This tutorial can also be downloaded as a pdf!
I’ve gotten a lot of questions regarding my Yasha bodice, so I decided to make this post and hopefully it’ll answer most of them and help you with your own Yasha cosplay. It’s actually not an overly complicated piece, you just need a bit of patience for pressing and hand sewing.
I used a thick faux suede fabric meant for furniture. I’ve worked with the same fabric before and I love the texture of it. It’s also a real pain to sew when there’s more than two layers. Normally I add lining in my cosplays, but this would have become very thick and too warm, so I opted out for this particular cosplay. If you want to work in stretch fabric, I’m not sure how it’ll work with the method I used for the braided front panel. And please remember that this isn’t the only way to do it, it’s just how I decided to.
Now, let’s get started!
Pattern
I always start by sitting down to look at references and sketch out how I want to make my cosplay. To me, the bodice has a front panel with braiding, followed by another slim panel, followed by a panel with braiding and finally a side panel. The back was open to interpretation, so I decided to just do four panels in total as it wasn’t going to be visible (and I didn’t want to do any more braids). As I actually started sewing, I also decided to have the zipper be in the back instead of the side.
Then I moved on to patterning. You can do this in several ways: draping on the stand or wrapping yourself in plastic foil, tape and then have someone draw the lines directly on (you can find tutorials on this). I took an old leotard pattern that I had copied from a basic H&M piece. Leotard pattern laid flat, I made sure it had the right measurement on the waist and chest. Then, dividing it down the middle, I started to draw the panels. Afterwards I made a mockup to take it in where it needed to – specifically the curve on the bust and in the back. Then I transferred those modifications onto the pattern. I wanted to make sure it was very form fitting.
Above is the end pattern: front to the left, back to the right. As I was finishing, it ended up being a little too tight in the back, so I added two extra panels, each 3 cm wide. That’s the good thing about this bodice, you can just add an extra piece and it’ll fit the look.
Sewing – braids, braids and more braids
Then came all the fun which consisted mostly of me burning my fingers on a hot iron, stabbing myself repeatedly and bleeding all over the costume. Just barbarian stuff.
Along with cutting out the fabric pieces with 1 cm seam allowence, I also cut 10 strips for piping, each 3 cm wide. I decided to do the piping between the panels because it would hide the fact that the braided parts in the front would be sewn on separately by hand. Otherwise it probably wouldn’t blend together as well.
Before I could sew the whole thing together, I had to make the front panel. Instead of doing braids, I made small fabric strips that would interlace. I cut out long strips of fabric (each 1,5 cm wide) and pressed them so they would look neat and clean.
I used a tip I found online (I’ve lost the original link to the video) where you place two needles on your ironing board and slide the strips underneath. It saved me a bunch of trouble!
You can see what the finished strips looked like on the photo below to the right. After I was satisfied with the position of the strips, I pinned and secured them by stitching along the edge of the panel on my sewing machine. Then I cut the excess fabric off – except for the top two fabric strips! These will be needed later. Once this frontpiece is done, all the panels and piping can be stitched together.
Moving on to the two large front braids (see the photo below): They are 6 stranded braids, so in total I made 12 strips each measuring 1,2 cm in width when pressed. I made sure to take the size of the panel into account when deciding the width and length of the strips. This is to ensure that the braid is the perfect size to cover it.
Making sure that the 6 stranded braids were secure, I cut off the excess and left the stands to hang on the bottom to give it the ragged look. I also added an edge on the bottom starting next to the braid- this was also hand sewn. Afterwards I put in the zipper and the last missing pieces were the braided straps.
Now it’s time to cut more fabric strips for the top braids. The braids that run along mine are 4 stranded and measure 1 cm when pressed. I cut 8 of these in total. The straps are normal 3 stranded braids which you will need two of. As for the ring in the center, I went to a hobby store and bought a wooden one that I spray painted with silver chrome and attached the braids to before pinning and sewing it all on by hand.
The two straps in the middle panel can now also be attached over the center piece. All the braids were attached, any excess cut off and sewn on by hand.
And that’s it- time to put on the rest of your barbarian gear and rage! I hope this was helpful and answered some questions for any of you looking to do a Yasha cosplay.
Photo by Charles Darrell / JCM Photography