Hi everyone! I’m super excited to share my most recent sewing project with you all. As you all may already know, I’m currently into Overwatch, it’s kinda funny how this fps game can get me into cosplay again.
I decided to cosplay as d.va in her Black Cat skin for Fan Expo. I think her gothic lolita inspired skin is super adorable, and it’s my favourite d.va skin at all times. My friend also pointed out that I’m a lolita cosplaying as a lolita inspired character is giving inception vibes haha.
I used the Simplicity 4046 sewing pattern in view D (Yes the bo peep one *laugh in lolita*) to make the dress, view D actually has the perfect cut for Black Cat D.va, it’s almost identical!
Unfortunately I could only find size 14~20 for this pattern on etsy, so I actually had to resize the pattern down, which still worked out for my plan.
I’ve cut out the pieces for the bodice, sleeves and peplum (not shown in picture above) , I only used these pieces and for the skirt I didn’t use the pattern but I used the rectangle skirt method instead.
I used black satin fabric for the sleeves, bodice and peplum, and for the skirt I used purple satin fabric from the leftover fabric of my Atlantic Mercy cosplay.
I had such a hard time picking out the laces from taobao! Because there are so many options to choose from, and they all look so pretty! At the end, I narrowed down to these four styles. I used the eyelash looking lace for the choker, the ribbon lace for the sleeve’s cuff, the wide tulle dot lace for the skirt’s hem, and the scalloped lace for the necklace & peplum.
I made this costume before my Collingwood trip, so I wasn’t able to test out the wonder clips yet. I can’t wait to try them, I hate it when I accidentally poke myself with pins.
For the corset, I decided to buy a corset belt on taobao just to make my life easier. Maybe one day I will make one if I have an idea for another project.
Overall impressions of this sewing pattern:
-No zipper required. At first I was wondering how come the bodice pattern didn’t include a zipper closure, then I realized it has a stretchy elastic neckline, which makes a lot of sense.
-The instructions are easy to follow. I was also worried because I have been intimidated by complicated sewing patterns before, I have had moments such as “I hope I didn’t connect the wrong pieces together…” & “Is this what I really supposed to do?”, but this pattern is pretty straightforward, it guided me on where should I sew the elastic casings for the sleeves and cups to create the ruched cups & puffy sleeves.
-Speaking of ruched cups & puffy sleeves, you can definitely make Selkie inspired/cottagecore/coquette dresses with this sewing pattern. You can even edit it by adjusting the waistline & length.
The bows are also my favourite parts of the costume, they are super cute! I used hot pink satin fabric for the bows. The largest one is the back bow, it’s super OTT 😛 . The medium one is for the choker. The small pairs of bows are for the gloves and hair clips.
For the cat ears, they are made out of leather patches and the leftover hot pink satin fabric. I tried to attach them to a pair of alligator clips at first, but I hate how they were sticking out on my wig, so at the end I attached them on a headband instead.
On the day of Fan Expo (Sunday):
I remember there was so many people and we had to line up to get on the escalators, I was messaging Seth & Rikki that I was on my way to meet them but there was too many traffic!
Also I realized I left my pearl chain at home, but I was already on the highway and there was no way I could go back home to grab it, I did feel very bummed especially I spent a lot of time searching for the gold heart charm.
Finally we met up with each other! We spent some time checking out the sponsor booths, and again there was line ups everywhere. I believe the lines were even longer compared to Toronto Comic Con that me and Mina went to in March…
When Seth, Rikki & I were checking out the PC builder booth, I saw these 2 players playing Fortnite inside a glass booth. I was being super curious and decided to take a closer look, and then it turned out they were streaming! Basically I just walked into their streams! Sorry Fortnite streamers, I didn’t mean to photobomb your streams!
We visited the wattpad booth, which had a lot of photo ops, they were rooms inspired by different book genres. The pink bedroom represents romance. Not gonna lie, visiting the wattpad booth gave me flashbacks of the fan fictions & romance stories I used to read when I was younger, even though I feel like most of the romance stories I read back then all had similar plots, but I guess I was just a girl who was super into cliche love stories LMAO.
I also met another d.va cosplayer in the artist alley! It’s always so nice to meet other Overwatch cosplayers & fans in cons. It made me happy that when some Overwatch fans recognized d.va in her Black Cat skin right away.
My thoughts/things I noticed at Fan Expo:
– The confused Toronto Blue Jays fans, the venues for Fan Expo & Blue Jays game are super close to each other. I did overheard comments from Blue Jays fans said to themselves like “LOL would you dress like that?”
– There was a lot of Barbie cosplayers! A lot of “Hi Barbie!” & kenergy going on!
– I did a Sanrio kuji lucky draw for the very first time! For those who don’t know, how kuji works is: you purchase a lucky draw ticket and then you open your ticket to reveal your prize. For example, my ticket was #8 & my prize was the Angel Kuromi mini tote bag.
He and his partner were hoping to go to Anime North but sadly they were not able to get the tickets as they sold out quickly this year. I’m glad they were still able to make it for Fan Expo!
I love the threatening aura of the knife Kirby and Nintendo Switchblade pins, they are both cute and dangerous 👀.
We left the venue around 4:30pm because we were getting hungry and also wanted to avoid the crowd. We decided to walk to Don Don Izakaya for dinner, the walk was about 24 minutes according to google map but I felt like we walked faster than that. I remember I also put my prop gun back into my backpack because even though I was in my cosplay but I still don’t want to startle people on the street!
Seth & I both got the kimchi udon, I can’t believe we got the same dish! It was also really good, eating the kimchi made me feel refreshed after a long day.
So yes, thank you for reading my blog post on how I made my Black Cat d.va cosplay & my Fan Expo experience! Next blog post coming soon is going to be about Kei Con & my mini shopping haul in the Annex.
dearie_dawn 