Introduction: How to Make a Costume Plan

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About: Hello, my name is Scott and I'm glad you came by for a visit. I've been making costumes and props as a hobby for several years now; mostly costumes for my kid. I am here to share what I have learned along the …

"The journey of a thousands miles begins with one step" Lao Tzu.

This Chinese proverb certainly applies to costume making. If you are anything like me the moment you decide to make a costume you start to get really excited. Your brain begins to swim with all sorts of ideas. And then reality sets in. How am I going to pull this off?!

In this Instructable I'm not going to show you how to make your costume but, how to make the plan to create your costume. Here, you're going to learn how to answer these questions:

  • How long is it going to take?
  • How good will it be?
  • How much is it going to cost?

There will be many trade-offs but, to keep things simple I like to think in terms of Time, Quality and, Cost.

Time - What is your Time Frame?

  • Are you trying to pull this together in a couple of weeks, a couple months or, maybe next years CON? Be honest with yourself and then add at least 20%. 
  • Are there new skills you will need to learn and do you have enough time to learn and apply the skill? Once again be honest with yourself and give yourself a little extra time.
  • Do you have enough time to have delivered anything you need to order? Keep shipping and handling times in mind. I've ordered from overseas and usually estimate 4-6 weeks for delivery. If you are my age you will remember having to wait weeks for your order.
  • Do you have a pattern you can follow or are you making this completely from scratch?

Quality - How Detailed do you want your Costume?

  • Are you trying to join a costume club like the 501st? If so, you will need to follow their specific requirements very closely for acceptance.

Cost- How much are you willing to spend?

  • Up front you need to be honest about how much you can afford to spend on your project. Once again padding is advised. I always find that no matter how well I budget there are those incidentals that need to be covered.

As you go through the planning of your costume keep Time, Quality and, Cost in mind to help you decide where you can cut corners.

Supplies

These are the apps we are going to use to make our plan:

  • Pinterest
  • OneNote

For the sake of this Instructable I will be using Pinterest to find and organize reference photos and OneNote to organize and plan the project.

The first reason I like these apps is that they are free to use. Secondly, Pinterest and OneNote have apps for mobile devices, and with the cloud, it makes it great for those Eureka! moments you get when your are out-and-about.   

If you haven't used Pinterest or OneNote you will need to become familiar with them before using this Instructable

Step 1: Picking Your Character, Did You Consider?

The first step in creating any cosplay is deciding on what character you want to create. It is really fun to brainstorm about all the great costumes you could make but, there are some things to consider when making your choice. Remember to keep Time, Quality, Money in mind.

Here are some considerations to keep in mind when picking your character.

Where will You be wearing your costume?

Whether it's for trick-or-treating or walking the halls of a CON you need to consider where you will be wearing your costume. If you are going to a CON hosted in a convention center there are arguably many more choices for a costume. They keep those places like freezers. Some costumes, like a Storm Trooper, will have you completely covered from head to toe. This is fine in a climate controlled environment; not for the summer heat. 

Will it be crowded?

If you have a large costume you might have a hard time judging how close you are to someone or something. Worse yet, maybe you can't even fit through the door. Costumes with mask or helmets can greatly reduce your vision making navigating crowds even more difficult. You may need to consider a handler if your costume is hard to move around.

How will I get there?

If your plan is to travel around to conventions showing off all your hard work you will need to consider transport. A full size Hulk Buster costume is not going to fit in the overhead too well. This is one of those things that could impact your budget and timing. It could be as simple as having to pay to check another bag or maybe you need to have the costume shipped to your final destination. Both could impact your budget and the amount of time you will need.

Are your props prohibited?

Most CONs don't allow realistic looking weapons into the venue. If this is a major component of the character you might want to reconsider.

How are you going to pose? 

Seriously, you should keep this in mind. Inevitably you will be stopped and asked to pose for a picture. Having an idea of how you will pose for pictures can be really helpful in the design of your costume and selection of your materials. For example, if you plan on squatting down you'll want to make sure your costume has enough give that you don't rip a hole in the seat of your pants. Voice of experience here.

How will you drink?

You'll get thirsty walking around and posing for all those pictures and eventually, you will want a drink. For those of us that like to wear buckets on our heads a straw is your best friend. Some of the bigger more elaborate costumes may require a handler to help keep you hydrated. You may want to consider integrating a hydration bladder into your costume.

And yes, how will you use the restroom? 

This might not be a big deal if you are going as Harry Potter but, if you have armor to remove or worse yet a costume that requires a handler its imperative that you figure out how you are going to relieve yourself.  

These are the things I always consider but, there are certainly more things that could be considered.

Step 2: Organizing With Pinterest

Pinterest is a great resource for researching your costume and is the first place I go to begin my character research. There are many different ways to organize the reference photos you find onPinterest with Boards and Sections. Here is how I organize my Pins. 

I have one board called Cosplay I use for saving all of my reference photos. This board is my catch all for anything related to making costumes. It's a great place to save those random pics you find when researching a specific character.  Trying to keep track of all those great pics quickly becomes overwhelming. This is where the concept of a Section comes into play. 

I begin each project by creating a new section on my Cosplay board for the costume I'll be creating. Having a section for each character makes it easy to curate your research for your specific costume. Give the section a meaningful name. 

The way I organize my Pins may not work for you and that's OK. We all see the world a little differently, so use what works for you.  The point here is to gather and organize your reference pics in a way that make sense to you.

