And so it goes...K-con 2010.

Oh dear, oh dear. It's been about a week since I posted last, and here I thought I was going to finish this post last week and start talking serious business by now. But, I got somewhat busy (haha?).

Truth be told, I haven't been doing much in the way of costuming specifically, but I have been working on several projects (most of which I actually can't discuss at this point, but I'm sure will be explained in great detail as time goes on). These project are rather large creative dealo's that I'm rather quite excited about, and, again, I can't talk about.

So pretty much everything I've been funneling all of my time and energy into for the last few weeks is not discussable. So...for all intents and purposes, I've just been really lazy.
But I haven't.

What I CAN talk about is the few costumes that I've been too busy to work on much; Cassi's thesis which I've been helping out with somewhat (but, apologies to Cassi, I've been so busy with so many things I haven't been able to be 100% there all the time to help. But! hopefully you know you can always bug me about stuff you need done.), Cassi is doing a play based of several original characters that, with any luck, will eventually become an awesome web series, and I've been helping her develop some of the ideas, although I can't take any real credit at all. Mom's been somewhat sick, nothing too serious, as far as we know, but it's also kept me busy. Homework, as always. And! (drum roll please!) Emerald City Comicon has creeped up behind me! It's next weekend and I've gotten so swamped I didn't realize it was so soon until yesterday! I'm super pumped. I had been poking away at a couple costumes, (mystery men, Empty Child, Clue, Candyland) that might potentially wear, but I've been so busy with other work I didn't get any of them finished, which is alright. So, I will be seen as an Empty Child from Doctor Who; possibly a masky from Marble Hornets (fast and easy costume for sure); and Two Face, as will be seen below.


Warning: This might be another really long post. Consider yourselves duly-warned.

In 2010, Kumori-con rolled back around. With the amazing time we'd had the previous year with the awesome Dating Game, the whole Girl Genius crew and the smaller atmosphere of the con. We were all ready and raring to go. Furthermore, and, super exciting to me, the Oregon Girl Genius group invited our crew to join in a variety show they were putting together; Girl Genius style.
Awesomesauce.
We already had a girl genius costume in the works, so we were super pumped to join in the fun. The downside was, Phil and Kaja Folio, who are a large part of our Kumori-con experience, weren't present for 2010's festivities. They were too busy in Australia winning themselves the Hugo Award for the second time in a row. Ah, well. We'd muddle along somehow XD

Saturday

Although the Girl Genius show was on Sunday Morning, we wanted to wear our big deal cosplays that day; so we decided that we would wear Girl Genius out and about on Saturday, again on Sunday Morning, and then head back to the apartment and make the switch. Cassi and Tobi opted out of making Girl Genius costumes for the sake of time, funds and sanity, and ended up wearing original costumes (the same, ironically, that are being used for Cassi's thesis). You'll see these when I post the thesis pictures in (when is that again?)...whenever that is. I didn't work on the original designs in the slightest so I won't post them here. If you want images, check out Cassi's blog on my toolbar.

Meet the Jager girls! Caberet singers and henchwomen of the great Mama Gkika, they dress up as Jagermonsters to entertain the humans of Mama Gkika's bar. These costumes were a HECK of a lot of fun and something I had been wanting to put together for ages. I can't take any credit at all for Shawna's outfit (the blue girl) but I worked on Chase's green jager and my pink one. I also did all three hats which was some of the most fun I've had in a long time.
These girls are fun because they are really only minor characters, with a very short, bit part, but they are pretty well loved by fans and have gotten to be well known, (as has Mama Gkika herself). However, I'd never seen anyone do these three before and I was determined to do them as canon as possible. I loved how happy the Girl Genius people were with how we looked. I still see flaws (as I always will) but I was proud of these, particularly Chase's uniform, which I would kill to be able to wear. I wish Phil and Kaja could've been there for us to show off to, but, alas, they were not.
Girl genius is always a really hard series to cosplay not only because Phil has an infamous inconsistency with minor details on certain characters (including these three, who's costumes changed multiple times within the same comic page); but also because in the grand scheme of the costume, they are quite detailed. The thigh-high, pink gators on the pink Girl was one of the unluckily of challenges for me. They didn't seem like details that would be so troublesome, but they were. Finally I essentially made boot covers, with a flare at the top, lined with several layers of crosshatched wire to keep the shape. This is another something I might do a tutorial on.
Chase coat was awesome. I finished it in a single day when I was really "in the zone" and I love it. The hats were really just an experiment in something I had never done before. My and Chase's hats were painstakingly re-covered hats (that I might also do a tutorial on). Shawna's shako was way more interesting. I took a normal top hat, cut out the top, and then built a huge cage structure that was covered in fabric. It was awesome. I almost liked it better without the fabric and just the cage.

This was the costume I had the most trouble with out of all of them. I loved the base coat that I had for her, but it was unfortunately suede leather, which is an absolute beast to sew. Particularly since most of these details had to be hand stitched. For the buttons I was literally beating the needle through with a small hammer. Not fun.
The other thing was that the pink costume has a weird structure to the coat that is cute in comic form, but in no way attractive on a real human being (highlights the gut, not good on anyone, particularly on me). So I had to refit the coat structure multiple times to get it to look right at all. It still fit a little oddly, and was always riding up, but it worked out alright. My favorite element was the old Science fair medal that I used as the medal she wears in the centre of her coat. MAD SCIENCE!

