Character: American Bomber Girls (Blue)
Series: Happiness Charge Pretty Cure
Version: TEXAS
Debut: Anime Expo 2015
The first costume I committed to after deciding to fly across the country on a whim for Anime Expo this year was American Bomber Girls. Sparkle Pipsi was coordinating a huge gathering of PreCure cosplayers and so many talented and amazing people were joining the ranks…gosh darn it I wanted to be in the army too! This may or may not have been one of my motivating factors for going to Anime Expo in the first place…
When Sec-C cosplay got wind that I wanted to go they scooped me up to be the third member of the American Bomber Girls. These magical girls have literally 10 seconds of screen time, but the one thing we knew for sure was that they were from AMERICA and they were probably definitely from Texas. SO, we ran with it. When working on a costume I usually try to adhere to the design and be as accurate as possible, but for this I made some stylistic decisions to be AS TEXAS A POSSIBLE.
To coordinate with the other girls cosplaying from Happiness Charge we used Cotton Sateen for our vests and gold foil denim for all of the bias trim.The three of us tag teamed the vests together. I modified a commercial pattern with princess seams for the base of my vest.
The skirt is a simple half circle skirt made out of a suiting with horse hair braid.
For the under shirt I chose to alter a western style vest so I would have those super texan pearl snaps. (and also because I was lazy maybe…) I took the blouse and removed the sleeves, then used that fabric to cut new puff sleeves. The sleeves are faced with a few layers of netting so they will hold their shape.
The bandana is a triangle of fabric I folded and tacked in place to mimic how you would roll a traditional bandana, but then I cut the tails separately and created the “bow” in the front. It’s made out of a light weight suiting.
There are two types of gold stars used for the accessories. The stars on the hat and hair accessories are just painted wooden shapes. I used a gold acrylic and then several layers of a gold glitter paint. For the absolutely ridiculous stars on her sleeves I wanted to make them removable because one of the few things she actually does is take them off and throw them at a giant cactus monster. I found what I believe is a glitter flocked canvas at Hobby Lobby. It comes in 8″ x 11″ sheets and lives with the felt. I cut two layers and sewed them to a piece of stiff felt. To make them removable there are just some rare earth magnets sandwiched between the canvas and felt as well as my sleeve and it’s lining.
The wig is an Arda Leia that was curled and then teased to hell and back. The “lightning bolt” bang in the front is just stiff felt with fibers glued on top, then stitched to the front of the wig. Since I was traveling with this costume I did not want to make the wig totally accurate and went with a more natural interpretation. It’s still pretty dumb hair either way.
All 3 of the heart broaches were commissioned from Mechaboy7, thanks!
Photos: Pancake Mix, Cospix