Construction Details:

Bless Ace Attorney for actually being quite good with plausible clothing designs (at least, it is conscious of where seams should be even if the outfit is ridiculous).

I designed and vectored the back and lapel logos in Photoshop, and passed them off to the talented Serephita (Serephitic Patches on Etsy) to have them turned into embroidery! Thanks so much again, bb :D

I drafted the outer jacket completely by hand. Because of his funky false lapels (a rectangular lapel with a white notched lapel on top), I knew I had to self-line the whole thing from the get-go. The front lining pieces were cut down the middle, and using the shape of the removed piece, I cut a piece of satin to panel in and complete the pattern piece again, after first heat-n-bonding the white lapel shape onto the satin so that it would be caught in the seam. Lining the jacket also allowed me to achieve the bias tape trim around the bottom hem and on the vent in the back of the jacket, without having that stripe appear on the folded-back lapel. I achieved this by cutting 1 inch off the bottom of the outer jacket, paneling in the white, and then inserting the lining all around.

I hand-patterned the collar and its satin bias tape trim, and saved the white trim around the sleeves and along the shoulders for last so that I could catch them within seams for a clean result.

Finding the perfect shade of just-off-black navy blue was a challenge that LUCKILY the NYC fabric district was up to. I hand-patterned his suit blazer, since it has no lapels and a very high neck. The entire blazer is lined, and I used a new bias tape sleeve easing method which is fantastic and I will definitely be using it again. I put in machine buttonholes and hand-attached the buttons, which were a lucky find in NYC and match his character render exactly.

This was my first time making trousers, and I am really happy with how they came out. They have a working fly and belt loops. I purchased a white wing-tip collar shirt, black tie, and belt for the costume, and sewed a couple quick cuffs of leather to cover the top of boots I already owned.

I bought two huge frizzy lolita wigs for Blackquill and wefted them together, which took several hours. The white accent is a set of bangs from Arda. For the seven-years-ago version, I cut a Magnum I already owned.

I loved making props for this cosplay: Metis Cykes' sword is an all-black bokken I bought at my first con, which I painted for this purpose. Taka is a garden hawk decoy, for whom I made a cute little jailbird kerchief to match the game render. I made the handcuffs out of craft foam, plastic chain from Lowe's, and googly eyes.

Personal Thoughts:

I started playing Ace Attorney at the beginning of 2011, and it took me until the very beginning of January 2014 to finally conquer all the way through Apollo Justice. I was so excited for the next installment that it was probably my primary motivation for finally springing for a 3DS. I'm not sure what I expected, but Dual Destinies was earth-shatteringly incredible. I was up until 4am playing the final two cases and getting emotional like a NERD over this cast of characters that, somehow, never misses no matter how much bigger the family of lawyers gets. I really loved Simon's backstory, especially with his sister and as a samurai big brother to Athena, and less than two months after finishing the game, I found myself wearing this costume. I am jumping out of my seat to wear him again!! ALSO ALSO a huge part of what made this costume so special to me, was getting to cosplay with my longtime friend Sarah/sorairo-days for the first time and be REALLY KAWAII TOGETHER. She's my oldest online friend (we've known each other for ten years) and always manage to come back to crying about lawyers together ;u;

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