Cosplaying The Watcher from Slay the Spire

So I’m OBSESSED with this game called Slay the Spire. Originally played it around 4-5 years ago on Steam, and it funnily enough got me through finals week even though it is technically very distracting. But between writing papers and studying for exams, I ditched my beloved Overwatch (I mean not really, I had full-blown Stockholm Syndrome) to sLaYYYYYYY.

It’s a phenomenal game and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s my first card game and roguelite. I tried Hearthstone before, and it wasn’t bad at all, but it didn’t captivate me the same way. So here I am, many years later, staring at my phone on the MTA and playing Slay the Spire like I was programmed by our simulation overlords to do so. It’s funny because while it saved me from Overwatch during finals, it definitely distracted me from my German Duolingo as soon as I downloaded it on my phone. So yeah, it’s been like a year since I’ve practiced German. T_T

But if you can get past not being productive for a while and you’re looking for an easy way to kill time, this is the game for you! I loved it so much that I cosplayed as my main, The Silent, around a year ago. I still love it so much that I cosplayed as another character, The Watcher, very recently at New York Comic Con. I will be sharing the journey of making that cosplay in this blog post!

The KIMONO

I really wanted to make something this time around. So I got a sewing machine, invested in some lessons at the New York Sewing Center, got the fabric, and got to work. My teacher, Fabian, is absolutely splendiferously wonderful. There is NO WAY I would have gotten the kimono done in time if it weren’t for him. I got my first lesson a month prior to Comic Con, but then I had to order the fabric I wanted online and that took some time, so by the time I received it, I only had like two weeks to make the kimono! Dx AND IT IS MY FIRST EVER SEWING PROJECT. Pure crunch time and I was a teensy bit stressed!

I got a kimono pattern on Etsy - it included patterns for the Obi belt (outer belt) and the Koshihimo belt (inner belt). While it was great, I definitely wanted to do some alterations to it so it looked more Watcher-esque, like adding a light purple trim, extending the Obi belt so I had enough fabric to craft a bow (as well as making the fabric stiffer with a method called interfacing), adding interfacing to the collar so that was stiff as well, and decreasing the length of the kimono. Fabian helped SO MUCH with adding the trim especially; I would’ve been completely lost on how to do that cleanly without him, because it wasn’t in the pattern.

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^^ Workin' on the obi and kimono and then the result! Look at the BOWWWW!! It held its shape because of the interfacing added to the fabric!

^^ What it looked like before I added the lighter purple trim! :)

There was a moment where I worried that I didn’t have enough fabric to make the kimono. For a bit of time I had some P A N I K because I was like oh my god, is this Kimono going to be more like a shirt? But it turned out okay! I didn’t want the kimono to look costumey so I made sure to get fabric that I’d enjoy wearing on a peaceful summer day. And I’m definitely going to wear this kimono casually too. :)

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^^Some of the fabrics I used!

The STAFF

This was a doozy to make, and I worked on this quite a bit with my boyfriend because two heads are better than one (four hands too!). I got Christmas ornaments for the orb, and at first I thought it would look better with a matte exterior, so I painted it all over with the matte nail polish that I had and stuck it under a UV lamp. It didn’t look that great though, so I scrapped it and then tried to diffuse the light with some amigurumi stuffing that I had, which worked way way way better.

The staff was made of wood and painted with gold. The original dowel my boyfriend and I got wasn’t long enough, but thankfully he’s savvy with it, so he said he could screw two dowels together. So he drilled a hole into both dowels and used a two-sided screw, and used a wrench to screw it into one side and then the other. BRUTE FORCE!

The eye/almond portion of the staff up top was constructed out of cardboard and EVA foam. Cutting out the design was relatively simple, and initially I was going to make this part much flatter than it turned out. My boyfriend advised against that because he felt like it wasn’t going to be stable enough to rest on the dowel, so he constructed the eye in a way where it was more like an almond-shaped container. The container is held together with magnets so it can easily be taken apart if need be. I don’t think I could have gotten this part done without his help and I am so grateful to be with him. I can see myself really struggling to make this work on my own.

The NAILS

They’re press-ons I made! I wanted to represent each stance (mode) The Watcher can shift into - Calm, Wrath, and Divinity. Calm is blue, Wrath is red, and Divinity is purple. Divinity is easily the most OP stance she has so we have more of those on my fingahs. I did a mix of blue to evoke calmness on one nail, and flames to represent rage on another (and some added gold foil for pizazz). The flower I sculpted with 3D gel is supposed to represent an item that makes her stronger: Violet Lotus. The eye in the nails represents her third eye because she’s ✨transcendental ✨, and I often included opalescent foil on Divinity nails to induce ethereal vibes. Because she is spiritually, physically, and mentally built different.

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The SASH and MASK

The sash/ribbon around her was easy to sew, thanks to an overlock machine I used at the NY Sewing Center. I tucked a wire into my obi and shaped it into a ribbon around me, taped LED lights onto the wire, and draped the fabric over it. This was definitely less successful because the ribbon would fall off pretty easily, despite clothespins. It was precarious and kept falling down during the con which was a bummer, but luckily my boyfriend tied the ends of the fabric into a knot to keep it from continually falling off as I walked. If you’re making this or ever make something like this, it’s probably best to glue the fabric on in some way. HOWEVER, do not iron holographic gauzey textiles like this one because after I did, it MELTED. Like legitimately MELTED. Steam it if you need to.

The mask is made from a lineny fabric which I sewed to make it a bit neater, and then I sewed a regular medical mask underneath it for some stability.

The ORNAMENTS AND EXTRAS

I collect “relics” that are in the game, and those relics act as buffs for the characters in Slay the Spire. So included the little relics I’ve been collecting in my cosplay, because why not! Tiny House, Runic Pyramid, Ornamental Fan (hair clip here), and Violet Lotus are all relics. I’ve been dying to get an Ornamental Fan from Japan, if/I do finally travel there - I pass by a lot of fans, because you see those pretty frequently in touristy shops and whatnot, but I’m actually pretty selective about the relics I obtain. They have to feel just right. For the purposes of this cosplay, however, I stuck with just the hair clip fan, because it is LITERALLY ornamental! :) As for the hair ornaments, like the chopsticks, they aren’t relics, but The Watcher wears them! They aren’t as glitzy, I think, but I’d like to think an elegant character such as her would wear some bedazzled food utensils.

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^^Ornamental fan and fancy chopsticks

The I-TRIEDs…

Tried painting my face blue because that’s what she is! Blue! And I know it looks OKAY from afar, but close-up it’s super splotchy. I have to practice that more. Water-based activation makes things difficult because while it is easy to apply ONE layer, applying more than one can be a nightmare in my amateurish experience. If you apply a second layer, the water from that can drip onto the first and move and smudge it around in unseemly ways. And then fixing that requires more water soooo…. :(

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^^The day-of I was like AGH and I just took my blue face paint off after struggling for an hour.

I also tried dying white gloves blue too with acid dye! After I took them out of the pot and laid them out to dry, I decided to rinse and re-rinse it until all the dye that didn’t hold would come out. Turns out basically all of the dye didn’t hold. So I guess I didn’t do that right either. But I’ll get it right next time hopefully! Besides, this was way comfier for the con!