Cosplay is a wonderful thing. It is meant to be shared, and so here are ALL the details about how I did my costume for Captain Kuro from One Piece. All the stitches, all the fabrications, and all the messy stuff I did to make his claws is in here. I've also included pictures which should make things a lot easier. I liked showing people how I made these claws last year at Anime Expo, and I'll enjoy sharing with you now how I did the improved version. If you want to use these pictures as reference and build your own claws, more power to you! See the little CC in the lower right though? The creative commons license means you are more than welcome to take this, repost it, etc, but you must attribute (a link to this mayhaps?) and release under similar terms. In other words: just share, damnit! That being said, let's get started.
The Kurotorial (as I liked to call it) has three major pieces. The claws, the outfit, and the Jango. While you may have no control over the last one, the first two you most certainly do. Kuro only looks cool with his 2-3 foot claws, so we are going to dedicate this segment to that topic. Eventually, I will also write up the fabric part, but that is truthfully the easier of the two. Before we get too far in though, I need to establish some ground rules for my cosplay: I don't sew, I can't sew, and any sewing is going to look fucking ugly and so I hide it as best I can. I call this "Structural Sewing" and anyone can do it. It revolves around the idea of using more thread than is ever going to be necessary. Yes, even I can do "Structural Sewing". The second thing is, I like super glue. Actually, I like glue period. I believe the right glue or epoxy can bond ANYTHING, and I have been proven right again and again. The third thing is, I like to buy as much pre-made stuff as possible, and modify from there. This directly relates to point 1 called I can't sew at all. This costume could never happen if I couldn't buy dowels, gloves, precut fake black fur trim, etc. Thankfully, cosplay encourages innovation. I like to abuse that. Just to recap, avoid sewing, love glue, pre-bought items. Good, let's start on part one, the blades.
Kuro's blades in One Piece are about 2-3 feet long, extending from the tips of his gloves. He waves them in the air like he 'just don care' and is very agile when using them. This means you are going to need something light, shiny, and easy to manipulate. I suggest tagboard, though in doing a version 3 of this costume, I would pick something even easier to fold and crease. Start out by cutting a sword shape out of the tagboard. This should look more or less like how you want the final blades to come out as (IMAGE 1). You will then, while doing as little work as possible, use that "half sword" to create a full, unfolded sword (IMAGE 2). The idea behind this is that you will fold the tagboard, creating a pocket and a mountable point for the blade onto your glove. Use a single sword and trace the others, this way you will be consistent every time. The first time I did this, I forgot to use a single one as a template, and watched in awe as my swords kept getting bigger. You've been warned, heh. Now that you have a single blade, you need to fold it in half and put a nice heavy crease in it. I used a rolling pin (IMAGE 3), but you can use whatever suits your fancy. If you took my advice from earlier and used something more thin than tagboard, this part should be a lot easier. Folded paper in hand, go over to Kinko's, and have them laminate the suckers for you! The first time I did this, I opted for a self-lamination of packing tape. While the guy at Kinko's still messed up my lamination, it came out thousands of times better than anything I could have done. Once again, if you have something more thin than tagboard, this is going to make your life easier. It cost me about $20 for the tagboard. Current total: $25. The laminated swords (IMAGE 4) are ready to be spray painted. I used a silver spray paint with a metallic flake, and then sprayed several layers of top coat on that. You technically should use primer and sand between coats, but this was a week before AX after all. The spray painted blades can sit for a while, you are done with them for now. (IMAGE 5) Spray Paint costs: ~$7. Total Cost so far: $32.
