One of the questions I get all the time is how do I go about picking my cosplay. Quite honestly, I find a fandom and character that I love and then this happens when I realise I could possibly cosplay as, find a few white t-shirts, GIMP and...viola! Sheik from Super Smash Brother Brawl:

 

  

Okay, so I also had a pair of red contacts, but you get the point! This method works well for me and once I have my heart set on a cosplay, I start to collect pictures of other cosplayers, reference images from the game, tv shows and movies and fanart. 

Seriously, I have at LEAST 200 Sheik images on my computer at the moment. These images help me sketch out my basic plan of what each part of the costume will look like. 

Eventually, this....

Becomes this...which becomes...

This!Ya, I'm just that cool ;)

 For this, I bought a white men's t-shirt from the dollar store. Next I removed the neck and opened it up more and removed the sleeves at the seam. I cut out some "tear" mark and sketch on my pattern outline in pencil.

 I then carefully added red and blue fabric paint. Make sure to let it dry for 3 days before you try and wash it!

 For all my patterns, I sketch them onto newspaper first basing what they looked like on the many pictures on my laptop. For this material, I used a cotton blend. Each leg piece is made of two identical parts and on the inside I have iron on interfacing. I ironed the interfacing on so that it would be in the centre when the two outsides were stitched together.

 As you can see, I cut out the piece that was use for decoration on the centre as well. I then line the outside with wrapped edging, sewed the smaller piece onto the centre of the bigger piece and added velcro to wrap around my leg.

 

The above process was repeated for the arm guards. For the white "bandages" for the legs and arms, I also used cotton strips sewn together for wrapping.

For Shiek's Tanto, I found the perfect sized knife in a ninja set at the dollar store. Visit my Deviant Art account, which has a full sized version of the below tutorial on how I made the tanto more appropriate looking for my cosplay:

malakhite.deviantart.com

 Below you will find some pictures I took as I progressed through putting my cosplay together. I was really happy with how this turned out as it was the first cosplay I had sewn and made completely on my own.

 

 

And finally....cosplay as Sheik at Anime North 2014 and 2015!

 A girl's gotta eat right? ;D

                                                       Me hanging out with Future Link.