The Art of Breaking Limits. How Team Sawit Built Victory From Failure
Inside the twelve-month journey of creating Ace vs Yamato—where a back accessory failed three times, motors became metaphors, and less than RM500 became magic
This is Part 3/3 of Team Sawit’s journey. Read to discover how they got here.
Part 1: Their origins and partnership formation
Part 2: The competition day experience
Part 3: The technical and creative process of building everything (current)
The back accessory is broken. Again.
Hino stares at the defective PU foam pieces scattered across her workspace. This is the third time Yamato’s iconic back accessory has failed. Each failure has cost money—money she and Feef can barely afford. Each failure has eaten hours they don’t have.
It’s moments like these when you question everything. When the voice in your head whispers: Maybe they’re right. Maybe this is just a waste of time and money.
But Hino doesn’t listen to that voice anymore. Instead, she does what every great maker does: she looks at the broken pieces and asks, “How can I reuse these?”
This is the reality of creating a World Cosplay Summit championship costume. Not the glamorous final product you see on stage, but the failures, the adaptations, the midnight problem-solving sessions where you turn disaster into innovation.
Welcome to the workshop where Team Sawit built their dreams from scratch—and sometimes, from broken pieces.
Where the Work Actually Began
By early 2024, the decision had already been made. Ace vs Yamato was no longer an idea being debated or negotiated—it was a commitment that carried consequences.
What followed wasn’t brainstorming or inspiration boards, but months of hands-on problem-solving that demanded discipline, patience, and the willingness to fail repeatedly. From this point forward, progress would be measured not by concepts, but by whether something physically worked, survived stress, and could be reproduced under performance conditions.
Ace vs Yamato. The clash between Whitebeard’s Second Division Commander and Kaido’s “son” who dreams of freedom. A fight that, in the anime, represents more than combat—it represents ideals, destinies, and the collision of two powerful wills.
But Team Sawit had a problem: everyone does fighting skits.
Breaking The Formula
Avoiding the standard winner–loser structure immediately created a new set of challenges. Without a clear victory, the story had to be carried entirely through movement, pacing, and visual language.
There would be no exposition-heavy dialogue to clarify intent, no final blow to signal resolution. Every element—from costume silhouette to prop interaction—had to communicate meaning instantly and intuitively to an audience watching from afar.
The questions piled up:
Since the title is Ace vs Yamato, why are they fighting in the first place?
After fighting then what happens?
How do we make this understandable to people who’ve never watched One Piece?
That last question was crucial. WCS judges and audiences come from different fandoms, different backgrounds. Your story has to transcend your source material.
“We try to make our plot as simple as possible, did not put too much dialogue.”
Simple plot. Minimal dialogue. Maximum emotion.
The concept evolved: Ace and Yamato fight not to destroy each other, but to understand each other. Both carry the weight of impossible legacies—Ace as the son of the Pirate King, Yamato as Kaido’s imprisoned heir. Both seek freedom from the shadows of their fathers.
And at the end? No winner. No loser. Just mutual respect and a lesson: “We’re not so different after all.”
“And not to have an ‘ending’ to finalize our story.”
The Elements That Matter
With the narrative framework set, they had to figure out what would make this skit work. Fighting sequences weren’t enough anymore.
“We know that fighting skit isn’t the only way to win nowadays. Emotions, climax, gimmicks, lesson learnt, artistic elements must be added into the skit.”
They began planning layers:
Emotion: The internal struggle of both characters, the recognition of shared pain, the moment of understanding
Climax: The splitting of the dragon head—Yamato breaking free from Kaido’s influence
Gimmicks: The Kaido dragon itself, the Luffy Gear 5 pop-up transformation, the motorized splitting mechanism
Lesson: That freedom comes not from defeating others, but from understanding yourself
Artistic elements: Costume details that told stories, movements that revealed character, lighting cues that shifted emotional tone
Each element had to earn its place. Each had to serve the story.
“Will my skit be able to be understood by everyone?” This question guided every decision.
Twelve Months: The Timeline
From first concept to stage performance: Twelve months.
This wasn’t because the character designs were complicated. Ace’s design is relatively simple—shorts, a hat with sad and smile faces, an orange bead necklace, and his iconic tattoos. Yamato’s outfit, while distinctive with her oni horns and flowing garments, isn’t armor-heavy.
“We spent about 5 months for costume making since the design was not really complicated. But planning of the costumes was quite a headache as the design was rather ‘simple’, we need to put more texture and detail.”
