Marvel’s X-Men: DIY Rogue Cosplay Tutorial

Rogue Cosplay Tutorial

Have you ever wanted to be a member of the X-Men? The full costume can be expensive and a pain. But this Halloween, you can save the world and yourself, DIY style! If you saw X-Men: Apocalypse this summer, you were probably reminded of the first X-Men trilogy, where we were introduced to Rogue, a mutant with the power to absorb the power and memories of anyone who touches her.

Now, Costume SuperCenter invites you to follow cosplayer Uncanny Megan and her do-it-yourself guide to becoming Rogue!

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This tutorial will help walk you through the steps of a simple Rogue costume from X-Men. It will highlight all of the construction steps, as well as include links for other items you may need.

When making bodysuits, we often turn to McCall’s M7269 bodysuit pattern. This pattern has everything you could ever need when it comes to bodysuits, including a front and back zipper catsuit as well as a Harley Quinn suit.

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While you could use another bodysuit pattern, or just trace your body and make your own, we used this one for the following tutorial.

First thing’s first, making your own pattern. We like to stock up on those free newspapers you’ll see lying around sometimes and use the pages. Typically three sheets is about body length.

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Once we had the pieces taped together, we traced the pre-existing pattern pieces onto the paper and cut them out.

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If you’re wondering why the pre-existing pattern pieces look weird, it’s because we traced over the patterns with those cheap shower curtain liners in order to not destroy the original paper.

Now that we have the base bodysuit drawn up, it’s time to draw out where your yellow will go. This part is completely up to you and your design preference, we drew out the generic 90’s style pattern with shorter leg parts.

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Once you’ve drawn up where your yellow will sit, it’s time to cut it out. Try and make sure your legs will line up correctly at the seam-line. (WE cut mine identical, like seen in the photo above. When it was time to line up the actual fabric, they didn’t quite match, but it wasn’t anything a little creative spandex stretching couldn’t do).

The next step is pinning the pattern and cutting! Our fabric of choice was just a generic yellow and green spandex. We chose the emerald color. While yellow spandex is typically easy to come across with a quick trip to the store or an eBay search, you’re usually only able to find the emerald green online at Joann Fabric and Craft Store.

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Once you’ve laid your fabric out nicely on the ground (watch for wrinkles), you can start pinning your pattern pieces into place. If you’re not doing a front zipper, remember to place the center front on a fold to avoid an unnecessary seam-line.

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When cutting the pieces out, make sure to add at least a quarter inch extra to the outside of the yellow and inside of the green. This makes the seam allowance to make sure the bodysuit won’t end up to small from you drawing up your own pieces.

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Now it’s time to pin the (some of) pieces together! We started by attaching the yellow to the green to make the front and back parts. Make sure your fabric is facing in the right direction when pinning, if you’re using the same spandex as us, you’ll be pinning the shiny side face down onto the shiny side.

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Now that everything is all pinned together, it’s time to sew! We used a serger for this, but if you don’t have one, a simple zigzag stitch on a sewing machine will work just as well! If, however, you are using a serger, we highly recommend using a stretch thread! It really makes such a difference while sewing spandex.

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The next step is pinning and sewing the shoulders together! Make sure your suit is lined up correctly, pin the shoulders together face down, and sew.

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Once the shoulders are together, it’s time for sleeves! If you haven’t already cut your sleeves out, do so now.

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Before we can do anything more with the sleeves, they need to be hemmed. While you can do a simple hem by just folding the fabric over and sewing, we finished the edges of the sleeves with a fancier technique.

By taking a small rectangle of fabric, we added a yellow trim to the sleeves as well as the bottoms of the legs. To do this, we cut two rectangles of fabric, about an inch tall, folded them over shiny side out, and attached them to the end of the sleeve.

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Now that the sleeve is finally finished, we can move on to actually attaching it to the suit. While you can put sleeves on after the sides of the bodysuit are sewn together, we found it significantly easier to sew them on first.

Line the cap of the sleeve up to the sleeve hole and then, shiny side down, pin the pieces together and sew.

