Making of a Ciri CostumeThe Witcher : Wild Hunt

By

BlueRose Cosplay

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon - what can I possibly say about her? That

we call her Ciri for short, that she was born in 1251, that she has

ashen hair and a scar on her cheek?

All true, and that's the Cirilla I know best, one I first laid eyes on those

many years ago, the one who seemed thoroughly, well, not ordinary,

but certainly not as extraordinary as she in fact is.

For Cirilla is also a highly-skilled witcher, heiress to several thrones,

the last bearer of the Elder Blood, a powerful Source endowed with

exceptional magic talent and the Lady of Time and Space. Her hair

colour and date of birth seem... rather incidental now, don't they?

-- Dandelion (The Witcher 3)

Name: Emma Simo Alias: BlueRose Cosplay

Previous Awards:2015 Christchurch Cosplay Cup – Best Novice2015 Wellington Cosplay Cup – Technical Award

Introduction

My character choice for this cosplay is Ciri from The Witcher 3. The Witcher series of games has been a favourite of mine for some time and elicited no small amount of

excitement and anticipation for the third instalment which was released earlier this year. I began planning a Witcher cosplay in the lead up to release, deciding on a character new to

the game in Witcher 3 but already well established in books and other media. Of all female characters in the Witcher series Ciri is one I am most drawn to largely because of

her open, down-to-earth personality. Arguably one of the most overly powerful characters in the Witcher universe she is nevertheless constantly pitted against circumstances that she cannot overcome alone. Neither helpless nor to proud to accept help when offered, mysterious but not manipulative, her highest ambition is to be able to live a normal life.

Her character is in stark contrast to the glamorous, ambitious, and manipulative sorceresses who make up the bulk of the rest of the Witcher’s female cast and it is this

difference which draws me to cosplay as her.

…Plus, you have to admit the character design is pretty darn cool.

Reference Images

CD Project Red were kind enough to provide a set of reference images as part of a cosplay guide for a Witcher 3 Cosplay Competition they held to promote the game. For full size images the PDF can be found here.

Getting started

Okay so most of these are things I only did partway through. But they are useful techniques that don’t fit into any single category.

Pose Matching:

Make a similar pose with dark clothes and similar shoes and use photoshop to make an overlay of the reference picture on your body.

This turned out to be great for creating patterns with the correct proportions.

Fabric sample sheet:

Eight different colours of leather. Eight!

To keep track of them all I cut out small squares and taped them onto a sheet of paper. As I sourced my leather/vinyl/pleather from a number of different places this sheet was very useful to bring shopping to ensure I got the right colours.

I have never styled a wig before this cosplay so learned a lot doing it. First thing I learnedwas that it is really annoying when the polystyrene wig head does not stay in place.Solution: the stand base from my mannequin, some vinyl scraps for padding and put thethree together to make a wig stand. The chair makes it a nice height. Now to work!

First task was to separate out the different sections of hair for the style. A wispy lowerlayer, the bulk of the hair pulled back to the bun, and from each side sections that arepulled out from he front of the part and join the bun at the top. I also moved the part tothe other side and loosened the hair to drape down close to the left hand eye. Then try onand check everything is in the right place.

Materials

Arda Wigs – Buttercup in SilverWig capWig clips x2White hair tiesLots of bobby pinsHair spray

Tools

ScissorsCombWig stand

Time: ~8 hours

Wig

Reference art

Wig

Next step was to form the bun. First I bought some white hair ties to use instead of theblack ones. Easier to hide. I redid the ponytail and side segments and used a little thread tohold the side segments up. Otherwise they tend to blend into the rest of the hair. It madeforming the bun a little more difficult but is more accurate. At this stage I also pulled somestrands out to hang over the face. The reference art disagrees on whether these arepresent but in this case I have gone with keeping them in, they are easy to tuck away.

The bun is deceptively simple, and a style I have used on my own hair in the past. From aponytail take small sections of hair, coil and pin next to the ponytail. Putting the pins insidethe coils hides them, which is useful as I couldn’t find any white bobby pins. Repeat all theway around and you get a nice big dishevelled bun with no need for extra wefts or rolls orsocks to pad it out. Another try on to check it all fits and mark where to cut the lower layerto.

When cutting the lower layer I made my first set of cuts longer than I had marked, whichwas lucky because the hair sprang up and curled a little at the bottom after cutting. What Ithought would be too long was actually the perfect length.

Finally to curl the face framing strands. Heat resistant wig so I tried a curling iron. Didn’twork. Tried hairspray and a curling iron. Worked wonderfully. Then a good spraying ofhairspray over the whole thing, sew a couple of wig clips into it and it is all done. The wigclips are not currently attached but I plan to do so in the next few weeks.

