I found a suit! Shame it won't be Edgeworth, but Phoenix is good enough any day!

Just need to alter the top a bit, and I'll be good to go!

However...I've come across one curious problem. Anyone here have any advice for a wig? What kind to buy...how to style it...etc.

This will be my first time styling my own wig for a cosplay...so any help is appreciated!

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My brother went as him for halloween once... All he did was take a shaggy black one and go at it with a hot glue gun ^^;
You might wanna do something more professional, though. I have no clue, sorry.

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If you have a synthetic fiber wig (meaning it's not made of human hair) you will want to use a hot water treatment. Make sure your wig is secure on to a wig head leaning back (so the hair is pointing out like Phoenix's) and pour water that is between 180-184°F (a little lower it the wig is of poor quality). Pour as much water as you need all over the hair. Once it's dried spray that puppy down with hair spray for the dollar store. An important note about the hair spray is that you don't want extra things in there (vitamin A, C whatever) because while it's not bad for the wig it builds up in the wig and makes it look icky.

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Hot glue...that's a bit extreme...but if it works....XD

And that sounds like a great idea badfangirl! I'll have to try that...hopefully it'll work!

I need to go wig shopping at the costume store down the street soon to get a black-hair'd wig. If I can't find one short, I'll have to use my dog-grooming skills to try to cut it XD (I've groomed Golden Retrievers to perfection...so that's how I justify myself XD)

*sighs a bit* I also need to figure out how I can make an attorney badge that can stay on. You think some form of sculpy would work? x__x

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Ew, don't hot glue a wig. Get some strong hairspray and spiking gel instead (Aquanet and Got2B are both recommended, respectively). Costume stores tend to have low quality wigs though. You might want to try some online wig sources such as Cosworx or Ebay instead.

Sculpey with a little safety pin stuck in the back works perfectly. I made mine that way. You don't have to go into fine detail (I didn't) since no one's going to lean in super close to you to see your badge.

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Okay, this question I can rock. My friend Diana taught me how to fuse a wig to my head to make it look like my real hair--I convinced several people it WAS my real hair. My real hair is like Mia's.

badfangirl has the right idea with the spraying. Go nuts; it's easier to just style it once and touch-up after. I started with a wig I had used for Oosaki Nana, if that gives you an idea of length. We used got2be glued hairspray; stuff is insane. And gel. Lots of gel. I almost passed out. It was epic.

So, you've got the wig on your head, and a wigcap. Notice that huge, sharp-wig line since Nick doesn't have bangs? We can fix that. I hope you have bangs, because that will make this much, much easier. Buy a lot of the cheapest black mascara you can find, like dollar-store cheap. Pull small bits of your hair out over the wig and brush it black with the mascara. Spray it back in place, and have a hair dryer handy--many extreme hairsprays are activated by heat. Continue until you've covered the wig line. It will take some fiddling based on your hair style, and I haven't seen a real picture of you, so it's hard to say.

It will be a bitch to get the wig off, as your own hair will be woven into the wig and stuck down with sticky crap, but it is so worth it. It was one of the most comfortable wigs I've worn, and I only had small problems with my real hair falling out.

Oh, yeah, wig sources: luckily Phoenix's hair is black, so you can look at natural-looking wig stores. I get all of my black wigs from WOW Mart (I see that you are in New Hampshire, so directing you to the one I go to wouldn't help). They're not badly-priced for the quality. Try to find out where transvestites get their wigs; they tend to frequent places with fairly-realistic hair.

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So THAT's what you did to your hair. Haha.

I'm going to second this advice, because I can attest that it works. This advice is also what I use for my Phoenix hair, except my hair's already black, so I get to skip the mascara part. (I've also seen Trench Kamen in person at Fanime and she looked fabulous.)

But my hair is really thick, and goes down past my mid-back, so I stick all of it except my bangs beneath a wig cap, pull on the wig so it's an inch or so away from my natural hairline, put the wig on, bobbypin it to DEATH so it doesn't move (this is very important), and then pull my real hair over it.



I always get gasps of shock and surprise when I pull the wig off and my real hair comes tumbling out of it.

EDIT: Oh right, the wig advice. Beware my tl;dr-ing.

The wig we got to use was this one. You don't necessarily have to get the same one, since it did require a LOT of trimming. But I love the femme fatale wig because it's very thick, and the wefts are all close together, so they're not as visible. (This was also used for my Apollo wig.) The BIG plus about this wig, however, is that because it has no bangs, there aren't a bunch of little frizzy hairs at the scalp. Normally these are there to help give a wig body, so slicking any wig with those in it back is difficult if not near impossible.

The hot water method that BadFangirl described above was what we used to straighten the wig and also help tease it into place. It's not entirely necessary, but it helps. A lot. Especially if the wig you got originally isn't 100% straight.

