Way back in August of last year I made a brief post about my Nightingale Cosplay from The Elder Scrolls Skyrim. That post can be found here.
The post basically acknowledged that I had made the costume but had no intention of updating on it to this blog. Nearly a year later I have changed my mind and will do a full post documenting the process. Luckily a lot of the process was documented on my Twitter account so it was easy finding these old images!
Nightingale Armour: The Elder Scrolls Skyrim
Before I get started I’d like to say that I followed the lovely Beebichu’s cosplay tutorial for this and that blog post can be found here.
This was the first cosplay I made and it was a really fun experience and what lead me to pressue costume making as some sort of carer because I enjoyed it so much.
Once again Spotlight proves how useless it is and only had brown faux leather available when I wanted black. I think I bought 4 meters of this. As well as 3 meters of black medium weight cotton for the cape. And 1 meter of black vinyl.
I used simplicity 2355 as the base bodice. Pattern A.
As for the cape I used Simplicity 5794. Pattern C.
I started off by making the corset which is the base for the bodice which the scales are sewn into. Because of this costume I now own a walking foot for my sewing machine as a normal foot wouldn’t sew the leather without eating it.
The pattern for the corset was adapted so that the opening was at the back instead of the front. A zipper was then sewn in. No boning was used in the corset as I knew the whole costume would be very close fitting without them and they just weren’t necessary. I don’t have pictures of me wearing the corset but in the above picture you can see it with the scales below it.
The faux leather looked awful when pinned and I was a little concerned but once it was sewn down as you can see in the second picture it flattened out really well with no puckering at all.
It looked just as good when worn! I think the shape and style would have been quite fun to just wear on its own but alas I had a costume to finish.
Next the side scales were sewn on which can vaguely be seen in the left picture but a drew up a reasonably accurate design of what it looked like laid out flat. The collar was also sewn together but not attached to the bodice at this point. Seen in the red on the right.
The collar also needed the Nightingale emblem on it which was patterned on paper and cut from black vinyl. This was sewn on by hand.
The straps attached to the collar were then sewn to the main bodice. The collar is circular as show in the right picture. With the triangular flap that comes down over the bodice and the straps which are sewn to the bodice. The gape between the inner most circle and middle circle is to represent the standing collar which had a hook and eye set at the very top. The gap is represented by the red line which goes through the circular collar and the standing collar. The circular collar clips together with domes.
The ‘skirting’ was made up of three different pentagon shapes which were sewn to a home made belt. Home made because all of the belts in stores were far too think for me to sew the skirting pieces onto unless I hand sewed it. So I bought a belt buckle and used some grommet pliers and made myself a belt.
And finally it was all coming together!
My Bodysuit arrived around this time and couldn’t resist taking some pictures. I also got the mask made. The bodysuit I bought was from RiversEdge Dancewear in “Liquid Leather” which has a small collar too. Unfortunately RiversEdge is now out of business. But I am so very happy with my purchase and will and have used it for many cosplays since purchasing.
This was my first attempt and was made from the black vinyl, which hurt to wear after a while (and made my nose red) so it was later re-made with some black spandex I had laying around.
I finished up the cape as well which I shortened to drape to just below my knee length.
After this my cosplay was complete!!
The brown faux leather was initially painted black with acrylic paint. This was really unsuccessful and the painted chipped or came off when manner-less children pushed past me in the halls at the convention. But after a re-touched it for a shoot last year I “dyed” it black with liquid Kiwi shoe polish.
I recommend doing this rather than painting!!! The faux leather will take it much better than the paint. And it gives it a really nice sheen.
2015 Photo shoot
And I think that has covered everything! If I have missed anything I’m sure Beebichu’s tutorial will fill in any blanks.
That’s it for today’s post, thank you for reading
-Nivera
I then ran a whip stitch along the bottom edge securing the fabric in place. These stitches are to secure the fabrics together but the stitch should not poke through to the top layer. This took me a while to master and I had to check every stitch I made to make sure it didn’t poke through the top layer. I pretty good at it now!
I then sewed down the facing with a basting stitch, this process is repeated with the arm opening facings as well.
Nivera Gilbert 