I’ve been doing a lot of fabric painting for my Link cosplay, and one of the things that made my life easier was using templates instead of freehand painting. The templates sped up the already long winded (four coats of paint!) process as I didn’t have to worry as much about blotching and runing the nice sharp edges.
Here’s what I did:
Design your templates. I used Inkscape to draw them out, and printed them onto paper.
Transfer your template to some thin (cereal box thickness) card. I used double sided tape, but you could also glue it.
Add some cellotape to the back of the card. Make sure it completely covers where the template is, as well as a substantial border. This makes the back of your card wipeable, so after each use you can clear away any paint that’s leaked/got stuck when you removed it.
Cut out the template. Make sure you’ve left a big border around it as you’ll need that for a later step. A craft knife or similar is going to make your cuts sharper. Try not to pull any of the cellotape off, and if you do make sure you patch it up. See the picture below for an example of a template I made.
Place the template onto where you want to paint. Stack some heavy objects all around the edge (I used stacks of 2p coins as I have a ton of them since they’re useless these days). Try to make sure that the template is as flat and close to the fabric as possible.
Mix up your paint. I use a fabric medium even though I’m not going to wash it, along with acrylic paint. Don’t forget that thet the paint will often dry darker, and if you’re painting blue onto red you’re going to end up way darker than you expect. Oop’s!
Paint your design. Pressing down firmly on the template around where you’re painting paint your first layer. It’s going to take a lot of paint and look pretty bad, but this is only the first coat. Don’t remove the template until you’ve finished!!
Add more layers. This is going to depend on fabric and paint used, but to get the best coverage I had to do four coats before it looked right.
Wait for the paint to dry a bit, then remove the template. You want the paint to dry enough to not blotch when removed, but not enough that it’s completely stuck.
A template I used for Link, note plenty of space left for weights around the edges.
Tada! Hopefully you know have sharp edged painted designs on your fabric. They’re not going to be perfect, but much less time consuming than doing so by hand.
Here’s the finished result of the above template, in case you’re curious.
Recently, prompted by my remembrance of a cosplay I’d completely forgotten I’d done, I got curious about what I’ve cosplayed over the years. So, head with me back to the deepest, darkest depths of 2014 for a look at where I started, some mistakes I made and where I am now!
MCM Liverpool Comic Con, March 2016 & 2017; Various halloween’s
Do you still have it?
Everything but the rocket park forms part of version 2!
I started cosplaying in 2014 at the tender age of 27 (which shows it’s never too late to start a hobby!) when I finally had a group of friends that want to go to a comic con. I’d wanted to go to one for years, but never knew anyone else who did.
I decided to start off my journey with a very simplecomplicated cosplay. The Rocketeer[^1] needed two substantial props (a helmet and rocket pack) and I had no experience making them. I ended up on prop making forums and decided to use fibreglass to make them as that was the main suggestion. DO NOT do this. The pack was heavy, brittle and fell apart mid way though my first day at MCM London. I had to use the downstairs stationary shop (anyone remember that?) to get tape and string to fix it!
MCM Comic Con Manchester, July 2015; The Asylum Steampunk Festival, Lincoln 2015, 2016 & 2017
Do you still have it?
Most of it, yes! I think some bits fell of the gauntlet and got lost.
I was going through a steampunk phase at the time and decide to make some sort of airship engineer with a mechanical arm. It was my first time working with foam, and it shows in some rookie mistakes. I didn’t seal it so I had to put so much paint on (which rubbed off everywhere!), and the cogs constantly fell off. I still have it in a box somewhere, and most of the other pieces have now been re-used in other costumes.
MegaCon announced in 2023 they were going to be running a con in London (competition with MCM heats up), and at Excel too! (which is no surprise really, if it’s a big event in London it’s always at the Excel). Manchester had been a surprisingly good event so I was looking forward to what they could do with more space. Unlike with MCM, it was only going be a two day event and held in January. Risky, as the weather these days is completely unpredictable when it comes to early in the year!
Getting down to London is easy from Liverpool, so I won’t bore you with details. I managed to avoid strikes and cancelled trains (as Avanti is want to do) and got to London mid-afternoon. It was just me and Lana this time, so instead of AirBnB’s we stayed in a hotel right next to London City Airport. We could even see the Excel from the room!