This is Molly. She is an amazingly sweethearted lady. Everybody in this group is awesome. Katrina, who I sadly don't have a picture with, who more or less leads the group, was so encouraging and complimentary. Molly pictured above as Mama Gkika is a total sweetie and an amazing fan. Her Mama Gkika is always just about spot on. For the show, structured as a variety show at Mama Gkika's bar, Shawna, Chase and I performed two Polka's done Girl Genius style, re-writing the lyrics and doing a small degree of dancing as we saw fit. It was a total riot. I don't know that we were any good, but we had fun anyway. The only downside was the poor Shawna had hurt her ankle rather badly the day before and we had to change up the choreography last-minute to account for her gimpy leg. But all in all, it was a really fun time.

Sunday



This was a strange day of crossover grouping. This was also the day of my all-time-absolute-favorite-dream costume ever:

 

Meet Two-face. Or, as we referred to her all day: Big Bad Harv.
Tobi and I have a deep and endless love of bad, campy, awful movies. I mean, terrible. Right up there at the top of the list? Batman Forever, starring a drugged out Nicole Kidman; Val Kilmer playing Batman's lips; and a horribly amazing duo of Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey as Two Face and the Riddler respectively. 
Not only is this movie over the top, horrifically campy, and needlessly neon; it was also some of the worst acting I've seen in my life. Seriously, go rent it. It's terrible. 
With our deep love of cheese, Tobi and I obviously, instantly, fell head over heels in love with Batman Forever; and the fact that Tobi is already scarily-like Jim Carrey; what better costume could we do?
We had been planning these costumes for ages, and I finally felt confident enough that we could pull them off. And indeed, I believe we did. 
My Two-face, being a woman, was a lot of fun to interpret from Tommy Lee Jones's animal-print festooned villain. I wanted to keep the basic color scheme and look of the costume but in a more feminine, and interesting way. (This might become yet another tutorial). I found all the elements of a three piece suit, re-sewed the ugly portions, and decorated to my heart's delight. It was excellent. 

Two-Face and Riddles frolic off towards trouble!
These two are so fun. XD

This is a nice shot of the back of the Riddler coat. The coat was more last minute than the rest of the suit. Because the Riddler suit could be more or less taken directly from the movie (there's not all that much fanicfying you can do to a catsuit) the coat was the only part of the suit that wasn't set in stone. We tried to use a pre-existing blazer but it didn't dye well (it ended up being Chase's jager coat from the day before) so we just ended up making this one from scratch. This was really the first year we embraced pattern using, rather than making or altering everything just out of trial and error. The coat was a simplicity pattern that we put together and then altered a bit to make it fit the Riddler style. Tobi wasn't totally satisfied with it, but I think it looks pretty good.



I love this picture. So cute! haha.

Mike did he own version of the Joker for this year, making a sort of Riot-gear Joker. There was a lot of really cool detail work in his suit and he sure looked the part. We got a lot of great pictures of these three Gothamites.





These two are such funny characters. In many respects they totally hate each other. In others, they are best friends. I had fun stealing Tobi's cane and using it as a face divider throughout the day. This was just a cute picture of us goofing off.
The cane is made out of a long PVC pipe that Tobi's dad melted into a rough question mark shape. It wasn't exactly what I was imagining, and it's still a little rough. I'd like to make a new one at some point in the future, but this one is pretty good for the time being.





Before we blow up the courthouse, we have to FLIP FOR IT FIRST.
It's the law.
I got the coin off of Ebay, as a movie memorabilia cast of the coin from Dark Knight. It was pretty cheap and pretty legit. I was afraid that it would be too light, or not coin-y enough, but it was all in all very realistic. However, and I knew this before I bought it, it doesn't have the damaged side that makes two-face's coin his coin. Actually destroying it was really fun. At first I tried to go at it by hitting it with the wrong side of a hammer, making dents and chips in the surface, but it wasn't giving me realistic enough scratches. Eventually I ended up taking it to a rough patch of concrete and rubbing it against the ground with my show, which quickly gave the 'wrong' side a nice battered appearance. Then I took a small scented candle and held the coin over it to get that nice smoky, burnt look. Since you can't actually burn the coin, I dropped several matches into the candle, which produced enough smoke to darken the coin. It all looked really good!



The whole trio all together!
Tobi's Riddler costume was the first time we had made a catsuit, (another tutorial!) and it was a bit of an adventure. Just finding the right colored fabric was a bit of a chore (luckily we ended up finding it at Costume and Display, although it was a bit pricey). We managed to put together the catsuit without too much trouble until we got to the arms. For some reason, the second arm was really difficult to fit correctly, and (also for no apparent reason) the shoulders seemed to have shrunk. It all ended up coming together and fitting alright, but the shoulders are pretty tight on Tobi. In the future we'll have to be careful not to repeat whatever mistake we made in that area.
The Question marks were painstakingly painted on over the course of weeks with fabric paint...which we then failed to properly heat seal and they all ended up washing out. -_________-
However, between what was left of the paint and some dynamic Sharpie action, we got the question marks put on and everything turned out all right.

