Paint vs Embroidery vs Applique

So you have to put pretty fine detail on a costume and you do not know what to use. Well... look at this and decide.

Paint

Scabus as Shunsui (the detail on the pink haori)

•  It's not that expensive and there is a wide range of colours available
• Easy: just paint it on
• remember to iron it very well seeing as sometimes the colour washes out (and it can stain the other parts of the costume)
• On some fabrics the paint can bleed (run out of the lines and make it look horrible)
• If the brush falls out of your hand and there is paint on it... well you made an oopsy which would probably stay there.
• Depending on the weather, it can dry quickly or take a while. 
• Sometimes the colour does not look the same on the coloured fabric 
• Some layers are required to make it dark / light enough

 Embroidery

WWII German Uniform (the patches on the collar)

• Need to buy thread that is the right colour
• By doing it by hand (needlework) or by sewing machine or specialized embroidery-machine for the fancy work.
• Can turn out to be very expensive when going for the embroidery machine.
• Can come undone
• When you made a mistake you can remove the piece but the fabric might be damaged.
• Tricky

Applique

Itachi (the akatsuki clouds)

• buy fabric of the right colour
• Cut it in the right shapes and iron on interfacing and add it to the costume
• Sometimes the swirls and fine detail can take a very long time to add to the costume
• May make a bubble or be skew if the pattern / detail was not added correctly
• relatively easy to very tricky depending on what you need to do.