Ponyo

After seeing Ponyo for the first time, I just had to cosplay her! Not only is she weapons-grade adorable, but it's also a very comfortable costume.

The bucket was pretty easy to locate, since my local Michael's was having an post-Easter clearance sale and there was a bin full of Easter buckets for $1/each. Likewise for the wig, thanks to Cosplay.com's new lines of wigs.

The big challenges were finding fabric for the dress and making the huge bloomers for Ponyo. After getting a headache trying to find the exact shade of pink that "human" Ponyo wears in the movie, I decided to go the route that most other Ponyo cosplayers did and make my dress out of red. The nice touch is that the shade of red I found shows up as the right shade of pink in the right lighting and camera (like the DSi I took this on). The "Alice in Wonderland" style pattern I based this on did not require much alteration, just shortening the skirt and adding a Mandarin collar.

The difficult part was making those huge bloomers Ponyo wears and still be able to sit and walk. I ended up going to my old bloomer pattern that I made for Rainbow Brite, making it a few inches longer. Then I re-used the pattern for the main dress's skirt, making it longer as well and attaching 3 1/2 yards of tulle (used to make evening and prom dresses poof out). I attached the skirt to the bloomers, sandwiching the tulle in between. The gathering necessary to attach the skirt to the bloomers caused it poof out and they were long enough that you can see the bloomers peek out from under the skirt!

Add my compression vest and I'm everyone's favorite "Little Mermaid" inspired spastic 5-year-old. I almost wish I wasn't a vegetarian, so I could complete the illusion by scarfing down ham by the pound!