The Cosplay Workshop

The Workshop is the making half of the Cosplay Realm. It is five tools that share one thing: your body's numbers. Measure once in the Measuring Room and every other tool draws on the same profile — no re-entering, no spreadsheet.

The five tools

1. The Measuring Room — start here

   Your body's numbers in one place. Measure with your camera (members 18 and over) or a tape, and each number keeps a record of how it was taken and how much to trust it. See the Measuring Room.

2. Fit Forge — resize someone else's model

   You downloaded an STL for a helmet that was modelled on someone else. Fit Forge scales it to your measurements in the browser. See Fit Forge.

3. Piece Forge — model from nothing

   Shape a helmet, torso, vambrace, greaves or prop from a wireframe cage, fit it to you, then unfold it into printable foam templates. See Piece Forge.

4. Pattern Forge — draft a sewing block

   Draft a sewing block to your own measurements and tile it across ordinary printer paper to trace. See Pattern Forge.

5. Costume Forge — put it all together

   Wear your saved pieces on one body at once and find out what collides before you cut foam. See Costume Forge.

Your first piece

New to the Workshop? A card under the tab row walks you through your first piece in three steps, with a cut line that fills in as you go:

1. Measure your head

   A helmet scales from one number: your head circumference, around the widest part just above your brows. Take it with a tape or your camera in the Measuring Room. The step ticks itself once the number is saved.

2. Fit a free helmet

   Get the free helmet from the Design Shop (or Browse free designs and pick any free one), open it in Piece Forge and press Resize to fit under Fit & export. Then press I've fitted it.

3. Unfold one panel

   In Piece Forge, open Unfold to foam, unfold one layer and pick one panel to cut first, then press Cut it. Printing the sheets needs Pro; on Free and Plus, trace a panel from the preview.

I know my way around hides the card, and Show the first-run path brings it back where you left off. Your place is kept in this browser.

Shared across the tools

The profile you pick in one tool is the one the others open with, and the tab row names it with how many numbers it holds. The cm / in switch on the tab row sets the unit for every tool; the Measuring Room has its own beside its table. Your measurements are always stored in millimetres, so switching loses nothing. A4 or US Letter, once chosen, is remembered on your device and shared by Piece Forge and Pattern Forge.

When an edit re-splits the templates, the unfold says so: “12 panels → 16 panels”, with “2 sheets → 3 sheets” when the print sheets change too. Piece Forge shows it at the foot of Unfold to foam (a scale made in the model tab shows when you come back), and Fit Forge under Unfold after you unfold the scaled model again.

What each tier includes

The Measuring Room is open to everyone. The other four tools all run in your browser on every plan, so on Free and Plus you can try each one as a preview; what you keep from them needs Pro:

• Fit Forge — scaling, previewing, splitting and unfolding a model are open to everyone; downloading the scaled STL or 3MF, the test ring, the split parts, the print sheets and cut files, and the Live BOM (pricing the print in a material) need Pro.
• Piece Forge — modelling, fitting, unfolding and importing a design file are open to everyone; saving to your library, the Cost tab, exporting an STL or a design file, the print sheets and cut files, and publishing to the Design Shop need Pro.
• Pattern Forge — choosing and drafting a block, the sheet count and projecting onto your table are open to everyone; opening the print sheets, the copy-shop sheet and downloading the SVG or DXF need Pro.
• Costume Forge — assembling a costume and checking it for collisions are open to everyone; saving a costume needs Pro. Opening and deleting costumes you already saved never does.

On Free and Plus, a short note and a link to Pro take the place of each button that needs it, and a card under the tab row says you are previewing the Workshop. Getting a design from the Design Shop is open to everyone.

Where your work goes

Pieces you save are yours to reuse across tools. When you are building toward something specific, track it in My Builds — a build links to the designs, fits, pattern drafts and costume you made for it, holds its progress photos, and marking one finished and public turns it into a portfolio piece in the gallery.

Work you haven't saved yet is kept in this browser while you work in Piece Forge, Costume Forge and Pattern Forge, and forgotten when you save. Open the tool again after the page closed and it asks Restore your last session from that time: Restore puts the work back on screen, still unsaved, and Discard forgets it. It is never uploaded, and signing out deletes it. Fit Forge and the Measuring Room don't keep any: Fit Forge's model is a file on your device, and every measurement saves as you take it.