(initial posting 16 March 2025)
At some point after I'd gotten my science blue
Lower Decks costume to an acceptable state,
it popped into my head that it should be very simple to do
Doctor T'Ana--all I'd need would be a lighter blue lab coat
and a set of cat ears, and I already had the latter.
I wasn't really interested in trying to do full cat makeup, though. But I remembered I also might also have some masks/accessories from the pandemic, and maybe some old Halloween costumes, that might be useful for creating more of a "cat" look.
At some point in late 2024 I was browsing online and found what seemed to be very decent suitable lab coat for about $20 (on Amazon), and bought it. That basically committed me to doing the cosplay.
When I checked on the cat ears I'd been thinking of, and I saw they were tiger colored: orange and black stripes. And while T'Ana is kinda orange-ish and definitely gives off orange cat energy, she's not tiger-striped. She doesn't seem to have any black (except the eyebrows), so the other cat ears I had that were black weren't gonna work either. It looked like I might have to make the ears. I guess this "simple" cosplay wasn't gonna be quite so simple after all.
Meanwhile, I recalled purchasing, as the pandemic was winding down,
a couple of gaiter-style masks (they were on sale) that had the bottom part
of cat faces on them. I figured one of these should be good for cat-ifying my
face without having to do major makeup.
Checking on them, one was a domestic cat, white, with a little pink nose...
didn't seem right for T'Ana. Another was a lion... which seemed very appropriate
for her! Matched her attitude, and her colors (more or less).
So, getting back to making some ears,
I checked for fake fur in
my fabric stash, and found some that was pretty darn close to perfect:
some shorter fur in a medium brown, and some longer fur in a more tawny/tan
(lion color) that would be great for the hair on top of her head and coming out
her ears. Pic at right shows materials gathered.
In the process of finding the fur, I also found a couple of pre-made
tail costume pieces, one black and one brown.
It got me wondering if I should have a tail for T'Ana.
Checking images online, I found that while you almost never see it,
she does have a short tail. Presumably it's hiding under the lab coat most
of the time.
I decided it would be fun to have a little piece of tail peeking out from
under the lab coat. So I cut the brown tail shorter, added a tuft
of the long tawny fur at the end to look like a lion
(and inspired by the black tail, which had a similar
tuft), and replaced the waist tie with a strip from a black T-shirt
(the original brown tail had a tie made of very light colored fur, but I wanted black to
make it less visible near the uniform).
So there it is, the first piece I make for this cosplay, and it's
completely unnecessary (pic at left).
What I needed to work on was the ears. I knew I wanted them on a headband, because clips (like the tiger set I had to start with) don't stay in my hair well. I'd been to the dollar store and found what seemed to be the perfect brown headband -- the fabric on it looked remarkably like what the brown tail was made of.
I took
the pic of T'Ana from the beginning of this article and enlarged it on
my computer screen so her head was about the same size as mine, and traced
the basic shapes of the head and ears onto a piece of clear plastic.
This would serve as a useful reference for the size, shape, and placement
of the ears.
I began by trying to make the right shape with paper.
When I was happy with that, I used the paper as a pattern to cut the ears
from the short brown fur (cutting with a blade from the back side to
avoid cutting too much of the fur off). Pic at right.
Next I hand-stitched the ears into the desired shape,
and hot-glued felt down to be the insides of the ear.
I also cut the "bite" (or whatever it is) from the right ear,
securing the cut edge with more hot glue.
(I figure it's "scar tissue".) (Pic at left.)
Then I stitched them onto the headband.
All that was left to finish the headpiece then was to add the fur for the "hair". For the main top section, I again started with paper to make a pattern before cutting the fur, then stitched it to the headband. For the ear tufts, I just eyeballed the shape and used hot glue. I didn't bother to take a pic of the finished item because it really just looks like a bunch of fur.
Meanwhile, while trying on the gaiter, I saw that I had
to fold over the top part to get the lion's face positioned
right on my face. I decided to stitch it down so it wouldn't slip
around so much when I was wearing it. I had a little fun with it
by using black thread and letting the ends hang down like whiskers.