Materials

Foundation (liquid and powder)BlushRed lipstickConcealerBlack liquid eyeliner

Black mascaraBlack eyeshadowGreen contact lenses*Rigid Collodian/liquid latex*

Time: 2 hours

Makeup

Reference art

I have never even tried to do special effectsmakeup before. But I googled how to doscars and gave it a go. A line of lipstick withliquid foundation on either side. A bit ofblush to add a little colour around it and alittle of black eyeliner pen to add depth.Also a touch of white eye shadow forhighlights. Repeat and adjust for a whileand I am fairly happy with my trial run.

For the eyes I spread black liquid eyelinerover he entire lid and then blended it outwith black and brown eye shadow andsmudged downwards from the bottom ofthe eye.

There are a few things I have yet to do onthe makeup side of things but plan to do onthe day. I will shape my eyebrows anddarken them, I will add some green contactlenses, and I also plan to look into ways todeepen the scars, probably using RigidCollodian or liquid latex.

Materials

Shirt:Calico or sturdy undyed cotton – 1.5mDark cream satin – less than 20cmOff white threadOff white satin cord – less than 1m10mm pearl beads – x2Small shirt buttons – x4Plain white bra

Armbands:Mid-dark brown leather for armbands3cm Gold buckles and keepers x2 (or spray paint some)Brown upholstery thread

Roll of craft paper and shirt for patterning

Time: ~20 hours

Shirt and Armbands

Reference art

In making the shirt I was able to reuse a pattern I had created for a previous cosplay. Thishad originally been made by copying the body pattern of a shirt and refining to fit throughseveral iterations of mock-ups. Because it is for a fitted shirt and Ciri’s shirt is loose andunfitted I ignored the darts and straightened the side seams. I also created sleeve patternsfrom the same shirt. My first mock-up fit well in the body but the sleeves were to tight so Iadded sleeve width when I remade it.

I spent time on making the sleeve cuffs neat, seams are hidden inside the cuff and allother seams are overlocked to prevent fraying and give a nicer finish.

Shirt

Once I had made the basic shirt I used chalk to mark out the neckline and the location ofthe satin stripe. Because the stripe was higher on the front than the back I cut a curvedstrip of fabric rather than a straight one to fit the shirt better. Unfortunately I did not payclose enough attention to the lines on the shirt when sewing it on and ended up with astripe that was badly misaligned at the front. I unstitched this and adjusted it so the stripemeets at the same height from both sides.

The collar was a satin inner layer with a cotton outer layer which narrowed to a point atthe front. This was made from a rectangular pattern so that it stands up over theshoulders.

After this the shirt could have been considered complete but I was not very happy with it.The neckline was just wrong and the stripe didn’t look right either. Also the colour of thesatin actually looked lighter than the rest of the shirt, which is not the case in any of thereference images. At this point I couldn’t visualise how to fix the things I was unhappy withso I shelved it for a while.

It wasn’t until some time later when I did my pose matching exercise that I was able to seewhy the shirt didn’t fit well. I also noticed that the collar did not end in points as I had firstthought but instead had square ends that folded outwards.

Shirt and Armbands

After the shirt the armbands were simple. Two rectangles sewn together to make a band.There is no topstitching shown on the armbands in the reference so I did not add any,instead I used contact adhesive to turn over the raw edges neatly. The straps aretopstitched and fasten with gold/brass coloured buckles and a rectangle keeper. I wasunable to find golden buckles or keepers so instead I spray painted some plain ones. Thestraps are attached to the bands with a line of stitching along the band’s seam, which isout of sight beneath the arms.

At this point I was able to revisit the shirt and fixthe things I was unhappy with. I changed the collarto the more accurate square edged one, enhancedthe scoop of the neck to make it less V-necked andswapped out the satin stripe for a darker creamone. Here is a point where reference art contradictsitself, how dark the stripe should be compared tothe shirt differs between pictures, I chose a darkerone because it is more striking and found a straightstripe sewn on looks just as good as the curvedone. All fairly small changes but they make a bigdifference.Then the finishing touches were to attach the pearltipped tie, and add some buttons to the cuffs. I alsoadded a single fastening button halfway down thefront to hold the shirt closed while I lace the corset.

