Neeko Wig Tutorial – Cosplay Wig Styling
This post covers how to make a KDA Superfan Neeko cosplay wig, with or without lights, and the materials and tools needed to do so.
Steps
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Prepping the Wig and Wig Head
Before we start working on the wig at all, we’re going to want to prep the wig head that the wig will be sitting on while we are styling.
Start by wrapping the wig head with a layer of plastic cling wrap and sealing the plastic wrap carefully by blowing it with the heat gun. Allow it to cool completely, and then add a later of aluminum foil to the wig head. Smooth this out as much as you can with your hands. Mark the sections of your wig head (i.e. mark where your ears are, how short/long the bangs need to be, etc,) with a permanent marker.
Place your wig on the wig head, and pin it in place using some T pins.
Prepping the Wig Hair
Before cutting any hair off of the base wig, section and crimp or steam and tease the hair. Then carefully separate out the wefts you want to remove, zip-tie the hair into bundles, and cut them above the zip-ties. Set the removed bundles of hair aside and save them for later.
Building the Structure
To make the wig defy gravity, we will need to build a structure for the hair to attach to that is strong and solid enough to endure being worn at conventions.
Start with your reference image and mark out where the structure needs to be. Cut lengths of wire to the length it needs to be for your structure, and bend them as needed to start constructing the shape you need. Prep a thermoplastic strip (about 1″ wide by 2″ long) per wire length and carefully heat and wrap the thermoplastic around the end of the wire that will be connecting to the wig base – this will give the wire more surface area for the glue to secure it to the wig.
Using hot glue, attach the wires to the wig base and allow the glue to cool completely before trying to further shape the wire.
NOTE: I’d recommend adding a tab of Worbla, tape, similar material to the end of the wire that will be attaching to the wig base. This will help give the wire extra surface area to attach to the wig and prevents the wire from poking through the wig netting and poking your head as the wig is worn and moved around.
Multiple Color Wefts
For the wig to have multiple colors, I had to create wefts using some braiding hair fibers. I made them using wax paper, hair clips, and clear gel Tacky Glue. Once the wefts were complete, I attached them to the wig using hot glue for the pieces that would be hidden and clear gel tacky glue for the more visible pieces. I’ve found that separating a little bit of the clear gel tacky glue into a separate container (like a clean sauce bottle) and adding a little bit of water helps the glue permeate the hair more efficiently, uses less glue, and makes the glued portions look a little bit softer than if I were to use straight-up Tacky Glue.
I attached the colorful wefts to the base of the wig using hot glue and achieved a softer hairline at the base of the skull area by tucking a portion of the wefts up and into the wig base, then gluing them on the inside of the wig.
Then I laid the blue hair on top over the quilt batting base, pulling the hair out to the ends and keeping it slightly taught. I used a little bit of clear gel tacky glue that I brushed along the batting about an inch from the edge to stick the hair down and hold it in place. I trimmed the ends of the hair to length, leaving about 1/2 of an inch of overhang on the structure. Once I was happy with the cut, I brushed a little bit of tacky glue over the top of the edges and used my hair dryer to speed up the drying process. This makes sure that our top blue layer stays in place and allows us to seamlessly incorporate the under-color.
After each of the new wefts was attached to the base, I took a few pieces at a time by the ends, pulled them up, and connected them to the edge of the wire-and-tape frame made in previous steps. I did this using Tacky Spray glue, trimmed the added wefts to length, and then pinched the ends of the hair between the top and bottom layers together and sealed them with more clear gel Tacky Glue.
Once the glue at the ends of the hair has completely dried, you can use a pair of scissors to carefully trim the edges into shape – make sure to reseal them with a tiny bit of glue once you’ve done this! For this wig, I used Pink Fibers and Orange Fibers in combination with the blue base wig to get the colors I was wanting. I’ve found that wig or braiding fibers are extremely versatile and usually come pre-crimped which means less prep work.
Face Framing and Bang Pieces
The front face framing and bang pieces were made from some of the hair that was removed from the bottom half of the base wig. I created new wefts from the hair and built shapes using lengths of wire, shipping tape, and quilt batting.
These shapes were covered in quilt batting (shrunk with a heat gun after application), layered with the wefts, trimmed into shape (with the tops left too long for blending into the base wig), and then attached to the base wig using hot glue. Once they were attached, I used hair spray to get the hair positioned where I needed it to be for blending into the wig. I then trimmed any too-long hairs, shaped it further using hairspray to set it, and then used more clear tacky glue to seal the ends. I used an airbrush to paint in some shading and gradient to the shapes. They were then sealed with acrylic sealant.
Headband and Accessories
The headband was created from a pre-existing headband that I wrapped in ribbon and added embellishments to.
The diamond shapes on the top were printed with clear resin on an SLA 3D printer, these shapes were then filled with iridescent cellophane and a diode was added at the bottom for a glowing effect. I added hair to the back of the headband as well to help hide the battery packs for the LEDs and the magnet that helps to hold it on. (which makes it look like a cursed toupee when it’s not on the wig).
The headband is held on with a 1.5″ neodymium magnet at the crown of the head.
The accessories (the diamonds that are arranged on the wig) are also removable. These were printed with resin as well and painted with a chrome spray paint and an iridescent shimmer spray paint clear coat. They have magnets on the back to help with attaching them to the wig. The magnets are hidden under wefts in the base wig, which allows the wig to be worn with or without the accessory pieces without anything looking out of place.
Underglow (Optional)
The underside of this wig glows as well – which was a decision I made based on the character and how her hair glows in the game as a part of her passive abilities.
This was achieved using LED Noods (which I bought from here) and CR2032 batteries.
Because the frame of this wig makes it essentially hollow inside, it’s super easy to set up the lights and then thread them through the wig nettings and into the empty cavity where we added new wefts. The way the lights diffuse through the hair adds a nice, subtle glow effect to the underside of wig.
Finished!
You are done! I am very proud of you, and I hope you are proud of yourself for tackling a monster wig like this one.
I hope this tutorial was helpful to you in your cosplay adventures, and please feel free to share pics of your finished wig with me because I would love to see it!
If you liked this tutorial, check back later for more tutorials or check out some of my other posts for more resources, tips, and tricks ♥