How to sew pants (Piccolo Cosplay)

I sewed my second pair of pants for my DBZ Piccolo cosplay this winter. It went much better- as expected- practice makes perfect! Here I'll breeze over my process.

Remember, there isn't necessarily one right way to make cosplay! A lot of the process is figuring out what works for you.

First, I picked out my fabric. I looked at references, for the character and at the fabric store I touched, smelled, (and tasted) everything until I found exactly what I was looking for!

For this I picked a fabric in the right shade that would droop and flow in the way indicated by the pictures. It was also pretty stretchy- it has a large amount of spandex. Sometimes spandex is harder to work with, but I felt like it would work the best.

Next; the pattern. Basically the steps were to:

1. tape a bunch of scrap paper together

2. Lie on the paper on the floor and trace along my body where I wanted my pants to go (remember you only need to make a pattern for one leg)

3. Clean up the pattern tracing (I also looked at a pair of jeans for a reference to a good shape for the pant leg)

4. Cut out the pattern

5. pin the pattern to the fabric and cut out 4 identical pieces. (If your fabric allows, try to cut the pattern along a folded edge of the fabric; that way you have less seams to sew.

6. Sew everything together! Sew the non-shiny side together; that way the shinier (outside) of the fabric will face out. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ARE SEWING TOGETHER. It totally makes sense how everything should fit together, and I spent a loooooot of time sewing together the wrong parts and having to seam rip them...

7. VOILA! PANTS! Add whatever special touches you need to.

I also made the tank top in a similar fashion, though it required much more trying on and trimming. I also didn't care too much about the seams since most of it will be covered up.