Costume: EDI 1.5

Series: Mass Effect 3

Construction Time: 2 months

Cost: $217.05
Materials and Construction: Custom Printed Spandex, 4 way Metallic Spandex, Fabric Paint, Hot Glue, Sport Zipper, 12 gauge vinyl, Heelless Shoes (modded), Craft Foam, Velcro, Bra, Soda Bottle, Face Paint, Loooots of Eye Shadow Log

Debut: PAX East 2014

Final Appearance: Still in Rotation
EDI 1.0 Post

Worklog

Updates to make it 1.5: Replaced painted rayon/lycra with printed spandex, removed almost all vinyl, made prop gun.

As much of a hit as EDI 1.0 was I still was never very happy with it. It looked like a costume not like her and that's not what I go for. Then one day while poking around the N7 facebook group I found EDI's texture file (thanks Dani De Wald for uploading those texture files!) and thought it'd be fun to poke around that for reference imagery. Around that time I was already looking into getting some other fabrics custom printed (notably a backdrop) and while looking at my various options I noticed one company offered printed spandex. After seeing the results when used in a bodysuit (thanks rpf-ers who've custom printed Spiderman costumes) I thought why not try something like that for EDI. That would let me get all those details and retain the stretch and basically be as close to looking like I walked out of the game as possible.

I have no idea what I'm dooooooooing

The biggest issue was I haven't really done much photo editing. Coloring pictures I've drawn sure but not... manipulating or anything like that. And there was a lot of that since EDI is proportioned differently than I am. I spent probably 40 hours messing with the image because seriously I had no idea what I was doing.

And now y'all have a vague idea of my size and shape.

But after coming up with some measurements that would hopefully make sure this all sewed together nicely I remeasured about 12 times then did my final adjustments. In the end I wish I would have made the torso a bit narrower, by like 4 inches total in the waist and 2 inches in the hips.

This is what the fabric looked like if you laid it out flat. I had extra printed to make leggings and a leotard too.

Then I sent off the proof to Fabric on Demand and after a few emails to confirm it was formatted/sized right and parting with $80 for two yards of fabric my fabric was queued to print. It was over the holidays so it took longer to print but that was fine since I was in World Cosplay Summit mode.

Avatar Paca approves of this fabric.

Then I got a box with my fabric in it! The spandex is middle of the road in every respect but the print came out nicely so that's what mattered. I never did find a good overlay material though so I just left the overlays out all together. Honestly the hardest part was making sure the fabric was printed in the right proportions, after that it was just cutting it out and sewing it together. Other than the feet and headsock part at least. You can see some extra panels of braiding type areas which I made feeties and a head covering out of. I also had the fun matter of ripping some of the seams on my previous EDI in order to harvest the sleeves and parts of the legs. Ripping stretch stitch takes forever, just fyi.

I pin in the direction I want to sew so I have something to aim for.

Then it was a lot of pinning and sewing. Sometimes I did a contrasting thread color in order to reflect the line detailing like on the torso back.

Other times I used a light grey thread and trimmed the fabric right near the seam since spandex doesn't really fray. Most notably done on the cut our parts of the knees. Then I used a special stretch fabric glue in order to add on the knee details. It took a long time to dry so I got comfortable and marathoned My Cat From Hell until it was good. The silver bars that go down the calf were reused from my previous costume and they're just hot glued on. I also had to attach the chest armor which actually threads in and out so the armor boobs are on the outside of the bodysuit and the shoulder straps and chest band are underneath the suit. It's permanently attached though I did have to get help in the hotel room at PAX East in order to glue the back of the shoulder part into place. But that was a one time deal (and thanks for the help guys).

As you can see I have far more make up for EDI than costume parts

There's not many parts to EDI, and this is something I'm trying to extend to other costumes, just having it all put together and slipping it on is so nice. She's one of the quickest costumes I can get in to. It literally took me about 30-45 minutes both at PAX East and A-kon to get into her and that's including putting contacts in.

After robot-ing for about 12 hours.

There were two other updates for EDI, the first being new make-up. One of my friends who is a Homestuck told me the secret of the trolls and OMG yes. Snazaroo is the best face paint. That up there is after a full day of wear, there's only a few parts where it rubbed off but that was under EDI's bangs so hidden. Barely any creasing by the mouth and none that is noticeable in photos. Going to see about using white instead of grey as my base from now on though since the grey is too blue toned in pictures. But luckily my local Michael's actually carries the white so I don't even have to get that off the internet like the gray!

I added some black paper along the edges to hide the obvious layers after this shot was taken.

And last but not least there is my quick and easy and in no way worries TSA prop gun. It's layers of foam glued together with printed out pics of the gun glued on top. The gun i a little small (about 10.5" long) but matches well with my body suit since they're at about the same pixelation.

And that's it! The only thing I need to improve this costume are to take it in at the waist a little more and to figure out an almost entirely transparent fabric that breathes and has stretch so I can do those overlays because yes the lack of overlays bothers me. Oh and gain feeties of steel since I just can't quite go a full day in those super fab shoes. Almost, but like an hour shy. But that's why I have my Joker carry a spare pair of much more comfortable but not too out of place strappy wedges.