Anna Williams is one of my favorite characters from Tekken, and who doesn't like her funky zebra outfit? This costume was available in both Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag - I like to pair her up with Lee Chaolan in his tux as the "Fashion Squad." This cosplay premiered at Otakon 2003 and got a lot of attention! Anna's zebra outfit required a lot of dedication, since finding the right stripey fabric was very difficult. Fake fur is much too thick, and I never came across the right print in fabric stores. EBay came to the rescue with a fun stretch velour at a very reasonable price. The fabric was tough to work with because it tended to curl, but it didn't fray. This cosplay is pieced together from three different patterns: one for the pants, one for the back top, and one for the top front. It required a muslin fitting pattern to make sure all the pieces flowed together properly. The fur trim on her top is stitched on over the shoulder straps. Because the trim is so heavy, the whole top tended to fall down, so I had to jerry-rig a bustier up with elastic straps so I could pin the top up. Made going to the bathroom an adventure. :P The zipper up the side almost ruined all my hard work. For reasons unknown, I had sewed part of one seam with a stretch stitch and forgot about it, and of course it was that seam that had to be ripped out later to put in the zipper. I ended up tearing a large hole along the outside of the seam (and many tears were shed.) Fortunately, the hole could be rolled into the new seam allowance, and even if the zipper looks a little wonky on the outside, the print is forgiving and no one noticed. |
