Utopia Base TWOK Uniform: A Trick Up One's Sleeve

This photo is part of a set showcasing a major set of changes that I made to the very first TWOK Monster Maroon uniform I ever obtained in an attempt to finish improving and accurizing the outfit, once and for all.  

Utopia Base, formerly known as Costume Base, is an online store based out of Singapore, Malaysia. Supposedly, they get their TWOK Monster Maroon uniforms "on consignment" and sell them off-the-rack as a full set, and that's how I had originally gotten mine, but it had started off being ill-fitting and badly inaccurate, and I've had to do a lot of work on the outfit since I first obtained it in February of 2011.

During this latest round of alterations, both sleeves of this jacket were reduced. Although I had asked my shop to do this because the sleeves were too long and basically gobbled up half my hands whenever I had them down at my sides, there was also another benefit.

Originally, the sleeves of a Utopia Base (Costume Base) TWOK Monster Maroon had far too many quilted lines on each cuff - up to 5 or 6 when they should only have 4. After the reduction, they now have the correct four, something I was quite pleased with.

This sleeve, however, also had another final modification. Before Anime Weekend Atlanta 2014, I'd had a flat fabric patch - something like a "false pincushion" - sewn onto the sleeve above the arm band as a stop-gap improvement before AWA 2014 to put at least some sort of detail in that location.

However, now I permanently solved that problem by having my shop put some material under the flat patch, creating a true "pincushion pad." We had to compromise in the end, and didn't add *too* much material for fear of making the patch so thick that I'd have difficulty putting a pin through it - I had learned my lesson from the Marco Enterprises version.