How I Made My Gijinka Ninetales Cosplay

11/18/2015

The idea for Ninetales came in early 2015 when a new friend suggested we do a cosplay duo. We decided on my favorite pokemon - Ninetales, and his favorite - Marowalk. His side of the project never even started, but I was too invested and too excited to stop now. Being my first real cosplay project, I spent quite a long time doing research and getting inspired. I was mostly inspired by Cowslip's Gijinka Dex, both the original and shiny design.

Feeling a little noob in my cosplay skill level I drew my design with a casual tanktop, leggings, and a belted design.

When it came time to actually start, I flipped a coin to decide how to do the tails. My options were to sew the tails using a faux fur and stuff them, or follow the tutorials for yarn fox tails. I chose to save money over time. So I went out and bought some yarn and started the process of making yarn tails. The tutorials do not lie or exaggerate. This was a freaking ridiculously long process. With NINE tails ranging in length from 6 inches to 42 inches in length.

For a quick summary of the fox tails, I made equal lengths of 100% acrylic yellow (and orange) yarn, tied them together in the middle, and brushed out the pieces, leaving two unbrushed to tie on later.

Straighten the little fluffs to add some shine and sanity, and tie them on to your chain, starting from the bottom. The closer you tie the pieces, the bigger and fluffier the tail will be. I tied mine close together about half way up each link and then skipped to the next one. The fluffs were long enough to cover the gaps and it saved me some time!

After the whole tail is tied together, brush it all out to blend all the fluffs and then if you want, you can run your straightener over it again to shine it up and de-fluff it a bit.

To keep up the consistency, I opted to make the collar and ears the same way. I used a braid for the collar instead of chain. I looped two braids together at the nape of the neck so that the fluffs thinned out on both ends. Baby for scale.

I tied the fluffs directly to the braid and sewed the braid hastily to the kimono. I made the ears by making triangles of craft foam and covering both sides in yellow felt. To attach the fluffs, I cut off the ends from the knot and glued them to the felt in layers using liquid stitch. My first attempt was with hot glue, but it wasn't giving me enough time to play with the fur, or it wasn't grabbing all the fibres.

I did the same thing to both sides, but on the front, I added little triangles of felt for the insides of the ears. I heavily hairsprayed the fur into shape. If I planned better, I would have added the wire in one of the first few steps, but I am not a smart person, so I struggled to bend and shape the wire into place and then wrapped it around the headband! I glued the base in place with lots of hot glue.

After doing more and more constant, obsessive research, I fell in love with Jessica Nigri's work on her Eeveeluton's. I made a last minute change to make a kimono top for Ninetales. I was gambling with my skills, hoping for a successful outcome. The kimono would be only my second sewing project EVER.

This was also my first shopping for fabric experience and I was amazed how expensive the stuff is!! I also bought 3x too much material... Anyone need any yellow cotton or gold chinese brocade? I didn't use a pattern for my kimono, but I did tons of research on traditional kimonos and made modifications how I felt would work best for the outfit.

I painted white canvas shoes with some yellow fabric paint, did a quick make-up test and I was ready for Animethon - my first convention in full cosplay!! You can read about my experience in my next post!