Character: Riku

Franchise: Kingdom Hearts

Cosplayer: Ali Mahou

Photos: Con Mom Photography

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The base wig for this styling was a Jaguar in Twilight Grey CL-081A. The Jaguar is a short style with longer side pieces and long bangs to work with, while the back is full of short choppy layers. There is no skin top and the top fibres are thick and pre-crimped - perfect for spiking!

For Riku, the wig was first trimmed to length. For each spike, the fibre was first sectioned out and then teased, hair sprayed, quickly heated & cooled, and hair sprayed again, while being formed with the fingers.

See this technique in action in our Sora wig styling video!

PRODUCTS USED:

Riku's Braveheart was constructed with 1.5 sheets of Lumin's Workshop 10mm Hard-Lite EVA Foam. 

Ali first drafted a pattern, and then transferred the pattern to the EVA Foam sheets (silver Sharpie markers work great for tracing patterns!).

The keyblade consists of 4 layers: 1 each of the outside 'key' layer, and 2 layers of the centre 'core'. Once cut out, these layers were stacked together around a 1" wooden dowel core and glued together with contact cement. After glueing, edges were smoothed and rounded with both a Dremel rotary tool and a belt sander. 

After sanding, the keyblade was heat-sealed with a heat gun, and primed with several layers of Plastidip. Floormat was used to wrap the handle (sometimes that texture is useful!). A few layers of silver paint later, and Braveheart was complete! 

PRODUCTS USED:

There are multiple fabrics used in the construction of the clothing in this costume!

The pants are made of cotton sateen (Mahou's favourite fabric to sew!) and a black, white and grey gingham fabric that is perfect for Riku's checkered print. The pants also feature 36 belt loops that hold vinyl belts with grommets nicely in place.

The short-sleeved jacket was hand drafted and made of a soft-stretch black pleather and a cotton sateen lining, the gingham is also featured again. The shirt was purchased but the sleeves were cut and hemmed so that they wouldn't be seen past the sleeves of the vest, and there's a little hidden addition of the Dream Eater symbol sewed onto the back. The gloves are also made of the same soft-stretch pleather and vinyl from the jacket and belts.