Difficulty: Hard
Time: 40+ hours
Price: About $100
I played Kingdom Hearts II this summer and loved it. I really wanted to be Riku for Halloween, but was a little nervous about tackling the seaming involved in making the vest (especially after I encountering it when I made the Organization Coat). But then I thought about the other two costumes I was considering - Marth with the armor and Balthier with the crazy vest and pants and then I decided it wouldn't be that bad.
The costume itself had some really hard parts (ugh! The vest!), but since it was three different big pieces, it broke up the work.
Alas, I was not able to get a good photo of me in the costume, but I'm planning on doing a legit photoshoot with it as soon as my camera wielding friend and I are not swamped with homework.
One nice thing about Riku's clothes is that they are more or less normal. I was able to base all three sewed pieces off of patterns. I used a generic button up shirt pattern for both the shirt and vest - I just got rid of the darts to make it boy shaped.
Black shirt:
All I did with this was follow the pattern. It was that easy. I wanted to do the zipper accurately, so I bought a second grey zipper and slipped it's pull on. Simple as that.
White Vest:
This was the killer part. I used the same shirt pattern as a guideline, making it a size bigger to go over the undershirt, but I had to do quite a few modifications because of the strange seams and collar. For all the seams, I marked where they would be, cut along the line, and then inserted a two inch thick piece of fabric with half inch seam allowances in. This made the desired one inch seam in the middle of the vest.
Unfortunately, one can see the yellow lining through white fabric, so I had to add an extra white layer in the middle. The zipper was from this shop.
Pants:
I traced a super baggy pair of pants. The pockets were a challenge to put on after the fact, so I would recommend attaching them before assembling the pants. Nothing special here.
Shoes:
I painted a pair of knock-off white Adidas and stole my brother's orange shoe laces.
I was pleasantly mobile in the costume. Here, I am pwning other people at a chopstick race at the Halloween party I wore this to.
And also wreaking zombie mummy havoc.
