Craft Blog: Mai Shiranui (Patreon)

I have been a fan of Mai since I was a teenager. I remember seeing sprites and art of her on the internet and loving her look. I love that she's a total fan service character.

There are so many versions of her too, since she's been around for so long. The first time I cosplayed her, I picked details I liked from each version and made the cosplay that way. My new version I stuck with one design (KOF XIII) because I had no desire to wear the rope bow, and I love the backless dress. This cosplay is simple! But requires some engineering if you want to fake Mai's bust.

Materials

• Red satin or similar fabric
• White satin or similar fabric
• Black satin or similar fabric
• White satin bias tape (you can also make your own)
• Black stretch fabric
• Red stretch fabric
• Velcro
• Floral wire (or a wire clothes hanger)
• White rope
• Eyelets
• Lacing
• Big ole styrofoam ball
• Heat n' bond
• Fans (Ebay Amazon)

Gloves and Shoes

Most of my sewing is just measuring myself and roughing out a template. This is exactly what I did for my gloves. The black part is just a rectangle that I made wider at the top. Both the red and black parts are double sided. If you wanted to save on fabric, you could use interfacing as well. 

I bought a simple black flat shoe and made a 'sock' to cover it. I then used painter's tape to cover my foot and shoe so I could draw a pattern on. I used this pattern to make the red parts of Mai's shoes. Since I was working with non stretch, I had to make a dart in the top of the red in order for it to sit flat. The black part is exactly the same as the gloves.

Both gloves and shoe covers close up with velcro.

Dress 

One of my main issues with my old cosplay was that the top part did not sit low enough to hide my dance tights. I fixed this issue in my new cosplay by basically making the top of the dress a swimsuit. 

I used a pair of underwear to make a pattern for the bottom 'thong' part. I made the bottom super high waisted, so that it would both cover my dance tights and be really easy to put on.

The top of the 'dress' (IDK what to call it) was made by using my dress form to make a plastic wrap pattern. I transferred that onto some broadcloth and made a mock up. I pinned that to the underwear part and adjusted it (making note to have the red more narrow, since I had to add a white trim). Once I was happy with the mock up, I cut out the pieces onto my good fabric.

The white trim is just bias tape I made myself. Once you're done sewing the top part, sew it to the underwear bottoms and you're good to go.

Obi Belt

The belt is just a double-sided rectangle of fabric wide enough to cover the middle area of the dress. I added eyelets and lace so I could cinch my waist in a bit and make sure my bow sits flush against my back. I also glued the red flap part on the belt. 

Bow and Tail

The bow is simply a rectangle that I measured out and heat'n'bonded some red stripes to. I satin-stitched the red stripes down and sewed the rectangle up. Then I zip-tied the bow in the middle.A wire oval is attached to the bow with hot glue and a strip of fabric. The wire oval slides behind the belt.

The tail is just a wide sock of fabric that I sewed up. There is a loop on the end so that it can loop over the belt.The ball is just styrofoam that I painted red. Its attached to the tail sock with a screw and some low temperature hot glue (high temp will melt the styrofoam). The bottom little bow thing is just a bow shaped piece of fabric that is also screwed and hot glued down. It's also hot glued together in the middle as well.

Wig and Hair Tie

The hair tie is clipped on with wig clips and it keeps its shape because of a wire inside.The wig is just a base and a pony tail clip. The clip was teased to the end of the earth to achieve the fluffy-ness.

Fans

I bought some fans from ebay and painted them red. I also hot glued tassels on them. Easy!