Cosplay WIP/Tutorial – Prepping for Wondercon 2013

Update on my latest cosplays! I’ve been spending majority of my time finishing up Nathan Drake’s holster and was finally able to make some progress since my buckles finally came in. I had a couple of failed attempts buying all the buckles and hardware due to size issues, but eventually got most of my stuff from buckeguy.com. I spent most of the weekend doing leather work and can see why people are really into the art of leather crafting. It’s takes a lot of patience, labor, and it’s a bit rough on the hands, but can be so rewarding. Dying, prepping, finishing the leather, punching all those holes, and hammering all those rivets got pretty tiring, but I was pretty happy with all the progress I made compared to my last update. Here are some pics!

Pieces of leather after they were water stained a few times and finished.

Adding the hardware – these are berry conchos. I’m really not sure who came up with that term or why they are even called that!

The gun holster was moulded using water and dried for a few days. Then it was stained and finished.

Added some loops to attach it to the shoulder holster. The gun holster still needs some sewing/trimming.

The other side of the shoulder holster is a small pouch. This was such a pain to sew since a normal sewing machine, even with a leather needle, will still be difficult to use. Also, it’s really hard to keep the stitches straight so don’t look too closely! I ended up having to hand sew a lot of it and stabbed myself way too many times (hence the bandaid!). I decided to sew this first and dye it afterwards so that I could also dye the threads.

And finally, staining it!