Tutorial - How to dirty/grunge your cosplay! (Patreon)

Alright friends! I will be showing you guys how I dirtied/made this dress dirty for a Pyramid Head cosplay from Silent Hill!

The base fabric I used was a canvas material, you want to make sure you are using something thick, something that will be able to hold up all that you are about to do it and thin fabrics will not hold up sadly.

I tested out something here by taking liquid latex and covering a few small places with it first then dip dying it, as explained below. The dye will not take to any spots that have the liquid latex on it and doing this will create some nice realistic stains for your cosplay.

Next I bring a pot of dark red dye to a boil, I got this color by mixing red, brown and a very small amount of black Rit dye into a pot! I then dip dyed the bottom half of my fabric into this pot.

Here is how it looked after being dip dyed!

I wanted the fabric to look more messy and so I opted for an old classic, dying fabric with tea bags. This is a natural way to dye your fabric and is perfect for horror/post apocalyptic things likes this! I used four black tea bags and let the water steep.

I then submerged my fabric and let it sit for thirty minutes, I did not stir it cause I did not want it do dye evenly, this way there would splotches and stains throughout the fabric. Afterwards I washed out all the excess tea in the sink with some cold water and placed the garment in the dryer with a towel (Always place some kind of towel in the dryer with whatever you are drying, it will help your fabric dry and also keep your dryer from staining)

After it was dry I than began the task of covering the ENTIRE fabric piece in liquid latex, I poured a bit of latex into a cup, used a disposable brush and began painting onto the fabric. Make sure you do this over something like a cardboard box laid out, the latex will seep through the fabric and you do not want to get that on your floor! After doing this I let it dry over night.

In the morning it looked like this! I rather liked how all the stains came out. It was still a little sticky, so I took some body powder and lightly covered the entire thing with it and patted it away, this got rid of any stickiness. 

With a sponge brush and a mix of basic brown, tan and red paints I began painting the smock and adding in more details in areas I saw fit. Doing this allowed myself to have precise creativity on where I wanted certain grungey elements to be.

And that is pretty much how I go about doing distress/grunge work for cosplays! I hope this gave you some ideas and will help you out on making your cosplays look a mess!