General Cowslip is my very favorite designer, only ahead by a little from Hannah Alexander, and the random designs I find on the internet. Every time Cowslip adds a new Pokemon into her Gijinkadex, my heart swells and I feel A MIGHTY NEED to cosplay her designs. To date, I believe she has somewhere around 190 designs, and although she hasn't made designs for every pokemon YET, I still hold onto the hope that she'll come out with more amazing designs. I've already cosplayed as her Duskull design, but that's not the focus of this build walk-through.
Blastoise has been one of my favorite designs since I discovered this amazing German designer, I just didn't have the confidence or skill in order to execute this beaut for myself. Honestly, you are your own worst enemy when it comes to cosplaying more "difficult" characters. Don't let your cosplans remain cosplans. So, let's start with the beginning: THE WIG.
It was actually really easy to find a wig for Blastoise. I am a glutton for Arda, and if I had my way, I would be sponsored by them whenever I could. I ordered a Le Tigre in Dark Blue (CL-038), which is now discontinued in that wig, and ordered wefts for later, but I was also worried that I wasn't able to style it without them. In order to make the buns, I sewed cones of navy blue fabric and stuffed them with polyfil. I hand sewed the cones into the wig, trying to get around the wefts as much as possible, so it wouldn't ruin the lay of them. I styled the bangs and side pieces, and made sure to brush out the wig to keep any and all chances of the wig becoming tangled from happening. I then took three days to panic about how I was going to figure out how I was going to go about this wig without ruining it.
Once I got over my initial panic, I took a small section on the right far side and gently pulled it across the back of the wig and wrapped it loosely around the left bun, gluing it down on the bun as I went along. I then repeated that step starting with the left and moving towards the right bun. I slowly moved back and forth from left to right, then right to left, gluing as I put the wig strands on the buns. About halfway, I got tired and decided to let the tacky glue dry. Approximately an hour later, I went back and finished up the wig buns. While I let the second coat dry, I took some of the cotton I bought for the strip and the Obi/Undershirt. I tea dyed it with Earl Grey tea, let it dry, then sewed it into a strip approximately 40 inches long. I painted the diagonal stripes on the strip, then, when that was dry, I wrapped the strip around the left bun, hand sewed it to itself, then loosely pulled it across the forehead, then back around the right bun, where I was able to knot it and then sew it down a little to make sure it wouldn't slip while wearing it. I finished it off by hot gluing several small white fake flowers to the strip of fabric. The total project took about 5 hours if I hadn't have stopped.