In late December 2021, I was approached by the game creators of Alchemy Stars, a popular fantasy mobile game! They had a tight deadline and wanted me to cosplay as the Queen of the North Bethlehem, a character in the game.
Not one to shy away from a challenge, I dug through all my cosplay material stashes and found most everything I needed to make Bethlehem’s costume!
What followed were 5 sleep-deprived days full of sewing, crafting and detail-arranging, and 1 fun day of dressing up as Bethlehem for a photo and a video shoot.
I worked quickly so I didn't document the entire crafting process, but here are some progress pics on how I made this costume!
I used two beautiful patterned fabrics for the cape and trimmed around all the edges with strips of faux fur. Then I made the blue and white bows.
I was able to reuse the bodice and feathers from my retired Emma Frost costume for Bethlehem, which really saved me a lot of time and allowed me to focus on building the skirt tiers. The top layer of the skirt was the most important as it had a very specific design.
I patterned the skirt shape in paper first, then transferred the template onto a heavy bridal fabric for the top layer, and a very light lining fabric for the under layer. I sewed the two layers together, turned them inside out, and clipped along all the curves. Next, I ironed the skirt with steam and made sure all the shapes showed up nicely.
Then I used heat-n-bond and a purple fabric to make the little tear drop designs and ironed them onto the skirt. I spent about a day on just the little details on the costume such as the white bows, purple crosses, gold metal cording, jeweled hangings etc.
As the costume came together, I had to rig an attachment system for the cape since it is an... off the shoulder fur cape! I also made 4-tip stars with EVA foam for the ear muffs!
The last piece I made was the crown, which consisted of a bunch of resin cast gems that I glued to a headband. Thankfully, I use gems enough that I had built a whole collection of various shapes and didn't have to hunt for anything. Tip: Buy weird buttons to make molds and cast copies of for cosplay adornment.
And Bethlehem is finished! Here are some of my favorite photos we took! You can see the full gallery here!
Thanks for following along! Check out my Belle costume progress if you like this type of content!