I also noticed the black lion nose on the mask didn't match
T'ana's light-colored nose, so I updated it with a piece of felt that matched
the inside of the ears I'd made.
When I put on the finished headband and mask, I decided I should at least use makeup to draw on her black eyebrows, since they're so very obvious on her face. But then they looked SO dark that I decided I needed to balance them out by doing something to suggest the size/shape of her eyes also, starting with some yellow eye shadow I already had. I know I said earlier that I didn't want to do full cat makeup, but this wasn't that. This was more like regular makeup, although I did learn about how to do a "cut crease" in the process :-)
I wore the costume to Sunrise Comic Con in March 2025:
Overall, I'm pleased with the cosplay--I certainly had fun with it at the con. One thing I want to remember for the next time I wear it is that I thought it looked a little weird when you could see my real ears along with the cat ears. Part of the reason that happened is because I had all my hair held back by the headband, so I think I can mostly fix it by making sure to leave some hair in front of the headband. Another part of the reason is that the gaiter-style mask is hard to keep in exactly the perfect spot all the time, but I'm not sure there's any easy way to fix that.
(following section added 2 August 2025)
While reviewing various pics from the Sunrise con, I noticed a couple
of other details that seemed to have easy fixes.
One thing was that the hair in front was a bit too long and was
ocassionally in my eyes, so I cut it a bit shorter.
The other was that the ears were a bit droopier than I was expecting,
so I added some stitching that should make them sit a little
perkier on the headband.
I wore the updated costume at Supercon in July 2025, pic at right.
I think the updated headband worked out well, as did placing it further back in my hair.
Also, this time I thought to keep my lanyard in the pocket of my
lab coat so as not to distract from the costume, which was good.
And I remembered to wear my rank pips, which I'd forgotten previously.
Alas, they don't seem to be visible in any of the pics I got...
and this seems to be mainly because the gaiter-style mask
gets kinda sloppy down by the collar area.
I am seriously considering making a new mask... after all, I made a bunch during
COVID.
(following section added 10 February 2026)
I did end up making a new mask.
It turned out to be more of a process than I expected, though.
I knew I wanted to use the same fur
for the main part of the mask as I'd used for the ears,
but the lighter area around the nose would probably need
to be something like felt. Turned out I had gold felt that was a good match for the
long hair on the headband, which was what I needed.
I needed a mask that was shaped, but didn't have a seam in the
front, so I chose the "batwing" style, which has one dart to shape the nose and 2 for the chin.
I had made just one such during COVID, in the Men's size, which was a bit too big for me.
But I figured, working with fur, that was probably a good thing.
So I made the base mask from some old sheet fabric using the Men's batwing pattern, planning to stitch the fur and felt pieces onto it to make the face. I found a nice pic of the good doctor's face from the front, and enlarged it to a scale I felt would be good for my own face. Then it was a matter of figuring out the cutting patterns for the pieces of fur and felt to fit the face onto the mask (pic at left). But I soon realized the Men's size base mask was going to be too big, so I cut the one I'd made smaller rather than making a new one in the Women's size. That in turn meant I needed to re-do some of the pattern pieces I'd made for the face.
Eventually it was a just a matter of much hand sewing pieces together
and working on details.
Like, I decided to make the mouth by embroidering with black thread,
otherwise it wasn't visible enough. But then I needed to outline the nose
and make the whiskers thicker just to balance the mouth out.
And finally it was done, and I was able to wear it to the next con, in Lauderhill in January 2026 (pic at right).
It's kinda funny how much work I've put into this "very simple" cosplay.
And I don't think I'm done with her yet. What I'm interested in now
is the makeup... each time I've done this, I've add tried using makeup to do
the yellow eyes... the eyebrows are black and show up fine, but I think
the yellow of the eyes is too close to my skin color, so it barely shows up.
But I do have some ideas about that.
And I do have a lot of fun with her, so I think it's worth the effort.
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