Anime Boots

So, this weekend my brother-in-law is going NekoCon. If you're not familiar with NekoCon, it's an anime convention in Hampton Roads, VA... though I guess if you are familiar with NekoCon it's still the same thing. I don't think it changes based on your knowledge.

Anywho...

He wanted to dress up like a character from the anime Code Geass. I don't remember the character's name and I can't seem to find it anywhere but I have a picture so here you go.



I just love Japanese to English translations

The guy on the right is the target character. Now this character was pretty much a scratch build costume, but he enlisted several people for help. I volunteered myself to help because I thought it would be a fun challenge and I had some ideas I thought I could implement. The boots were what I was responsible for making, and as you can see I didn't have too much to go on.

We had this second picture but the boots on this character were slightly different so it's only so helpful.

We started with a knock off pair of those slip on Vans. ($10 at Wal-Mart). From there I bought some craft foam, duct tape, spray paint, velcro, super glue, Elmer's glue, and I also used a hot glue gun.

I started by wrapping the end of a piece of craft foam around the shoe and then bending it upwards. I taped it in place and drew on the sides to see where to cut the shape out that I needed. This is the template I came up with.

The piece on the left is the front and the piece on the right is the back. I also had to cut out a strip to close up the top. Once I had my template I traced it onto the white foam and cut that out.

To attach it I started by wrapping the bottom tabs around the middle of the shoe and super gluing them to the bottom of the shoe.

Then I super glued one side of the back piece inside one side of the front piece. I left the other side open to make it easier to get them on and off. I did the same thing with the top strap across the back.

I wanted to reinforce them so I covered the inside with white duct tape. I wish I had used something else because it's nearly impossible to glue anything to duct tape.

I painted the whole thing with a few coats of a mixture of water and Elmer's glue to seal the foam so that it would paint better. If you don't, it just soaks up the paint like a sponge.

I hot glued strips of velcro on them so the back flap and top strap would stay closed. I actually had to cut the duct tape off the back where I glued it on to get it to stick.

Once everything was together I hit it with a couple coats of white spray paint and voila!

No pictures of him wearing them yet, but hopefully he'll get some at the Con. I'd like to see them with the rest of the costume.