Project Aly to Aloy: The Skirt; a breakdown of the build and my sanity

Any discussion of Aloy had to start here. As most anyone who has been around be Instagram for a while, this single piece slowly eroded my sanity over the course of 5 years. Bloody hell. Started May 2019, and completed September 2023, I only worked on this in small bursts and then threw in into a corner dejected for several months before the motivation returned. Can’t say a global pandemic helped. Overall I think there is somewhere north of 500 hours work in it, it was at about 300 before I had done any of the leather detailing. So lets have a look at the what and why of reasons this was far too involved of a project and never again.

I started by going for the eternal options of cosplayers everywhere: thanking the crafting gods for photo mode and scouring the internet and Instagram to see how other people did it. At the time one of the first Aloy’s I found, Raven Star cosplay (https://www.instagram.com/ravenstarcosplay/), had a blog post about her skirt build, that I think I visited at least a few times a week for a while there just to wrap my head around it. There are 7 leather panels, edged in two colours of linen, with waxed cord and leather details. Sounds easy when you put it like that. Fortunately Guerrilla Games also released a cosplay guide, which was incredibly helpful for material choice. What was less helpful was the fact that this was a video game, and therefore seams and fastenings are more of an afterthought rather than a conscious choice. Of course, this being my greatest build yet and wanting to compete at a high level, I took this to mean that in order to be the most accurate I had to hide all of my seams, have the back as clean as the front as it is fully visible, and that each panel needed to be a unique size and shape. Regret.

I originally bought a garment grade leather to use for the base, but quickly realised that it would be too thin to hold up to the amount of detailing required. Fortunately, the world’s oddest and most uncomfortable photoshoot happened to be at a random abandoned factory which sold scrap stuff. Like looks like it would fit right at home in Fallout levels of random junk. This included a suspiciously large pile of leather which was apparently dead stock and they were willing to sell to me for $20AUD/hide. I’m still suspicious but it was actually perfect, and I still have all of the leftover scraps to use for projects, so it’s getting utilised as much as possible. I made templates from mockup material, and once I was happy got my base sorted. So far so good.

First trim option: cotton. Got it home, decided I hated the colours, is still sitting in stash. Take two with linen and we had a winner. More muted, nicer texture, felt a bit more realistic. Next problem was the inner dark border. This is where Raven Star was invaluable. Basically I wanted to be able to sew it down so there were no raw edges, but also no pesky corner seams. Her method basically involved making a window of sorts, and carefully connecting it to both sides of the leather. This is where having pieces that were the same would have been really nice but no, every piece got it’s own pattern. Lining it up was a time, and pins would not hold so thank goodness the tape didn’t cause any damage. The outer layer was easier, home-made bias tape machined one side, and then hand sewn the other to ensure there was no visible machine stitching.

As I’m sure you realise by now, I was a little obsessive about this build and accuracy. Which meant I could not sleep well at night unless the red stitching was in as close to the exact location in the game as it could be. As you do. This amounted to 52 sections of around 8cm length to get stitched up. Easy. HA. Being a fussy bugger I immediately had trouble finding a red waxed thread that had a bit of a darker undertone, but we got there, figured 50m would be enough. Try 150m. Being a thick leather, there was no just sewing this on. So began the great looping. Each stitch needed to have a hole punched out with an awl to allow the needle to actually pass through, and then even with doubled thread I’d have to make a few passes, changing angles to ensure the coverage was full and even, and all the knots were hidden. I thought this was the longest part. Celebrated so much when after years it was finally done. And then. The leather cord.

You think the waxed thread was bad? Try individually patterned, fully hole punched cord detailing. each panel needed it’s own pattern drawn up and transferred across with fine liner. Not so bad. Each hole then had to be punched out so the cord could go through. My weak grip meant that the ones where it passed through twice, thus needing a bigger hole, had to be punched smaller then gone over and enlarged because I didn’t have the strength to do it the correct size to start. For each panel. and then the cord had to be woven through, and secured cleanly on the back with superglue. When I say this literally stole years of my life. I could only punch sections of about 20-30cm on a good day before I was too worn out. I did cry when it was all done. Not sorry.

Finally, with all the panels complete, it could all be attached together. Adding the nylon strapping to make a belt was actually one of the scariest parts, there was no going back, so trying to get everything sitting right and taped properly to align it was so important. I actually left extra length for the ends, and the smallest panel is attached with velcro, so I can make it size adjustable if required. No way I am ever giving it up easily, especially not for weight fluctuations. And that is it. It is heavy, and I'd like to attack it with some paints and sandpaper at some point which will kill me, but I think it needs the wear. I'm beyond happy with it, my absolute pride and joy.