Downside of twoface?
I can't drink water. This is bad because that costume is toasty. I ended up fashioning a funnel that I could get water into my mouth with, but it was a real pain.

The face is made out of a latex mask, that i cut down to my face shape and then re-latexed some of the structure of. After all that, there were several layers of paint involved (although you can't see much of the texturing in the pictures) and then it was all latexed onto my face. The result was a really cool mask, and the inability to move my face much at all. In the future, when I have money and some mad skill, I want to make a face mold for me and others in my group so I can actually make actual fitted latex masks, but for the time being, this is what I have to work with. The mask really did work out well, but it's very hard to really express much, or drink water, or eat. It was a struggle XD.



WEIRDEST CROSSOVER EVER:
Chase and Tobi made a modern Princess Peach costume, which turned out really cute. It was simple, but really adorable on her. Although this picture makes no sense, I really like it.

Monday

Cassi loves being a Moogle. Or a chocobo. Or really anything cute. Consequently, she begged us to do a 'herd of moogles' for this years convention. At first we weren't going to, and then it just sort of...happened.

This si what happened. Basically we became an entire Moogle culture, complete with subcultures. We had a flouncy girly-girl, the science Moogle, the Wanna-be Moogle, the Nerd, the Wankster, and the Moogle Hunter. All in one beautiful package.
I loved this costume.
Not only did I get to be a total wankster all day, but it was also surprisingly comfortable. Albeit, mind-numbingly hot. I don't have many pictures of this day, (I think Cassi has them all?) but I love the ones we do have. I had a big pair of jeans, that I sagged around all day, with three successive pairs of boxers that were sagged underneath the pants. I had those big plastic shoes, and the wife beater under a poof-daddy jacket. The best part was the Hat. We took a wankster hat and removed the skull symbol that was sewn to it. Then Cassi made some iron-on pictures of a Wankster Moogle that we then stitched onto the hat. I was also able to attach the ball directly to the hat, which meant that, unlike the other moogle balls, which have to be strapped on with several headbands, mine was really easy to take off.
Mike's head was too big for a moogle ball XD, so we ended up floofing his hair and having me carry around his 'stolen' moogle ball all day, which was pretty funny.

Cassi was the fluffy, girly moogle. We took and old wedding dress and shredded it, adding wings to the straps and putting a mess of tulle under it to get it the shape that it had. It was super adorable, and Cassi spent the whole day being prissy. I think we joked around that she was my moogle's hot girl-friend.

Chase was sort of the sciency/airship moogle. She's always so cute. This shirt was a real find and it looked great on Chase. The downside was, we didn't want to sew the wings directly to the shirt in case she wanted to actually wear it in the future. I could've removed the wings, but the fabric was such that the stitching would always show. So we ended up making a wind halter that held her wing on, sort of like a backpack.

This year was a lot of fun in a lot of ways. We actually were smart enough to go around and photoshoot our costumes  outside of the conspace; the costumes were much better than they had been in the past, and everybody seemed really excited about what we were doing. There was also a great sense of involvement in the convention, thanks to the Girl Genius fans who are always so gracious in letting us chill with them. This was one of the best cons I have gone to. I don't know when I'll be going back, thanks to changing locations, and Cassi graduating from her college, but I hope it's soon, and, for sure, I will definitely, eventually, be back.

LESSONS?
1. Take the time before and during con to walk around outside of Conspace. Not only is it just fun to see people react to our costumes, but you can find some really awesome spots to take pictures in.
2. Get involved! Find fans that are interested in the same thing as you and do something together! That's what con is really all about, is it not?
3. Take costumes for a test run, particularly if they are something you've never tried before, like masks or bodysuits. It's really useful to already know how to move in the costume before you actually get down to the Convention, and you my find some way of improving it that you hadn't even thought of while it was on the dress form!
4. (Tobi will kill me for this) PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PUT ON YOUR FACE! Oh, poor Tobi. We were going to put her mask on with spirit gum, so we didn't need to strap it on her face, and it would get the same look that Jim Carrey had in the movie. But, while she was getting in costume, Shawna, Chase, and I had already left for the Girl Genius show. When she arrived she was not in her costume, but rather in the Riddler Footy Pajama's I had made her for her previous birthday! When I asked her why she wasn't in costume, she said that the Spirit gum had burned her face, and that it seemed she was allergic. After that whole debacle, she hadn't had time to get ready. We have since discovered that had happened wasn't that she had put on spirit gum, and it had burned, but rather she had mistaken it for spirit gum remover which does burn when applied, particularly when you put on as much as she had. I can't laugh at her too much, the bottles do look strikingly similar, but seriously; You can really do some damage if you put the wrong thing on. Check and double check what you are applying to your skin. It is meant to go on skin? Is it meant to go on in great quantities? And, always, always check several days before hand to make sure that you aren't allergic to any paint or adhesives, so that you have time to make a plan B.
5. Costumes are made for cheating. They don't have to necessarily work like real clothes. If you need to line your hat with something soft and fuzzy so that the wire Moogle ball doesn't drill through your skull, do so!
6. Doing original versions of canon character, particularly well known ones, is always fun, and a lot of the time, really well received! But, it also means that you have to go above and beyond by making the costume something even more special.
NEXT YEAR? BETTER!