The gloves are the foundation of the costume, but the nicer gloves you get, the less you are going to want to maul them. This was the basis for my new black gloves I had. (Cost $12, total cost: $44) Stanley Mechanic gloves seem to be very new, and I found my pair at Target of all places. The best requirements I can give you is they need reinforced tips, should ideally be a fabric of some kind, come on and off VERY easy, and stay secure on your wrist via elastic. Oh, and if they are black, you are going to save yourself headache later. Garden gloves don't work, nor do cheap fabric gloves. My first version used black rubber work gloves, and while they worked, the rubber made things an uncomfortable fit late in the day. Once you have your gloves, you need to open up the ends of the gloves for the dowels. The idea behind the hole is to make it look like the blade is coming from the tip of your finger. Since the connecting piece between your blades and your glove is going to be the dowel, it needs to be attached to both. Using Jakob's UTILITY SEWING technique, wrap copious amounts of thread around the seam you just opened. In fact, when done, it doesn't hurt to use nail polish to seal the sewing you just did. The dowel should fit nicely in the hole, and you can even sew the glove tips closed with the dowel still in it (IMAGE 6). The thread was bought at Beverly's and says "industrial strength" on it. And it's some kind of black. It did cost me about two bucks though. Never broke though, the entire time. Most certainly worth the cost. Total cost so far: $46.
So now you have gloves with holes, dowels, and spray painted blades. You should spray the dowels black (cheap black spray = not even counting this, you could sharpie the damn things) so they blend in. You are now ready to start putting pieces together. To attach the dowels to your finger, I recommend Scotch 8" Bundling Straps. It says on the package they are self fastening, reusable, and great for wrapping and bundling cords. Those sound perfect for bundling dowels to our fingers! Wrap the fat end once around the dowel, and stitch it like that. It will keep the Velcro loop from coming undone, and you will be able to still slide the piece on and off (IMAGE 7). We will permanently stick the Velcro piece to the dowel after we do some measuring. The dowels themselves are usually 36-48 inches, which is far too long for our blades. To measure where to cut, place the dowel and your finger at the base of the blade (IMAGE 8). Measure to where the curve of the blade starts (so you will never push the dowel all the way to the top), mark, and cut it (IMAGE 9). I wrapped the end in electrical tape just to keep the end from splitting. You could also saw it off, but I was a poor student and didn't have money for one.
With the dowels cut, it's time for the infrastructure. Remember how above I said I would attach with permanence the Velcro loop? Enter a magical super glue called Grip-ton-ite (IMAGE 10). This is flexible super glue. It bonds your skin instantly, it irritates your eyes, and it probably can predict the weather. It dries perfectly clear, has a nice applicator, and costs $2 for a small but very awesome tube. I picked up two of them. (Total cost: $50). Slide the Velcro off the end of the dowel, apply super glue, slide back on, let sit and in 20 seconds you couldn't move that Velcro if you wanted to! Perfect! You can now affix the dowels to your fingers (after the glue has dried) to see how it feels (IMAGE 11). You will notice that on the ends of the fingers, there is no control yet, but that's why we put holes in the gloves. If you are having a lot of fun waving around sticks, stick one of your blades on there (IMAGE 12) and imagine the glove over it all. This is also a chance to work with sliding the dowels in and out of their pockets. When you are ready, it is now time to put the dowels in their home.
Feed the dowels cut end first into the gloves, and out the finger tips. These are the gloves in their ready state (IMAGE 13). To put the gloves on, slide the dowels backwards, attach the Velcro to your fingers, and slide the fingers forward. You may then slip the blades onto the dowels to create the final claws (IMAGE 14 & IMAGE 15). To the wrist, add a band of fur. I bought fur trim at JoAnns, and added a snap to secure it in place. (Final cost: $55). Not bad for the prop which constitutes 95% of Kuro's costume. When you add the fur, the claws really shine (IMAGE 16). The final claws are very lightweight, and while not fully articulated, allow enough bend for all of Kuro's poses. You won't really be able to put these on yourself, so train someone to help you. They should also come with you to the dealer's room because with the claws, while you may tear up pirates and plot evil three year plans to steal money--
You won't be able to pull out your damn wallet.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Comments and feedback are appreciated, as well as suggestions for modifications and improvements. Every costume can be improved, and I'd love to hear ideas about how do this better.
In response to "Kuro Cosplay Tutorial":
I love how you made the Kuro Claws for your cosplay character! I hope you do a fabulous job. BTW. Im aishakatt from the livejournal.com place as AishaKatt XD! Anyways.. Keep it up!!
Can you please send me the pictures, they dont show up on here and I really need a picture of Kuro’s claws but cant find it anywhere on the internet.
Can you please send me the pictures they don’t show up and I could use them for a better refrence. Also good job and what do you suggest I use instead of tagboard.