Drafting the First Pattern - or trying to- Part 1

Step 2) Materials: Measuring Tape, Butcher Paper/newspaper/patterning paper, Pen/Pencil

Time to take measurements! Locate your 'Cosplay Victim' and then proceed to take the following measurements, jotting them down as you go.

Spine from waist to the Cervical vertibrae (the big bulge at the base of the neck), Natural Waist, Width of shoulders, chest around the largest point, waist to armpit (or wherever you want the bottom of the arm-hole to land), the height of the shoulder-slope where it connects to the neck, and how far away from the spine it is.

Here is a pretty generic thumbnail to illustrate the idea.

The above doodle is roughly how your image is going to look. I drew mine out in thumbnail, recording the measurements as I went - those are the blurry things you can't see all that well. The waist will be divided by four, same with the chest around the largest point (usually around the nipples). The shoulder width will be divided by half. I find that drawing in miniature first helps to practice the concept, then going for the full-size is less daunting.

Before we move on to full scale, we are going to need to determine the lengths for the various layers of the robes. The bottom layer is the longest and the front panels -which are longer than the back by just a smidgen - appear to fall to right about ankle level at the point. I located my 'Cosplay Victim' and measured from the high-point of the shoulder to the ankle. (remember to write these down!) Then, since the seam of the robes on the side of the body is at a higher level - right about on parallel with the bottom of the kneecap - you will need to measure up from the ankle and minus this from the total length.

Why measure up? Because its a bit more forgiving for a novice like myself. I'm not certain if it's against any rules, but it's a shortcut that works.

For the back panels, the longest points appear to terminate at about the same line of the white trim on the front panels. How large are these white trim pieces? Well, thats dependent on your height or the height of your 'Cosplay Victim' and to me, comes down to aesthetics. The white trim on mine will be about 4.5-5". I'll decide when I actually do the front panel patterns. (I'll be doing them first.)

More details to come in 'Drafting the First Pattern - or trying to- Part 2'.

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* Resources I used to learn how to do this - The Renaissance Tailor and The Good Housekeeping New Complete Book of Needlecraft (mine is from 1971). You can probably find newer versions if you look, but mine is a hand-me-down from my grandma, so I won't be replacing it. Though I may someday supplement it.