Cosplay Profile – Winry Rockbell, Fullmetal Alchemist

• The costume – This was an awesome cosplay to start my career off with. It was my first year at an anime convention, and Fullmetal Alchemist was insanely popular in the States. I was a blonde at the time, and I have always been a skinny girl, so this would be a fairly easy costume to create as my first ever cosplay. I chose Winry’s mechanic outfit that she is most commonly seen in throughout the anime. This cosplay debuted at my first anime convention, Sakura-Con in 2005, and re-debuted at Sakura-Con in 2012 just for giggles. I did have to wear a wig though (not a blonde anymore!) and it didn’t work as well ^_^;;

• The parts – For all the parts of her costume, I will start at the top of her head and work my way down: 1) Maroon bandana, 2) Black tube top, 3) Very worn leather gloves, with a brownish/greenish tint to them, 4) Lavender coveralls, rolled down and tied at the waist, 5) Sandals or loafers for shoes

• The research – I managed to score a Winry figurine in her mechanic outfit from my job at Suncoast, and the colors were very similar to what she was wearing in the TV series. From my first cosplay, I learned that figurines can be very reliable in a lot of cases where you can’t see the back of the costume in a game or series. Though commonly, colors between the manga and the animation differed, I decided to go with the more common color combo from the anime. I look online at Cosplay.com and saw a whole mess of Winrys wearing all different colors: bright red bandanas, brown or blue coveralls, and frankly, I was very confused with where people were getting their color ideas for this costume. I stuck with my figurine and the screen shots from the series.

• The construction process – This was a very easy costume to put together. The hardest thing was getting coveralls that would work. I didn’t want to any pieces of my costume to be inaccurate, so I bought some size small white coveralls off the internet, and dyed them in my washer. I used standard purple Rit dye, and I just didn’t let them stew for very long. They came out a perfect shade of lavender to match the animation color. I bought some maroon fabric at Jo-Ann’s and ripped it in a couple spots to make it easier to tie around my ponytail. The tube top was a cheap score from Hot Topic, off the clearance rack. It had a little cherry decal on it, so I just folded it in half, and that actually helped to keep it from falling down. With my first run of the cosplay, I tried to make some fancy orange sandals that matched my figurine. I threw them away after Day 1 because they kept falling apart. Instead, I used some brown clogs because they were more comfy, and with as baggy as my coveralls came out to be, you couldn’t see the clogs anyways. I borrowed some really worn gloves from my tech theater program at school, and my teacher said they were so worn out that i could keep them for my cosplay. The wrench was another item I borrowed, and was eventually told to keep because it went so well with my cosplay.

Photos