
Making of Phoenix
Hi, my name is Sammy and for the annual Dota 2 tournament, The International 2018, I decided on creating Phoenix. Before I delve into the creation side of this year’s endeavor, I would like to briefly address my reasoning for choosing this character. I am 5'0" which causes full armor builds to look extremely disproportionate on my smaller frame (I unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way while attempting to pull together an Abaddon cosplay) and as a result I tend to lean more towards creating costumes that require more sewing than armor. I have been sewing since elementary school and adore both couture fashion and Dota so my goal this past year was to try and bring together my two passions.
Initial Design

The image to your left is the first sketch I created in an attempt to capture the essence of Phoenix. When looking at Phoenix from a character design standpoint, what are most representative of him are his head and his tail (and of course the color scheme). From the get-go I knew I wanted to create a skirt mimicking the shape of Phoenix’s tail and create a full face mask modeled after Phoenix’s. This initial design ended up serving as the most accurate in most regards. While initially I had wanted to do heels with tulle running up my leg looking like fire, this idea was later scrapped.
Bodysuit Construction
Once settling on a design, the bodysuit was the first part of the cosplay I decided to work on. I used a red power mesh fabric from Mood Fabrics and Kommatia Patterns B003 bodysuit pattern (https://kommatiapatterns.com/collections/bodysuits/products/b003) to create the bodysuit. After sewing the bodysuit, I hand glued 300+ gold Swarovski crystals to a red interfacing fabric.



After attaching all the crystals to the interfacing, I cut the interfacing into the proper V shape and hand-sewed it directly to the bodysuit. Once the crystals were properly placed on the bodysuit, it was time to add red goose feathers to the front. I struggled quite a bit to find an aesthetically pleasing way to place these feathers as they are quite large and have a “curl” to them but eventually found a way. The feathers were glued to extra pieces of power mesh and afterwards the power mesh holding the feathers was hand sewn to the bodysuit. With this, the bodysuit was completed.
Creation of the Boots
To be completely honest, these boots do deviate quite a bit from Phoenix’s actual character model. While Phoenix has claw-like feet and chicken-like legs, I figured pointed stilettos and my own legs were probably close enough. I was heavily influenced by Dior’s Fall 2015 ready-to-wear runway show in which many thigh-high vinyl boots were shown. I may have been a few years late with this trend but better late than never, I guess. To create these boots, I purchased a pair of 4" red Jessica Simpson pumps and red vinyl fabric. I used this boot cover tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcUaaqDYtsM to create and attach the vinyl covering to the shoes. After attaching the cover to the shoes using contact cement and leaving it to dry for 24 hours the boots were nearly complete. I hemmed the top using double sided tape.


A Test of Sanity AKA Creating the Skirt Part 1
Usually when I postulate about sewing construction with cosplay, things work. Always. This was the first time I tremendously struggled with the structuring of a piece. During the designing/ sketching process, the skirt was always changing. I was not sure whether I wanted a flowing skirt like those of some Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows, or a highly structured skirt with a full crinoline cage. With very little thought involved, I decided one day that I was going to create a highly structured flowing skirt. Structured =/= Flowing. I am pretty sure those words are probably antonyms for one another, or at least that’s what this project taught me over time. I purchased an orange organza fabric, a gold holographic fabric and 10 yards of yellow, orange and red feathers, because there was definitely NO WAY I needed more than 10 yards of feathers (that was my second mistake). I also purchased 10 yards of crinoline and a bustle. I cut the organza according to the pattern I created (I made sure to avoid fraying by hemming the organza as well), created a nice structure using some of the crinoline fabric, and sewed the organza and crinoline structuring onto the elastic of the bustle. Aside from my dog consistently trying to sit on my skirt, things were going well.

Very soon after this, things did not go very well. While the skirt had beautiful flow and some structure, it became apparent that even though the “spikes” on the tail appeared beautiful in posed photos, in movement they began to overlap each other and would not hold structure. This was the first and most challenging issue I faced during this project. I tried many solutions to remedy this problem. First I attempted to add bedding to each of the spikes in hopes that they would keep their structure. While their structure was maintained, the spikes all began flipping and upon adding weights as a response to this flipping, the spikes began overlapping again. I tried using crinoline to give them a 3D shape but they would still overlap and would not maintain structure. “Maybe I could use tenting equipment to create the structure? Do jumbo pipe-cleaners exist to give this skirt structure?” At this point, I was desperate for a solution and on the verge of sanity when my Mom told me we should just roam the aisles of Home Depot for some stuff. The saving grace of this project was 12 gauge wire and an insect screen. The wires ran from the elastic of the bustle down to the tips of every spike (8 wires total) and prevented the spikes from moving out of place. The screen was cut from the same pattern and runs about halfway up the skirt, it prevents the spikes from flipping over (and helps maintain their placing as well). I used more organza fabric to create “casings” for each wire and then put the wires through and shaped the skirt. Afterwards I hand sewed the screen directly to the organza fabric. It definitely wasn’t pretty to look at but at least I had a lot of feathers to cover it up with.