So! This wraps up our blast from the past, and we should be moving into current projects! (finally!)
If I ever don't have anything exciting going on, or am working on projects that I can't talk about (as looks to be more and more the case) I'll try and post some tutorials or discussions of costumes I've done or costumes I hope to make.
Hopefully this blog is interesting and useful to somebody out there in cyberville. Cheers!

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!! 2009

Yes. I made a Star Trek joke. Get used to it. It will happen.

Often.

Teehee.

So! In 2009, Cassi decided not to attend Sakura-con. It fell on Easter weekend, which was always a bit of a problem; and we didn't really want to deal with hotel costs and whatnot. I was still up for going, but no-one else was up for it, so I ended up not going either.
I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed.

But, the summer before Cassi and Tobi went to Kumori-con down in Portland Oregon. Cassi, who lives down there for college, found it convenient as it was only a short trip from her apartment. (No hotel costs? Always a plus). and they had had a great time. K-con was not only smaller, and more intimate, but they had an amazing Slightly Anime Dating Game panel, and lots of Girl Genius! We made our plans to attend the following September.

The first two years had been a matter of practice for me. Frankly, every year will always be an attempt to 'best' the year before it. Every costume I make for Con, or other purposes is always trying to be bigger, better or at least more detailed and realistic than the one before it. As I told Cassi just recently, the first year we had no idea what we were doing; second year, we were just learning; This third year we almost had it figured out.

This third year had some of my favorite costumes, and some of my most cringy, failures.

The problem with making mistakes at this point was that I should have known better. But, alas, mistakes will always happen. It's a matter of how well prepared you are for them, and how calmly you can handle them.

Saturday

Kumori-con, being on labour-day weekend is a saturday-monday event which, actually still throws me off. However, it also throws off the days. With a big con like Sakura-con, you pull out the big guns on Saturday, as it's the most popular, and many people attend just that one day. As Kumori-con, being smaller, most people attend all weekend, so the awesome costumes are a lot more spread out. At this point, we wear our favorite, most recognizable costumes on Sunday, so we can get into the Dating Game. On Saturday, being the beginning day, we did Girl Genius!



Chase was perfect for Agatha. Being ditsy but smart already, along with the obviousness of being a cute blond, we decided that she was perfect for this. I was all fired up to make the infamous Paper Doll outfit that the Foglio's designed for Agatha in a special comic. It consisted of a layered hoop skirt, an ornate coat and a corset. The coat was the best part on my part. The red details on the cuff and collar were over-covered on a pre-existing coat that I had modified to fit the shape in the comic. I think this coat had once fit me, but I was able to fit it down to Chase's size. When taking in, I usually take it in the most down the seam from the underarm on both sides, along with a little on the back. It's important to even out the alterations so the shape doesn't turn out weird.

The skirt looks alright, but no where near as ornate as it was in the comic. Ah well, I blame that on lack of money more than lack of skill. This particular year had a lot of money wasted on experiments that didn't work out. As well as a new laptop for me.

The corset was a tank-top that I had cheated into looking corset like, by fitting it tightly and giving it stitches that looked like ribbing. Can't see it in the photo? That's because it got left in Seattle. -____-

Luckily Cassi had a cute turtleneck that fit the color scheme quite nicely.

The glasses were a goofy find. They're more cartoony than most Agatha cosplayers go for, but we didn't mind since the whole costume was a bit cartoony as it was. We found a pair of plastic silver 'disco glasses' at a costume store for cheap. They had miniature disco balls hanging off them that we removed, and then spray painted the frames gold. The Clank, (Bob), was made by Chase between fittings. She did an amazing job with it. He was made out of a Styrofoam ball, googly eye, and some broken plastic lab equipment that I had from a kiddy-science kit.



Point of note? Hoop skirts make wet, rainy weather all the more difficult to walk in...Luckily Chase puts up with a lot. A good thing considering some of the costumes I have planned for her. *evil laughter*

Lucrezia Mongfish! The villainous vixen of Girl Genius! This costume wasn't touched too much by me (I wish I could claim more of it, but...alas). The dress was pre-ordered by Cassi, and only small details were added by yours truly, such as the lace around the bodice, and the flat bustle in the back. The best part of this costume was really just the attitude that Cassi brought to it. The wig was also pretty genius too, being made of two dollar store wigs hot glued (yes! Hot glued!) on top of each other. This sounds like a recipe of wig related disaster, but shockingly enough, it worked out grand. We had a long wig for the base, and then a spare, shorter wig glued on top and curled around the back. I don't know how it worked...but it did. We got many compliments on it. Wig making is one of the things we've been surprisingly lucky at. This was the first example of a series of such luck.

