Tutorial: Princess Celestia Cosplay

In My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Celestia is the co-ruler of Equestria alongside her sister Princess Luna. I had been dreaming of cosplaying Celestia for a long time because she is so majestic and beautiful. She has such a kind and gentle spirit and is a wonderful mentor to Twilight Sparkle and the other ponies. I love her pastel rainbow mane and golden armored accessories.  So for this tutorial I will show you how I made my cosplay!

 

The first thing I made was her accessories. I started with the crown and drew the design on newspaper to make a pattern. Then I cut it out of a sheet of craft foam.

I did the same thing for the necklace.

And the bracelets!

Here is everything cut from the foam.

Next I added details to the pieces using more foam and hot gluing them in place.

I even used foam for the purple diamonds because I have not yet learned how to use resin. Foam is just so easy!

The sun staff was also made of foam and took awhile to cut out all the shapes.

I cut a styrofoam ball in half and glued each piece to a circle. Then I sandwiched the sun rays in-between the two circles.

After all the foam pieces were done it was time to paint them with Gesso. Gesso is a canvas primer that helps the paint look more vibrant and prevent it from seeping into the foam. It also gives it more stability. You’ll want to paint about two or three coats of it – waiting to let it dry between each coat.

After the Gesso was completely dry, I spray painted all my pieces metallic gold.

I also did the bracelets but they are not pictured here. And that trident was for my Sailor Ariel cosplay that I made at the same time as Celestia. The pole on the staffs is a PVC pipe that I sanded, gesso’d, and spray painted.

To wear the crown, I hot glued two hair combs on it so the teeth would stay really secure in my wig’s netting.

I also painted the diamond with purple acrylic paint then sprinkled glitter onto it.

I did the same technique to the diamonds on the necklace and the bracelets. I wore the bracelets by gluing velcro to them and the necklace was wedged into my carpet for a few days to give it a bent look.

The wings were based off of Princess Celestia’s actual design. I enlarged her wings on my computer and taped some tissue paper to it. Then I used a highlighter to trace her wings.

I then traced the pattern onto some newspaper since it’s thicker and easier to work with.

For the structure of the wings I took a clothes hanger and trimmed and bent it into a U shape. I sandwiched the wire in-between the two pieces of foam with hot glue.

Finally, I wrapped the wire with some white ribbon and then added longer ribbon so I could tie the wings on around my shoulders.

The dress I used was one I found at a garage sale. It was a little too short for me so I had to alter it some. For Celestia any white dress will do. But I was very happy to find one that had a Renaissance look to it.

My wig is the Candy Striper in Harmony from Arda Wigs. I split the bangs down the middle and pinned them back with bobby pins. Then I put some of the hair over the back of my crown to help keep it in place. My eyeshadow is gold to green to purple, I used a light shimmery lip gloss, and I made my cheeks a light pink. I didn’t have time to order purple contact lenses so I photoshopped them in this photo.

Some finishing touches I added was a gold rope belt and some rhinestones on the staff. I’m really happy with how this cosplay looked! It was one of my favorites to wear because of the magical and girly feel to it. Cosplaying as a My Little Pony character is a lot of fun since you can have more creative freedom with the design.

I wore this cosplay to AKon 2014, and you can see more pictures in this blog post!

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Let me know if you found this tutorial helpful, and

if you cosplay as Princess Celestia be sure to send me pics!