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Once the sleeves are sewn to the suit, you can finally sew the sides together! Very carefully line your sides up and begin pinning. Make sure any seam-lines that are supposed to match up, such as the ends of the sleeves and the armpit area, match. After this is done, you can begin sewing.

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If you’re using a serger, make sure to add a safety stitch to the end of your sleeves to keep the thread from coming undone.

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Before anything else can be done, a collar needs to be added. The pattern we used does not include a collar piece, but making one is very simple! Measure your neck hole and cut a rectangle to match the width.

How tall the collar sits it up to you, but be sure to cut it double that since you’ll be folding it over for extra sturdiness. If you’d like green trim at the top, cut that out the same way. With both the fabrics shiny side out, fold them over, pin them together, and sew.

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Now that that’s done, you can attach the collar to the suit! Line it up to the neckline, place it face down, pin, and sew it into place!

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After the collar is sew on, place it around your neck to see if you want to leave it how it is or trim it so it will sit tighter. Now that this is done, we can move onto the zipper! If you don’t know how to attach a zipper, it’s not as hard as it seems! You just place each side face down, pin, and sew! Then, when you flip the zipper over, you have a nice clean line with no showing stitches. With suits like this, make sure any lines, such as the collar, match up before sewing.

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Zippers require a special sewing machine foot called a zipper foot. If you’re sewing machine didn’t come with one of these, they’re very easy to find in stores or online! This foot makes it so you can easily sew right along side the teeth of the zipper. If you’re using an invisible zipper, they make an invisible zipper foot as well!

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After the zipper is sewn in, it’s time to close up the butt. Line to two back flaps up, pin them together, and then sew. You’ll notice the end of the zipper is in the way, that’s okay, just sew as closely as you can to it.

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Now that the back is closed up, it’s time to close up the awkward zipper hole where the zipper meets the backseam. We just pinned the fabric near the zipper and sew a safety stitch across it. Pinning might give you a little trouble at first, but don’t worry, you can do it!

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It’s time for the home stretch! But before we can do anything, you need to hem the bottom of your legs! Just like with the sleeves, you can do a simple hem or add some trim. Once this is done, it’s time to line up the inner legs, pin them, and sew! Make sure all your seam lines match up to avoid awkward unmatched areas. If for some reason you’re having trouble making something match, you can always stretch one side of the fabric.

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After this is all sewn up, your bodysuit is done! If you’re using a serger, don’t forget to add a safety stitch to the bottom of the legs, you don’t want you threads to come undone!

Now it’s time for all Rogue’s accessories!

The most important accessory would have to be her signature brown jacket. Any brown jacket could work, but we prefer the style of a bomber jacket. The overall look is up to you, but click here for the jacket we purchased! In the photo, it has a hood, which Rogue does not have– BUT, the hood is detachable, so it was the perfect jacket!

All the jacket needs in an X-Men patch, which we found here. You can easily find them on Amazon as well, but for some reason they wouldn’t ship to me.

Once you have the patch and jacket in hand, all you need to do it put them together! Depending on the material of your jacket, you could iron the patch on, but since our jacket is a faux leather, we sewed it on.

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The rest of her accessories are pretty simple. For the belt, a brown snap belt will work best! Most X-Men buckles you’ll find online are made to fit the same type of belt. Click here for the buckle we purchased!

Next is the gloves! We bought a pair of spandex gloves off Amazon that match the fabric we used perfectly. They are elbow length though, so they need to be folded over. If you’re looking for a short glove, Costume SuperCenter offers a nice pair, which you can see by clicking here!

The style of boot is completely up to you, so we suggest checking eBay, Amazon, or whatever website you like to buy your shoes from. If you can’t find a style you like in yellow, you can always paint a pair or make some boot covers.

Next is her hair! And like everything else, it’s really up to what style you like best. Costume SuperCenter offers a large variety of brown wigs to choose from! When it comes to Rogue, we love the look of clip on bangs.

And, that’s it, everything you need to know to make a simple Rogue costume!

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If you’re looking for even more superhero options, be sure to check out Costume SuperCenter’s wide variety of superhero costumes and accessories! And be sure to like Uncanny Megan on Facebook, follow her on Instagram, subscribe to her channel on YouTube and follow her on Twitter!

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