications to the accesories to make them fit (cause I'm rather big) and made the Earings and the Time key staff from scratch. For the boots I modified a pair of plain black knee high boots I got in a sale and modifed them to make the top pointed and glued on some white synthetic leather for the top .

You could modify some boots for the costume, but red ones are harder to find than black, maybe a pair of Pleaser red PVC gogo boots would work, modified at the top with a white band? Other thing would be to use those socks as shoe covers so they look like boots, if they are spandex its quite easy, basically just cut a hole for the heel to fit through. There are several tutorials on line.

JuJuBean · Jan 29, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

Laika said:
Glad to see a cute costume among all these superheros, soliders and monsters on this site
I did Sailor Pluto (orignal anime version) last year and like you got the base costume from a Chinese seller via ebay.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3903/14348975316_f3ca7461e7_n.jpg

Had to make some modifications to the accesories to make them fit (cause I'm rather big) and made the Earings and the Time key staff from scratch. For the boots I modified a pair of plain black knee high boots I got in a sales to make the top pointed and glued on some white synthetic leather for the top .

You could modify some boots for the costume, but red ones are harder to find than black, maybe a pair of Pleaser red PVC gogo boots would work, modified at the top with a white band? Other thing would be to use those socks as shoe covers so they look like boots, if they are spandex its quite easy, basically just cut a hole for the heel to fit through. There are several tutorials on line.

Hi Laika! Thank you so much for all of the suggestions and ideas! Maybe I will get my act together and modify a pair of red leather boots that I already have, but I'll have to see how the stockings look first. Nice costume and I absolutely love the time key that you made! I am planning to make the odango covers, hair clips, brooch, necklace charm, and earrings. I might try to make the moon wand too.

Did you make your own tiara? What materials did you use for the time key?

I made a moon crescent staff last year for a Neo Queen Serenity costume and I used a PVC pipe for the staff with foam and Styrofoam on top for the moon part. Maybe I can do something similar but on a smaller scale for this wand, but it looks a bit more complicated since the handle is tapered and the moon piece appears to be translucent.

Laika · Jan 30, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

I'm afraid I didn't make my Tiara, it came with the costume, its plastic of some sort. It was a rather high end costume that came with most of the accessories and was very well made for a bought cosplay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPECIAL-Hig...399?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd15a08cf .
The same store sells just the accessories as well

I made my Time Key staff base from a PVC pipe, split into sections linked with dowel so I could disassemble it for transport. I added craft foam to make it parts wider and do the tapered areas at the top and bottom, the spheres on the staff where polystyrene, the keys and the heart at the top where carved balsa wood and the red and gold spheres on the top where Christmas tree decorations, then added loads of sealer, filler, primer, sanding, painting, pulling my hair out when the paint didn't work right or the polystyrene melted, more filling, more painting etc

That wand is quite complex, perhaps for the tapered handle you could use carve it out of 1" balsa wood? it needs a lot of sealing and filling to hide the grain after, but its the easiest stuff to carve and sand ever. For the translucent moon urm, some sort of cast clear resin? don't know sorry, out of my area of expertise

JuJuBean · Jan 30, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

Laika said:
I'm afraid I didn't make my Tiara, it came with the costume, its plastic of some sort. It was a rather high end costume that came with most of the accessories and was very well made for a bought cosplay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPECIAL-Hig...399?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd15a08cf .
The same store sells just the accessories as well

I made my Time Key staff base was a PVC pipe, split into sections linked with dowel so I could disassemble it for transport. I added craft foam to make it parts wider and do the tapered areas at the top and bottom, the spheres on the staff where polystyrene, the keys and the heart at the top where carved balsa wood and the red and gold spheres on the top where Christmas tree decorations, then added loads of sealer, filler, primer, sanding, painting, pulling my hair out when the paint didn't work right or the polystyrene melted, more filling, more painting etc

View attachment 432920

That wand is quite complex, perhaps for the tapered handle you could use carve it out of 1" balsa wood? it needs a lot of sealing and filling to hide the grain after, but its the easiest stuff to carve and sand ever. For the translucent moon urm, some sort of cast clear resin? don't know sorry, out of my area of expertise

Thank you so much for the photo and explanation about how you made your time key! It turned out looking perfect! I think you are right about using resin for clear pieces - but I've never made anything like that before either. I'll do some more brainstorming and see what I come up with!

