Construction Details:

My favorite part of this is the vest and it took the most work of the pieces. The orange parts were appliqued on with gold rayon thread but the stitching blended into the brocade so I handstitched gold trim over the edges to make it more visible. And I made my own frog button from purple brocade to match the shape of the one in the reference.

I made the shirt from a Chinese top pattern that I modified to have bell sleeves. I made a simple pair of poofy pants with an elastic waistband and elastic casings in the legs to create the ruffles at the hem. The yellow piece was a curved piece of yellow fabric I hemmed and gathered into a waistband that closes with a button and buttonhole. The sash was made with pleated fabric and pink ribbons sewn over it. It closes at one side with a couple of buttons and buttonholes and the red cords were tacked to the sash by hand.

I made the earrings to match the reference as closely as I could. For the bangles, I cut open a couple of metal bangles, painted them green with nail polish, and glued wooden beads painted with nail polish onto them to hide the break. The feather was painted to match the reference and I used cord to make a bow to attach it to the bangle.

The designs on the boots were painted with Lumiere fabric paint.

The hair is actually my real hair with a lot of little bits added in and I improved on it a lot after I first wore the costume at Anime Boston. The bangs are a set of the long clip-in bangs from Arda Wigs that I cut with a razor comb. The high ponytail is my real hair, held up with help from one of those donut-shaped hair forms intended for making buns; there’s a set of the short bangs from Arda Wigs added in for the shorter pieces at the top of the ponytail and the cream-colored wrap hides where everything is pinned together. There are also a couple of thin red cords with little crystals attached to the ends tied around the base of the ponytail. I got a clip-in ponytail in an attempt to have more accurate length hair (Ryuuren’s hair seems to grow a foot in the few months he doesn’t appear since it’s in a high ponytail and past his waist when he wears this outfit! >_>) but it tangled like crazy and I decided I was better off just using my own waist length hair.

Personal Thoughts:

Ryuuren’s costumes are fun since they’re so rainbowy and I wanted to make a second one for cherry blossom season. I picked the outfit he wears at the end of the second season and was amused that I got to wear pretty dangly earrings as a guy character. XD

Thanks to my friends who cosplayed this with me! Neoangelwink was Shuurei and Emi was Eigetsu. Athena was Ryuuki for the cherry blossom photos but couldn’t join us for the group at AnimeNext so she asked a friend to wear the costume with us.

Sorry, you must be a registered user of and logged in to view and add comments. Either log in or register now!