Materials

Black or dark brown lining - 3mMid-dark brown leather hideBrown upholstery threadFlat steel boning 6mm x 5mSpiral steel boning 5.5mm x3m6mm bone tips x3 dozen3m Dark brown bias bindingGold grommets 3-4 dozen (need just over 2

dozen)Gold decorative studs x8Press studs x4-6*Craft foam x1 a2 sheet

Roll of craft paper and masking tape for patterning

Time: ~50 hours

Corset

Reference art

The corset pattern was created first by covering myself first in cling film then masking tapeand drawing on the lines of the corset based on the seam lines in the reference art. Ifolded this pattern in half, cut it into the separate pieces and traced them out onto craftpaper, adding seam allowances and a little ease around the bottom. No seam allowanceson the outermost edges as those will be finished with bias tape.

Corset

Next I made two mockups from lining material, refining the shape as I went. Thefinal mockup was tested with boning sewn into it and then cut up and traced forthe final corset pattern.

From the final pattern I first created the lining layer as another semi-mockup – i.e.something I could easily replace if it turned out wrong. I inserted lined and biastape-bound leather flaps into the lining to hide the corset lacing. It was a littleloose but I was able to take in the seams a little and did so for the leather outerlayer as well.

I basted the layers together down the seam lines, finding that trying to place handstitches exactly through the seams was very time consuming, then sewed channelsfor the boning on either side of the seams. The basting proved very much worththe time invested as it ensured the channels were an even distance from thecentre seam both the inside and out.

I then inserted the boning. Flat steel for the front and back bones, spiral steel forthe sides. There are two bones for each seam but only a single one around thehalf-circle curves of the hips. I planned to use flat steel for the side seams too butwhen I tested the boning in the mockup I found it flattened out my silhouettewhereas the more flexible spiral steel enhanced it (see upper right image).

I added bias binding to finish the edges and some brass studs and grommets forlacing. I later added a second row of grommets to allow me to lace it tighter than thefirst allowed. I tried it on and found it fit comfortably but did have a few issues withwrinkling and gaping at the bottom.

To solve this I took the corset in at the back, unpicking the seams and re-stitchingthem by hand, and added some inserts made out of craft foam to providemultidirectional tension and smooth out the wrinkles. These craft foam inserts arehand stitched into the lining of the corset as shown below, also very time consumingbut as you can see in the bottom left photo they make a difference. The left hand sideis without the inserts, the right hand side does have them.

Other than finishing the inserts I plan to add some press stud clasps into the front ofthe corset to hold the edges flat together over the lacing. I also intend to weather itwith black and yellow acrylics and shoe polish.

Materials

Dark brown pleather – less than 0.5mTan leather – small amount for cuffsBrown upholstery thread10mm turquoise bias binding – 1m2cm gold buckles and keepers – x2 of each

Roll of craft paper and fitted gloves for patterning

Time: ~15 hours

Gloves

The glove pattern was reverseengineered from a pair of leathergloves, and a sleeve part added beforecutting it out. The gloves were entirelyhand stitched using a tiny blanket stitchand upholstery thread. Sewing thethumb piece on was a puzzle andrequired some thought to get my headaround how it attached so I have showna step by step for this part here.

After sewing the thumb in I sewed eachpair of fourchettes (the long thin piecesthat go between the fingers) togetherand sewed them onto the finger pieces.Attaching the fourchettes to the fingerswas a little tricky to get the line wherethe two fourchettes joined exactly atthe web of the fingers. To obtain this Isewed them on in stages starting eachstage at the web of the fingers andsewing out towards the points. I alsoneeded to stretch as I sewed to get allpieces to fit together.

Gloves

After that it was just a much simpler matter of sewingthe outside same and the bases for the gloves weredone. Luckily I had ensured I had the correct (kitty)supervision while sewing the gloves together and theyfit fine.

The final touches were to add the cuffs. I trialled severalpaper patterns until I was happy enough to cut out theleather. I was able to use a sewing machine for sewingthe cuffs together and attaching the turquoise biasbinding, as well as for making the buckled straps, but Ihand stitched the cuffs to the glove bases, hand stitchedthe strap on, and finally hand stitched the bias bindingdown on the inside to avoid seam lines on the outside.

The glove sleeves are longer than my forearms so thatwhen I put them on they wrinkle along their length as inthe reference art. The cuffs fit very tightly to my upperforearms just below the elbow and I have had noproblems with gloves falling down.

These were one of the first parts of the costume that Ifully completed and I am very proud of how they turnedout.

Materials

Dark brown stretch pleather – 1.5mDark brown upholstery thread – 1 spool10cm metal toothed zipJeans button – x1

10mm aged bronze studs - ~60

Roll of craft paper and skinny jeans for patterning

Time: ~20 hours

Trousers

I created a pattern for the trousers based of a pair of jeans. I took my time doing this making sure I had everything I could marked out correctly, and all the pieces would work as I imagined them to. This took the better part of a day from start to finish, but the result was a good pattern that I can reuse for future cosplays.

