Poison Ivy Cosplay

Written by: thevoid (non-void on Deviant art)

Pictures by: thevoid and Steven Pettigrew

Hey guys,this year for Emerald City Comic Con I chose to cosplay as Poison Ivy because, there was already going to be a million Harley Quinns (especially with suicide squad just coming out.) and; because, Ivy's pretty bad ass. Anyway I am really excited to share my Poison Ivy tutorial! I hope you like it!

Step 1: Materials and Supplies

Here is a list of everything you are going to need

*=being used multiple times

MATERIALS

Body Suit

• McCall's Pattern M7269
• 4 way stretch green fabric*
• 4 way stretch lace*
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• acrylic paint*(green)
• spray glitter*

Bra

• bra
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• paint*
• silver spray glitter*
• rhinestones(red)*

Corset

• corset
• dried moss*
• acrylic paint*(green and red)*
• rhinestones (green)

Man Eating Plant

• thin craft foam*
• large Styrofoam ball
• floral wire*
• garland of ivy*
• spray paint (purple, pink)*
• acrylic paint (white, red)*
• primer*

Baby Man Eating Plants

• thin craft foam*
• small Styrofoam balls
• floral wire*
• spray paint (purple,pink)*
• acrylic paint (white,red)

Garter

• elastic
• 4 way stretch green fabric*
• 4 way stretch lace*
• red rhinestones*
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• silver spray glitter*

Flower Crown

• floral wire*
• dried moss*
• silver spray glitter*
• old jewelry*
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• red rhinestones*
• 4 way stretch lace*

Arm Guard

• foam
• arcrylic paint (brown,green, red, gold,)*
• craft sticks/stir sticks
• small wooden dowels/skewers
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• 4 way stretch lace*
• silver spray glitter*
• old jewelry*
• dried moss*
• rhinestones*
• thread ( brown)
• thick string (gold)
• thin craft foam*
• Velcro

Wig

• wig
• soft hair curlers
• large bowl or bucket (to wash your wig in)
• hair spray
• hair clips
• fake leaves/garlands of ivy*
• silver spray glitter*
• acrylic paint (red,green)*
• comb

Make up

• light green eye shadow
• dark green eye shadow
• light purple eye shadow
• dark purple eye shadow
• medium purple eye shadow
• red lipstick
• red lip stain/gloss
• eyeliner
• mascara
• green powder cake (I used Starblend)
• blending tool
• fake eyelashes
• eyelash glue
• red nail polish

BASIC SUPPLIES

• sewing machine
• hot Glue Gun
• hot glue sticks
• scissors
• pins and needles
• pincushion
• paint brush
• thread
• towels
• cup of water(to clean of your paint brushes and hep thin out paint)
• Styrofoam head or wig stand (optional but recommended)
• dress form (optional but recommended)

EXTRAS

• fishnet stockings
• wedge boots
• wig cap (trust me you want this!)

Step 2: Picking Out Your Pattern

(Skip this step if you have worked with patterns before.)

While, you don't have to use a pattern it is a good idea to get one if, you have little or no experience in working with body suites and four way stretch fabrics. When looking for a sewing pattern, it is best to either grab something similar to what you want your end result to look like or; that is very basic so, it can easily be modified.The second, really important thing to pay attention to when pattern shopping is the sizing on the back of the pattern. If you have never worked with a sewing pattern before, you are going to need to get your body measurements to find out what size you are. This is because, pattern sizing is much more standardized than most commercial clothing sizes.(important side note: if you find yourself between sizes use the larger size because, it's easier to make something smaller than it is to make it bigger). Knowing your measurements, is going to, not only make sure your finished costume actually fits your body but, also let you know how much fabric you need to buy .