This is Katrina, a member of what we 'The Group' refer to as the 'Girl Genius People'. Actually, Katrina, along with several other amazing girls and guys who make their convention home in Portland, are a group of extremely dedicated and wonderfully encouraging Girl Genius fans. Although our Girl Genius costumes weren't as amazing as theirs, they were incredibly warm and complimentary. Katrina and Cassi were just really excited to see one another as the same costume. Actually, as I've gotten to know Katrina, they are both shockingly similar in many regards. It's truly taught me, as the comic has since proved, Lucrezia plus Lucrezia is a recipe for trouble.

Here we are with Phil and Kaja! They are such nice people and always willing to take the time to humour their fans. They even handed out little ribbons to all the people dressed in Girl Genius and otherwise Gas Lamp cosplay.

Poor Phil was unprepared for Cassi though. In true Lucrezia form, she needed no permission to sidle up and drape herself all over Phil for the photo-op. His face turned bright red and a there was a moment of shock/fear? but he managed to start giggling by the time we snapped the photo. Cassi is nothing if not in-character.

Here we are as 'Da Boyz!' (minus Maxim and plus Jenka). These costumes were a 'meh' for me. I was terribly excited to do them but I didn't quite have the time or skill to pull them off as cleanly as I would've liked. Never-the-less I'm still overall happy with the first attempt. Particularly since this was the year of the dreaded all-nighter-finishing-costumes-night-before-con. The main complaint from me is that Tobi's wig was terribly cheap, and my face paint was not as nice as I would've liked, as the fancy stuff I bought was too light. Ah, well. We did well with what we had.

The funniest part? Everybody was far too excited about Fust.

Jenka rides a great big grizzly named Fust; so Tobi decided to bring along a teddy bear. That bear got more love than any costume I've ever done.

The diva.

Sunday:
This is, weirdly, the main day of Kumori-con, and, thus, the day that we dress up in the most famous costumes. These were the beginnings of real excellent costumes.

Hands down the best costume of the year, purely in terms of positive response. Toad, being one of the token characters of the Mario series, is one of Tobi's absolute favorite video game characters.

The Shroom hat was pure win. We managed to get it right on the first try, without any pattern or guidelines. Tobi and I were both pretty impressed that it was even somewhat circular, let alone the right shape. Someday when I don't have anything new to add to the blog, I'll do a full tutorial on this one.

The shroom was stuffed and we made a chinstrap and drawstring to keep it on Tobi's massive head. (Love yah Tobi!). The vest was a very simple pattern (albeit, the bias taping was a bit messy), and the pants were absolutely huge harem pants that we made off of a pattern from someone several sizes larger than Tobi, for maximum fullness. Simple, but beautiful.

I love this picture.

Shawna did a Toadette to compliment Tobi's Toad; and it was adorable. It's one of my favorites of her costumes. I did a sort of rocker, Bowser. My hair was died and cut specifically for this year's costumes and I loved it. Being a true red head, rather than a copper-top like I usually am, was excellent. Although you can't see it in this picture, I had a stuffed Bowser backpack, to match the Toad's plushy heads. Other than that this costume was mostly accessories, like the wrist bands (which stained my wrists red) and the horns.

Tom the Fanboy, who is a local legend at K-con, had hung out with us on Saturday, but didn't recognize us after the costume switch (do you blame him?). This picture was taken before he realized who we were. Regardless, he very politely humoured us with a photo while waiting for sandwiches at Subway.

What can I say? She was just standing there.
This picture gives you a really nice look at the shell I had. Maybe if you ask nice I'll do a tutorial for that too, although it's pretty simple. XD

This Peach very politely put up with us as we took picture after picture of us abusing her. I wish I could give her credit, but I never found out who she was.

I also love this picture. Even though it features Cassi's fingertip, left of frame.
We found this pedestal while waiting for the metro to go down to conspace. Mario-cart anyone?
Why does Bowser always have to lose???

This is my biggest failure.
*deep sigh*

and no one will ever let me forget it. *ahem, Cassi* XD

Zidane is an awesome character from a very pixallated PlayStation 1 Final Fantasy game. Regardless, many people do amazing cosplays of him in ornate versions of his costume. Chase wanted to do this costume. I obliged.
Problem? Difference of opinions; lack of time; lack of money; and pure forgetfulness.
For starters, I wanted to make the whole thing from scratch, but others in the group wanted to just modify existing clothes (in theory, this would be easier). Up until this point, we had subsisted off of modifying existing clothes for reasons of cheapness, and ease. Thing is, if you want to make a really good costume, you have to be very exact about how you modify. This was something I had yet to learn. Zidane also got pushed aside for other projects, and ended up being a cheap, last minute fail of a costume.
Worst part? It wasn't even that bad, except half the costume got left in Seattle. Whoops.

This costume will haunt me for ages, but! Many lessons were learned.

Monday

This was the last time we did original costumes. But man, we went out with a bang.
The Trio is a group of characters that I liken to the Greek Fates, but in modern times. What's more? They are just ornate enough to make everyone think that they are really from something. When you get pictures taken of an original costume, that is a good sign. We got lots.

Meet the Trio. All Half-siblings, and all a part of one (more or less) supernatural power. These costumes were based loosely off of a sketch that Tobi had done, and taken from there. We wanted all three of them to have a different version of the same thing. They each have a different type of umbrella (parasol, bubble, standard), they each are wearing black, harlequin, and stripes. And between the three of them is a single three piece suit. I loved this costume set. So creepy!





