Midori #4

the template on the parasol

The Spiral Parasol

As this cosplay is to be worn mostly in the Spring or Summer, I wanted to add the parasol as a prop. I also love the spiral parasol she has in a few manga pictures, and it should be an easy make.

I bought a white paper parasol at my local Chinese bazar, as they didn't have any in fabric. It's more fragile, but more accurate, even if the source one is a bit larger.

I measured the open parasol's diameter, and, in Affinity Design, I traced a three twist spiral, inside a circle with the parasol's diameter. Then I duplicated the spiral, rotated it to make the spiral surface, and finally tweaked it a bit by hand.

I exported the line drawing to a high-res PDF, and had it printed in large format at Zoom Cópia. At home, I cut out the spiral, and taped it to the parasol, with painter's tape. I then traced the spiral, and took the template off.

I considered using Ecoline paints to paint the spiral, but then I decided to look for a cheaper permanent marker, as Ecoline costs even more and isn't waterproof. At former Imaginação das Cores, now one more Ponto das Artes shop, I found two wide Sakura permanent markers in red. They didn't have any more, not even in black... I rooted for two to be enough...

I opened the parasol, put the top centre part out of the way, and started to carefully paint, first three sections at a time, later, as they got wider, two sections at a time, by tracing the edges first, and then filling them. The 1st marker started to fail at about two thirds of the spiral, so, as it wouldn't bleed as much as the new one, I traced the edges with the first marker, and filled the sections with the 2nd marker. Because it's a wide marker, I wasn't able to make very straight lines, but it's not noticeable one meter away. And the paper had a few glue stains, where the red got a bit blotched. Overall, it's very flat and homogeneous, and exactly the right red shade of red.

the painted parasol, the markers and the backup shoes

The top part was a bit large, so I carefully trimmed it with small scissors.

+ It was easier to make, it took me about two hours, than I expected. Still, I wish I was skilled enough to hand paint it with one brush stroke, like I once saw an old Japanese guy do in a video.

- I wanted the spiral to have nicer edges, and it is a bit wonky, but it's not immediately noticeable, and I'm not in the mood to spend more money to make a new one, or use wax as a resist.

THE CUNNING PLAN

Make a sleeve to transport the parasol. Make the skirt.