Li Syaoran Dragon Knight Holster Tutorial

Well, it’s been a while since I posted anything on here, and now I come bearing a new tutorial! This one will be for Li Sayoran from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle in what has been called the Dragon Knights. I have been working on this as a commission and when I started making the holster, I thought I would make a tutorial on it in case anyone else ever wanted to tackle it.

So, here’s our reference:

Now, onto the work!

I used orange light weight vinyl and a hunter green medium weight upholstery vinyl.

Step 1

Make your pattern. My customer gave me some dimensions for the gun he was making: 4″ wide at top, the sides 1.5″ wide, 8″ tall, and tapering down to 1.5″ at the bottom. I knew I didn’t want to have too many seams on this since Syaoran’s looks pretty smooth in the picture. So I decided that there would only be one seam in the center back. So I had to do some math: for the top, I needed it to be 4×2 and 1.5×2, which equaled 11. Then I added 1/2″ for a seam allowance on each edge, bringing my total width at the top to 12″. Then I measured it out at 10″ tall, allotting the 1/2″ seam at the bottom and a little extra at the top. After that, I measured for the bottom to be 1.5×4=6. Then again, adding the 1/2″ seam allowances to both sides, bringing me to 7″. I then tapered my lines to meet from top to bottom. After that, I sketched the curve around the top since his holster doesn’t just go straight around. I then cut that curve out, using the heavy vinyl as my template, sketching half on the back of the orange vinyl, then, flipping it and sketching the other half. I did this twice. Once that was done, I used the green vinyl template to cut out the piece that would be the decoration on the holster.

Step 2

Cut out two holster pieces in the orange vinyl. You will want two because one will go to the inside as a facing. This serves a few purposes: 1) none of the white backing on the vinyl will show, and 2) since I’m using a thinner vinyl, it will give it a little more strength.

Step 3

Cut out the desired shape in green vinyl, position it (using some sort of adhesive since you don’t want to pin it…holes in vinyl don’t close back up) and applique it down. That will eliminate any of the white edging from showing around the green vinyl. I just free-handed the piece off of what you can see on Syaoran’s holster in the artwork.

Step 4

Time to make the flap. I cut two, 2″ wide pieces that were about 6″ long (you might or might not need it this long, I was just making sure I had enough). Then, mark the center and evenly sketch out the rounded edge. Stitch down both long sides with a 1/2″ seam and around the bottom edge right on your line (blending from the 1/2″ seam to the line as you work) in one long, continuous seam.

Step 4.1

Turn the flap right side out and top stitch 1/4″ from the edge. Also, make a thin tube of the orange and turn it right side out. This thin piece will go next to the flap and be sewn into the belt to hold the holster on.

Step 5

Mark where you want your flap and belt connector piece to go on the side without the green piece. Then, put those pieces to the right side, making sure that the bottom of the pieces is lined up with the top of the holster, or else your flap and connector will end up on the inside and will be useless.

Step 6

Turn the facing to the inside and top stitch all the way around the top edge to hold everything in place. Then you are going to want to stitch up the side seam using a 1/2″ seam. Turn right side out. (Note: Don’t be a moron like me and accidentally put the piece that will go into the belt seam behind the flap…that makes it hang awkward and now I will have to do some hand sewing on the finished piece.)

Step 7 (Finished Holster)

Last thing you want to do before moving on to your belt is to put a button hole in the flap that goes over the side to hold the gun in place and put a nice gold button on there to hold it shut. Later on, you will add it to your belt. I might add that to the tutorial later, but the belt is the easy part, the holster, not as much. I will also update in the future with the full, finished costume once the customer wears it.

mehdia

I am a 28 year old retail employee who does cosplay for fun and stress relief. I've been cosplaying for about ten years now, and recently branched off into doing commission work for others. My website is up and running, it's not much yet, but I hope to expand it from what the basic layout looks like that was built for me by a friend. Not only do I do my own cosplay and commission work, but I also am the only seamstress for my entire group of friends and family. At any given moment I can be working on anywhere from one to ten costumes...I'm crazy, I know. Besides making costumes, my favorite thing to make is corsets. I would make those all day and sell only them if I could, though I would have to do a random costume. I also have won awards for several of my costumes and plan to continue entering cosplay contests. Aside from cosplay, I'm an artist and designer. I love music of all kinds, though my favorite band is Dir en grey. I'm very close to all my family. I have three brothers and a sister. At times, my brothers cosplay and assist in creating props for my cosplay as well as for friends. All in all, I'm just a nerd and I'm very proud of it^^