Sailor Skeletor
I technically started Sailor Skeletor in 2018, which means here in 2024, I have absolutely no idea how or where the idea came from. However, in my Sailor Skeletor saved folder on Instagram, there’s a post of Jessica Nigri’s Kawaii Reaper, so that probably had something to do with it. And why wouldn’t I take this great excuse to combine my two favorite aesthetics?
I knew this was going to be a major project, and for once I did real research! I quickly stumbled upon Cosmic Coterie, a now-defunct Sailor Moon cosplay group. Their patterns and tutorials are singlehandedly why I felt comfortable taking this project on. The full patterns and tutorials, as well as some new updates, are now paywalled on their Patreon, but if you’re looking to make your own fuku, I highly recommend jumping onto their Patreon — their resources are invaluable. If you’re looking for something entirely free, SparklePipsi’s tutorial is also quite comprehensive and informative!
Since most of my sewing was according to the Cosmic Coterie tutorials, I’ll be skating past a lot of the construction details and will link the relevant tutorial.
This was my first time taking on a project of my own design, so I started with some not-great concept art to give myself a point of reference moving forward. (I’m a terrible artist, but considering how long this ended up taking, I am SO glad I actually did this!) I wanted my design mostly based on Sailor Moon’s duel-tone color scheme, and kept it relatively simple to let both influences shine through, both together and separately.
For fabric sourcing, I started researching based off Cosmic Coterie’s recommendations. I ended up picking up 4 yards of Online Fabric Store’s purple peau de soie for the skirt, collar, and hood. For the bows, glove rolls, and boots, I knew I wanted something with a little more zhuzh than bridal satin, and stumbled onto Yaya Han’s Fantasy Dupioni in light blue. This fabric has a cornflower blue warp with a warm pink weft, giving the fabric a purple sheen when the light catches it just right. While Yaya’s cosplay fabric line still exists, the Fantasy Dupioni seems to be mostly, if not entirely discontinued — luckily, past me picked up 6 yards in December 2018!
I couldn’t find a fabric with the exact same color shift, but here’s a few similar I found. Bonus, these are all 100% silk, unlike the Yaya Han line, which was 50/50 poly/nylon.
Elfriede’s Fine Fabrics — Purple Mauve Silk Dupioni - A little darker and more purple than the Fantasy Dupioni.
Fabric Wholesale Direct — Fuchsia/Teal Iridescent Silk Shantung - A little darker and warmer, but a solid price point!
Silk Baron — Labrador Silk Dupioni - Similar shade of the blue, but not two toned like the others.
If you’d like to use bridal satin for the blue, here’s a similar blue from MyTextileFabric.
I have a seemingly never ending amount of white cotton bamboo jersey in my stash, so that was used for my base leotard and gloves. I also had quilt batting in my stash, despite having never quilted before, so I used that instead of the recommended upholstery foam. Yay for stash busting!
Starting with the leotard, I used a pattern I’d made years ago off a preexisting bodysuit, then I made the chest armor and shoulder rolls using the CC pattern. The rolls were layered with quilt batting to give some dimension, and sewn into the chest armor, separate from the bodysuit.
The skirt was made with two full circle skirts, sewn together. I finished the seams with French seams, then box pleated the waist to bring it down to fit. The pleats were basted in place, the V shape was marked out with pins, then the hip roll was attached. The base bodysuit was then sewn in, and
the base fuku was wearable! Since the skirt was two circle skirts, I let it hang for a few days to allow the hem to stretch out, evened it out, then hemmed it with horsehair braid. This gives the skirt extra shape and volume for the full effect!
The bows for both the chest and back were constructed according to Cosmic Coterie’s tutorial. Since this “fantasy dupioni” is 100% artificial fibers, I used heavyweight sew-in interfacing to avoid the risk of damaging the fabric with fusible interfacing. The interfacing was sewn into my inner bow piece, 1/4” away from my eventual seam line. The excess interfacing was cut away, then the layers were stitched together right sides together. After turning them right side out and lightly pressing them with a press cloth, I had very some very crisp and clean bows with no visible stitching!
Next up was the gloves. I made some cheat gloves with the same bamboo jersey, then made the glove rolls according to CC’s tutorial. Up until this point in my sewing life, I didn’t use a lot of woven fabrics or patterns utilizing bias, so while I understood it in theory, I’d never really experienced it. So of course, for my first attempt, I ignored the instructions and learned the hard way why bias cutting is necessary — however, the upside is that 5 years later, I think of these pictures every time a pattern tells me to cut on the bias! After remaking the glove rolls, I hand stitched them to the gloves and they were ready to go.
The collar was made using CC’s collar pattern. The outer piece was interfaced with some lightweight fusible interfacing to give some more structure. To create the stripe details, single fold white bias tape was basted, then stitched down. (Twill tape would also work great for this!) After this, the outer and lining pieces were assembled wrong sides together and turned inside out. This way, there’s no visible line of stitching from the stripes on the underside of the collar. The hood was a basic hood pattern, using some spare black broadcloth for lining to give some more depth. The hood is a bit oversized like Skeletor’s, and attaches to the underside of the collar via small snaps.