Step 3: Choosing Fabric

A really good resource, for helping you choose the right type of fabric is the suggested fabrics list that is located on the back of the pattern in the far left corner. Also, I have heard a lot of other cosplayers say that 4 way stretch fabric is the best choice of fabric to use for a body suit. Four way stretch fabric is any type of fabric that is capable of stretching both vertically and horizontally. The best place to find four way stretch fabric would be either in the performance section of the fabric store or occasionally in the costume section. (Because, Ivy's costume is green I chose green as my main fabric and decided to pair it with a nice black lace fabric to make it more dramatic.)

Step 4: Modifying the Pattern

Before, you start creating your body suit, choose a style from the options available on the pattern.(I chose style A because, like I said before, it's easier to modify a simple pattern.) Once you have your style picked out ,look in the pattern directions for the pattern pieces that match the style you chose.( A list of styles and the pattern pieces that relate to them should be shown on the first page of the instructions.) Now, find the pattern pieces relating to the style you chose and cut them out.(they should have matching letters) Next, you will need to lay your pattern pieces out on your chosen fabric. In most cases your pattern instructions will provide directions on how to properly lay out your pattern pieces to get the most out of your fabric. You don't necessarily have to follow these directions but, they can be useful. If you choose to add lace to the outside of your body suit, you will need to cut your pattern pieces out of the lace fabric as well.(To make sure your main fabric and your lace fabric pieces match up, it might be easier to lay the pieces of solid fabric over your lace fabric and use it as a stencil for cutting the lace.)
After, you have cut out all of your fabric lay the lace fabric pieces over your solid green fabric pieces and; use a basting stitch to attach the to pieces together.(Skip if you don't want to use lace.) Next, continue following the instructions written in your pattern until you have a finished body suit.

After completing all of the pattern instructions grab a measuring tape and use it to find the front center of your neck line. (Or eyeball it if you must.) . Next, cut a deep slit down the center of the neckline roughly to about where you belly button would be.(You may have to try the body suite on and then mark where you need to cut.) To turn the neckline from a simple slit into a plunging V-neck, hem both sides of the slit you just cut; taking in more towards the top of the neckline to create a triangle shape.Now to create an asymmetrical look, cut off one of the legs on the body suit, as well as, one of the sleeves on the opposite side. Next to make sure the body suite looks finished take the 4 way lace fabric and create a new lace sleeve by using the pattern piece that was used to create the sleeves earlier. (This is what I did but, it might save you time to create the lace sleeve while you are working on the body suit pattern.).To create the leg cuff you will need to measure the circumference of your thigh. Then add about an inch to either side of that measurement and cut a long strip of fabric roughly wide enough to reach your mid thigh.Next sew both ends of your fabric strip together. Attach the cuff to your body suite by, flipping your lace cuff inside out and matching up the the raw edge of the leg hole to the raw edge of the cuff. Finally, sew your leg cuff on to your body suit and hem the bottom edge of the cuff to give it a finished look.

Step 5: Decorating the Leaves (Be Warned You Will Need a Lot of These)

If you want to add some extra glitz to the leaves decorating your body suit grab some markers, spray glitter, and paint. (If you want your leaves to have more variety decorate only a few of them and/or mix up how each one is decorated.) First, to darken the steam of the leaves go over the middle of the leaves and some of the veins on the leaves with a black marker. Then, if you would like to add more color or lighten the shade of the leaves add some acrylic paint to them.To keep the leaves looking realistic even after you paint them; dilute some of the acrylic paint with water and start your brush strokes from the center of the leaf so that the center will be darker. (Also, you don't have to paint the entire leaf sometimes just painting the center is enough to get a nice pop of color) Next, to add some shine and get your leaves to stand out from the rest of your costume, use some spray glitter. Finally, start sewing your leaves on to your body suit.(If have any holes or imperfections you can hide them by sewing leaves over them!)