Don’t let anyone tell you being close isn’t worth it, the extra sleep you can get is 100% worth a little extra money 😂
Day one was the debut of my Link cosplay from Breath of the Wild, with Lana wearing Starlight for its second outing. We got the bus in, all 5 minutes journey as we weren’t sure what the deal with entry was going to be. Luckily getting in was easy (not helped by my insistence that we stop for Starbucks as it looked fairly empty; I was wrong, I ended up waiting ages as they forgot parts of my order). We almost immediately bumped into some fellow Zelda cosplayers and I learnt about a Zelda meet that was happening later. Super helpful!
At this point we realised we hadn’t done any planning, so we quickly threw together a schedule of who we wanted to see that day. We were obviously very well prepared.
The con itself was laid out well, with a large section for cosplayers to meet, take photos and view panels, a big vendors area and even bumper cars (we did not relaise until we got back, ane never did get round to having a go) Unlike with MCM, MegaCon had only hired out about half of one side of the Excel, so there was less chance of getting lost (and easier to find people!). The artists/vendors where much like in Manchester: no identical drop shipped stalls and plenty of independent artists and creators. I was able to keep my purchases limited this time, but there was so much art I could have easily bought.
The Zelda meet was great, it was lovely to chat playing the games with others and the cosplay quality was fantastic! Hopefully I’ll see some of them again at other cons. It was pretty to chilly outside, so once the meet was over we went and took a couple of Starlight photo’s before I complained my hands where too cold to work the camera 😂
We decided to get to the Bruce Boxleitner and Claudia Christiansen panel early (which was one I wanted to see), so got a bonus John Noble. I think he could have easily talked for hours up there, really interesting guy! The panel itself was fun, lots of reminiscing and behind the scenes of Babylon 5. Poor Bruce had the worst jet lag though! We stayed through the Julie and the Phantoms panel (Lana’s panel of choice), which even though I had only vague second hand information on was still fun. The fans where out in force for that one, twice as many people as the last two panels.
Day two: Nibbly and Aloy set out, and this time we decided to walk as both of us where wearing suitable footwear (and the bus delays where substantial). Today we went in with a plan, though admittedly that was just a couple of panels and to finish our wanders. Our first panel of the day was with Jeremy Shada (of Julie and the Phantoms and Adventure Time fame) in the morning, so we pretty much went straight there. At this point we’ve gon to more panels at this con than we have in the last 4 combined!
The rest of the day was mostly visiting the vendor aisles we didn’t get too yesterday. We did eventually find the bumper cars, I hope they’re there at the next one so we can have a go! Lana’s Nibbly (from Starkid’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die musical) turned out to be way more recognisable than we both expected, Starkid isn’t so niche any more!
Final panel of the day was on cosplay photography, something both of us where really interested in. My goal this year is to level up my skills in photography, so this seemed a good start. There was some great advice from photographers and cosplayers that I’m definitely going to use and makes me realise I’ve been missing out by not going to more cosplay focused panels.
We rounded off the day with some photo’s of Lana’s Nibbly, applying at least one of the tips from the previous panel!
Luckily I hardly suffered from any costume problems! Link, in it was its first outing, only had some minor issue with the belt hook for the Sheika slate and was comfortable to wear. The wig could definitely do with a trim and I might take in some of the tunic length, but apart from that it’s probably more most successful first costume outing!
Aloy held up well too, I only made some minor changes to help secure parts and make the bow easier for transport. Being able to pack it into the case definitely made the journey a lot less stressful!
MegaCon was so much fun, more like I remember MCM being back when I first went in 2014. It was less crowded, vendor options where definitely handled better than MCM and the backgrounds again steal the show for photography. It’s definitely added itself to my con calendar, and I hopefully can make the next one!
MCM May! My bank account is going to take a hit from it, but Lana’s Nibbly cosplay inspired a whole Lords in Black cosplay group that plans to come together there. I know October tends to be the one people tend to prefer, but May has the better weather and tends to be just as good! I was initially not intending to make anything for it, but inspiration struck an I may be making myself a Milo Thatch from Atlantis for the Friday!
My Fantasy Forest costume is going to be the next big build, but that’s months away and involves me figuring out what I actually want to make 😂
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