Cosplay Write-up: Leonardo Da Vinci

This is going to be a bit different from most of my write-ups because my Leonardo cosplay is actually pre-owned. I bought it off a couple of cosplayers who were having a moving sale. It was fairly inexpensive, unused and I always thought Leonardo would make a fun RenFest cosplay. Howeeeeeeever... 

        When I got the cosplay I could see why it was probably never worn. It was….a bit worse for wear. A lot of the seams were fraying, the fabric choice was something to be desired, there were basting stitches that were left in, the clasps holding the front together were falling off…..basically it was a bit of a fixer-upper.

 

Before tackling this mess, I made a general list of everything I needed to fix

• I needed to tailor the shirt to fit me better
• Fix the weird puckers and broken seams that were everywhere
• Reattach the piping so that it was flusher to the seams
• Replace the front closures
• Replace the sleeve cuffs
• Reposition the cape

And if I had the time I also decided that I would

• Embroider over all of the filigree (it was drawn on the costume with metallic paint pens)
• Make a new undershirt
• Make/acquire all of the other accessories

The first thing I had to do was take everything apart. 

I started with the sleeves. Now I mentioned before that were basting stitches that were just left in that should have been taken out. Basting stitches are a great of keeping your fabric together without using pins, but you need to remove them once you’ve made your final stitches. The individual that made costume used this corduroy fabric and then used the wrong side of the fabric as the right side so that it had a nice texture but like???? It frays like crazy my dudes. After detaching the sleeves, I went to assess the…boob holes. It’s kind of what they are here. These slits existed on Renaissance clothes as a means of venting them I think??? 

Anyways, I decided that the best way to fix these would be to just cut them open, re-hem them, and sew them back into place. So that’s what I did, after removing the existing stitching, I went in and pinned the hem down. Remember how I mentioned how basting stitches are a great idea? Well here’s how to use them kind-of properly: Pick out a highly contrasting thread and hand-sew a wide stitch where or near where you plan to make your final stitch. Remove the pins and boom. Now you can make your permanent stitch without pins being in the way.

I used this method a lot throughout repairing this cosplay since the fabric was so bulky, this would help keep from it warping which can happen with pins sometimes.

Once it’s all stitched up, you can now remove your basting stitches with a seam ripper. In theory, these should be fairly easy to pull out. (They were a pain for me, however)

So the sleeves have these lovely faux-slits going down them, but also all of them either frayed or the thread broke or something and there were these ugly holes on the ends. To fix this, I turned them inside-out and stitched over the ends of them back and forth a couple times. Now they’re secure and look much nicer. 

To sew the cord piping back into the sleeves, I attached it first with a basting stitch and then proceeded to machine sew it down. In retrospect I should have used a zipper foot or piping foot to make this process easier. This process without the proper foot was kind of a pain. Learn from my mistakes.

For the waist-area-place, I’m not sure what to call it, they had used that same cord piping that was on the sleeves. I decided that I didn’t like that and took the entire part off so I could use the piping from there on the top parts of my boob-holes.

When cutting the cord piping, you can wrap it in masking tape so that it doesn’t immediately fray when you cut it. I used hot glue to keep it from fraying permanently, but you could also use a lighter to melt the edges.

Once the boob holes were sewn back into place it’s time to reattach the sleeves. Turn the shirt inside-out, tuck the sleeve inside of the shirt, pin/baste around the armhole, and sew it down. The result should be a pretty dandy looking sleeve.

Now to reattach the bottom that I removed earlier and sew up the sides. I sewed the bottom back with a more gradual curve instead of the weird shapes it was in before. This helped it lay flat much better once attached. I brought in the sides a significant amount when sewing them back up so that it could fit me in a much more flattering way.

Time for the new closures. The closures previously used were some joining buttons that hadn’t been attached too well and resulted in a couple of them falling off. I ordered these pretty frogging closures from MJtrim.com that matched the look of the costume much better than the previous ones. To position them, I put the shirt on and pinned them in the proper places. I ended up hand sewing them in place, but you can definitely do this on a machine if you go slow and take your time.

Now I didn’t record the rest of my alterations for whatever reason. But I ended up using the gold cord and some ruffled lace for the new sleeve cuffs. I removed the cape and sewed it back on so that it sat around my neck better. I also began to embroider the filigree, but gave up because it was too tedious.

But with that I was basically done.

The hat and leggings I already had, the wig is a Westley from Arda in Ash Blonde and my sister helped me with my makeup.

I would still like to make a new under-shirt, get all the accessories and better boots, but for TRF, I made it work. This was fairly easy if not just a long process. I kinda feel bad for the cosplayers I ordered this from, since I believe they commissioned it, and what they got was not a very well made product. Nonetheless, I’m happy and proud that I got to breathe new life into this cosplay and give it some much needed TLC.