The four horsemen of my apocalypse.

TOOLS. They are important.
Without these 4 things, I would die. And by die I mean screw up this costume royally.

1) A good sewing machine.
Are you serious about this? A lot of cosplay you can get by on just a straight stitch and a zigzag here and there. I soldmy car last July and dropped 600$ on a middle-line Huskvarna Viking Emerald 183(I think). I'd been using my grandmother's sewing machine, the one she used to make my skating costumes back when I was like, 10. That was a while ago. I knew what the machine could do, but no damn idea how to make it do them. These are the perils of being self-taught. (Grandmother is 83 and lives 2 time zones away. So I couldn't really ask her.)

Wow, things have come a long way since...the 80s, maybe? Early 90s at best. My new machine is lovely and automated and smart. It tells me when there's something wrong with it, and what foot to use with what stitch. Genius. Also, the JoAnns in Southcenter (Tukwila, WA for reference) had a Viking center--where I got the machine--which got me a complimentary hour of training on my new machine, and that hour has been PRICELESS.

2) GOOD SCISSORS. This seems easy. I got a spendy rotary tool this weekend and we'll see if it's that much better than scissors (it was 50% off due to a coupon, anyway) but good scissors make your life easier. Remember those child-scissors that bent construction paper all the time? And how nice it was to have scissors that could cut shit? Scissors aren't that expensive, get some good ones. Gingher is a good brand, but most that're 15$ or so should be fine for cosplay use.

3) Chalk pen. GENIUS. I'm very, very bad at cutting straight lines. I blame astigmatism. Anyways, my chalk pen (5$ at Pacific Fabrics, I think) lets me draw all over my dark fabrics and then I just cut along the lines! No more pinning my fabric to patterns, or weighing stuff down with books while I cut around them! We life in the future.

4) Disappearing ink pen. STILL GENIUS. This is the same idea as above, but for light fabrics. You can draw and make marks, and they just dissappear! I used this making button-holes for the top of Haruhi's blouse, and it is generally awesome.