Erin Brings The Heat Crafting Erika From Fire Emblem Heroes
Hey friendos, this is Erin from the Foam Corps! I’m super excited to be crafting for Arda’s WWWIP again this year. I’ll be tackling Eirika from Fire Emblem: Heroes, who I picked because she is SO cool. Her armor is gorgeous, I love sculpting, and the fabric detailing is too pretty for words. Plus I absolutely love knights and classic medieval armor with a fantasy spin.
So, perfect!
The first steps I took for this costume was to evaluate what materials I already had in my crafting stash. Annoyingly, the fabric I had that I thought would work is the wrong color, but since I have a good span of time before I want to have the costume totally finished, I can sale shop, use coupons, and just generally keep my spending as low as possible. Woo!
Tip: This is also a great reason to try and keep your supplies organized (I know, I know, it’s tough).
I have all of my lace, trim, zippers, glue, etc. stored in labeled bins and my fabrics sorted by color so that I don’t need to buy duplicate items just because I can’t find the one I already have. (PS: I’m so excited, this is my first large build with an ACTUAL WORKSPACE. I used to craft on the floor. This is so amazing.)
I also searched through commercial patterns online to find one that could be adapted for her jacket. I’m not an outstandingly amazing seamstress, so I find it really helpful to have the basic shapes to start with rather than drafting my own patterns. The Burda 7140 pattern is exactly what I wanted--the front seams are very similar to Eirika’s art, and with a bit of tweaking in the length/volume of the sleeves and peplum, I should be good to go! I will definitely be making a mock-up of this piece before cutting into my real fabric though, every time I don’t test out a pattern, I end up regretting it! Don’t be like past me!
Once I had a good idea of the first materials I’d need to buy, I started creating vector art of Eirika’s most complex parts. I like to print out vector patterns of beveled armor and then sculpt right over the top of the paper for designs like this since it helps keep things straight and symmetrical. Unfortunately there is no art of Eirika with a straight-on perspective for many of her costume pieces, but I should be able to mirror and skew most of it in Adobe Illustrator to get it as clean as possible.
Later this weekend, I plan to scope out fabrics and buttons, start writing down a plan of dimensions for the armor, hit some thrift stores for belts, and if all goes well, I can start sculpting! So jazzed!
Catch you later,
-Erin