Shit Hits the Fan 2: The Electric Boogaloo
Remember how I mentioned that 10 yards of feathers would definitely be enough? Yeah, I miscalculated by quite a bit. The second big issue I ran into was a deficit of materials, more specifically feathers. After sewing the organza to the screen, I began sewing the feather trims in an ombre pattern with the bottom of the skirt being yellow and the top being red. As I continued it became exceedingly clear 10 yards would be nowhere near enough to cover the full skirt. I was still slightly over one month out from having to leave for TI8 so I decided to go to New York once again to pick up another 10 yards.


With just 2 weeks left before TI8, I finished sewing the last of the second batch of feathers and I still needed to purchase more. I had no time left to go back to New York and so I took my gamble with expedite shipping and guessing colors from the store’s website. Luckily my final 10 yards of feathers arrived quickly and I was able to hand sew all the feathers onto the skirt to create this massive skirt comprised of 30 yards of feathers total. This was the most time consuming part of the costume taking me a total of 30–32 hours.

Finally, I cut out two layers of the gold holographic fabric using the pattern I created for the tail and hand sewed them together. I ran into a slight issue with attaching the gold fabric to the top of the skirt. I hand sewed it all around the bottom and sides but could not gather and close it at the top due to the way the bustle folds. In order to combat this problem, rather than sew the gold fabric directly to the waistband of the bustle like I did for the feathers and orange organza fabric, I used velcro at the top center to keep the gold fabric from sagging down while still allowing me access to the bustle so I can properly pull it open. I also created a small belt to be worn over the waistline out of a thick gold elastic and red goose feathers glued on with hot glue.
(They Didn’t Care about Who I was Until I Put) The Mask (on)
I began the mask process with Sculpey and a really creepy plastic white mask from Michaels (a craft store). I used aluminum foil in order to create the proper shape of Phoenix’s head and to give the Sculpey the proper structure. I couldn’t find my clay machine/press from when I was a child so instead I put together bunches of Sculpey way too thick (as seen on the image below). Fortunately, as she always does, my Mom was able to find the clay press for me and this significantly expedited the mask creation process. I even carved in the scales from Phoenix’s model.


I covered the mold with Worbla and heat formed it into shape. It looked pretty rough at first (the only image I have is before trimming the worbla) and it was missing the horns. I created the horns out of EVA foam and used a dremel to bevel the edges and an X-ACTO knife to carve the proper shapes.


I proceeded to cover the horns with Worbla and attached the horns to the mask by heating the front of the mask and the back of the worbla-covered horns and sticking them together. I cut out a couple of scales to blend between the horns and the mask and then began the painting process. I was unsure whether or not I wanted to prime the mask with Mod Podge and decided on my first round painting that I would not because I wanted the rough texture as Phoenix’s head is pretty much a rock. After finishing painting, I decided that I did not like having a grey undertone on my mask and I wanted a smoother texture so I went back and did two layers of Mod Podge and repainted the mask with more red undertones. The attachments I created were made from Worbla and elastic. There are three loops inside the mask, one on the top and one of each of the two sides. Two pieces of elastic run through the loops to help hold the mask in place. I also cut out a couple of eye holes from the center using the Dremel and sandpaper to smooth the holes out.


These Wings Were Made to Fly
For the wings, I used a Lycra/Spandex fabric to create an arm cover and an arm sleeve for the feathers. The cover is a rectangular piece of fabric I used to mount to feathers to and the top of the sleeve was sewn directly to the cover. I created strips of Ostrich feathers using ribbon, hot glue and double sided tape (hot glued feather to ribbon, applied double sided table above feathers and attached another ribbon on top). These strips were sewn to the arm cover on both sides. The feathers at the top were all hot glued on in a fanning pattern.


The Final Product (Without the Makeup Look)