Therein lies the challenge: simple designs demand perfection. There’s nowhere to hide sloppy craftsmanship when your costume is minimalist. Every stitch shows. Every texture matters. Every detail tells.
The budget was equally constrained: less than RM500 for both costumes combined.
“For such a simple design already costs half a thousand, I can’t imagine what would it look like if we choose more complex design characters.”
But Team Sawit had an advantage: “Since we are part time crafters, we already had our power tools and sewing machine in hand.”
The infrastructure was there. Now they just had to learn new techniques, push their skills further, and create something worthy of the world stage.
No pressure.
Hino’s Journey: Learning to Embroider Dreams
For Hino, creating Yamato meant mastering techniques she’d never used before.
“For me it would be embroidery. I learn to draw embroidery patterns on software and sew satin stitch techniques.”
Embroidery isn’t just decoration—it’s storytelling through thread. Each pattern, each stitch contributes to the visual narrative of who Yamato is. The traditional Japanese aesthetic mixed with Yamato’s warrior spirit required precision and artistry.
Learning embroidery software meant translating hand-drawn concepts into digital patterns, understanding how stitches would look when executed, planning for thread tension and fabric pull. It’s a technical skill that demands both artistic vision and practical understanding.
Then there were the props.
“As for prop building, I learned how to make surfaces more metal realistic.”
Yamato’s kanabo—her iconic club weapon—needed to look like authentic metal while remaining light enough to wield during performance. This meant studying real metal surfaces, understanding how light plays across different finishes, learning weathering techniques that add depth and realism.
“Weathering costumes and use crafting PU foam approach to make my Yamato’s back accessory.”
That back accessory. The piece that would fail three times before succeeding. The piece that would become both her greatest challenge and her proudest achievement.
The Back Accessory: A Study in Persistence
Yamato’s back accessory—the distinctive ornamental piece that flows behind her—was Hino’s white whale.
“Because we started early, there were not really any dark moments. For me the darkest probably is the making of my Yamato’s back accessory which failed 3 times.”
Three times. Three separate attempts. Three failures.
“As this is my first time using this method, we spent quite a lot of money there too since we failed.”
Money they couldn’t afford to waste. Materials that seemed simple in theory but proved complex in execution. PU foam that didn’t behave as expected, crafting techniques that looked easy in tutorials but revealed hidden complexities in practice.
Each failure forced problem-solving: “We try to think hard on how to reuse the defective parts.”
Nothing could be wasted. Failed pieces became learning opportunities, components that might work in different configurations, raw material that could be repurposed.
The fourth attempt succeeded.
When asked what element of their costumes she was most proud of, Hino’s answer came immediately:
“For costumes wise it will be Yamato’s back accessory. It is the exact look that I wanted to achieve. And to know that I probably would be the first person to make her back accessory in such a unique look, I can say I’m quite proud of myself.”
The piece that broke three times became the piece she was proudest of. The technique that cost the most money and frustration became her signature innovation.
This is what mastery looks like: not avoiding failure, but pushing through it.
Feef’s Challenge: Building Bodies From Latex
While Hino battled embroidery software and PU foam, Feef faced his own technical mountain: creating Ace’s physique.
“It would be casting the muscle suit using latex and sponge.”
Ace is ripped. The character’s bare torso is a key part of his visual identity—the tattoos, yes, but also the athletic build that speaks to his power as a commander in Whitebeard’s crew.
Creating a convincing muscle suit means understanding human anatomy, how muscles layer and connect, how skin stretches over underlying structure. It means working with materials that are unforgiving—latex that can tear, sponge that can compress unevenly, adhesives that might fail under stage lights and movement.
“Since it’s my first time using latex to make muscle suit, there will be some flaws.”
Feef is honest about imperfection. First attempts always have flaws. But flaws you can work with, learn from, improve upon are different from catastrophic failures. His muscle suit worked. It looked convincing under stage lights. It moved with him during performance.
That’s success, even if it wasn’t perfect.
The second technical challenge was equally daunting: “I also learned to do wiring and led on props and costumes.”
LED wiring isn’t just about making things light up. It’s about:
- Understanding electrical circuits and power requirements
- Managing wire routing so it doesn’t restrict movement
- Ensuring connections stay secure during dynamic performance
- Hiding wiring so it doesn’t break immersion
- Choosing LEDs that provide the right color and brightness
- Planning battery placement and weight distribution
For someone learning these skills for the first time, while simultaneously creating a competition costume, under a twelve-month deadline? That’s not just ambitious. That’s the kind of challenge that separates hobbyists from serious competitors.
