Sailor Chibi Moon Cosplay Wig [UPDATE: 7/27]

As I previously said, my art is going to be slowing down until August while I work on a new wig for my Sailor Chibi Moon cosplay since the clips on the strap on my other one broke on me a few cons ago and it is currently being held together by two safety pins....

I will be doing my best to follow this tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-5TYzldN10

and my feather "clips", "shields" and tiara came from Setsuna and Haruka's Sailor Moon Specialty Shop.

https://www.setsunakou.com/index2.html

(this is also where I got my costume as a whole. Don't be fooled by its dated appearance, this place it from the early 2000's and they haven't really updated their layout and such, but they are still active!)

My initial goal for this week was to at least have the bangs a "sideburns"/"tendrils" styled, but then my Elliptical went out on my Monday and tending to that ended up taking most of my time and also involved needing to move my operation temporarily (long story...) so that's why I'm in a bathroom for now...

I also thought I could at least paint the base eggs I'm going to be using for the buns/"odango", but then I realized I wouldn't be able to decide which size I was using (I got a couple since the tutorial flat out says they don't remember the size they used, but don't worry, this was around Easter so I had options and they were cheap) until I had a template to use for the pigtails, which I just printed last night, but I also noticed that I don't have a pink paint that's a close enough match to the wig, so I'll be getting some soon...

In the meantime, I figured I should at least assemble my supplies, assess what I'd be working with and catalog my starting point. I had to pause the tutorial video when she briefly mentioned it, but I DID manage to find the exact wig she used from AliExpress and I must say I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the raw base: aside from needing to be brushed, the bangs are actually somewhat styled and the "sideburns" are nice and defined, so all I'll really have to do there is enhance and seal the styling.

I'm also happy and a bit surprised that the base of the wig is short, and not a longer wig that is pre-styled into pigtails for the longer pigtails to clip onto like the others out there (as well as my last two). While this is nice, and it works, I've noticed that the base pigtails can start to come loose after time (especially with the weight of the longer pigtail clips clamped around them) and this is another issue I was starting to notice with my old wig.

This is probably going to be a long run, but here goes nothing! Wish me luck!

[Update 6/8]

I made the 4 supports that will be used to hold the new "odango" and pigtails and managed to set the bases for the new "odango". Cutting into the cap of the wig to insert these bases was a VERY scarry process and, I still have to do it two more times for the other two bases... Unfortunately, now that they ARE set I can see they're not PERFECTLY even (one is SLIGHTLY further back that the other....) in spite of my best efforts, but overall I'm still pretty proud of how it looks so far. HOPEFULLY being slightly uneven won't affect the back pigtail bases too much.... You may also notice one side is slightly tiled on my wig stand there, but my actual head must be a little bigger than the dummy head because I PROMISE they stand up straight when it's on and that's the important thing! 😖 You can also see the outline I'll be using to make the pigtails (I took it directly from a settei sheet from the anime) and I tried to fluff up the bangs a little and curl the sideburns a bit more, but not sure how well or much that held after all the handling i had to do when I inserted the first two bases so I'll probably end up fixing those a bit more at the end.

[Update 6/15]

The bases for the new "odango" have been painted, which admittedly took a bit longer than I was hoping. It's not a perfect match, but it's the closest I could find and it's just to hide any gaps their might be when I glue the hair over them. I also started to work on the wire frame for the first pigtail, and while I think I'm happy with the rough shape I'm going to have to play with it some more; I think I need to space out the wires more and drive them in deep enough so they're flush with the Styrofoam ball and maybe add one or two more support wires.

[Update 6/22]

I tweaked the shape for the frame of the "pigtails" to make it more flush with the Styrofoam ball base and made the second frame. Obviously, this won't be their final placement, but.... I sure hope they're even.... although, the more I look... the more I think that maybe.... they (mostly) ARE? The next step is going to be to define the frames more and in the tutorial she used felt, but I think I may have bought the wrong KIND of felt because it just seems.... thick and not very mailable, so instead I'll be opting to use paper mâché (not to mention, it'll be a lot easier to paint before I finally start gluing the hair over the bases)

[Update 7/06]

So, this is actually where I had hoped to be LAST week, but after I paper mâché'd around my first pigtail base I could already tell it was going to be too heavy so I had to quickly switch to Plan 'B' which was to reach out to a friend and ask them to 3D print a set of pigtail bases for me. Luckily he was able to oblige, and keeping the bases as hollow as possible made them SUPER light. Even so, the whole process took almost two solid days of printing! I also bought some more paint a while back in preparation for painting the pigtail bases, but I couldn't find the exact same color I had before. I didn't think it would matter TOO much since, again, they're going to be covered in hair anyway, but this new shade turned out to be a better match for the wig in my eyes and I got a larger bottle so I quickly repainted the "odango" bases as well. All that's left now is a buttload of gluing, but the vision has really come together now and I'm super excited! Big Minneapolis Anime is in three weeks and it looks like I should be on pace to finish in time. I've already cut apart one of the odangos the wig came with into its individual wefts and it looks like I SHOULD have enough hair without having to order more and the same seems like it should be true for the pigtails as well since I think mine ended up a bit smaller than the tutorial, but still nicely proportionate. You may also notice the slight change in venue, but I had to move from our guest bathroom to the lower level of our basement where I exercise since my sister will be coming to visit in a couple of weeks and she'll be using that bathroom.

[Update 7/13]

Got the hair glued to the odango and sealed with another coat of clear glue. As you can see... the right side somehow came out a bit better than the right (would you believe it was the side I spent less time on? I guess by that time I better knew what I was doing....) but it's not too bad now that it's all smoothed down and sealed and most of it will be covered by the "shields" anyway Speaking of: I've noticed now that the "shields" I bought are going to be too small, so I had to quickly order a couple supplies to whip up a new pair, but that won't take long. I'm almost there!

[Update 7/27]

At last it's finished! Unfortunately, I ended up hitting a few more setbacks along the way: the first and biggest was that I ended up not having enough hair to cover the pigtail bases with what the wig came with, so I had to rush some extra wefts.... luckily, I had anticipated needed more, so I had gotten some samples and found a good color match, I just never ordered any because I though I could get away with not needed into when I noticed my pigtails seemed a bit smaller than the ones in the tutorial, but I still had to pay for second day shipping.... The second was that I noticed the "shields" I ordered were going to be too small, so I quickly whipped up a new set with supplies I could get readily on Amazon. It actually took quite a bit of digging to find gems that would be the right size and then a slightly bigger piece for the board, but it was SO satisfying that they fit together so perfectly and I also got some small, clear "L" brackets to hold up the feather hairclip things. The final problem is that magnets I had planned on using to help make the pigtail detachable weren't strong enough and there wasn't really enough space to use multiple, so transportation is going to be a bit of a hassle with this, but at least it's finally done!