Yoshimitsu

Source: Soul Calibur III

Worn to:  MCM London Expo October 2008

Awards: 2nd Place Best costume at London Expo October 2008

Inspiration for this costume

So we decided to make this around the same time I decided to make Voldo. The main reason was because Ivy and Voldo are really hard to wear for long periods of time, so we needed easier to wear costumes.

But then half way through making them we realised that they were going to kick ass, so we decided to enter the Sunday Masquerade as Voldo and Yoshimitsu.

Making Details

All of the fabric for Yoshi was found in a curtain store, because curtain fabric kicks ass.

The face was made by making a clay approximate version of Matt’s face, then me shoving more clay on the top to make his face. This was then covered in latex, then painted with acrylics mixed with more latex. I then cut out the eyes, and used the lenses from a pair of matt’s favorite sunglasses for the eyes (stupid winter and stupid shops who don’t sell sun glasses in the winter).

For the head I made a stupid hat thing out of scrap fabric (it made Matt look like a Viking!) and then covered his head with foam (the stuff found in sofas). It was then covered in duct tape (<3), and then the fabric and mask was hot glued onto it. It’s actually pretty heavy to wear, but due to the sheer size of matt’s head, he survived.

The belts/flag caused a week long argument with me and Matt. I won in the end though due to sheer stubboness and sex appeal, so he let me do it my way. In the end I took an old back pack, made a long pocket for the flag to sit in, and he wears that under the kimono, with a hole in the fabric to push the flag in. Then we wrap a bit of cloth around his waist so it stays in place.

The belts are pleather, with a bit of wadding in them, which we then painted luminous orange. They’re so wonderfully hideous. They were held in place by *five* safety pins. This still astounds me.

The flag is applique and embroidery and perfectly matches the one on the game. We’re such perfectionists. We couldn’t find a good alternative red fabric, so all the gold lines were stitched on by us (I’m using us because at this point I used slave monkey matt to stich straight lines onto everything. He’s such a good partner).

The sword is made of MDF, just sanded A LOT. Timber did this, because he’s awesome. He also got some special paint off his dad which made the sword SUPER shiney. It’s frikkin’ awesome.

The arm was made the night before out of ping pong balls and cardboard. Same for the shoulder armour. The tabi/shoes we already had, and the arm covers/leg covers were made saturday morning out of pleather and ducttape. If Matt ever rewore this we would just need to make better leg covers.

Final Thoughts

This costume, despite everything, turned out really well. Before expo I didn’t realise exactly HOW popular Yoshimitsu was. Looking on the net after Expo Yoshimitsu got more photo’s than Voldo, Ivy and Nightmare combined. He’s such a cam whore. XD

A video of us performing together.