Shuri
/Boston Comic-Con 2018
How can you not love Shuri? She may be the smartest, funniest Disney princess yet and she definitely has the coolest tech (sorry, Leia). There was no question what that year’s cosplay was going to be.
I started with the pre-fab costume by Rubie’s Costume Company. I had toyed with the idea of creating it from scratch, but it really was too complicated to make in the time I had. I tweaked the neckpiece to fit my daughter’s smaller neck and glued the flimsy foam arm cannons to sturdy poster tubes to give them structure. She wore my fingerless kayaking gloves to help keep her hands inside the tubes.
The sash was the best part. The thin scrap of fabric attached to the existing costume was awful, and the one in the movie was so great, that I went out and found an approximation of the right fabric and cut two pieces to size. The sash in the movie is covered in Wakandan writing, but I couldn’t find a reliable copy of the whole piece anywhere - so I translated my own words into Wakandan (points if you can make them out) and wrote them down in fabric ink, matching the decorative inked patterns and fabric fringe that were on the real costume.
I made a belt buckle from balsa wood and painted it to resemble Shuri’s, then attached it with rings to the fabric. I found buttons that resembled those on the costume.
I made a bracelet of kimoyo beads out of Sculpey, and as I couldn’t find a description of the symbols on Shuri’s bracelet, I spelled out my daughter’s name in Wakandan instead.
