Last year we had a request to do an aerial routine as Princess Zelda and Link. While jobs got in the way of training together for a good portion of the year, we are finally back in the same city and working on this. It’s high time I started on our costumes! Here are my stacks of raw materials:
A fairly heavy white satin for Zelda’s skirt, to try to get some pouffy-ness without needing Crinolines of Doom underneath. The purple for the overbodice is maybe a little darker than the screenshots of Zelda, but it’s such a lovely purple I’m using it anyway. I’ll use fabric paint on some of my basic white cotton stash for the apron. Although Elisheba is not going to try to wear the apron in performance, it will be nice to have it for walking on stage, or just walking around at cons. Her pauldrons are probably going to be my biggest headache, since she still needs complete freedom of the shoulder joint. I’m thinking lots of elastic.
Link is going to be much easier: close-fitting shirt, green tunic, tight pants. I can use all cotton fabrics, which are much easier in terms of not unraveling madly at raw edges, and much more forgiving of ripping out stitches if necessary. Wearing actual chain mail would add something like ten percent of my body weight to the mass I’d be swinging around: too much of an increase to be worth the authenticity. Also rather painful for partner work. Hence the gray fabric you can see under the green, for a substitute.
Because our costumes have to stay on while turning upside down and flipping around each other and our equipment, I’m going to make Zelda’s skirt a divided skirt and gather it in at the ankles. Because we need a minimum amount of friction in order to stay on, we’re going to have to leave off Zelda’s gloves and Link’s boots and vambraces. But barring the minimum necessary changes, I’ll be following Twilight Princess as closely as possible with the costumes.
As always with my cosplay sewing, I’ll be making things up, and making things work, as I go along. Ripping out seams and trying again is guaranteed at at least one point.