Lara Croft - Tomb Raider I - Cosplay Construction

When: March 2014

Where: UK

I'd been wanting to cosplay Lara for a really long time because she's one of my all time favourite game characters. I played the original series when I was younger on the play station so of course I had to do the Tomb Raider I version of her.

However, there are always a bagillion Lara Crofts at conventions and I didn't want my costume to be just another Lara in the sea of Laras (especially with the recent release of Tomb Raider on PS3). So when local geek party Geekfest at my university in Kent came up this was the perfect chance for a Lara!

I don't have many pictures of the construction for this costume because I made it in literally a few days.

You can see the final costume here.

The top I made using a fabric I had lying around which was luckily the right shade of blue and was slightly stretchy. I used a tank top to create the pattern. I actually had to make the top twice because the first one was waaaaaay too small.

(Even the second one was slightly too small)

I made the shorts using the trouser pattern I use for all my costumes which involve trousers of some form. I adjusted the panels so I didn't have to deal with pockets. The shorts also needed a lot of wearing, adjusting, wearing, adjusting as I had to get them to fit and get them to the right length.

I made the gun holsers using black spare fabric and velcro. The holsters themselves were plastic covered in black fabric. Sewing through them worked up to a point until one decided to fly off. I think in the future I'd make them out of fabric and stiffener. I clipped the holders to a belt using buckles I'd taken off a broken violin case.

 The guns are literally water pistols I got off amazon, spray pained silver and then painted black. Great for a one night event as the spay paint scratched off really easily. And I had to glue the triggers in place otherwise the paint would scratch off and show the luminous green and orange underneath.

I made the bag even faster than the others when I realised I'd need something to hold my purse and stuff through the night.

Then on the night I got friends to braid my wig. Not amazing but it didn't need to be. I think that if I were doing this for a convention a much longer wig and careful styling would be needed.

You can see the final costume here.