Construction Details:

So! Bead harness is made with clear elastic beading cord. I tried making it out of Tiger Tail and clasps, but that shit does not like to handle normal human movements. It all broke a few hours into wear. The white beads are heishi shell beads, the brown beads are some sort of organic beading from Hobby Lobby. For the colored beads, I just strung up a bunch and then spray painted them. EASY.
So, being absolutely INSANE, I counted every goddamn bead on Vanille's in-game model and strung them that way. All the other beads where either hand sculpted/carved or they were just the run-of-the-mill wooden beads that got painted to match the colored heishi beads.
The bracelets were a nice find from Oriental Trading company. I ordered two packs and was able to get the right amount per arm, with the right colorings as well. The white bracelets were just white vinyl I turned into snap-on bracelets.
Earrings are faux tapers that I painted a gun metal grey color.
The top was a modified halter top pattern fit around a bra.
The skirt was airbrushed with yellow to give it that cool gradient.
The belt and back piece to the harness (the piped looking stuff) were both tan cording cut down and glued to faux leather. The plackets on the belt are styrene and hotglue beads and the gem pieces were just hand sculpted and painted. The back piece also got a nice fringe of matching beading (using the same crazy attention to detail).
The GLORIOUS BUTTCAPE! That was made using Sushi-Monster's description of doing so. :) Sooooo much nicer than my orignal "Oh I have just ONE YARD of bear fur! Hurrduurrr!"
Boots were an ebay purchase and then the fur came from Joann and velcro'd on.
The necklaces! Oooh these were so fun! :D
Most people I saw use Model Magic. Cool. BUT NOT NATURAL LOOKING. So, back to those HD arts and they look like stained wooden/wicker basket weave.
I found a cheap basket with reeds the same thickness as the necklaces, soaked it for about a week til the reeds were nice and pliable. I then cut them down to size and let them dry in 6"/8"/9" cake pans per layer (I went to school for baking, so I got this shit LOL). After a few days of letting those dry out, I stained them with two different colors of wood stain, sealed them with varnish and then took Model Magic and boondoggle to decorate each one as they needed.
MAGICAL, RIGHT?!?

Personal Thoughts:

I don't care what anyone says, I think Vanille is pure adorbs.
Yeah, her voice was grating, but otherwise her character is sweet and fun and her design was too cute to pass up.
AND OH MY GOD. Let me tell you about how AMAZING those HD arts Squenix put out were.
Like, "Oh my! What are those necklaces made of?/Goodness me! Those bead have TEXTURE?/Hotdiggitydamn, I can see fibers of the fabric!"
Yeah. The HD art helped immensely. Not to mention the fact that my husband had a HD projector and a 17ft screen to play the game on. I spent a good hour spinning Vanille's model around to see EXACTLY how the beads were in count, color, order, and length. Like major league ADD detail shit here.

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