Step 6: Leafey Bra

Unless, you plan on using double stick tape to make sure everything thing stays covered up (or you don't have breasts); your going to need a bra to go with your body suit. While you can make one from scratch, it will be faster and easier to either buy one or, use one you all ready have. (I would suggest getting a push up bra with the maximum amount of padding you can find.) After finding the right bra your going to sew down the leaves you just finished decorating in the previous step until the entire front of the bra is is completely covered with leaves. (If you can avoid sewing leaves on the the sides of the bra, it will ruin the elasticity and you will have to make more modifications.) Finally, add some bling to the bra by hot gluing down some red rhinestones.

Step 7: Corset

Previously, I mentioned that modifying a bra instead of make one from scratch out be a huge time saver;well it is the same case with the corset. If you cannot find a under bust corset you can modify a full bust one by putting your corset on with a bra and marking where the cups of the bra covered by your corset. (A money saving tip I picked up in Home EC class is that you can use an old piece of soap as a marking tool instead of buying a fancy marking pencil.) Next, take your corset off and lay it out flat with the center facing up and try to clean up the markings you just made. It is best to make sure your markings look as symmetrical as possible. (Taking measurements if your unsure can really help with this but, it's not required.) Once you are satisfied with your markings, go a head and cut out the front of your corset. If the top of your corset appears to be somewhat flimsy, you may need to add extra boning around the edges you just cut out. However, if your corset is still fairly stiff like mine was, you can get away with only doing some hemming around the raw edges of your corset.

After finishing any major modifications to your corset, it is time to start embellishing it. First, grab a bottle of green acrylic paint and use it to paint the edges of your corset. So, that it looks like it has green plant stains running up and down the face of it. Next, you can use a hot glue gun to add green rhinestones to the corset giving it a little extra bling.Then you can also use your glue gun, to attach moss on the edges of the the corset; which, will make it look like plants are slowly taking it over. Then to make the moss on your corset really stand use green and red acrylic paint to to highlight and add more detail to the moss.

Step 8: Large Man Eating Plant

My large Man Eating plant was created for me by my dad using floral wire, foam, and Hot glue. In a process similar to how you will create the much smaller man eating plants in the next step. The biggest difference between the large man eating plant and the smaller man eating plant other than size, is that my dad used the hot glue gun to create veins on the back of the foam petals.(An idea I stole from joecooning another Instructables maker.) Then after my dad was finished with the huge flower, I had him attach one of the long garlands of Ivy to the back of it.

(To tie in some of the red colors and add more detail to the costume you can use acrylic paint diluted in water to add some red highlights to the leaves of the garland. )

Step 9: Small Man Eating Plants

To create the small man eating plants, grab some thin craft foam and cut out a circle shape . Then, grab a small Styrofoam ball and a hot glue gun. Use the glue to attach one of the foam circles you just cut out to the middle of the Styrofoam ball. This will become, the middle of your soon to be flower. Next, cut out about twelve small triangles out of foam; these will become the "teeth". After cutting out all the triangles, separate them all out into groups of two and glue each grouping together with some floral wire sandwiched in between. After finishing your "teeth", arrange them in a circle around the center of the flower by, using the floral wire to hold them in place.( If your "teeth" don't stay in place with just the floral wire do not be afraid to hot glue them down.) Next, you need to cut out roughly 16 foam petals and pair them together with floral wire the same way you did earlier with the "teeth". Now, arrange them in a ring around the middle of the flower. After finishing the center of the flower, you need to stick a piece of floral wire into the back of the Styrofoam ball and then; cut out even more petals and use your hot glue gun to to attach them to the all the parts of the Styrofoam that have not yet been covered. Finally all you need to do is paint them. (Remember to use primer to keep the paint from soaking up into the Styrofoam.)