The Fabric Hunt
Some challenges aren’t technical—they’re logistical.
“One of the moments was sourcing the right fabrics, as they were limited and difficult to find,” Feef recalls.
Malaysia’s fabric market, while diverse, doesn’t always carry the specific materials needed for anime-accurate cosplay. The exact shade. The right weight. The proper drape. The texture that photographs well and looks authentic under stage lighting.
“Despite this, we did our best to search extensively and adapt until we found materials suitable for the characters.”
Adaptation became key. Can’t find the exact fabric? Find something close and modify it. Can’t source a specific material? Discover what achieves the same effect through different means.
This is practical creativity—the kind that doesn’t get talked about in glamorous “making of” features but represents hours of research, phone calls to suppliers, visits to fabric districts, online searches, and creative problem-solving.
The Gimmicks That Became Metaphors
But costumes alone wouldn’t win WCS. They needed gimmicks—but not just any gimmicks. They needed gimmicks that served the narrative.
Enter: the splitting dragon head.
Designing the dragon head wasn’t about meaning at first—it was about engineering. Weight distribution had to be balanced so it wouldn’t strain the performer. The motor had to be powerful enough to split the structure cleanly, yet quiet enough not to break immersion.
Trigger placement had to allow activation mid-performance without interrupting choreography. Every test revealed weaknesses that required adjustment, reinforcement, or redesign.
Only after the mechanics proved reliable did the dragon begin to take on narrative weight. What mattered first was that it worked every time. In live performance, symbolism collapses the moment a mechanism fails.
The Performance Architecture
Creating the costumes and gimmicks was only half the battle. They had to choreograph a performance that would fit everything into two and a half minutes.
Two. And. A. Half. Minutes.
“The emotional climax part and the positive ending make me feel that we successfully tell the whole story in just 2 mins 30 secs.”
Think about that constraint. Twelve months of work. Hundreds of hours. Multiple technical innovations. A complete emotional arc. All compressed into 150 seconds.
Every second had to count. Every movement had to communicate. Every gimmick had to land at precisely the right moment.
Feef brought crucial expertise here: “His ideas on how to pose and making impactful actions on a performance. Example how to hold a sword properly, how to fight, how to be more expressive on stage. Plus, he is a good storyteller as well.”
Stage combat isn’t just fighting—it’s choreographed communication. How you hold a weapon tells the audience your character’s confidence. How you move reveals their emotional state. How you position your body in relation to your opponent shows power dynamics.
Feef understood this instinctively. His contribution wasn’t just the Ace costume—it was the life he brought to Ace, the way he made the character breathe on stage.
The Signature Moment
When asked about the element of performance they’re most proud of, Hino points to a specific beat:
“For performance wise will be when Yamato took off her sleeves and Ace took off his jacket, I can really feel that I’m inside the series.”
This moment—the costume reveals—represents more than visual transformation. It’s the moment both characters commit fully to the fight. It’s vulnerability and confidence simultaneously. It’s the shift from posturing to authenticity.
In anime, costume changes during battle signal escalation. They’re visual shorthand for “now things get serious.” Team Sawit understood this language and translated it to stage performance.
The technical execution—making sleeves detachable in a way that looks smooth and intentional, ensuring the jacket removal doesn’t interrupt flow—these details matter enormously. A fumbled costume change breaks immersion. A smooth one enhances it.
What Kept Them Going
Late nights. Hands covered in glue or paint. Exhaustion. The quiet pressure of unfinished work sitting in the corner of the room.
These moments didn’t arrive all at once—they accumulated. After work hours. Between failed tests. In the gaps between one attempt and the next. The question wasn’t dramatic or loud. It was repetitive: Will this actually work?
What kept them moving wasn’t motivation in the inspirational sense. It was momentum.
Each solved problem created the conditions for the next. A failed material test clarified what wouldn’t work. A revised pattern reduced wasted fabric. A mechanism that finally activated on cue turned uncertainty into confidence. Progress, even small progress, became proof that the process was moving forward.
“Surprises that we prepared for the skit keep me going,” Hino explains. Not surprises for effect, but solutions—details that existed first as sketches, then prototypes, then functioning elements. Seeing those ideas shift from theory into something physical made the effort tangible.
This was no longer about imagining the final performance. It was about finishing the next task. Completing the next component. Fixing the next failure.
