The Asuka Langley plugsuit has a few accessories and equipment attached to her plugsuit. There are altogether 3 accessories that I made for the plugsuit. They are the backpack, wristbands and the hair clips. I shall describe how I made them one by one starting from the backpack.

I decided to use a sponge/foam pad as the body of the backpack. So I bought a sponge pad large enough to hang behind me and not too small. Its one of those small cushions used in pillows. The base shape I got for the sponge pad is round, but it can be any shape as long as it can be cut into the final shape. Look at the images below.

Then I proceed to cut the foam into the shape of the backpack. Use a new and sharp pen knife for clean and easy cuts. BEFORE I CUT, I measured the dimensions and calculated the spots to cut. This step is important so that your final shape will be symmetric about the center.The blade should be long enough to cut the entire thickness of the foam as repeated cuts will ruin the edges. Make each cut a single cut as much as you can. Use a ruler to help guide your blade. How I cut the foam is shown below.

The final shape thus look like...

Then with the same material as the Asuka plugsuit, I wrapped the foam NEATLY with the fabric. Sewing the edges close to keep and make sure that no creases or uneveness form on the surface of the backpack. I left some extra fabric on the left and right of the backpack and made a hole in each of them. That is for my arms to put through in order to wear the backpack.
Then I used a "sports number" 2 obtained from any arts and crafts store and used multipurpose permanent glue to stick it right in the middle of the backpack. As for the sides, I used two strips of black ribbon and glued it on as well. The finished backpack is shown below.

The nex item that I'm going to talk about are the wrist bands. I bought two large round styrofoam balls from the art store. Round styrofoam balls are easily available and they are easy to work with as well. So I decided to try using them as the body of the wrist bands. Once again, I measured the dimensions of the ball and marked on the styrofoam where I want the cuts to be. Remember that cutting these objects are best done with a very sharp pen knife blade, but be careful not to hurt yourself. The cuts on the wristbands are shown in the images below.

I cut the two styrofoam balls into hexagons and then made a hole large enough to put my wrist into in them. Then I cut the hexagons in two. The reason I cut them in two was so that I can pull them apart when i'm putting them on. Then I used the same fabric as the Asuka's plugsuit and wrapped around the wrist bands. I stuck a yellow strip using glue onto two sides of the wrist bands to match the design from the anime. The finished wrist bands are shown below.

The last accessory I made for the Asuka costume is a pair of hair clips used by Asuka. I decided to use wax to make the two clips so I bought a large and thick red candle. I first removed its wick before starting to work on it. I first halved the large candle such that each half will be for each of the pair of hair clips.

I then started grating the candle... phew its alot of hard work here. Took me a while to grate the candles and eventually I got them turned into candle bits hehe~

I then scoop the candle shards into a metal cup so that it can be heated. I used a metal cup as it can be heated without damaging the cup. I partially submerged the cup in boiling hot water. The wax inside the cup almost instantaneously turned into liquid.

The hardedned wax from the cup takes the shape of the interior of the cup completely. With that, I know that this method of making the hair clips is going to work. And also, after melting and rehardedning the wax, the colour of the wax blocks become more homogenous unlike what you see previously when then candle was just being cut.

Using the same method, I melted the wax and I poured the wax into two containers which I think resemble the shape of the hair clips the most. I actully went into a supermarket to search for such a container. In the end, I found a cap of a water bottle just right for my need, I had to buy the whole water bottle just to use the cap which comes with it. After pouring the wax into the small container and waiting for the wax to set, I got two of the shapes in the image below.

They almost look like Asuka's hair clips already don't they? Well there is still more work left to do. I started grating the two shapes gently and cutting them into the shape I want.

After the carving, I got two round mounds, we can see that the Asuka hair clips are almost complete. Before that, I had to blow dry the two wax blocks to smoothen out the carved sides. And finally the remaining uneveness is smoothen out with the back of a spoon.

As you can see now, the sides of the hair clip has become quite smooth. The shape wise and colour have already started to look a lot like Asuka's hair clips. I then use the thin edge of the metal spoon used previously to carve two lines along side the hair clips trying my best to remain straight and trying to keep the cut clean. Once the lines were cut, I filled it up with black permanent water proof glue as shown in the image below.

And therefore the hair clips for Asuka is done~^_^

But just before we forget, how is Asuka suppose to wear them like that. I already figured that out and I bought two real hair clips which the asuka hair clips will be attached to. I made a few holes in the wax hair clips so that the glue will have a better holding effect on the hair clips. Then I used a few measures to attach the clips on and I left the glue to dry.

Finally all the accessories are complete and a photoshoot in the Asuka plugsuit can be taken. So for the first time, Asuka has made her appearance on my website and here are some images of her with the full equipment made here~^_^. I hope that this report has been interesting to read and maybe even useful to you in the future~enjoy~^_^

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