The Legend of a Badass - My Asami Cosplay

Like I've said before, I love a really good badass heroine. And The Legend of Korra's Asami Sato is one of my favorites. She's beautiful, smart, savvy, brave, and strong. Not to mention, also, Asian and queer. What's not to love?

She also gets to be one of those powerless characters in a story full of super-powered characters who still manages to not only hold her own but be a hero in her own right, when she could have very easily been, would have traditionally been, a damsel in distress. I love that.

Of course, I want to step into her badass boots for a bit.



So, first things first, Asami is from the famed Sato family, so of course I have to create her family's symbol that she wears as patches on her shoulders. These were made from scrapes of leftover leather. My hand cramps at the memory of sewing these.



Speaking of hand cramps and leather sewing, I also couldn't do Asami right without making my own power glove.


This was made with a leftover leather glove, more scraps of leather, a couple of bike lights, and hair ties. Looks pretty good for a mishmash of things I had laying around the house.



While the leather sewing was hard on my hands, it was the lights that worried me the most. You can't do Asami's power glove right without giving them a little flash. But the question was how.

So I took two bike lights and painted them with nail polish and hoped that the light would still work through the paint.





And, thankfully, it did. Then I held them to the glove with hair ties to not only affix them securely, but also to simulate the wires that would have powered the glove.

You can't tell in the photos but the lights have three settings, two different speeds of pulsing lights and a continuous light. It was a lot of fun dancing at raves with this costume.








Here it is all put together.








You can probably tell by the look on my face, but this costume totally makes me feel like a badass.

Another reason I wanted to make this costume was for the everyday cosplay aspect of it. I have totally shown up to work in this costume, sans the power glove, and people just think it's a cool outfit. 


But, every once and a while, if I'm lucky, I'll run across a Korra fan who recognizes it. Those are amazing moments. 


But this isn't the only outfit of hers that I love. I love the outfit that she wears at the wedding at the end. Not only is it beautiful, it's the moment that the audience really recognizes Korra and Asami's relationship for what it was. That all the hints the show has been dropping like earth-bent rocks aren't just fan-service innuendo but the building of a real relationship the was the first of its kind from a show like this.


Unfortunately and ironically, I'm allergic to most metals, which means I had to figure out something for her jewelry. So I decided to crochet her necklace, bracelets, and a couple of anklets.






Which I think turned out really well all put together.









 Again, I love this outfit and think it works great as both a cosplay costume and as just a regular outfit. 

But also, it was very nice for conventions, since these two outfits use the same pieces. If you look closely, you can see that I made the dress from the first outfit longer than necessary and folded it over, then wore it full-length for this outfit. 

The cover top to this outfit is semi-hidden by the jacket in the first outfit and it's tie is tied in back to look more like a traditional belt, but then turned into a bow embellishment in this outfit.

It was really fun to be able to celebrate this character who is proof that you can be girly and pretty and feminine and still be strong and a force to be reckoned with. And to get to honor an Asian, queer character, who really is a first but hopefully not the last of her kind, this way was something that was really important to me.

Club Girl Vanellope

So, after my first year over-achieving ambitions, I thought that I would try something a little more easy-mode.

Like I said, I love Disney and absolutely loved Wreck It Ralph and its spunky racer princess, Vanellope.

You can't have this candy-loving character without her signature candy bits for her hair. Thankfully the craft store sells these adorable little pre-cut, sticky foam pieces.

So all I had to do was stick them together in patters that I liked and stick them in my hair.

They kept falling out all night, but I had a bunch extra so I just kept replacing them.

At the end of the night, trying to pick the remaining out of my hair was less than fun. But, oh, how we suffer for out art!

Next came her tights. I bought three shirts, a white one, a teal one, and a pink one and used the sleeves from all three to Frankenstein these together. I think they turned out pretty good.

So good, in fact, that I've worn these out and about just for fun. And have used them in other costumes.

In previous costumes, I've made cute costume-appropriate purses to hold all my stuff, like this Kragle purse from when I was Wyldstyle from The Lego Movie. It was made out of a liter soda bottle, grocery bags, and duct tape. Turned out pretty good.

For Vanellope, I wanted to see if I could make a lollipop purse. So Again, using the plastic from a soda bottle and grocery bags, I formed the base of the purse. For the stick, I just used a left over crafting dowel and an old chapstick cap. Like I said, I don't so much make costumes as I MacGuyver them. After a pretty paint job and a zipper for ease, I have a finished lollipop purse.

Now, I did want to create a movie-accurate version, where I try to look as much like her as possible.










But, of course, I can't just leave it at that; I like to put a unique spin on things. So I made the dress underneath a little more...aged-up. 

Using a white bra and leftover bits from all the other costume materials, I created this cute little Candy Land Club Girl dress.