How To Make Your Own Vash the Stampede Costume
I recently made a pretty sweet Vash the Stampede Costume for my cosplaying, and at the suggestion of a friend, here is my DIY Vash the Stampede Guide.
Crafting cosplay can be tricky since often fine details are difficult to pin down. For example, Vash's coat features many buttons. Depending on which scene, the lighting, whether anime or manga, and a few other factors, the number of buttons on the front panel of his coat varies from as few as 12 to as many as 18. Other details like where the seams are, how many buckles are on his sleeve and boot, how the straps are held on, and a few other details are similarly arbitrary, but eventually I selected one photo and pretty much followed that.
I used red duck canvas to construct the coat. It's rather stiff, which isn't quite right for the costume, but seemed an appropriate coat material. Other Vash the Stampede cosplay creators have used red leather or tough knit fabric, which would also be fine, but duck canvas is cheap. For my costume, I needed 7 yards. If your model is shorter, you may need less, but I usually get extra in case I mess up.
Making a Pattern for Your Vash the Stampede Coat
The basic pattern includes 19 pieces, not including the repeats that are used on the opposite sides of straps. In my above sketch, you can see that I went with 16 buttons on the front. I later changed this because 18 fit better. The total number of buttons came to 45, which is a lot to hand stitch through 6 layers of canvas! To ensure the coat fit well, I traced a T-shirt that I knew fit my model onto sheer fabric and cut and measured that. I had to adjust a little throughout, but the basic pattern is based off a simple t-shirt shape.In the sketch below, all the pieces are laid out and graphed. Note that the thigh straps are missing, but I used the same pattern as the shoulder straps.
Before cutting out your pattern, ensure that the shoulder to ankle length is appropriate. My model is 52 inches from top of shoulder to ankle, and wears a size medium-small in mens, so the costume is subsequently quite tall and thin. This sketch also does not allow for seam allowances, so you'll have to add an extra inch and a half or so to make sure your resulting coat doesn't end up 2 inches smaller than intended. Feel free to interpret your Vash the Stampede look as needed to achieve the right amount of love and peace for your model.
I kind of cut and measured as I went along, so I don't have a photo of all the cut out pieces. One thing that made it tricky is that the coat is rather baggy, so I ended up having to make the vest portion several inches larger than originally intended. I also remeasured the collar to ensure that it fit comfortably in the head hole once I had sewn the shoulder seams.
Sewing Vash's Coat
If you have zero experience sewing, I'll give you the beginner description of how I put this Vash the Stampede coat together, but I'll bold the cut and dry version for anyone who has sewn several garments in their lifetime and has a good idea of what they're doing already.
First step is to cut the vest and sew the points, turn and topstitch from the armpit to the collar on the front, or the armpit to armpit on the back
The back of the vest is all one piece, whereas the front obviously has to be two pieces. I cut 4 front pieces (two for each side) and two back pieces. Sew from the collar down the front and up to the sleeve hole on the front piece, and the sleeve hole to the sleeve hole on the back piece. This leaves the arm holes, shoulders, and collar raw, but you can flip the bottom inside-out to make a nice finish. Press the seams, roll out the points, and topstitch along the seams you just sewed (turn and topstitch).
Second, cut out the 4 body pieces, sew the back together, finish the front body, and attach the vest to the body at the shoulders.
I cut the body after sewing the vest to ensure the shoulders would be the same width. The back of the body has a slit that comes up to about the knees, so I sewed the two back pieces together starting at the top and sewing until about 16 inches from the bottom (this may vary if your model has shorter legs). I then finished and topstitched that seam. I also hemmed the front of the body along where I would sew the buttons. After finishing the back and front, I made a huge sandwich with the finished front of the vest, the front of the body, the back of the body, and the back of the vest, all with right sides facing between the front and back body. I double-stitched the shoulders and finished those seams. I should have probably topstitched that as well, but I did not because that's a lot of fabric. And we all know that Vash the Stampede disproves of suicide more than anything.
Next, measure the collar and attach to the main body.
The collar I ended up with was 32 inches long (including seam allowance) and 10 inches tall. I first hemmed the edges that would make up the button-up part. Next, I sewed the outside layer onto the collar (another thick sandwich), and turned the inside in, and stitched that on to finish it. Be careful pinning this inside seam because the inside hem ends up being the outside topstitching. I also topstitched the enclosing ends of the collar.
Step 4 was to attach the sleeves.
I believe I hemmed both sleeves first and then attached them to the shoulder hole, but you can do it either way. It's critical to attach and finish all 4 layers: the sleeve, the body, and the two layers of vest. After the sleeves are attached, sew from the sleeve cuff through the shoulder and down the body until about 18 inches from the bottom to leave room for the side slit.I topstitched along the sides,but not along the sleeves because I don't hate myself. Do the same on both sides.
The coat is mostly formed now! You could probably wear it without looking like a weirdo. Anything that has not already been hemmed or finished should now be hemmed or finished. If you've been following me step by step, you should just have the bottom hem to do. Despite my best efforts, one of my body pieces was a good 3 inches longer than the rest of the coat (how does that even happen?) so I just hemmed all the pieces to be the same length and finished up any raw seams that looked like they needed help.
(photo of bottom hem)
The rest of the pieces were entirely made up of turned and topstitched pieces, which are pretty easy once you get the hang of it, especially if they all have right angle corners like these do.
Make the front piece. Make two shoulder straps. Make one cuff strap (I almost made two of these, but Vash does not have a right sleeve, so don't do that). Make two thigh straps. Make one waist strap. Make two looping straps. These pieces are also all held on with buttons. You can make buttonholes for each of these, but honestly I only made 14 button holes out of 45 buttons because the majority of these buttons never have to come undone. The required buttonholes are as follows: 2 in the collar, 8 on the front panel, one on each end of the waist strap, and one on one end of each of the looping waist straps.
Finishing your Trigun Cosplay
Once you've sewn on all the buttons, you should be done with the coat! Next is just the hair, glasses, gun, arm, legs, and boots (yes! that's all!). Once I've had a chance to work on mine and take some photos, I'll either update this post or add a link to another tutorial for you.
I realize that it would have been clever to add pockets so my model could pretend to have a loaded gun in there, but that honestly wouldn't be too hard to add even after the fact. If you do want to add them, you might need another tutorial, but they would fit nicely below the waist strap on either side.
I hope this Vash the Stampede coat tutorial helps you with your next cosplay. Love and Peace!
