I’ve been putting off doing this bit of work on my cosplay for a while now because it’s been years since I worked with heat transfer vinyl, but it turned out to be (relatively) easy and fun!

Warlord has a pretty intricate decoration on her skirt panels, but because I don’t have a complete picture from the graphic novel, I had to improvise a little. I drew it out on paper and then transferred that to card from the inside of a cereal box (because recycling) and cut the design out with a craft knife WHICH TOOK AGES.

I rolled out my transfer vinyl so that the clear plastic side was against the cutting mat and the non-shiny side was face up and used masking tape to fix my design to the vinyl so that it wouldn’t move about while I was trying to cut it. I cut out each section and then peeled the gold backing off the plastic – these are the bits I don’t need as part of my design, also known as negative space. Then I cut the whole thing out of the vinyl sheet so I just had my design stuck on clear plastic.

I lined the design up on the skirt panel and trimmed it to fit, then covered it with baking paper. The instructions often recommend a towel instead, but I find the baking paper works much better. I whacked my iron temperature up as high as it would go and put it on top of the paper for 10 seconds before moving it and repeating until I’d ironed the whole design. I carefully peeled off the clear plastic, re-ironing any sections that weren’t sticking to the fabric. After the plastic was off, I put the paper back on and went over the design again with the iron to make sure everything was stuck down.

Then I had to do it again another THREE TIMES. It looks amazing though so I’m super happy with it.