Its always a good year in which Twelve Kingdoms cosplay happens. Since I had such a blast going to the Chinese Scholar Garden in 2015, I made it my mission to return with more Twelve Kingdoms cosplay! Last time I wore battle Youko with Emi as Enki and for 2017 I decided to make one of my favorite Youko designs from the artbook. There were many to choose from but the cover version stole my heart. My friend Melanie said she’d wear Rakushun and I was all too thrilled!
Hanfu hanfu hanfu! I was determined to make this as legit a hanfu as possible! I’ve made Kimono before but never hanfu. Fortunately there are some informative patterns online and I was able to find what I needed after some research. My main struggle was finding the right colored fabrics and deciding how long I really wanted my ‘coat’ to be. At first I made it as long as possible, but then I realized that I would not me able to manage that much fabric in a realistic manner. I cut a good two yards off.
Toughest part was the painting; not because it was hard but because it was time consuming. I don’t normally paint fabric so I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to tackle it. I started with making a stencil of the largest flower and tried free handing the other florals. After completing a small portion I decided that I needed to make more stencils to keep everything uniformed. In the end I had five stencils and definitely liked it better. I also started with mixing paints as needed, but quickly realized that I needed the colors to be more consistent. I spent some time mixing six jars full of the base colors I needed and if I wanted diversity I mixed some of those colors together.
Determined, I tirelessly worked at painting Youko for the CosAlive event; in the end I only finished both sides of both sleeves and the upper front and back. The coat’s trim wasn’t even finished and I needed to sew the rest on, but I had run out of time!
2017 CosAlive Chinese Scholar Garden Photography by Cristal Craft Photography & Cosplay, Just Cosplay Photography, Dan Seiter Photography, and Otaku-Haven
2017 CosAlive Chinese Scholar Garden Rakushun Cosplay by Cosmic Breath Artistry