Instead of asking whether the outcome would be worth it, they focused on whether today’s problem could be solved. And almost always, it could—if not perfectly, then well enough to move forward.
The work itself became the motivation. The act of making, testing, adjusting, and refining replaced doubt with direction. As long as something improved, even slightly, the process justified continuing.
The Sacrifice Sheet
Creating art demands sacrifice. Team Sawit was brutally honest about what they gave up.
Hino: “Since I focus more on this competition, there are times I tend to not really focus on my full time job, luckily it does not really affect my performance in work.”
The mental bandwidth required for creation doesn’t disappear during your day job. Part of your brain is always solving problems, visualizing solutions, planning next steps. It’s a tax on attention that most people never see.
Feef’s answer was more comprehensive: “We sacrificed all of the above. However, we truly believe that these sacrifices will lead to meaningful results.”
Time with family. Sleep. Money saved for other purposes. Social opportunities. The ordinary pleasures of life—all set aside for this singular goal.
But here’s what they understood that many don’t: sacrifice without belief is just loss. Sacrifice with purpose becomes investment.
The Backbone of Team Sawit
Behind every great performance are people who make it possible.
For Hino: “My boyfriend, my partner in crime, my everything. Smith! We are part time cosplay makers, and he is my backbone. To be honest, without him, I’m not who I am right now. I would not passionately make stuff and would not go on stage. He inspires me, he teaches me, he guides me.”
Smith isn’t just emotional support—he’s technical support, creative partner, and belief made manifest. When you’re failing for the third time on a back accessory, having someone who believes you’ll succeed on the fourth attempt changes everything.
For Feef: “My mother, Hino, and Team Sawit—for constantly giving me the encouragement and strength to go further than I ever thought I could.”
“There are no sponsors. And the whole journey is supported by Hino’s boyfriend, Smith and Feef’s mother. 4 of us have very creative mindsets, had the ability to discern quality, understand aesthetics, and make distinctive artistic choices. All of us have a unique personal style in the cosplay creative field.”
Four people. No corporate backing. No sponsorship deals. Just shared vision and mutual support.
The Technical Truth
Let’s talk numbers, because numbers tell their own story:
Timeline: 12 months
Budget: Less than RM500 for both costumes
Failed attempts on back accessory: 3
New techniques learned: Embroidery software, satin stitch, metal weathering, PU foam crafting, muscle suit casting with latex, LED wiring
Performance length: 2 minutes 30 seconds
Major gimmicks: Splitting dragon head (motorized), Luffy Gear 5 pop-up transformation
Costume reveals: 2 (Yamato’s sleeves, Ace’s jacket)
These aren’t just statistics. Each number represents hours of work, problems solved, skills mastered, money carefully allocated, time meticulously managed.
Less than RM500 for both costumes sounds impossible until you understand that Team Sawit already owned their power tools and sewing machines. They’d built their infrastructure through previous projects. They could focus their limited budget on materials rather than equipment.
Twelve months sounds like a long time until you remember they both have full-time responsibilities. Hino works a full-time job. Feef has his own commitments. This was twelve months of nights and weekends, of stolen hours, of choosing creation over relaxation.
Three failed attempts on one piece sounds frustrating until you realize that persistence defines mastery. The fourth attempt succeeded because of everything learned from the first three.
The Philosophy of Imperfection
Here’s what Team Sawit understood that perfectionism often obscures: done is better than perfect.
Feef’s muscle suit had “some flaws.” Hino’s back accessory took four attempts. The fabric wasn’t always exactly what they wanted.
But they finished. They performed. They won.
“If it happens, it happens then,” became their mantra. Not as resignation, but as acceptance that live performance contains variables you can’t control. The motor might malfunction. The costume might catch. The timing might slip.
You prepare as best you can, then you trust your preparation and adapt to reality.
This philosophy extends to creation itself. You don’t wait for perfect materials before starting. You don’t abandon a technique because your first attempt fails. You make decisions, commit to them, and solve problems as they arise.
The Proof in the Details
When you look at the final costumes on stage, you see months of iteration compressed into visual form.
Yamato’s back accessory—the piece that failed three times—achieved “the exact look that I wanted to achieve.” The embroidery patterns tell stories through their traditional motifs. The weathering on props suggests history and use. The way the sleeves detach speaks to countless practice runs ensuring smooth removal.