Step 10: Garter

To make the Garter you will need to grab a measuring tape and measure the circumference of you upper thigh. Now, take that measurement and add roughly two inches to it. Next using your new measurement, cut a long strip of four way stretch green fabric. After cutting your green fabric you will also need to, cut a strip of lace fabric that is some what longer then the strip of solid fabric you just cut.Now, line up line the lace up with your green fabric on the out side top edge. Next begin folding the lace over on itself to create a ruffled look. When, you are finished the ends of the lace should match up with the ends of your fabric strip. (For additional help see this awsome Youtube Video I found.) After pining the fabric in place,sew the two peices together using a zig zag stitch. Once the lace has been attached to your green fabric, fold the top half of the green fabric down to about the halfway point and use some pins to secure it in place.Then, flip the garter over and use some more pins to tack down a long peice of lace trim. Next, place the garter under the sewing machine and stich every thing down. Now grab some elastic and, cut in at the same length you measued you thigh at earlier. Then, thread it through the flap on the back of the garter that you just created. (You may have to sew one end down to keep it from moving.) Now, turn the garter inside out, and sew bolth ends together. After finishing up with all the sewing,decorate your garter with rhinestones and leaves to bring out more detail. Finally spray yuor finished gater down with glitter.

Step 11: Flower Crown

(Inspired by Pintrest I decided to give ivy a flower crown.) To create the flower crown take some of the left over floral wire and mold it into a ring that can fit around you head. Next, hot glue some dried moss on the ring you just made until, the wire is no longer visible. Then, grab some left over lace and any broken jewelry you may have laying around the house; to wrap around the your flower crown. Make sure to glue both ends of any lace or jewelry down to keep it in place.Now, use your hot glue gun to add a few rhinestones or any other small details you may want to add. Finally, using your hot glue gun, attach some of the small man eating plants you created earlier to your head piece; creating a true flower crown.

Step 12: Armguard (with Crossbow)

Add a cool prop weapon to Poison Ivy's Costume by using some craft foam to create an arm guard that a crossbow can be attached to. ( I used some really cool craft foam, that looked like tree bark;that I picked up at someones old garage sale but, regular craft foam should also, do the trick.) First, use some brown acrylic paint( I mixed some red paint with my brown to get the brighter color.) to paint your foam. (I also, chose to paint some of the moss on my foam a green color but, if your craft foam didn't come with moss on it skip this step.) Next, you need to take some measurements of your wrist and lower arm.Now, add about two inches to each measurement. You can then, use these measurements to cut out a triangle shape, that can be formed into a guard around your arm. After cutting out the pattern for your arm guard, take your lace fabric from earlier and cut out a slightly larger triangle on it. Next, place the lace triangle over your foam piece and hot glue, the edges of the lace down on the opposite side. Once, the lace held in place grab some Velcro strips and glue them to either side of your arm guard.(One strip of velcro should be attached to the outside of your arm guard and the other should be placed on the inside.) Then, take some moss and glue it down over the lace.Once, you are satisfied with the placement of your moss, use some old jewlrey and rhinstones to further decorate your arm guard.

To create the crossbow for your arm guard check out this tutorial by Von Malegowski.(Skip the bit about makeing the stock.) After finishing the crossbow paint your new wepond gold and add some green streaks using acyrilc paints.When, the paint dries sew your cross bow down to your arm guard and use some hot glue to help hold it in place.To make an arrow for your new crossbow, take some left over craft sticks and glued some small triangles made of craft foam to it. Then, paint your arrow to match the crossbow.

Finally when everything else on the arm guard is finished, spray it down with giltter.

Step 13: Styleing the Wig

For Poison Ivy's signiture red hair get a red wig and use some old fashoned curlers to add a little more body.(This will give the illusion of a thick volumes head of hair.) If you have never worked with old fashioned curlers before, they are spungy round cylinders that sometimes come with clasps. (Sometimes called hair rollers.). You use them by, wetting you wig down (perferably in a bucket so you don't clog the sink) and, seperating out indvidual strands of hair. Which, using the hair curlers to you can wrap the sections of hair from bottem of the section to the top of the wig.Once, you finish with one curler use the clasp to trap the hair in.(Some bobby pins may help to keep the finished hair rollers out of the waywhile you work.) Now just keep doing this repeatedly until you have no more loose hair left.( Also, if your wig has layers be sure to start curling from the shorter hairs at the top of the wig and then slowly work your way down the bottom.) After you finish rolling the curlers into your wig them in over night to dry or speed the process up by breaking out the hair dryer. When your wig dries, use some hair spray to help set the curles before you start unravleling them.