I also added seam lines from the reference art by measuring approximately halfway between the inside and outside seams and using the knees of my jeans as a reference of my knee level. I had to think twice about the seams over the seat and take into account the lack of an inside seam here to get it nicely centred.

I didn’t make a mockup of these because I didn’t have a suitable stretch fabric, but luckily they fit fairly well the first time. The only problem was being a bit loose around the knees which was easily fixed by taking in the side seams.

Reference art

Trousers

Mistakes Were Made!

For the gold studs the soft leg studs are the correct type to use, rather than two piece rivets. I found the rivets are for thicker leather and would not set properly in thin pleather. After I had sewn the trousers together I realised the rivets would not do. When I went through pulling them out to replace with studs there was only one which did not come out easily when pulled. Rivets would not have lasted a day at a con. The studs will. It turns out replacing studs down the legs of skinny trousers once they are already sewn together is fiddly and boring work; so next time I will get that right first try!

After I thought I had finished the trousers I found there was still a lot of wrinkling especially at the back and around the knees. It was a bit more difficult to take the trousers in again as the studs were already in place but I did manage to do so enough to improve them. Ciri’s trousers are not perfectly skintight, they do wrinkle a little, and I did my best at getting as close a fit as I could.

At the moment I am still having issues with the waistband. It is not quite tight enough to hold the trousers up properly, especially when I sit down and the material which has no vertical stretch isn’t helping. Before Armageddon I will add some belt loops and use a belt to ensure it stays up and looks its best.

Materials

Tan leather – one second hand leather jacketBoot bases – an old pair of ankle boots with thick heelLight brown upholstery thread

Black lining – 0.5m2cm gold buckles and keepers – x2 of eachContact Adhesive (ADOS)

Craft paper for patterning

Time: ~15 hours

Boots

The pattern for the boots was somewhat constrained by the material I had. As I used a leather jacket I had to place the existing seams in unobtrusive places. I used double sided tape to tape the tallest panels to the boot bases where the seam would be hidden by the strap around the ankle and drew the bottom edge on with chalk. The upper part was essentially as big as I could make it, with the front panels coming to more of a point than the back ones.

I added leather facings and black lining on the upright parts and sewed front and back uprights together. I then cut out pieces for the toe and heel coverings and turned over the top edges and topstitched along the fold.The straps were simple strips with edges turned over and topstitched, I had to sew several pieces together for these but placed the seams in unobtrusive places near the insides of the legs These were sewn into the upright panels at the inside ankle.The sole of the boot bases is peeled away to allow me to hide the raw edges underneath.

I also added buckles to the upright parts of the boots and punched holes into the straps.

To prevent wrinkling as I glued the toe pieces onto the base boots I shaped the leatherfirst by soaking it in water and stretching it over the base boot and allowing it to dry on thebase. Then it was a simple matter of carefully gluing the separate pieces onto the bootbases with contact adhesive. I attached the uprights first, then the heels and finally thetoe, applying contact adhesive to the bases in stages and going slowly making sure I has afew wrinkles as possible. I tucked the raw edges under the sole where I could and gluedthe sole back down. Where I couldn’t peel the sole off (under the heel) I trimmed theedges with a sharp craft knife.

During my first full costume rehearsal I found that the boot strap tends to pull the upperedge of the boots around, twisting the flaps to the side. This is something I plan to find away to prevent before Armageddon, but if all else fails I have no doubt a bit of doublesided tape on the inside will prevent it happening.

Boots

Belts and Decorations

Reference art

Materials

Burgundy vinyl ~0.5mReddish brown leather Scraps of dark brown leather

Brass Jeans buttonSmall buckleUpholstery thread (burgundy and brown)

Time: ~8 hours

The belts pouches for this costume were reasonably simple compared to the rest of it. Forthe back pouch I created a pattern but drawing the shape onto craft paper, holding it up tocheck proportions and tracing it onto craft paper opened up with seam allowances. Thefront pouch was simply created by measuring the dimensions against myself and creatinghe patterns from basic rectangles and triangles.

Both pouches are fully lined, the back pouch has leather cord sewn into the front alongthe bottom edge (not shown) and the back pouch has topstitching along the belt loop.The button on the back pouch is purely decorative (in fact I chose one with a patternrather than plain as I felt it fit the look better) and the pouch is fastened with the leatherthong on the front.

