So KOS-MOS has her armour, boots and headgear – what’s next?

Bodysuit

I had given permission for Machiko to sew Makoto into the costume if necessary, but would ideally prefer if it were removable. Keeping that in mind, Machiko designed the dress so that it can actually come off – and is attached using some very thin doll Velcro along the side seam.

April 22, 2012 -Here’s what the general shape of the dress looks like right now. Machiko took out the panel on the bottom left of the skirt and re-adjusted the hem line because it wasn’t revealing enough ^__~”.

She also had to do minor alterations to the panties I gave her so that they wouldn’t peek out at the side o_0″ The fit along the top of the bust looks fantastic!

The bodacious figure of the DD Shapely-L bust posed some interesting challenges for Machiko. The large breasts needed lots of darts added into the pattern so that the bodysuit would sit nicely. There is also a little bit of invisible thread in the under-bust area to prevent the fabric from pulling and looking unsightly. You can’t see it in the photos, and it’s barely noticeable in person – which is why it’s called invisible thread. ^__~”

Trying to find an attractive mini-zipper in gold is quite impossible so the front zipper detail is hand-stitched to give the illusion of one. While most of the large pieces of the dress could be sewn with a sewing machine, many of the little details had to be sewn by hand.

April 23, 2012 – More of the details to the top of the dress have been added now. I may have to sand down the nipples of the Shapely-L bust because they are adding weird puckers to the blue PVC and it looks bad. I was hoping that the placement of the gold straps would cover it, but making them any wider wouldn’t look good. We’ll see how it looks once the dress is completed.

April 23, 2012 – Installed the “spine” details onto the back of the dress.

April 26, 2012 –

Finished up the detailing on the collar, added the gold armour straps around the top of her chest. To get the nice curved shape, Machiko used a bit of Fosshape to give it structure and support, but still remain flexible. Fosshape is a type of special thermal-plastic that Machiko and I have worked with before – in it’s regular form it’s like felt, but when pressure and heat is applied it conforms to what it’s being shaped against, and keeps it. It’s fantastic stuff (although a bit expensive) but she had a few scraps to work with. Hip armour has been finished and the mechanism to attach them to the dress has been added.

She’s almost done! Just a few more things to tweak here and there and she should be ready for her first public outing this weekend!

On to Part 4!