To keep your wig from being to boring create some hair accessories out of fake leaves. You can do this by glueing your leaves down to some hair clips that you can attach to random places on your wig. (You can use some acrylic paint and spray glitter to add some finer details to your leaves before hot glueing them down.)

Step 14: Make Up

(Before you start applying your make up, insert any color contact lenses you plan to use.)

For your make up use some green costume makeup as your base color which you will use to coat your arms, legs,face and any other skin that will show when you where your costume. Next grab some light green eye shadow (or costume make up), to highlight most of your upper face to just below your nose.(Make sure to blend the makeup with a sponge as you apply it) Then to couture your face use a dark green eye shadow and, be especially attentive to blending it into the invisible line running from the middle of your ear to the corners of your mouth.

To give your Poison Ivy costume so extra glamour, take some light purple eye shadow and apply it to your entire eyelid continuing up towards your eyebrows. Next, use another eye shadow that is just a slightly darker shad of purple and apply it to your eyelids on top of the make-up you just applied.Then, apply some really dark purple eye shadow to the outer corners of your eyes. After, applying all the eye shadow, add some black eyeliner around the rim of your eyes.(For extra sex appeal, be sure to wing your eyeliner just a little bit at the outer corner of your eyes.) Once all your eye make up is complete, glue some big fluffy false eyelashes to your eyelids and go over them with some volumizing mascara.

Finally coat your lips with red lip stain and apply some red lipstick over the stain; then put more lip stain over that.

Step 15: Put It All Together

Now, If you haven't already put on your new cosplay and check for any last minute things you might need to fix. Otherwise ta-da your done, enjoy your new cosplay!

Resources & Other Helpful Links:

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Mini-Crossbow-1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdzDjlB8Jgk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbZ377iNRdA&list=PLi2Jnq5AgfrAb_tLUoVZvvfB5jGZSoPvO

https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=contour%20makeup&rs=remove&term_meta[]=contour%7Cautocomplete%7C1&term_meta[]=makeup%7Cautocomplete%7C1&remove_refine=tutorial%7Cautocomplete%7C1

https://www.instructables.com/id/Audrey-II-1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6lAeRNZaNc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0aEUSsBesE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_Ivy_%28comics%29

https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=poison%20ivy&eq=poiso&etslf=NaN&term_meta[]=poison%7Cautocomplete%7C1&term_meta[]=ivy%7Cautocomplete%7C1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaXXYqpVyv0

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=DC+Comics+Poison+Ivy&FORM=IRBPRS&=0

Afterwards: I really enjoyed making this cosplay and I feel like learned a ton along the way but, as always, there are still a couple of things that could have been done better. First, and possibly most problematic,I need to find a way keep my small man eating plants attached to my costume. I'm not entirely sure how to fix this but, I think possibly using longer pieces of floral wire and strong glue might do the trick. Speaking of things that are not staying attached, the leaves I put into Ivy's wig keep falling out. I think I can fix this by, glue the leaves down to bigger hair clips then the small baby ones I used so that the clips can close properly. Also while, I am pretty happy with the overall look of the makeup there is a lot that can be improved on. For example I forgot to apply lotion before apply all my make up and I have heard other cosplayers say that airbrush on liquid make is the better way to go. This is apparently because, less make up is wasted and I imagine the application would probably look much smoother close up. (I normally prefer liquid make up in my every day wear for this reason.) On the subject of make up, since creating this costume I have also, learned about various ways that can be used to seal make-up which is something I should look into in the future. Other than that, there are still a few small goofs I made along the way that I was able to cover up (ie: Buying two way stretch lace instead of four way.) however, I still feel this is probably one of my better cosplays.