The Source

Tales of the Abyss has a 2D sidescroller minigame that is an homage to a 1984 Namco game called Dragonbuster. If you are good enough at the minigame, you will receive this outfit. (I was not good at the minigame…)

The Costume (2007)

I was only able to make this costume in the first place because, to my great amazement, green and blue interlock knit in the appropriate shades suddenly appeared in the Joann’s seasonal knit section. My mind went straight to this costume upon seeing it. I was even able to get a small amount of matching green rib knit to create a crew neck finish. (Not that you can see it, since it’s covered…) The only downside is that the fabric had 0% spandex content, so I had to be careful not to stretch it out too much. For the yellow belt I used a stiff polyester woven (“target”) from Joann’s that I folded over a bunch of times to make it sufficiently chonky/rigid. The jaunty red bandana was made of poly-cotton broadcloth and is my favorite part of the costume.

I had not really done many (any?) knits yet at this point, there being very few knit fabrics for sale in my area, which seemed to only contain (what I was now beginning to regard as) accursed quilting cottons. This was where I started to first encounter “how do I keep it from going all wavy at the hem” type problems. A few library books later, stretch stitches and ballpoint needles would make my acquaintance - but that would only come after moving out of the country and into a city with a far better library system by the end of the year.

I got green Acuvue contacts, but you can barely see them in photos. I found them a bit too natural looking for costume purposes. I would later upgrade to “colormax” green contacts for Luke which were far more satisfactory.

Photos

Reference