Terra Branford Tutorial

Terra Branford was one of the main characters from Final Fantasy VI (US version FFIII, Japan version FFVI).  Although there aren’t many reference pictures for how she actually looked outside her SNES pixelated version, concept drawings by Yoshitaka Amano and her later appearances in FFVI Anthology and Dissidia painted a pretty good picture for me to work with.

I decided to keep her sprite-like green hair and combine Amano’s version with the Anthology version.  Interesting Fact:  Terra was meant to have blonde hair, but they made it green to distinguish her from Celes in the original game.

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​Here’s how I made her come to life!  Note: Any links you click below will take you to the items I bought or else similar items.

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​I bought a red, spandex dress from Amazon (because it was cheaper to buy than make) for $15.

As many of you probably already know, standard fabric paints and acrylics do not fare well with Lycra.  These paints cause the material to lose its elasticity, thus, ruining your dress.  After some research, I found out that airbrush paints are perfectly safe to use on lycra and it’s washable.  So I bought some airbrush paints and floral stencils, then went to town!  

When painting, be sure to insert a wide piece of cardboard (or in my case, a cookie sheet) to stretch out the fabric.  I did this for both the dress and sleeves, (which I bought the sleeves on Ebay for $2.00)!

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Next, I sewed gold, stretchy bias tape to the top of the dress and sleeves.  I put the dress on my dress form for this part, but you could simply stretch it out as you sew.  This will make it look all puckered when you’re not wearing it, but it should smooth out evenly when you have it on.  

​Since the cape is attached to the dress, I also had to add a zipper to the back; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get it on or off.  Be sure to iron interfacing on before cutting stretchy fabric!

Although Terra didn’t really need any fancy trim at the bottom of the dress, some gold curtain trim (found at Joanne Fabric) caught my eye and added a nice touch to her style.

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​I used a light white fabric from Joann.  I think it was called Cloud 9 Jacquards fabric.  Click here for money saving coupons at Joann.   The fabric I chose was very easy to dye.  I used yellow at the top and purple at the bottom to get the gradient effect.  Be sure to wear gloves while dying!

After that, I gave it some purple fringe tim (bought from Joann) and I sewed many many flower heads (bought from Ebay) all over!  I made the hood separately, dyed and sewed on; I originally didn’t intend to have a hood, but decided to add one for the general effect.  I bought the purple tassels on Ebay for $0.99 each.
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Because the flowers weigh the cape down so much, I couldn’t keep the cape on my shoulders with a beaded necklace (as shown for the original character).  Double-sided tape didn’t work either.  So I had to sew gold straps from the cape to the front of the dress.  I’m thinking about replacing them with clear bra straps (or some other clear plastic) for picture purposes.

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The scarf belt was kind of a pain to make.  I bought pink, purple and zebra patterned chiffon scarfs from Ebay, trimmed them all down to size, then painted the purple diamonds on the pink scarf using a cardboard stencil.  I wrapped them around my dress-form and tacked the pieces together (loosely with thread and needle).  Then I sewed various sections that I thought needed more stability.  I cinched the front of the scarf-belt together using a clear elastic rubber band.   I then bought lots of beads from Ebay and threaded them along thin wire.  The beads I couldn’t buy (the long, yellow ones), I made from paper clay.  I also bought a green gem (probably also from Ebay, but I can’t find the link) and velcroed it to the middle of the scarf belt.  Instead of having a tail of the scarfs hanging down off the side, I cut them all down to size and fastened them in the belt with velcro (this way I could get it on and off without messing up the delicate order of scarfs).

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​​​The leggings: To my dismay, It couldn’t find white pantyhose for women, so I had to get the largest ones I could find in the children’s section.  After some stretching, I got them to fit and hand painted several purple and yellow flowers all over, while wearing them.  Yes,  it was messy!

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​The shoes were the easiest part of the whole costume.  I found a pair of ugly, brown pointed boots at Goodwill for $3.00 and used red and gold floral spray to paint them.  You can find floral spray at any Joann store.  The reason why I use this in lieu of plain spray paint or acrylics is because those paints will crack and chip on leather.  After I painted them, I hot glued some gold fringe around the tops, some roped trim along the front center and gold cord zigzagged within the trim (to give the appearance of shoe laces).   And Viola!

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I made the hair crown with 3mm thick craft foam and beads with a sewn in clip on the back.  The bow was made with purple cotton fabric, gold fringe and beads, also with a sewn in clip on the back.

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Terra's pauldrons were made from craft foam, 3D puffy paint (for the design) and plastic gems (Walmart craft section).  I used the acrylic metallic color “worn penny” to get the coppery color.  The red and gold beads for the necklace that clips on between the pauldrons was bought from Joann.  I also made matching earrings from them.
I cut the sword out of foam board (also called foam-core board in some places).  One layer for the full sword and 2 layers for the hilt.  I smoothed over the gaps between the board pieces with paper clay and painted it.  Then I hot glued plastic gems and a rose head to both sides of the hilt.  I tied a scarf remnant I had left over from the scarf belt to the hilt for a final touch.

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I'm not gonna lie, Terra's wig was totally commissioned out to the beautiful girls at Yuurisans Cosplay.  Finding the right color and thickness for Terra’s high pony-tail was difficult and I’m no expert at wig sewing/altering yet.  Average pony-tail styled wigs that you find online are either a short pony-tail base wig with a clip on tail (which is way too thin for Terra) or  else a thick, long haired wig which can’t be tied up without showing the wig cap.  The Yuuri sisters cut, sewed and glued my perfect Terra wig – as heavy as it was to wear.

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Put it all together and it looks something like this!