Genjyo Sanzo
Saiyuki

My second commission from Saiyuki! This costume looks pretty simple, but came with several challenges. The client was crossplaying and is full-figured, so my first delimma was sizing out the kimono to both fit well and minimize her curves. Luckily, her measurements are similar to a prior male client, so I was able to "recycle" a kimono pattern I used for him.

Another challenge was the armbands. At the time this was made, I wasn't fully comfortable sewing spandex, so how to make the white stripes at the top and on the fingers? Easily solved by slathering the areas with fabric paint.

Then came the breastplate and scripture. The breastplate was done easily enough. The process was just a tedious repetition of painting each strip and hot-gluing them together.

The scripture, however, was interesting becauase all the reference pics provided by the client and found by me weren't consistent as far as the characters went. Because I'm a perfectionist, I couldn't just put a bunch of random characters on it. My pride won't let me! The characters, when laid out flat and read right to left says:

O Amida, I enjoin my hands and pray to you, who resides in every quarter, direction and within my heart. Let your Primal Vow kindle the Light of Enlightenment* in all beings, for those who grope bewildered in the gloom of sorrow. Namo Amida Buddha.

That's right! The scripture has a real Buddhist prayer written on it! This particular prayer is a "daily affirmation" prayer, kind of like the what you would say before you go to bed at night.

__________________

*The orginal word was "Dharma", which apparently isn't easily translatable into Japanese, so I substituted the word "enlightenment", which largely means the same thing.

More pics: Undershirt

Back to the Gallery...