Ikkicon 2012: Journey

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Edit: Just switched out the photo for one at a slightly different angle; it shows off more of the scarf! :3

I finally got to premier my Journey cosplay at Ikkicon, though I barely got to wander around in it because I was busy with pre-judging for a huge part of the day. By the time the contest was over, I felt like I might not have any luck getting photos since it was getting kind of late and we still needed to get dinner at some point before all the food places closed. I was lucky to run into a photographer friend right after the contest, and she offered to take some quick photos. Made my night <3

Journey is an amazing game experience, and I never get tired of playing it even though it's very short. I've been wanting to make a traveler since it came out last year, and I feel very accomplished that I finally got around to making it.

There's another Journey cosplayer that put together a wonderful tutorial with templates, and it was a great help for figuring out the hood pattern and simplifying how I did the gold designs. I made some alterations here and there, but otherwise the process is still the same: [link]

I started with a poncho pattern for the cloak base, and I barely had enough fabric for it (I was using some leftover signature suede fabric we had on-hand). I used the pattern from the above link for the hood, though I made the face opening a bit smaller and took in some seams here and there. Instead of wonderflex I just used some craft foam for the mask and covered it in black suedecloth. There's bias tape for the circlet and white fabric stretched over the eye openings in the back (I can see a little out of them, but only under good lighting). The mask is sewn into the hood so it won't slide around (The mask itself is actually smaller than my face because the travelers in Journey have strange proportions). There's pieces of upholstery foam glued to the underside of the mask to keep it from pressing too hard against my nose. The darker red triangles are the wrong side of the suedecloth fabric.
The little "squiggles" and "People" symbols are duck cloth that matches the bias tape I got (used both single fold and double fold in merigold). The duck cloth was ironed on with heat-n-bond and I satin-stitched around all the edges. The whole cloak is lined with red broadcloth.

For my scarf, I wanted it to be ridiculous long like in later parts of the game, so I just pieced together the rest of my yellow duck cloth to see how long I could make it, and it ended up being 17.5 feet. There are 48 or 50 glyph designs on it total because it's double sided. The red borders were painted, and the gylphs were ironed on with heat n bond. I used leftover white bridal satin for the glyph designs, and I satin stitched around all the edges of those. I plan to have all the edges of the red pieces satin-stitched, but I didn't have enough time before the con (It will be officially done by Katsucon though). The scarf attaches with velcro onto the cloak so I can make a shorter con-friendly one later.

I made a red bodysuit, but I couldn't find the color I wanted in swim/dance spandex, so I ended up using a red ponte roma knit. I made a pattern by making a mock-up out of muslin first, and then I made the real thing with the red knit. It has a zipper in the back and is very comfy. :3

Journey is (c) ThatGameCompany