JuJuBean · Feb 3, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

I got the base costume that I ordered from Milanoo today! Tried it on tonight and I think it looks really good for the price (only around $50). Here's a couple of pics of the costume:

My thoughts after seeing the costume in person and trying it on are that the costume itself is actually really nicely sewn together. The materials and quality are much better than I expected, honestly. But, there is still work to do! I would like to replace the tights with actual boots, cover/replace the yellow bow centerpiece with an actual compact/brooch that I hope to make, and I may be looking for higher quality gloves to replace the ones that came with this costume. The rest of the costume is actually exactly what I wanted. The bows are especially nice (I thought I'd have to replace them). The back of the skirt is quite short... so I think I'm going to have to get some little shorts or something to wear under it! I can't decide if I want to redo/find a new tiara. The one that came with the costume isn't bad, but the band is a little thicker than I would like.

Laika · Feb 4, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

Glad you got a good one, Milanoo gets very mixed reviews, I've had one or two bits from there that where a bit below average quality wise.

I'm assuming its a dress instead of a separate leotard and skirt? mine was. Anyway, one tip I found on the web and put into use was to hold down the skirt for both modesty and to get that distinctive V shape to it was to use a button and a loop of elastic. Sew a small loop of 1/4 inch elastic onto the seam of the skirt and the hip roll (on the inside of course) at the exact front centre, then get some substantial underwear (I used a long line control piece that came up to just below my bra and was help up by straps, it help keep everything smooth and hold my tummy in a bit, but it looks like you don't need that) and wear that under the dress, then pull the elastic down to were you think the point of the V should be and mark where the end of the elastic is on the underwear. Then sew a medium sized button on to the underwear at that mark, so when you put it all on again, you can pull the elastic down and loop it around the button and everything stays down, you can do it on the back as well, there s tut on the web for it somewhere that probably explains it better than me. Anyway I did it and it worked well, easily handled a day wandering around a con with my modesty intact.

JuJuBean · Feb 6, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

I lucked out - the quality is really good for what it is for the costume. Thanks for the suggestions about keeping the skirt down - I definitely need to do something to keep the costume PG! :$

JuJuBean · Feb 10, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

I thought about this for a bit and decided to go with the cutie moon rod that Sailor Moon gets at the end of Season 1 instead of the crescent moon stick. Here's what the moon rod looks like in Sailor Moon Crystal and in the manga:

So... I splurged a bit and ordered this Bandai Moon Rod Proplica:

Can't wait for it to arrive! To match the cutie moon rod, I made a crystal star brooch/locket out of fun foam. I just printed a picture, glued it lightly to some fun foam, and cut out the design outline with an Xacto blade:

Then I painted the two layers of foam:

And finished it off by coating the whole thing with mod podge and gluing on some craft gems:

Ta-daaa!

spydrwebz · Feb 11, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

Nicely done on the brooch.I like the costume as well.

A little trick Ive learned over the years to make accessories pop from a distance is to lightly outline them with a black paint pen.
Just a little detail that people sometimes overlook.

I cant wait to see this finished and it looks like your having fun....so thats the most important part.

JuJuBean · Feb 11, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

spydrwebz said:
Nicely done on the brooch.I like the costume as well.

A little trick Ive learned over the years to make accessories pop from a distance is to lightly outline them with a black paint pen.
Just a little detail that people sometimes overlook.

I cant wait to see this finished and it looks like your having fun....so thats the most important part.

Thank you! That's a great tip about the paint pen! This costume definitely has been a fun one for me so far.

JuJuBean · Mar 7, 2015

Re: Sailor Moon Costume - Emerald City Comicon 2015

A few more pics of what I have put together:

I'm actually returning the red boots after trying them on with the costume today... they are just too tall for me! Hopefully I can find something better. The odango decorations and tiara are from UniqueCosplayProps on Etsy. Next steps for me: replacing the boots and styling the wig!

JuJuBean · Apr 10, 2015

Sakura con is over and it was so much fun! We met a lot of other Sailor Moon fans there and our costumes worked out great! Here are some pictures of @IronJoe and me from the con: