My favourite fantasy event to attend every year is Fantasy Forest – the UK Ren Faire – hosted at Sudeley Castle in Cheltenham for one weekend in July. This event has expended since my first time attending 4 years ago to a huge folk music festival and fantasy trade market 20,000 attendees strong. As the organisers cannot expand the festival at the Sudeley Castle site any more, last year they announced Fantasy Forest Libertalia!

This second event is running for the first time this year 4-6 September at Hatfield House, just north of London, on huge ground with plenty of room to expand in the future. I was lucky enough to buy tickets for both Fantasy Forest Sudeley AND Fantasy Forest Libertaila 2026.

Earlier this month, Fantasy Forest Libertalia opened registrations for their costume contest, running on both Saturday and Sunday of the three day event. I applied for the Saturday contest and was accepted! The costume I submitted was Rhaenyra Targaryen’s Season 2 promo look from House of the Dragon.

This costume has been on my cosplay hopefuls list since the release of season 2 back in 2024 but I am yet to start making it. I tend to do this often; I dream of making a big, complex cosplay build but fail to take the cosplay from drafting patterns and ordering fabric samples to actually creating it. I figured that if I applied to the costume contest at FF Libertalia and was accepted, the hard deadline of September 2026 would actually give me the motivation I need to construct these beautiful costume pieces.

Now, the deadline is technically August 18th. This is the deadline for my notes on cosplay construction to be submitted to the Judges, as well as the audio clip I’d like used during my performance (yes I have to perform on stage, even in front of an audience). The Judges Notes are basically a small description of how the costume was made, making reference to any notable techniques or materials used. I don’t necessarily have to have the costume made 100% to provide this but I’ll need to be at least 70% of the way there in order to provide insightful notes. I plan to have the audio clip written, recorded and ready for the end of July so I have all of August to focus on the costume.

The Costume Breakdown

Rhaenyra’s S2 promo look is made up of 4 main pieces: the dress, the cape, the wig and the crown.

The Dress

I am having trouble sourcing the right type of fabric to use for the outer black dress. Usually the Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon cosplay community are incredible at finding the screen accurate fabric used for the costumes in the show(s) but no one seems to have sourced this specific fabric. I’ve ordered samples for other fabric options that I thought would look cool, after all cosplay is about creativity and screen accuracy isn’t the focus, but I wasn’t happy with the texture and overall finish of the fabrics. In the coming weeks I plan on visiting a few larger fabric shops in person to hunt for a suitable solution. The inner red fabric I know will be a deep red cotton, which I can get easily at Hobbycraft.

The dress features embroidery details on the sleeves, belt and collar/shoulder. All of these have a variation of a dragon. I haven’t used embroidery in a cosplay before so am very excited to test and advance my skills.

Thankfully this is a long, royal gown so my shoes will be covered. I’ll be wearing black leather boots which I already own.

The Cape

The cape (for me) is the least necessary part of the costume; I won’t loose sleep if I don’t have that ready for the event. You don’t get marked down for what you didn’t bring in cosplay contests, you are only judged on what you provide on the day. The cape would display additional techniques to show off to the judges, such as draping and patterning. I will work on this piece last, if at all.

The Wig

The styling of Rhaenyra’s hair in these images is thankfully very simple, as wig styling isn’t my strong suit at all! I’ve attended several wig styling panels at cons the past couple years so have a better theoretical understanding of how to approach wig styling. I know it’s best to lightly crimp all the wig fibres before doing anything else, as this helps remove shine from the wig, add volume and texture, in addition to making longer wig less susceptible to tangling. A long pale/white blonde wig will be purchased next month, to begin styling in August.

The Crown

The Crown of the Seven Kingdoms will be patterned by hand and then constructed with craft foam and worbla. I do have past experience making cosplay props and armour pieces. This is the part of the costume I’m the least worried about.

Time to Craft!

I’m so excited to finally be making my first A Song of Ice and Fire cosplay! I’m sure it won’t be the last. I plan on making regular updates, both on here and Instagram. Due to the time constraints and the fact that this is my first time making a cosplay of this scale, I won’t be providing tutorials for anything I make. There are many highly-skilled cosplayers who are excellent at providing step by step methods for creating your own cosplays. Kamui Cosplay and Sarah Spaceman are two of my favourites!

If you’re interested in attending Fantasy Forest Sudeley or Libertalia, feel free to send me a message with any of your questions. It’s a wonderful event with a great community and team behind it. Honestly, a fantasy lovers dream!

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