Air Bubbles Cosplay shared this great video showcasing how she made the lightweight TranspArt glowing gems for her Akroma, Angel of Fury costume.
The basics of LED lighting – Video
Kamui Cosplay’s The Book of Cosplay Lights is an excellent resource for adding lights to your costumes. If you want to see a video covering the basics, check out her tutorial below!
You can see how Kamui’s applied LED’s to make an AION glowing book of spells here:
Transparent (Glowing) Horns

Melting Props,Cosplay & Projects shared this tutorial on how to make lightweight, perfectly smooth horns with Worbla’s TranspArt that you can paint either opaque, or with transparent paints so that they can be lit with an LED!

These horn are lightweight , cheap and easy to make ,you can get insanely creative with this but for the purposes of this tutorial going with some classic bull like horns
Things you need:
Worbla’s Transpa art
DAS (other clays work but DAS is the most predictable, get something that can be baked hard)
Heat gun
fine Sandpaper or Sanding block
scissors
life sized sketch of the horns you want to make
Step 1 Size up the sketch and figure out how much clay you you’re going to need for each horn
Step 2 Knead the clay adding water to make sure it stays soft (skipping this step is lead to cracking) (Follow the instructions on your clay if you are using a different brand!)
Step 3 roughly form the clay into the shape you want using water to smooth it out (longer horns may require wire inside to keep their shape)
Step 4 once you have the shape you like place in the oven at 80°C the thickness of the horn can mean this step can take an hour or 3 (Again, follow instructions on your clay)
Step 5 if done right you should be able to sand it smooth without it breaking or cracks
Step 6 once the horn is perfect cut out a sheet of transpa worbla longer than your horn with allot of room on both sides if you’re not sure how much you need on both sides it’s better to over estimate than under
step 7 place the worbla on the front facing side of your horn and heat downwards till it gotten the shape of the tip
Step 8 you’re going to have to work your way from the top down Stretching and then pinching where the worbla meats on the other side ( high risk for burning heat proof gloves recommended)
Step 9 trim the excess worbla so there is only a small bit of even flashing left .
step 10 Heat and fold the flashing over to whatever side isn’t facing outwards it’s (right horn fold left left horn fold right) important to do this smoothly or you will be left with on uneven seam lines.
step 11 If you’re horns has more than one curve or has an overhang you may need to break it to break the clay inside it out if the clay was cooked for the right amount of time the very center should still be soft making this step very easy to do clearly if not it’s still pretty easy.
Step 12 wash the horn to remove any clay dust and let dry
Step 13 Painting, nice and evenly applied to layers of the red spray tint once fully dried blend in black (very lightly )
If done right this should be both nice and translucent as well as perfect for lighting effects will get into lighting and electronics in later tutorials but for now I recommend trying this out it may take a couple of attempts
Also if you’re 2nd horn is the same as the 1st it’s possible to fix the broken clay horn by mixing DAS with water and using it as a glue put it back in the oven for an hour and and you’re ready to make a 2nd horn.
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Thanks again to Melting Props,Cosplay & Projects for sharing this with us!
Working with LED Lights
In addition to her excellent books on Worbla and Wonderflex, Kamui Cosplay has written 2 books covering the basic and advanced principals of adding lights to your costumes and armor.
Available Here: Do you want to make glowing LEDs, Gemstones or other costume effects? Look no further! Kamui gives detailed guides and tutorials. At 48 full colour pages, Kamui covers:
– Introduction to LEDs
– Understanding Electricity
– Calculating Resistors
– Serial and Parallel Connections
– Calculating Battery Lifespan
– Required Tools and Materials
– Troubleshooting
– Molding and Casting resin Gemstones with LEDs
– Building glowing Acrylic Spheres
– Lighting up Plexiglas
As well as the following work examples:
– Dani Moonstar (Marvel)
– Druid T9 (World of Warcraft)
– Protoss Wizard (Blizzard Crossover)
Available here. You want to create cool light up costumes but have no idea how? In this volume you’ll learn everything about working with animated RGB LED strips and how to create mesmerizing light effects for your props and cosplays. Choosing the right materials, soldering microcontroller circuits, ‘programming’ your very first LED strip and building it into your costume – every step from start to finish! And the best is: This book is still for beginners! No programming knowledge required!
At 48 full color pages, Kamui gives easy step-by-step guides, tutorials and explanations for the following points:
– Introduction to tools and materials
– All you need to know about LED strips
– Getting started with the Arduino UNO
– Working with the Arduino IDE
– Understanding and editing the code
– Crawling, color changing, pulsing and blinking effects
– Wiring your very first circuit
– Working with different modes and switches
– Troubleshooting
– Diffusing materials
As well as the following work examples:
– Fallout 4 – Gauss Rifle
– World of Warcraft – Shadowmourne
– Heroes of the Storm – Nova