By Adlen Spinks

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In this post I will be documenting the creative process on making the wig for my Rogue cosplay! The specific hairstyle/iteration I wanted to recreate is her look in the “X-men ’97” animated series. So think BIG 90’s hair, tons of fun! This was my first time actually styling a wig that wasn’t simply using heat tools such as a flat iron. I finally cracked open some of the cosplay e-books I have had for years. My main sources of knowledge were “Wig Styling for Cosplay” by Kinpatsu Cosplay, “The Art of Extreme Wig Styling” by Regan Cerato, and watching plenty of videos by creators such as UmbraWigs, aniha_cos, and koollia_wigs. I learned all of my techniques from these sources. I’m one of those weird artists who can basically look at a tutorial, read the instructions a few times, and over confidently say “Yeah, I could make that”. The hard part is getting all the supplies together. Keep reading to see my process!

I started with a cheaper amazon wig as the base, those are the brown strands. I then got an “Arda Wigs” white wig in medium length. I sourced this second hand but it was unworn and came already crimped for styling. This helped as I didn’t have a crimper yet and as of writing this, I still don’t have one. Once I do I’ll crimp the brunette half of the wig so the volume matches. In the above pictures you can see my scuffed dorm room setup, but it got the job done! When styling I referred to a pinterest board of multiple different angles and shots of Rogue’s hair in the series. l had enough pictures to get a decent turnaround of the head. This helped me in determining where each curl, part, and layer would fall. Here’s what I was working with:

At this point I was comparing my wig to the references and wasn’t really satisfied. I took it into the studio on campus to have more room to work and be messy. I made a ton of extra wefts from the white hair by laying down sections of it, using mod-podge on the “roots”, and then cutting straight across so I would have an even surface for when I glued it to the wig cap. I used hot glue to attach them, creating a “faux part”. This allowed for me to give the wig even more volume and style it further.

With this being my first, I felt very satisfied with the accuracy I achieved on this wig. I do feel there are improvements that can be made but I’m not rushing to get to them at this point in time because I don’t know when I’ll debut this at a convention. This wig was initially made for halloween as an excuse to jumpstart a Rogue cosplay. Here are a few photos of me in the wig throughout Halloween day!