Valkyrie cosplay: Design and vest

     Bolstered by the success of Thor, I'm starting not one but two slightly more ambitious cosplays. The second one (more on the first later) is the character than Jane Foster became after putting down Mjolnir: Valkyrie. 

     First things first - I am not going to wear a spandex onesie as a base, because a) I'm not that in shape yet, and b) bathroom reasons. I've talked to many cosplayers who have said they just don't drink or use the bathroom when they cosplay, but that's not really an attractive option to me. So - top and leggings, and bathroom-friendly. 

     With that settled, it's actually not a horribly complex outfit, pieces-wise. I decided to make a canvas vest-type thing to serve as a base for the chainmail, skirt, shoulder armor, and... oh right... wings. Not going to lie, I've wanted to make a costume with wings for many years, but I know they're going to be difficult (understatement). Still, focusing on one thing at a time: I'll deal with the wings when I get there. (Ok, that's a lie, I've been researching and sketching ideas for a while now, just not seriously). 

     As a side note, the "throwaway" drawing class I did last fall just for funsies turned out to be very helpful. I took a couple highly unflattering pictures of myself and was able to get a fairly true-to-life outline made. Sketching "me" at the start of each costume was a time-consuming process, and I don't think it was ever quite right. Now I have a template i can just copy quickly, and get right to sketching the outfit.

     Since I'm going to hang several things off the vest, I figured it should be fairly form-fitting, so I reached back in time to grab the pattern I used to use back in ren faire days as my go-to corset pattern. I'd purged my sewing supplies several times since those days, but was able to find it on eBay or Etsy for fairly inexpensive, so the costume is off to a good financial start. From starting the mockup to finish, the vest took a little over 15 hours, and fits snugly:

     It's only one layer of canvas, but it's good to keep costumes lightweight, cool, and simple. Especially since I have a possible plan to cut a hole in the back for wings to come through, but that's another story.