Gaara: Wig and Makeup Edition

Almost finished talking about Gaara. Having been our real first cosplays and convention, we picked characters we loved that we physically fit, made sure the characters went together and were pretty easy overall. Gaara and Temari were the best first choices we could've made, and we therefore entered the "my first honest to goodness cosplay was from Naruto" club. XD

Gaara's wig was cheap. Let me say that again. Gaara's wig is a cheap party wig. YES it's taboo in the cosplay world. Do I care? Hell no. If I think I can manage with a cheap party wig, I'm gonna make it happen. Supporting my single hobby as a cosplayer is one thing, endeavoring to fund both mine AND my sister's cosplay hobby is a LOT harder. So I cut corners wherever I can manage as long as I'm not completely sacrificig the quality of the end result.

Here it is, $15, untouched.

"Va Va Vamp"

...not so "va va" out of the package...

At the time, we didn't own a wig head, so we cut/styled it while my bro wore it. Honestly, with this being our first time cutting/styling a wig and a cheap one at that, she cut it too short in some spots and choppy. But in the end, she made it work. My sis really makes magic happen with wigs! After storage and a few wears, the spikes are less prominent and next time she wears it we'll have to livin' it a bit. Really, we'd like to get another Va Va Vamp and re-make it.

For the "love/ai" tattoo, she took a scrap of stencil sheet from her art class and we cut it out, used watercolor in red and tape to hold it in place. Took a lot of hours of cutting and a few tries to get the coloring-in technique down.

For the eyebrows, or rather, lack thereof, you can google different techniques and tricks. She decided to go the gluestick route, which after several tries, REALLY works well. In the pic below, that was the second try, but by the con we had it perfected.

Everything but the wig was already owned. We used Revlon black matte eyeshadow to fill in/set the eyes even though a lot of that is eyeliner.

Ta-Da!

End result:

Total Price: $15

Bam. Gaara's wig and makeup. On a budget.







The Cost of Cosplaying Gaara

This post is about Gaara's outfit, info on the Gourd is in the previous post. His outfit was very easy, but we really focused on the details here.



 Honestly, I don't remember the exact cost of materials, so I'm guesstimating.

The faux leather for his strap cost the most, but we didn't need much. I think it was like 1/4 yard purchased at JoAnn's Fabrics for $16 per yard, so only cost about $4, plus the little surplus we had was used towards something on a future prop. The 6 buckles are not functional, just for looks, and they were 50 cents each in downtown LA, so $3.

The white sash material was $2 at a thrift store, we still have enough to make like 5 sashes if we want... cut out two of the longest strips possible then sewed together and hemmed around entire edges.

The black shirt was in the bottom of my sister's drawer and we used black elastic we had and the leftovers from Temari's butchered fishnets and attached them to the sleeves, making it appear she has on a fishet shirt beneath. $0, oh yeah.

She also owned the sweatpants--used to dance in them but they got small. Perfect for Gaara, who's pants are highwaters anyhow. We just added elastic in the bottom to give it shape. In most references, you'll also see Gaara has pockets. We crafted them from spare black fabric and attached, also bought snaps for $4. They are fuctional.

Leg wraps were spare from my sister's camp kit when she taught how to make splints. We found a tutorial how to properly wrap them, they still come undone. Double-sided tape can be a cosplayer's friend.

The shoes...ugh. I hated making those. If you google, you'll find liz.spain's tutorial for making Naruto sandals---it is by far the best tut out there! Bought flip-flops for $1. Spent about $6 on Duck cloth. A few trials and lots of hot glue later, we have work-able ninja sandals.

I guess I should count this too--the Sand Village Headband was purchased 3 years prior to us making the cosplays for $25 from Hot Topic, cuz we were fangirls and wanted them. The headband was the most expensive piece of the costume! Could have made them, but honestly, the official ones are VERY nice.

I'll go into detail on the wig/makeup in another post, but the total cost was about $15.

Add in the approximate $15-20 making the gourd...
End result:

The black paper umbrella below was an added prop, given to us by a friend who worked a Salvation Army thrift store at the time. She thought we might want it, didn't even know we were on the lookout for one!

Total Price: $75-85

Bam. Gaara cosplay (first pre-skip outfit). On a budget.

Gaara's Gourd

GAARA'S GOURD The gourd. The. Fricken. Gourd. Many cosplayers have attempted it. Quite a few have figured out some decent ways of doing it. But my sis and I were still dissatisfied. And rather unwilling to buy yoga balls or paper mache balloons or use chicken wire as a base then paper mache. Just too much work, and paper mache isn't all that sturdy. After a lot of online research and bouncing ideas off each other, it was our mom that suggested this:

Yep. Decorative pumpkins. It was like $7 for the large one and $5 for the small one at Micheal's craft store during the fall season.

At Micheal's we picked out a "sand" colored acrylic paint for .59cents a bottle and a mustard yellow for the symbols, oh and brown for the cork. We already had black. So we painted a couple coats, made a template for the symbols, traced and painted. The pumpkins are hollow inside, easy to cut, lightweight. We cut the top off the large one and hot glued! The a small piece off the top and inserted a foam "cork". For Temari I'd gotten this red scarf but it was too short for my sash so ta-da! covered the hot glued spot and the elastic strap/harness system (like a backpack) we made so my sis could wear it un-noticed.
Total price: approx $15-20
End result:

Bam. Gaara's Gourd. On a budget.

Getting Started

Getting started... probably the easiest thing to do. Get so excited about a cosplay that you GET STARTED. It's everything after that where the real struggling begins. But don't worry. I'm going to let you in on tricks I've learned, off-the-wall ideas, bargins, steals, thrifting, and all out being a tight-wad with your cosplay budget and STILL get an awesome costume as a result. Oh yeah. Let's do this.