Patch-it’s Repair Corner: Avoiding Cosplay Repair

At Cosplay Repair, while it’s always fun seeing people dropping by to say hi, it’s understandable that you might not want to visit because of costume breakages and malfunctions.

Here are a few tips and tricks to help keep your costumes hanging in, so your visits to cosplay repair can be purely for social reasons!

Don’t take shortcuts!

While I’m a fan of hot glue for emergency repairs, it isn’t quite as versatile as people give it credit for. So don’t just default to using it on everything!

-Attaching fabric to fabric? Sew those pieces together where possible!

-Attaching EVA foam pieces? Contact Cement!

-3D prints? Consider reinforcing it internally with a dowel and using epoxy to attach pieces!

Try to use the right material and tools for the job, instead of grabbing what’s easiest - I promise your cosplay will hold together longer this way!

Test your costumes!

So you’ve finished your cosplay? Good work!

Now, before you place it off to the side until the convention in a few weeks (or hours, depending on what kind of person you are) - give it a test wear!

-Put everything on, making sure it all sits correctly and that nothing’s missing - then make sure you have a bit of a walk around!

-Check to see how your shoes are feeling, and note any points where they might be rubbing against your skin; these might lead to blisters or sores over the course of a convention!

(Consider breaking in your shoes if you have the chance!)

-Try to check to see if there’s any weak points that may give you grief over the convention weekend, and consider reinforcing any likely pain points before you leave home!

A few ideas of sections to check would be:

-Soles of shoes

-Headpiece attachments are sitting correctly

-Seams that feel a bit tight

Carry a repair kit!

So you’ve made it to the con, but you’ve noticed a seam coming loose or an armour piece starting to come loose.

Sure, you could wander off to cosplay repair, however, it’s waaaaaay off at the other end of the convention, and a loose thread isn’t *that* bad at the moment... Right?

Hanging onto a couple of safety pins or a mini tube of superglue might be just the thing to fix any minor malfunctions during a convention.

I’ll cover creating your own repair kit in a future article, but your homework for this edition is to brainstorm what kinds of repair items you’d carry with you!

Originally written for Colin Magazine Edition 10 by Captain Patch-It.