This is Alcohol. Otherwise referred to as Mal, and also the leader of the group. He's the Creepy Creepy one. (keep reading, it makes sense). Chase did an exceptional job cosplaying him. None of us knew that happy-go-lucky little Chase was capable of being, well, terrifying. Now I look forward to dressing her up as villains more often!
Mal has a standard umbrella, and the breast pocket, pants, hat, and shoes from the three piece suit. The Umbrella also is modified to act as a cane, if we wanted that to be included in the three piece suit. All three umbrellas were also modified as potential weapons. Mal's was indeed the pointiest of the three...

This is Lithium, or Lithy. She's the Pretty Creepy one. Lithy is more spacey than the other three, sort of billowy and quietly creepy. Kind of a 180 from Tobi's real personality. Regardless, she too did an excellent job. Lithy has the coat, and cuffs from the original suit. She also has a hugely lacy, but also spiked parasol that was a beast to sew.

And Opium. or Opi, for short. I looooved this costume. Very simple, but very fun. Opi is the Cute Creepy one. The hair I got for this cosplay still makes me happy. I don't know why, I just love how perfect it is for him.
Opi got, incidentally, the majority of the suit, in all the small details. He has the tux shirt front, (a beast to make, but fun to wear); the bow tie, the vest, the gloves, the suspenders, and the spats. That's right, I got it all! I also had the heaviest, most labour intensive umbrella. Chases umbrella was a matter of a couple scissor snips and some hot glue; this umbrella was a month's worth of stretching exercises and sewing chaos. For starters, to get a stitch through the top part of the umbrella meant I had to stand in a really awkward hugging posture, with the umbrella tied to a bed post, or two people had to pass the needle through, back and forth. Kind of a pain. Also, again, weirdly fun.

We got a lot of recognition for being something that wasn't from anything. My favorite theory was that we were the Joker's minions. Actually, a lot of these three were based off of Lock, Shock, and Barrel from Nightmare before Christmas. I've never actually watched the whole movie, nor do I even like the characters that much, but I like the archetypes, so I stole them. The only remnant of Lock, Shock, and Barrel on the costumes were the masks that the three of us wore somewhere on the costume.

This is Chelsea. Chelsea is an explosions expert. No, she is not a furry, and the tail has an explanation. From the same original series as the trio, Chelsea is a somewhat bizarre character. Regardless, her one and true love, (obviously) are grenades. The costume itself was quite simple, the grenades? That was another story. Getting them all peace bonded? Another story beyond even that.
First off, I hate Styrofoam. I will avoid it like the plague if possible, however Cassi, who prefers the simple route, picked up these Styrofoam eggs at the craft store and took them home. I left grenade making up to her. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that her skill with Styrofoam, at least in this regard, worked out. Usually, Styrofoam is a stiff, easily damaged substance that can't be painted or glued. Cassi managed to delicately X-acto knife out all the little canyons of a grenade. (Of course, then she left an X-acto knife on my floor to be stepped on, but that's not the issue here XD  )
Then it was up to me to paint the suckers. Now, I have learned from long experience that Styrofoam CANNOT be spray painted. This has ruined many project for me. Spray paint eats away the Styrofoam and ruins the shapes. That meant I had to hand paint every little ridge of the grenade with acrylic. Frustrating. But! In the end, very good looking. We then took gun-metal painted Jone's Soda lids, that were wrapped with wire for the pin and glued them on the acute end of the egg shape. All in all they made pretty convincing grenades! We also had hundreds of them pinned to Cassi (a good thing since they had a tendency to escape off the costume). Which meant that the hundreds of them all had to be Peace bonded.
500 florescent zip ties later, we had Chelsea.

This year was the first year that I really started to see our costumes garner some attention. I don't mean to sound like a diva, but I kind of am, and since con is 80% about the costumes to me, getting pictures taken of us is a big deal. I was finally starting to figure things out and I began to demand a high quality product out of my costume shop. Things were really starting to take off. These were the years that I really started to realize what I had, I suppose, always known. This was something that I loved. ranted, I was still learning, but we all have to start somewhere.

LESSONS!

1. Make a checklist of things to pack. This includes not only costume stuff, but also important last minute fix-r-ups for things damaged on the trip. Safety pins, hot glue, extra ribbon and thread, not to mention THE COSTUMES THEMSELVES.
2. Although everyone should be in charge of their own packing, having another person double check that you have everything you need is always a good plan. Look out for each other! Excitement and tiredness often result in disaster.
3. Staying up all night before the trip to Con, desperately trying to finish is not a recipe for a fun trip or a fun con. You can pull all nighters, but make sure that the night before con is well rested. Pretend as though you are leaving a day early, so that the last day is just a matter of small detail packing.
4. Badges are a good place to store safety pins. Do so!
5. If you are going to be original, at least be interesting.
6. Jagermonsters sitting in a Pizza shop tend to scare off customers. (seriously, two guys opened the door, looked at us, and ran, I felt bad, we left tips).
7. On the other hand, walking around in really well known costumes, where people don't know about Con, is seriously awesome.
8. Simple is sometimes better, and sometimes it's not. It's all about judgement calls. I may be willing to let Cassi work with Styrofoam, but I will never be talked into trying to modify fat-people jeans ever again. Take note of what works and what doesn't. If your gut says that it's not going to look good, than it probably won't. Try something else. There are usually other simple ways of doing something simple (tomato, toe-mot-o?)
9. As always, Next year? Better.