Ace’s muscle suit creates the physique without restricting Feef’s movement—a balance between aesthetic and function that took trial and error to achieve. The LED elements bring props to life without overwhelming the characters. The jacket removal reveals character and commits to the fight’s emotional stakes.
The splitting dragon head—that motorized metaphor—works. It splits on cue. It creates the visual and emotional impact they designed it for. It earns gasps from the audience.
These details don’t happen by accident. They’re the result of twelve months spent asking: “How do we make this better? How do we make this meaningful? How do we make this work?”
The Standing Ovation
All the technical skill, all the narrative planning, all the gimmicks and costumes and choreography—it all came down to one question:
Would the audience understand? Would they feel? Would they care?
“We know audience will love our performance.”
They were right.
The standing ovation they’d worked for, dreamed of, sacrificed for—they earned it.
Not just from fans of One Piece, but from people who’d never seen the anime. The story transcended its source material. The emotions connected across cultural boundaries. The craft spoke for itself.
What Creation Taught Them
“Cosplay taught me that I am… Capable of what we can achieve.”
This is the real gift of making things: discovering capacity you didn’t know you had.
Hino learned she could fail three times and succeed on the fourth. She learned she could master embroidery software while working full-time. She learned she could create something unique enough to be proud of—”I probably would be the first person to make her back accessory in such a unique look.”
Feef learned he could work with materials he’d never used before. He learned he could tell stories through performance. He learned that starting his cosplay journey in 2022 didn’t mean he couldn’t compete with people who’d been doing it for years.
Together, they learned that “hard work will never betray its results.”
The Message for Makers
For anyone reading this who’s looking at their own unfinished project, their own failed attempts, their own limited budget and wondering if they should continue, Team Sawit offers this:
“Everything starts small. Try to practice by entering more small local solo competitions. Do not focus on winning, focus on the quality of your performance. Always choose your favorite character so that you put 10 times the effort to make it perfect”
And when things fail—because they will fail—remember: “We try to think hard on how to reuse the defective parts.”
Failure wasn’t something to avoid—it became information. Each broken attempt narrowed the margin of error. Each flaw exposed a weakness that could be addressed. Iteration replaced fear. Learning replaced frustration.
The back accessory that failed three times became the element Hino was most proud of. The first-time latex casting that had “some flaws” became part of a championship costume. The limited fabric options became an exercise in creative adaptation.
The Journey Continues.
The Art of Breaking Limits. How Team Sawit Built Victory
Team Sawit’s costumes and skit won them WCS Malaysia. But the creation doesn’t stop there.
They now face the world stage, where they’ll compete against cosplayers from dozens of countries. New challenges await. New techniques to master. New stories to tell.
But they’ve proven to themselves what they’re capable of. They’ve learned to push through failure. They’ve discovered that simplicity demands excellence. They’ve transformed less than RM500 and twelve months into something that earned a standing ovation.
“Our dreams have been achieved. We have nothing left to regret.”
Not because the journey is over, but because they’ve already accomplished what they set out to prove: that passion, persistence, and partnership can overcome any limitation.
The dragon head splits.
The audience gasps.
And two makers from Malaysia show the world what’s possible when you refuse to let failure be final.
Technical Specifications for Cosplayers:
Yamato (Hino):
- Embroidery: Software-designed patterns with satin stitch execution
- Back accessory: PU foam crafting technique (4th attempt successful)
- Props: Metal-realistic surface treatment with weathering
- Costume features: Detachable sleeves for performance reveal
Ace (Feef):
- Muscle suit: Latex and sponge casting (first-time technique)
- LED integration: Wiring and lighting for props and costume
- Costume features: Removable jacket for performance reveal
Shared gimmicks:
- Kaido dragon head: Motorized splitting mechanism
- Luffy Gear 5: Pop-up transformation element
Budget: <RM500 for both costumes (excluding pre-owned tools/equipment)
Timeline: 5 months from concept to performance
Follow Team Sawit’s journey:
Instagram: @hinocos, @feefcoser
TikTok: @hinocos, @feefcoser
Facebook: Hinocos, Feef Coser
Salty Katz Sharky
Hi, I’m Salty Katz Sharky—a proud cosplayer and a girl who believes in the magic of having fun. Because at the heart of it all, cosplay is about joy, creativity, and embracing who you are.
Malaysian cosplayer | The World Cosplay Summit Malaysia Official Host 2023-2027 | WCS MY Handler 2025 | La Petite Fox Maid | Ouji/Lolita Fashion
Visit me at https://www.facebook.com/SaltedEggKatz
