Cosplay Feature: Yaya Han's Sorceress Edea!

Photo by Carlos Adama

It goes without saying that Yaya Han never ceases to amaze me with her deep appreciation to cosplay in addition to the amount of work that she's done in making cosplay accessible to the mainstream audience with her patterns & fabric line. She manages to cover a wide range of pop culture from anime, gaming and comic books. Whenever Yaya gets into cosplaying from franchises that I myself have a deep love for, that's when I really nerd out in excitement over what she's able to do. Case in point, her Sorceress Edea from Final Fantasy VIII is absolutely amazing. It's so simple yet stunning beyond words so I apologize if this overall write up is a bit on the shorter side. Starting off is possibly the most iconic piece to Edea's design and that's her helmet. The overall construction was 3D printed by the amazing Dangerous Ladies and then Yaya went to town with the paint work. The helmet itself is this really interesting design with a variety of colors being used.

I can't help but liken the helmet's design back to some of the character designs done by Yoshitaka Amano for the earlier games in the franchise. Lots of horns are utilized in addition to curvature and some bedazzlement jewels being added too! Yaya had this done in time for this past Dragon*Con and hasn't had many photoshoots for Edea yet but you can be sure I'm going to be fangirling over any new photos that come out of this. The dress itself is a deep blue shade with an intense amount of black lines traveling up and down throughout. There's also the feathery collar that stands out from the back and drapes over a bit on Yaya's shoulders.

Even in photos like the one you see to the side, the dress just has this shine to it and I don't know what in particular she did to it. Whether it's some jewels being added in or the type of fabric I'm just left speechless. If you actually zoom in you can see some shape patterning done up towards the top portion of the dress in addition to the detailing done on the black lines. The bottom section of the dress is circular in shape with white fur draping down. The top portion of this piece is dyed blue as it transitions into a lighter shade then ending in white. 

What's got me stunned is that this piece stays in place and doesn't drag on the floor. I'm dying to know what sort of contraption Yaya's got working under there cause it just rules! Like even in some of the other full body shots, this piece is just staying in place shape wise. I'm imagining that while walking Yaya almost looks like she's gliding across. So freaking cool!! Oh and the full suit also includes full arm/hand coverings. On the ends of her fingers you can make out long fingernail like pieces!

Photo by Carlos Adama

Photo by David Ngo

Photo by Brian Boling

I'm really looking forward to learning more about this cosplay and just following more of Yaya's work. She continues to amaze & inspire both me alongside countless others in the cosplay world. If you want to know pretty much everything about the work she does, check out her website below :)

https://www.yayahan.com/