Materials

Plaster of ParisPewter

Time: ~16 hours

The cat medallion was the first part of Ciri’s costume I made and was completedbefore the game even launched. I decided I wanted to pewter cast it using a similartechnique to another medallion I had made for my husband. I created the mold bypouring Plaster of Paris into a plastic cup then carving out the medallion shape. Thistook a while as I found I always needed to go deeper. It is hard to judge the shapefrom the recess so I periodically pressed blue-tack into the recess to give a copy ofthe medallion. I also carved in a line for a piece of wire to form a hanging loop.

Once I was happy with the mould I added the wire for the hoop, topped it with apiece of plywood that had a hold drilled into it and filled it with pewter that hadbeen melted over a camp stove. I then used wire cutters, several small files,sandpaper and finally steel wool plus a lot of elbow grease to smooth out the castover a several hours.

Ciri’s lower belt is very basic, Isimply bought a belt of a similarcolour, used knead it to adjustthe shape of the buckle, spraypainted the buckle and end gold,and drew the pattern on with asharpie marker. If I can find aproper buckle I will use it insteadbut so far I haven’t been able to.

Materials

Very dark brown beltKnead-itShiny gold spray paintSharpie

Time: ~1hour

Belts and Decorations

Materials

Fimo – x8 56g packets10mm plastic turquiose dome gems – x1160cm wide black elastic2 sets of black hook and eyesBlack acrylic paint

Silver Acrylic paintBlack FeltLeather scraps

Time: ~25 hours

For making Ciri’s silver belt I used my tried and true method of sculpting the links fromFimo. I did some trials with this material in my last cosplay and loved it because of it’sstrength and flexibility. It is however a pain to paint, though this time around I did noteven need to try using solvent based paints and went straight for acrylics. I did two tothree layers of black undercoat then dry-brushed silver over top to give a slightlyweathered look. I then sealed it with a gloss finish mod-podge.

I initially used two thin leather strips glued to either side of the back as belt loops andthreaded through a length of wide elastic to hold the belt pieces but I was unhappy withthe messy look. Instead I swapped them out for a felt backing and a single wide leatherloop which just looks more professional. It’s not a visible part of the costume but I likeeverything to look tidy both inside and out.

Silver belt

Materials

Fimo – x4 56g packetsSculpey – 6 56g packetsBlack acrylic paintSilver Acrylic paintWhite Acrylic paint (for weathering)Balsa dowel (~20mm thick, 20cm long)ChopstickEva Foam (5mm and 2mm thick)

Light tan leatherBrown leatherVery pale tan vinylRed VinylDressed Pine (10mm x 40mm)Balsa 2x 15x80mm lengths for scabbard

Time: ~35 hours

Weapons

Reference art

The dagger details were sculpted from Fimo onto a balsawood dowel handle. Into this I inserted a chopstick whichreinforced the blade which was made from EVA foam. Isealed everything with several layers of impasto filler –basically thick PVA, and painted them using black and silveracrylics.

I used contact adhesive to glue leather to the handle, andcreated a sheath from craft foam, covered in leather handstitched on along one side.

The sword was created from a length of pine, edged withcraft foam. This was made entirely using hand tools as I donot have a jigsaw or dremel. I made the cutout using acoping saw, drilling the starting hole with my pocket knife.Everything else was carved using a craft knife.

I sculpted the details for the sword handle from Sculpey as Ihad ran out of Fimo and found that although it was a lotsofter and easier to work with it was nowhere near asstrong. I ended up breaking the crossguard when trying toattach the sword handle to the blade and remade it out ofFimo.

I also used Fimo to sculpt the sheath caps for the sword anddagger. Sculpey was fine for the handle and chunky detailsbecause they don’t have weak points (the handle isreinforced with a pine dowel).

The scabbard was sculpted from two lengths of balsa woodglued together. I was originally going to hollow out thecentres of both pieces of balsa but after spending 4+ hourson only one side I gave up and glued thin strips of balsabetween the two pieces to make a gap for the sword. Later Ifound I had made it too tight so I needed to take it apart andcut away a hollow in the other side anyway but it didn’t takeas long as it did not need to be so deep.

For the scabbard I cut a length of Red vinyl, drew the circlepatterns onto it with a brown sharpie and stitched overthem. This took a long time and almost had me feeling quitedizzy by the end. Finally I glued it onto the scabbard,attached straps, caps, and a sword belt made from leatherand used acrylics to weather the vinyl.

The sword belt used silver fittings as per the reference artand I added a pair of D-rings underneath the buckle whichfasten to a strap on the inside of the corset to hold the belt inplace even with the weight of the sword hanging from it.

Weapons

Final Result

So here is the completed costume. It is comfortable (although thecorset restricts movement somewhat) and everything feels securewhen wearing it. I am quite happy to give my cosplay helper a cuddlewithout worrying about things breaking if he wriggles.