Basically: get a wig WITHOUT bangs, so you have more of a chance at avoiding the little frizzy hairs that will make your wig impossible to slick back nicely. If the wig is already pretty straight, the hot water stuff isn't totally required, but it'll save you a lot of hairspray and headache. Whenever I have to wash out my Phoenix wig, it pops right into place with a bit of hairspray.

Hope this helps, sorry I rambled so much.

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I'm not going to do a direct reply to every single person..because that would just take way too long XD

I have to say thanks to everyone's advice so far. All this advice for the wig is very nice to know...since this is my first time working with one! I'll have to keep that page bookmarked so I can purchase one from here if I don't find one at the shop downtown very soon! I haven't heard of all these wig ideas before....I'm going to have to make sure to save all these suggestions in a word document tomorrow...*too tired to do it now* ^^;

Unfortunately, I do not have bangs

I haven't had bangs since the days of middle school....nor do I intend on growing any back. I know this will cause problems with the wig line and such. However, I plan on possibly cutting my hair short (a little above shoulder length), so I can at least weave my front hair into the wig.

And for the badge...I was thinking of a safety pin, but I wasn't exactly sure. I love the little bit of detail you put into yours. I've worked with sculpy once...making shinji ikari's plug clips (from Neon Genesis Evangelion)

I've also realized I need to do a little suit tailoring...it doesn't button up high enough. Oh well...that's nothing that some easy labor can't fix. (Hopefully I can remember my sewing skills) XD

I'll have to try to keep everyone updated on here...to show the progress. However, none will be made in the near future. Work has me on edge like Franny has poor Gumshoe on her whip

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First off, a thing I have noticed with a lot of Phoenix cosplayers is that they don't really take a good look at the hairstyle and assume it's completely slicked back and longer than normal so it looks like they had a ponytail there that just got cut off or something.

His hair, surprising to most who don't get a decent look, look like a pair of black wings rather than the slicked back look. In fact, DarkenedWings's hair looks very very close to the end result you should have. Because, if we get a closeup of Phoenix's hair...



...you can see how the hair should try to be textured. I'm personally not a Phoenix cosplayer myself (I'm going as Gant and i still don't have the freaking wig done...), but I would say to just try to style the wig like this.

Remember kids, Aquanet works wonders!

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This is true, and I've noticed this myself. I assume it's just because people start out with good Phoenix hair and then it just falls throughout the day. It happens.

But, I'm going to add something to the advice: too much hairspray = no. Hakuro's right, Aquanet (or in my case, Got2B freeze spray) works wonders. However, try not to use too much. There's several reasons why you don't want to do this: 1, too much hairspray, especially in a dark wig, will start leaving streaks in the hair as it clumps up and dries. 2, too much hairspray will weigh down the wig, and it'll be more and more difficult to get it to stay upright. 3, putting a lot of product into synthetic hair will eventually start ruining the wig fiber. 4, to be frank: too much hairspray just doesn't look good.

Here's a tip to keep your Phoenix hair from falling: when you're using the hot water treatment, hang the hair upside down at an angle a little higher than what you actually want it to be when you're done. That way when you set it upright again, it'll be more likely to fall at the angle you want.

Sorry for the excessive tl;dr, haha.

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Ahe. Thank you. I owe a lot to my friend's help, as she's excellent with hair, and an extra pair of hands is always nice. I do need to wash that wig; it IS true that too much hairspray is not attractive. Meaning, realistically, IRL Phoenix would probably have rather gelly-looking hair, but that's aside the point.

Edgey, even though you don't have bangs, you can still find a way to work around that. For the sideburn-areas of the wig (just in front of my ears) I pulled small loops of my hair out of the wig cap--toward the center, without pulling out the tips--and just flattened it down with mascara. I assume you can do the same with your forehead, though upon close inspection the loop-shape of the hair in that area may be obvious. You may have to take the time to interweve with the wig fibers if you're planning on close-up pictures.

Also, as an addition: part of Phoenix's hair-shape is accentuated by his face shape, which is quite masculine. Same friend as above used some foundation in various shades to make my face look more angular--harsher shadows around the temples, made the jaw more square--and the hair somehow LOOKED better along with that, illusion though that may be. If you're like me and you have a feminine face, this may help you out a bit. Eyebrows are easy; just darken your own with a cheap-ass black eyebrow pencil and do the zig-zags.

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Hi guys :D
I don't want to hijack your thread or anything, Edgey, but I'd love to ask the other people replying to your thread if they think this wig would work also..?
It's...er...cheaper. o.o;

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If you're going to go ahead and pull your hair over the top of it like we suggested, it should be okay. I personally prefer the Femme Fatale wig to anything else just because of its versatility, but you should be okay with that. Wigs made entirely of kanekalon fiber are generally the best, but toyokalon is pretty good too.

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