Using EL Wire and Tape for Cosplay

The Basics

There are three types of electroluminescent products:

El Wire

El Tape

El Panel

In order to power up these lights you have to have a battery pack, also known as an inverter, which converts direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The type of inverter you will need it dependent on the length and width of whatever product you choose. Sites like Adafruit will let you know how much wire/tape/panel any particular inverter they sell will power.

That's Cool Wire sells EL wire in a variety of widths, and they claim that 2.6mm will give off the brightest glow.

  

 Planning Out Your Design

Before you purchase your El wire or tape you need to find out how much you will need, and how much you need will depend on the type of inverter you buy. The longer the length of a strip, the more powerful of an inverter you will need. The power of the inverter will also determine how bright the El product will glow. Powering one strip that is 24in in length would require the same amount of power as powering 4 separate strips at 6in each. My best suggestion for planning/patterning out your design is using paper strips and wrapping it around the costume is whatever fashion you desire.

Attaching EL to a Costume

El wire is much easier to add to a costume than El tape in my opinion. El wire is thin enough in width to where you can use a large zig zag stitch to sew it into place on your costume.

El tape is too wide to stitch around it. You CAN sew El tape, but it leaves ugly holes, so you may as well just not do it. 

 One of the most fantastic things about El products is that you can cut them to whatever length or shape you desire (and whatever you cut off can be reused!), that means if while you are sewing and your needle punctures the wire or tape it won't ruin that strip, it will still light up! However, if you cut or poke a hole in your light it HAS TO BE SEALED! I learned this the hard way. I tried sewing EL tape at the edge to secure it to my costume but didn't seal where I had done so, so the tiny holes my needle made caused a small electric shock to occur when sweat (or anything wet) came in contact with it. It got to the point where sweat was literally inside the edge of the El tape I had used so I figured it was ruined, but just cutting that part off made the entire strip work again! It's a very forgiving product which is why I love it.

SEALING 

The easiest way to seal your El product once it has been cut is with hot glue, but if you have a solder and heat shrink tubing that is the most durable way to go about it.

Celestia Ludenberg Drill Curl Wig Tutorial

Materials 

•  Black Felt
• Chicken Wire
• Wire Cutters
• Fabritac
• Got2B Freeze Spray
• Large Safety Pins
• Nylon String 
• Base Wig
• 2 Ponytail Clip Extensions
• Curved Needle

 Process

 Cut the chicken wire into 2 long strips. Mine were 2 1/2 inches X 120 inches. Cut enough felt to wrap around the chicken wire and be sure to have some excess felt to tuck under the back with hot glue (which will be the inside of the drill curls, so they should still look as clean as possible!).  
Say goodbye to your pretty extensions! Remove the clip from the extensions and cut out your wefts like so:

 
Once you have all of your wefts cut out it's time to move on to gluing (I used fabritac) the hair onto the felt covered chicken wire base. This will take A LOT of patience. Be sure that every weft piece you use is tangle free and use the comb to guide it onto the glue. I suggest just doing a little bit at a time, and since my weft pieces were short, I had to make sure to blend the pieces together so they wouldn't stick up once the base was curled.
*be extra careful using fabritac glue, it can make a huge mess and while is dries clear, if it gets on the wig hair it will look like a white glob, so make sure to get the glue only where the hair will be covering it up! Lightly pat it down and spray it with the got2b freeze spray as you go. 

And eventually you will have your base! 

And now it's time to curl that base, and this, in my opinion, is the most nerve wracking part because it's tricky trying to form the curls without messing up the glued on wig hair x__x and you really have to wrangle it to get everything in place, but be very careful! I used large safety pins to keep them in place, and use them generously (as in buy a lot!!) because they will snap if there aren't enough. Once both curls are formed and symmetrical to your liking, it should look like this:

Now that everything is in place, it's time to replace those safety pins with the nylon microfilament, which I am just going to refer to as clear thread. I used a curved needled to force the thread through the hair pieces (which is pretty thick after the chicken wire, felt, glue and wefts) and sewing them together very tightly! Sew on all the places that are being supported by the safety pins, treat them like a guide.  

AT LAST YOU HAVE YOUR DRILL CURL! all those pesky safety pins have been successfully replaced with the nylon thread! Looks so nice and clean :D

 Last step is figuring out how you want to mount them onto the wig. There are many different ways to do this! Since my time and materials were limited, I ended up using the hair clips I had taken out of the extensions and sewed them onto the drill curls. I then just glued those onto two head bands (which I also glued together) and then just kept gluing things together until they stayed! Sometimes that's just how cosplay works, but by all means, if you know of a better method, I highly recommend anything else. While it looks kind of sloppy it got the job done and the elevation is exactly the way I wanted it to be!

 (Also it was easy to hide the sloppiness with the bonnet/headpiece)

 If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me via message on my cosplay page!

 

This is my first time ever blogging so please bear with me! I created this blog so that I have a place where I can provide more pictures and in-depth information about my process and what I learn while experimenting for cosplay projects. I will be reviewing products as well, mainly wigs and color contacts/circle lenses, since I have found them to be really helpful for myself and there don't seem to be any for a lot of products that cosplayers look for! Research for cosplay can be incredibly tedious so I strive to make this blog a great source of information for cosplayers to help lighten the load :)

Soon I will write up a tutorial for my Celestia Ludenberg drill curl wig. That is so long overdue...and since I've been working with EL wire and EL tape as well I will be providing some tips on how to sew them into costumes!