Step 3: Pick Some Pics!

Now that you have your board created it's time to start having some fun and search all the great photos already on Pinterest. It's important to get high quality images. Your going to want to zoom in to see all those small details that will help to make a high quality costume.  There are certain things to look for when searching for photos. They are: 

  • Full Body - Front 
  • Full Body - Left and Right 
  • Full Body - Back  

Additionally, if your character has a special accessory try to find pictures of just that. Often times you will find that someone has already created the piece and are offering it for sale. If you don't have the time or ability to make that piece you might find it better to buy one already made. Don't forget about Time, Quality, Cost.

You don't need to just search on Pinterest. Most browsers have a Pinterest plugin that makes pinning from a browser very easy. Remember, it's about what works best for your creative process. 

Step 4: Planning With OneNote

Up till now it's been all fun and games looking a pics and dreaming about how cool your costume will be when you finish but, where to begin? This is where OneNote comes into play.

With OneNote you will create pages to capture the things you learn while putting together your plan. Using OneNote for visual note taking is sometimes referred to as sketchnoting. For example, you could move a pic of an accessory for your costume from Pinterest over to OneNote and write a quick note next to it to call out the size or maybe the color of the piece. You can even edit pics directly in OneNote. This is great if you want to isolate a piece visually.

Here are the sections I like to start with:

  • Overview
  • Reference Pics
  • Costume Pieces
  • Shopping List
  • Scratch Paper

The Overview section is where you would record things that you need to consider, the amount of time you have to complete the costume, your budget, etc..

The Reference Pics section is for organizing the pics you will be using. It may seem like your repeating what you did on Pinterest but, by copying and pasting only the pics needed for my project you can:

  • Keep from getting distracted on Pinterest.
  • Save zoomed/cropped pics.
  • Organize reference pics by component
  • Write notes next to the pics like

The Costume Pieces section is where you will list of all the pieces that make up your character. You might not make every one of these pieces but, it will help you decide what pieces you need to make and which ones you don't.

The Shopping List section is just what it sounds like. This is an opportunity to review your list of costume pieces and decide what and how much material you will need to buy.

The Scratch Paper section is a place to record random thoughts you might have while working on the project.

Feel free to remove sections and add new ones of your own. This is merely a template to get you going.

Now that you have OneNote setup it's time to start identifying the parts that will make up the costume by breaking the work down into manageable chunks.

Step 5: Break It Down Now!

With all those reference photos it time to break things down. How far you break things down will depend on what works for you. Be careful not to overthink this step, you don't want to organize to the point you can't find anything. Watch out for analysis paralysis.

Look at the reference photos you have collected and begin to identify the individual parts that make up your costume. Take several passes looking for those little details that will make your costume pop. I use these 6 categories to begin identifying what parts make up my character's costume:

  1. Hats/Wig/Helmet
  2. Mask/Makeup
  3. Top
  4. Bottom
  5. Shoes/Boots
  6. Accessories

Take an Obi Wan Kenobi costume for example:

  1. Brown hair
  2. No mask
  3. Tunic, belt, belt buckle
  4. Tan pants
  5. Brown boots
  6. Lightsaber, food capsule, pouches

Based off these 6 categories we have been able to identify at least 9 pieces we may need to put together for our Obi Wan costume. There may be other parts but, this is a good enough start to write down on the Costume Pieces page.

You can write your list in free form text, a list or even a table, it's all up to you. This list may shrink or even expand as you work through these steps. The point here is to use the Costume Pieces page as the place you write down all the parts that you will need for your particular costume.

Take several passes over your list taking notes along the way. Keep things like the following in mind;

  • What materials you need?
  • What size do you need?
  • Where to buy what you need?
  • What color(s) are included in the piece?

These notes will aid you as in putting together the plan.

Step 6: Ranking the Pieces

With an idea of what pieces make up your costume you can now rank them in order of necessity.

For example, let's use our Obi Wan Kenobi costume:

  1. Brown hair
  2. No mask
  3. Tunic, belt, belt buckle
  4. Tan pants
  5. Brown boots
  6. Lightsaber, food capsule, pouches

Start going through the list and answer these questions for each piece.

Do I really need this piece?

Ranking helps to get an idea of what pieces to include in our final list. I like to use the following scale:

  1. Needed
  2. Nice to Have
  3. Not Needed

Can I make this piece?

Here you will need to be honest with yourself about your abilities.

Can I afford this piece?

Does my budget allow for the materials to make the piece or to buy one already finished.

Is there time?

You will need to consider if there is enough time to gather the materials you need and to make the piece. If you decide to purchase a piece already made you will want to consider shipping and handling times. If you wait too long you might have to pay a higher shipping rate to get your order on time.

Step 7: Make a Shopping List

By now you have figured out what pieces you are going to need to make your costume and what you will need to purchase. If you have a tight deadline the sooner you get here the better. You'll have much more flexibility with your Time, Quality, Cost.

As you put together your list keep things like this in mind:

  • Do I already have something that will work?
  • Can I buy in bulk?
  • Are there coupons or promo codes I can use?
  • How long will it take to arrive?
  • Do I need to make trade-offs with quality?

Visit me an Etsy, I may have the piece you are looking for.

Step 8: Conclusion

Using this instructable as a guide should help you get a handle on how long and how much it will take you to make a quality costume. You should repeat the steps as many times as necessary to get your plan together. I can't wait to see your costumes!