Part 3: In Which Things Get Better But Not By Much...

I realize that I'm blowing through "the histories" rather quickly and will probably never be able to post as often as I am right now, and I should save these posts for later, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I don't feel like it, so I won't.

That and I'm stuck waiting for a fitting for a project that I would really rather be working on. This is as close as I can get, so I'm gonna take it XD

Sakura-con 2008.

I had been to Con and back again, and I was psyched to go again. I had pretty much never had as good a time ever, so I quickly set about deciding what costumes I would be making for the next year. I went over hundreds of ideas, things far out and impossible, to things that were, frankly, just kind of lame. I always have the tendency to want to make things that are just bigger and better than I really have the time, skill, energy, etc. etc. to make. Of course, in many ways, this is the way that I learn.

The final costumes for S-con '08?

Friday: Typically the first day of con is either for your softest, easiest costume; so as to get you in the convention-mode; or for something that no one will recognize. The year before we had done original characters on the first day. This year, Tobi (my best friend) and I did soft easy characters while Cassi and the rest of the crew did O.C.'s. These are the costumes that I made...

Chase the sheep-Demon! In a long standing tradition of naming Chase after herself, Cassi and Shawna created a character based loosely after Chase; who was, no surprise, a sheep demon. This would forever tie Chase and Sheep in my brain. I don't know why, she's not terribly sheep-like. This costume also started one of my all time favorite traditions; the sacrifice of cute stuffed animals. (As Craig Ferguson would say: "I look forward to your letters). The arms and ears were made out of a small stuffed sheep we named Baa-Sheba. Baa-sheba was our first lesson in 'the cuter the stuffed animal, the more terrifying they are inside out'. It's true. Try it.
This costume was poorly finished, but overall, was actually kind of cool, given the fact that my sewing skills were still sub-par. I still, to this day, love the coat that was a part of this. However, we as a group had not yet mastered the skill of taking pictures to document our triumphs.



Meet Radical Ed and Ein the data dog! These two characters were from an Anime that I had (and still have) not seen. However, I knew the basic gist; Cowboy Bebop is about a group of bounty hunters in space. The Anime is more than famous and there will always be at least one Radical Ed running around every convention. Ed is a super-smart child computer hacker who happens to also be a child-on-the-loose hyperactive nightmare. Ein is a corgi who has been outfitted with super-intelligence. They are both best friends and, sometimes, worst enemies. I had never seen an Ein before at con, so I decided to cosplay him. It was a fun costume (albeit, still cringe-worthy from the perspective of a more skilled eye); and very simple. It was also from the days when we all thought that spray-on hair dye was plenty high-quality, thus the spray-painted appearance of Tobi's hair.
More than anything about these costumes, as they aren't great nor very exciting, the poses were awesome.

 Saturday: This is the main day, meant for the big-name costumes for everyone. In the costume-heaven that is Convention, this is cream of the crop.

These costumes, at the time, were the most bomb things EVAH. Of course, looking back I see mistakes but, all things considered, I'm still pretty impressed with myself. *self-congratulatory pat on the back*.
From left to right: Moogle, Moogle and Chocobo from the Final Fantasy world; Chio-chan from Azumanga Dioh; and King Mickey from Kingdom Hearts.
The Moogles were great fun. Tobi had done a Moogle the year before and Cassi and Shawna wanted to revive the act for this year. Cassi had it great because she could deflect any huggers (and there are a lot of them, Con-people love to hug) onto Shawna. The costumes themselves were comfortable and cute (although we learned the importance of proper head gear). The moogle pompom is usually understated by most cosplayers, but we wanted ours to be noticeable! We used industrial strength wire, to hold a red Styrofoam ball covered in feathers onto a headband. They have a cute bounce and really show off the character. Downside: they act as magnates to anyone with a love of moogles. They also start to really grind into your scalp by the end of the day :S

The chio-chan was not made by me, but Chase was shoved over more times than we could count over the course of the day. It was excellent. Downside: we had to feed her, she couldn't reach her mouth.

King Mickey: I wanted to do this because I was a big Kingdom Hearts fan, (one of the thousands), and I wanted to do something that wasn't seen very often. King Mickey is actually surprisingly awesome, in his few moments and I really wanted to pay homage to the character. The coat was the best part. It looks so much like the one in the game, and I really made it totally blind, with no idea what I was doing. On the downside, the color bled so after a day or so I couldn't wear it anymore. I still need to replace the collar (taps chin). The shorts were a bit of a mess, but it really didn't matter too much. The key was excellent, but kept wanting to fall apart. We hot glued that sucker more times than I can count. It was also my first run it with peace-bonding. At conventions, all weapons or dangerous props have to be 'peace-bonded' to promise you won't kill people with them. At S-con they really manhandled my poor fragile key and broke it to pieces. I'm pretty sure that if it falls apart during the peace-bonding process, it's probably not dangerous...