The boots are where I started to really go off course. I wanted to make boot covers with my non-stretch dupioni, and also wanted them to be removable — partly so the shoes could be theoretically reused for another Sailor cosplay, and partly because I just wanted to see if I could do it. I first found some over the knee boots at a local discount shop. I liked the shape of the toes and the heel, and I figured I could trim the top of the shoes into the correct shape I wanted. After trimming, I started with a plastic wrap and masking tape pattern. My boot cover only needed to cover my base shoes, so I stuffed the shoes full of plastic bags while wrapping and made my pattern.
Once I transferred my tape pattern to paper, I started putting together some mockups out of muslin. Having learned my lesson after the glove rolls, I cut my pattern out on the bias and added a zipper up the back of the ankle. Some leftover black denim covered the outsole and I planned to add sole grips so I could walk without slipping and sliding.
Moving onto my fashion fabric! I realized when I started on my bows that this fabric frays easily and aggressively. I had been able to use my overlocker on all my raw edges so far, but I was worried the overlocker threads would create too much bulk in my seams. I tried out a few solutions, and settled on a thin layer of fabric glue over my cutting lines, so the fabric edges would be sealed before I even cut them. A low temp iron, a press cloth, and a tailor’s ham helped me press all my seams open.
To create the white border and to secure the boot covers up, I schemed up a way to create a flap that the actual boots could tuck into. I first stitched the inside edge of my white pleather on the outer piece directly to my boot covers. Then, wrong sides together, I stitched the outer edge of the inner and outer pieces together. (This pleather won’t fray, so no worries about the exposed raw edges) The inner edge of my inner piece was left completely unstitched, allowing me to slide my actual boot inside and secure the boot covers up. If you need more explanation, below is a quick tutorial using some scrap fabric!
After the boots, I was finished with all of the sewing, and moved onto the mask. At this point, I had received my 3D printed parts from Thea and started figuring out how the hell I was going to finish these. Prop work is absolutely not my specialty — I am a sewist through and though. So to get started, I of course went to Punished Props first, sure they’d have a video that could give me a jumping off point. (They did!) I picked up some XTC-3D, sanding drums for my Dremel, and some superglue. I used my Dremel to remove the supports in the eye and nose holes, then superglued the four pieces together. After roughing up the surface with some sandpaper, I applied the XTC-3D to the surface and allowed it to cure. I wet sanded it smooth, hit it with some Rustoleom filler primer, then wet sanded again. My edges, especially where I had removed the supports, weren’t the cleanest, but I was pretty proud of how well I managed to smooth out those print lines. Finally, I was able to paint it a bone color with some acrylic paint. Some black jersey was stretched across the eye/nose holes and superglued in place — with the fabric pulled taut, some visibility was possible!
Due to circumstances, I ended up not being able to finish the mask and staff in time for Momocon 2019, my original con deadline. Then it didn’t happen for Dragon*Con 2019, then this weird pandemic thing started in March 2020… Flash forward spring 2023, and I pull these pieces out for the first time in 4 years. After taking stock of all my pieces and determining what needed to be remade, I got to work on finally finishing this for Dragon*Con 2023!
The mask still needed the jaw attached, foam padding on the inside, and elastic attached. The staff hadn’t even been started. My beloved boot covers were not only crumpled from storage, but something had deeply stained my white pleather cuffs. And the cherry on top, my base boots didn’t fit anymore, so I’d have to track down new shoes and start over on those entirely.
For the sake of my own sanity, I decided against another unnecessarily difficult pair of boot covers, and opted to simply paint a pair of white boots with Angelus paints. In order to get a similar duochromatic sheen, I mixed mostly Sterling Silver with some Pacific Blue and a touch of Prince Purple. The heel was painted black, and the whole paint job was sealed with Angelus 600 Finisher. One of the bonuses of Angelus paints is that you can paint over zippers, so there’s no interruption in the paint job. The end result was great, and I actually got a lot of questions about these at the con! These boots definitely veered off from my original vision a bit — the V shape at the knee didn’t happen, and the white border along the top was completely forgotten about during the haze of con crunch. However, the shoe gems with the crossbones Thea had made more than made up for it, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result!
While I worked on the boots and some other Dragon*Con projects, Thea was hard at work on the staff. The staff head and details were being 3D printed in ABS filament and we tracked down some spray paint the same shade of purple as the skirt. Once the pieces were finished 3D printing, Thea vapor smoothed them with acetone, cutting sanding time down significantly. Some more Rustoleum filler primer, a little sanding, and a coat of paint later, the staff was assembled and ready to go!
The final detail left was the chest gem and the crossbones. I initially cast a gem with epoxy resin and red glitter back in 2019, but Thea needed to cast a new one to fit the crossbone design she was 3D printing. These pieces weren’t vapor smoothed, and were instead sanded and hit with some filler primer. The same bone color as the mask/staff was used for the crossbones, and the brooch bezel was painted with Angelus 18K Gold. The gem was superglued into the bezel and after supergluing some Velcro to the back, the gem was ready for the bow. The tiny gems on the boots were made the same way, and were also attached using Velcro in case they need to be moved to a different pair of shoes.
After 4 years, all that was left was making it to the Friday Night Costuming Track! We ended up winning Best Prop, to which all credit goes to Thea. I can’t deny that an award after 4 years of scheming and plotting doesn’t feel great though!
