Worn at: Katsucon 2002 (Kurapika only)
Fanime 2002

Awards: (Kurapika) Best Worksmanship (Novice) at Katsucon 2002
With Gina as Hisoka and Matt as Kuroro

General: I'm actually writing this write up while still working on the outfit but I figured it might actually help me write a better write up if I actually write while I'm doing what I'm talking about. Secondly, I love Kurapika and Hunter x Hunter!!! Jump Comics seriously runs some of the best series! Kurapika is such an awesomely dramatic character and his outfit is so unique and stunning! Actually, all of his outfits are great and I wouldn't mind making more of them. Cosplaying with more HxH characters made me so happy, they all look so wonderful and really inspire me. I can't believe that Matt, Gina, and myself won for craftsmanship at Katsu with these outfits, it makes me so proud and happy! I really think that I want to go back to Katsu next year with another HxH outfit, heh... who knows what Togashi Sensei will design for Kurapika by then!

Under outfit: Stretchy light blue pajama material with a pajama pattern and white fleece for the designs underneath. The cuffs were done with the same blue velvet as the main over outfit and the sleeves have hidden pocket in the cuffs to be used for storing things like money and room cards and who knows what else. This part is extremely comfortable and I love to sleep in it.

Black Shirt: The only cheating I did in terms of sewing is the purchase of a black tank from the Gap. I love this tank anyway and it allowed me to again keep my accuracy on this costume.

White Under Belt: A folded piece of white fleece with interfacing in between hooked together with large hooks so that I wouldn't have to tie anything. I love it! Heh... since it matches the white on the shirt I think it makes the under outfit look cool by itself. This is the piece that I attached all the junk to when I did the insane Katsu skit.

Skirt: Starting from the bottom up, Kurapika's skirt is made with blue velvet trimmed with yellow fleece to give it contrast and bulk. The skirt was made in four panels, two front two side, with one side having velcro down it in order to put the outfit on and to rip it off, just like in the show! Yes, I was a little obsessive about making the skirt accurate, I wanted the same effects just like in the show. The crest in front was done in the same yellow fleece with the edges underturned for a seamless effect, as I try very hard for in most of my costumes. The yellow waistband contains one layer of interfacing for reinforcement. I LOVE MY SKIRT! I can't believe I almost lost it at Katsu! Oh well, it was awesome and it really is the show piece of the entire outfit. THANK YOU KATSU STAFF! I really want to make any other outfits I do look as good as this one does.

Tabard: This part was made with the same blue velvet and yellow fleece as the skirt and similar to the skirt there is velcro down the center to keep it closed and to allow it to be ripped off easily. The designs on front are also handstitched on like the design on the skirt to give it the continuous seamless look that is apparent on all parts of the costume. The neck was done seperate but thanks to the joining with the yellow coupled with some interfacing it stays up nicely and again looks seamless. Heh, again, I love this outfit!

Chains: I thought about making these but when I heard that Animate had them for sale I went down and bought them immediately. I don't think I could have done a better job if I had made my own and these ones are absolutely gorgeous and a perfect fit. Sometimes it's nice to have the official items, too bad it only came with the dowsing ball, but I plan to make all the other pieces myself. I think they looked awesome and I'm absolutely glad I got them.

Earring(s): Technically Kurapika only wears one earring in the left ear but when I bought his official ones, yes I know I really went overboard on this one, it came with two. I'm glad because they're really pretty and I like wearing them for fun. Too bad they're not for pierced ears, I woul have liked that better. Still, for accuracy, I had to have them!

Eyes: Yes, I got red contacts just for this costume. Luckily I have several other costumes with red eyes planned, but these were worth it just to make this costume perfect. I think the whole "Hi no Me" conflict for Kurapika is absolutely one of the most emotional and morbid plot backgrounds for a character, making him one of the most interesting characters I've seen in a long time. It's just neat how whenever he gets really angry his eyes turn "one of the seven most beautiful colors in the world". The reactions I got from people really made me happy. People said they were scared or that they looked cool and that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Kurapika's eyes are the best!

Socks: Heh, they're just white trouser socks like I used for Roan. Yes, I'm making this a very complete write up.

Shoes: Take a cheap five dollar pair of martial arts shoes and cover them with the same blue velevet as the outfit and you have the most perfect and comfortable pairs of shoes EVER! They looked really good too! I love just walking around in them around the house, they're so perfect!

Hair: Yes, I'm such a stubborn weirdo when it come to hair. I used my own hair and just had the front, large portion of the front, the right length and when I messed with it I was able to make it look like I had short hair. Believe me, I wouldn't do this if I didn't hate wigs sooo much.

General: I kinda felt like I cheated in putting together this costume cause sooo much of it was store bought XD But well Killua actually seems like he goes shopping in a "normal" department store for his clothes anyways so waa!!! XD it works :P Well the theme fabric for these Hunter x Hunter costumes was velvet!!! So my turtleneck and shoe cover trimming are made of lovely soft velvet XD

Purple Shirt & Black Turtleneck & Dark Blue Short: Not much to say about them other than that you can find them all in your local department store if you hunt through the clothes enough XD

Wig: Goodness finding a plain white wig that looks normal is haaaaaaaaaaard! You can find all of these pageboy wigs that don't have enough hair to spike but you can hardly find a normal cheap white wig that has the hair needed for Killua hair-styling @_@ So in the end I bought a pretty expensive wig that worked quite nicely :D The only problem I had with the wig was its lack of depth and shading since the whole wig was all white with no root coloring. So! To fix that...I colored the roots of the wig with purple colored Ice hair gel. The end result was very pretty XD especially in the light when the wig looked like it had purplish shadows appearing on the white hair. And aside from this root painting :P I obviously tried to style the wig as much as possible to look Killua-ish :D

Shoe: Yay! Shoe covers with odd trimming! Heh just starting to make the shoe covers was quite interesting cause I couldn't figure out which pair of shoes to cover with the shoe covers! XD It's obviously a good idea to figure that out first before making anything for the shoe covers teehehhe. Well, after semi-figuring out what I wanted to use, I basically made a pattern that would fit around the shoes. Then I cut out nice suiting material for the black base of the shoe covers and lined the base fabric with semi-thick interfacing to help them keep their shape. The velvet (yay!) trimming just took a lot of careful handsewing to put on :P

Taken by Gina.

Taken by Gina.

Taken by Lionel.