To this day the chocobo is on of my crowing achievements. It's gone through a lot of re-working and redesigning but the one thing that I really contributed to this costume, which has always remained the same, is that glorious tail. We made it out of an old arm pillow (what are those actually called?), unstuffing it (it had the grossest stuffing ever *gag*), resewing it into a v, and then restuffing it. Then we strung three belts through it to secure it to the waist. It stays up really nicely, and moves around with the slightest hip-movement, something Cassi found out when she revamped the costume. It was a really simple, but very effective conversation from bird-to-person.

This costume also resulted in my absolute favorite costume quote ever. When you dress up in weird costumes and wander around big cities, inevitably, you are going to get some interesting responses. In this case, we were inside Con-space, and there was a mom who had no idea what anything was, who was ushering her son around. When she saw Tobi she smiled and came over as sweetly as possible:
"Honey," she said, "I have no idea what you are...but you are the prettiest chicken I've ever seen!"

 Sunday: This was the day that Tobi and I did original characters. We did Milo and Lachesis from our original story. Basic outline is that Lachesis is a puppet master, and Milo is her human puppet. It's creepy and, we thought, a fun idea to play with.

Weird, right?
Yes, it's weird, but we actually did get a few pictures taken. This was the year that we learned that, if we were going to wear original costumes, you have to make them bizarre and detailed enough to look like they're from something. The Lachesis costume that I wore, was a lot of pieced together, chopped up bits of clothing. I'm told it looked cool. Honestly? I don't remember, and this is the only picture we have. Not exactly the  most detailed picture of my costume. The mask, however, that I made that I wore on the side of my head, was pure awesome, and it still hangs on my wall.
Milo was an adventure in body paint (obviously). This was before we found this amazing stuff called 'sealer'. Believe me, boys and girls of Internet-land, if you're going to paint yourself, USE SEALER. Sealer is this horrible awful stuff that burns and smells and it altogether unpleasant when you first put it on, but after those first few minutes, it keeps your paint on you, and it keeps it off everything else.
Milo would be one of those costumes where sealer would've been a good idea. Milo got all over EVERYTHING. I have Milo paint on costumes that I wasn't even wearing that day. And, as I heard tell, it took days for poor Tobi to wash all that paint off. But then, we have a tradition with Tobi: She will always manage to use underwear on the outside of her clothes for at least one costume a year; and, she will always manage to have tons of body paint.
Overall these costumes were interesting. My method of stringing threaded needles to hang off my finger is still, I think, pretty genius. Although, those boots were murder, and I was about in tears by the end of the day.

Lessons of the year?

1. Use sealer!!!
2. Make an 'idea book' for costume reference. Make a notebook of ideas, reference pictures, and necessary materials. This is KEY for costume and fabric shopping. You have no idea how many times this has saved me from buying something that was actually the totally wrong color for what I needed.
3. Never, NEVER, wear heels to a convention, unless you could go hiking in those babies. Con is spent almost entirely on your feet, and there is a lot of walking involved. The hundreds of cosplayers I have seen (including people in our own group) hobbling along, having a miserable time due to the shoes they wear, is kind of sad. If you don't wear heels often, but the costume requires it, either practice wearing them all day everyday till con; and/or, bring comfortable shoes to slip into.
4. Hair spray-paint is stinky, crunchy and not worth it's cheapness. Time to start dying hair for real, or forking it out for wigs! It's worth it!
5. Stuffed animals are way cheaper (and way more fun) than buying faux fur.
6. next year would be better!




P.S. if you want to see more of this year's pictures. Albeit, there aren't a whole lot more of us, go ahead and look up my old Flickr account. Warning: the costumes herein are painful to the brain.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25210303@N05/page2/



BONUS!:

Meet Phil and Kaja Foglio.
They write and draw Girl Genius, one of my absolute favorite webcomics. It's a Gaslamp Fantasy about Mad Scientists and the world they run (somewhat badly).
Tobi and Cassi had already gotten into Girl Genius by the time we went to this con. They spotted Jagermonsters, and got totally excited when we saw the Girl Genius booth. However, their assistant who was running the show, informed us that though Phil and Kaja lived locally, they wouldn't be able to make it, as one of the children had gotten ill. The Crew was disappointed, but I bought some lab-specs, because they looked cool. I decided that this looked like a really interesting comic to read. On top of that, already having had my brush with celebrity, after running into Gus from Rooster Teeth, I was excited to meet more people who might be potentially cool to meet. On the last day of con, I decided to buy a copy of the comic so I could start reading it. When I did, the assistant asked if I'd like it autographed. I looked up and there they were.

Since this picture was taken I've met Phil and Kaja several times, usually in costume as one of their characters. I'm sure they have no idea who I am, but I've become a huge fan. They're such nice people and the comic is brilliant. Also, Girl Genius fans are some of the coolest people I've ever met. I state this now, because, by next con, Girl Genius will play a significant role.

History: Part II: The Sequel!!!

So, I might just be discussing past projects this whole week. