Dream cosplay! Ranma 1/2 Ice Skating Costumes (Part 1: Ranma Saotome)

One of the first anime shows I ever watched and got obsessed with was Ranma ½. Back when I lived in Ecuador, I would watch Ranma ½ daily, some of the very first internet sites I visited where Ranma fan sites (remember geocities?), the first pictures I printed on my home inkjet, and the first mp3s I downloaded to my computer. Side anecdote: when I moved to the U.S.A. my best friend would mail me VHS tapes with recorded episodes of Ranma (en Español!). That's how much we were into this show.

One of the battle arcs that really stuck with me was the ice skating battle against "The Golden Pair". Besides the fact that figure skating is my favorite Olympic (just cuz it's so damn pretty to look at), at that time in my youth, a skating rink had just opened in my city and it was a popular hang out spot for kids my age. So, when I saw Akane step out in her figure skating costume, my breath was taken away and the image was brandished in my brain as the most gorgeous figure skating costume ever.

All these years later, I was still thinking about that outfit, and it had been on my "cosplay dream list" until finally in 2016 I decided to go for it, feeling my sewing skills had leveled up enough. I had a suitable Asian boyfriend, and Junicorn was going to be the perfect Azusa Shiratori. It was time to get it done.

Time to recreate this trio

Getting Hyped up

The way we usually go about our cosplays, is to get the props first. In this case, this was going to be  ice skates. If those proved to be too expensive, we might call the whole thing off. But whaddya know? Target  had adult ice skates, in pristine leather white at for under $40. Well, this made it certain that this cosplay was meant to be.

At this point, Junicorn no longer lived in FL, so we sent each other progress pics like this.

Fabric Shopping

My boyfriend had long sworn off not to get involved in the cosplay-making process, he found it to be a hassle and I would boss him around on how to make stuff. So, he agreed to wear a finished costume if I made it or bought it, and to kept me fed and out of my way while I was building it.

I had a pretty solid idea of how bright and contrasting I wanted to costumes to be, having learned from previous mistakes where I used a printed reference to guide my fabric buying, only to choose colors that were too subdued and didn't turn out well in photos. Never again! These were gonna be poppin'!

Ranma's pants and shirt are made of poplin, since silk or sateen fabrics look too shimmery and have a sort of amateur and flimsy finish.The "dragon scales" are a stretchy shimmery lycra, since this was the only fabric that already had that pattern. This would serve as the embellished part of the costume, since all the other fabrics were matte.

Dragon on Ice

I can be briefly seen in some of the manga panels and anime scenes, the dragon pattern warps all around Ranma's shirt. Thankfully, there is no dragon head (cuz then I would've had to do that too...) just a coiling dragon tail. I got to working, maximizing the "fish scale" pattern.

the dragon pattern is flipped in the VIZ translation of the manga.

planning out the dragon pattern

laying out all the shirt pattern pieces.

close up of the stitching

Bonus! Ranma-chan!

I couldn't resist quickly throwing on this costume and my red wig for some Ranma-chan selfies. It was specially fun because, just like in the anime, Ranma's clothes fit me very losely!

Next up: making Akane's figure skating costume