I told myself when I started watching My Hero Academia that I wasn't going to cosplay as anyone. And then Bakugou showed up and it was all over from there. I actually have like, 5 or 6 characters I want to cosplay from that series, including Smol Might. Being part of the STL Hero Academia group (Find us on Instagram @STLHeroAcademia) gives me another sense of purpose when it comes to hanging out and being part of a continual group cosplay. My goal is to be the worst looking person in the group, and I always strive to be the best I can be. I hope that makes sense. (If I'm a 10, I want my friends to be 15s) My friends TJ (@RedHoodieCosplay) is the Smol Might in our group and his wig was good, but everyone can always improve their cosplays, and so he allowed me to restyle his wig. I was dumb and forgot to take pictures of the before wig, so you get to see this cutie wearing his wig at our Villains AU shoot!
(Please do not recreate my tutorial for profit. I worked really hard making the tutorial and this is meant for personal use only.)
I adore All Might. His smile, his undying drive to protect all those around him, and the fact that he's actually physically weak. Maybe one day I can style his All Might wig, but honestly, the Smol Might wig was super fun and albeit a little stressful, I enjoyed (basically) destroying it. So, we'll start off with the tools you'll need!
Barber shears
Hair Dryer
Clear Tacky Glue
Hair Spray
Flat Iron
Teaser Brush
I did have to wash out the wig, so I used dish soap and lightly massaged out the old hair spray, then took my blow dryer on cool and dried it a little. I let it sit for a couple hours before I attempted to brush it out. I unfortunately don't know the brand and TJ doesn't remember it either, but it is a blond lace front that apparently had a bit of length on it when he first got it. Luckily, the only time I needed to use the detangler brush was for this and why it wasn't included in the tools you'd need.
(There are 8 photos above, showing it drying out, and how it looks brushed out)
After this bad boy dried about 90% of the way, I took tiny sections at the crown of the hair and cut them a bit shorter than what they were, taking my flat iron to the pieces until they were pretty warm (bordering on hot) and then took a bit of clear tacky glue and scrunching my hand in the hair. This gives it that damaged, choppy look. I repeated that around the top, making sure to scrunch it in different directions so that it wouldn't all look too uniform. It's really important to cut at different lengths as well, since Smol Might's hair looks like he was shocked by Kaminari and it just didn't go down.
It's alright to leave those fly aways for now, since it's more canon anyway. I used bobby pins to mark what I wanted the bangs to be, since you don't want to accidentally cut up all the bangs. I also didn't have any good clips just hanging around, so this was simple, convenient, and quick. I made my way down on his left, making sure to continue heating, taking glue to my hands, and then scrunching it up into my fist, then hitting it with the blow dryer to keep it from sinking down. We need these spikes to defy gravity!
I tried to take multiple angles to show how it should be looking coming out, and the coolest part about this wig is that I only have to follow a general guideline to make sure it stays damaged and spiky. You can go ahead and trim up some of the fly aways as you progress, I always wait until the end because I always get too focused on the task at hand. I have to actively remind myself to take pictures lol. So, the goal is to just take your time cutting, teasing, gluing, and drying. You can use your teaser brush instead of your hand, you'll just use hair spray to keep it up instead.
(There are 8 photos in this ^)
After you make your way all around the wig, take a breather and stare in panic at the bangs. That just me? Okay. I sprayed and glued the bangs to stand just a little so that it wasn't super stiff, but not flimsy either. I used quite a bit of glue and held it as I dried it. Then I took the back part of the bangs and glued them over the front part to give it a little more depth. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to the bottom of the bangs, but a way that I would do it now would be to take a hair tie and wrap it about 2 inches from the end and heat up, then glue, and blow dry the ends. That might work, but you would also have to cut off the hair tie. So in the end, it's up to you. Smol Might loves his wig and that's all I could ask for :)
And below are the finished photos!
(Slide over for more photos!)