Dr. Strange Cosplay Magic Circle

There are a lot of cool cosplays of Marvel's Doctor Strange out there, but it is difficult to recreate his magical powers in reality. Specifically: The translucent magic circles that Dr. Strange projects from his hands. I have seen some cosplayers use spinning LED bars to great effect, but these also have some downsides: They are mechanically fragile, the effect is less visible in well lit areas, and they are difficult to capture on camera.

I wanted to make realistic magic circles that would still look good in the bright conditions of comic conventions, and came up with a way that is both easy and convincing.

You can already tell what we're going to do from the materials: Plastics are the base of this project.

• Inkjet printer
• Transparent print sheets suitable for inkjet
• 1 mm thick plexiglass sheet, e.g. 100 x 50 cm, can be found at DIY stores
• Scissors
• Glue tape roller, preferably 8mm width of tape
• Transparent tape

The circles that Doctor Strange uses are called "mandala". You can use the provided image as is, or use the Photoshop file as a template to create your own. The sizes of the circles and squares can vary as they do in the movies, but I purposely added a 2.5cm square in the middle to obscure the handle that we'll add later in step 4.

Half of the work is as easy as printing the image on a transparent A4 sheet for inkjet printers. Mind that you will more commonly encounter transparent sheets for laserjets, but laserjet ink is solid and does not achieve the semi-transparent effect that we're going for, and those sheets are not compatible with inkjet ink.

Transparent inkjet sheets have a special coating on one side that feels like smooth sandpaper: That is the side to print on. Make sure to set your print settings to the highest quality, as it takes a good layer of ink to achieve vibrant colour. After printing, leave the ink to dry for at least an hour.

To keep the floppy printed sheet in shape, we will glue it onto plexiglass, also known as perspex or acrylic sheet, which you can usually find in DIY stores. Preferably find a sheet with a thickness of 1 millimeter so that it can be cut with ordinary scissors. These sheets sell upwards of $20, depending on thickness and size. The smallest one I could find was 100 x 50 cm. Since we are limited to the width of the A4 size print, that is more than enough.

With the rough side of the printed A4 sheet facing up, trace along the edge of the printed circle with a glue tape roller.

Remove any protective film from the plexiglass, then place and press the plexiglass sheet on top of the glued printed sheet. Rub along the edge of the circle to fasten the glue, it does not need time to dry.

Cut out the circle with a large pair of scissors. If space around the scissors gets cramped, cut off the excess to make more room to manoeuver.

To hold the magic circles up, many cosplayers build a large knob-like handle, but how about we make one that's invisible?

Cut a 2.5 x 10 cm strip from leftovers of the transparent inkjet sheet.

Remember that there was a 2.5 cm coloured square in the middle of the circle's design? Align the strip with that and tape it down in the middle. To prevent the tape from loosening, tape the ends of the tape down with two more pieces of tape, in perpendicular direction.

Now fold the strip at both sides of the center tape, preferably at the edges of the coloured square so that it will obscure the folds. Use a fingernail to make the folds sharp. Bend the left piece of the strip over the right piece, and wrap them together with more tape.

Now you might be wondering how to hold the circle up with such a tiny handle. The way it works is that you wear it on your middle finger while forming the Heavy Metal hand sign, which is how Doctor Strange traditionally wields his magic circles in the comics and cartoons.

Bend your two middle fingers downward, and extend your index finger, pinky, and thumb. Press the tips of the extended fingers against the circle, while your middle finger lightly pulls the handle back. This works great and makes the prop easy to slip on and off.

Cheers! Your magic circle is finished and you are ready to get into character. For bonus points, you could sew a large breast pocket inside your costume to carry your props, and practise how quickly you can put them on to be ready for the vicious photographers at comic conventions!