Amabie costume

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In 2020, a fairly obscure yokai called Amabie started to trend on Japanese Twitter with #AmabieChallenge. 

There are variations to the story, but the legend says that a mermaid-like creature with long hair, a beak, scales, and three legs or fins emerged from the sea in the late 1800s to give a warning and advice. It predicted six years of good harvest and then a pandemic. To stave off the disease, Amabie said to draw its picture and show that picture to as many people as possible.

Since this whole concept was still relevant in 2021 but not bad enough to cancel Halloween altogether, and Amabie has become near and dear to my heart, that's what I did.

Full-length photo of Amabie costume



Process

Beak

There are two parts to the beak, the beak itself and the mask to hold it to my face (note: also thematically appropriate). While I was developing the beak from paper and then craft foam, I was also looking for me-colored masks to attach the beak to. Both of these took a few tries and some trial and error, but the end result was everything I hoped it would be.

Animated gif showing highlights of the process - paper cutout on desk and taped to a paper mask, cut out of foam, glued together, choosing which colors to use, painting, and the finished beak

Legs

I used some gray scrap fabric as a test to try to determine what kind of fabric I needed, how I should arrange it, how to attach it, and how much I needed.

Animated gif of the highlights of the leg fin process - fabrics near a sewing machine, test fabric bunched and folded in a couple different ways, green fabric bunched and then sewn to scale-print leggings, and the final result

Tail

I had originally hoped I could just find more of the same fabric the dress and leggings were made of and get a couple yards to make the tail, but that didn't work out. So I got some emerald green satin and cut out a tail shape, sewed it together, and stuffed it with some batting I had left over from the dinosaur costume mystery gift. Then I scanned the leggings to get the pattern, traced it in the computer, and printed myself a template to draw all the tail scales on (a Sharpie and a half, if you were wondering). When at long last that was done, I attached it to a belt and added the same bright green fabric I used as fins on the legs.

Animated gif of the tail making process - closeup of green fabric with sewn edge, tail shapes sewn but still inside out, tale shape turned right side out, closeup photos of the tail fin fabric pinned and then sewn in place, scale-print leggings on the scanner, the scanned image of the scale pattern, a screenshot of the program used to trace the scale pattern, the resulting template being used to draw scales on the plain tail, and the final result

Sleeves

This also took some trial and error, but I like the accent color from the legs, tail, and ears repeated on the sleeves.
photo of the scale-print dress on a dress form with the leggings hanging on a shelf in the background, with the fin fabric sewn to the dress sleeves

Headband

Another wearable prop started from paper and finalized in craft foam. 

Animated gif of the ear fin process - sketchbook page with life-size drawing and two of the same shape cut out of craft foam, the craft foam pieces wrapped around a headband and paper clipped in place as a prototype, the final shape of one ear fin cut out of foam next to a piece of thermoplastic, the same foam piece with slices of thermoplastic glued inside to be sandwiched between layers of foam, two foam ear fin shapes in the process of being painted, an array of paints used placed around a plastic lid used for mixing paint colors, the two ear fin shapes with green paint, one of the ear fins completely painted so they look like they have more dimension, the cut out pieces of fabric to be the webbing in the ear fins, the fabric glued into the foam, and a close-up of one finished ear fin complete with pen-drawn scale details, the headband with ear fins attached before and after using the thermoplastic to curl the fins away from the headband, the headband with ear fins on a wig head, pearls glued to the headband

Painting is my favorite part, and adding the depth to these (flat!) foam shapes went better than I had hoped.


I doubled the fingery shapes so they would wrap around the headband and hide both the webbing fabric and slivers of thermoplastic. The plastic was used to curve the ear fins so they were perpendicular to my head rather than parallel. That made a world of difference in how well it photographed!

photo of finished costume from elbows up


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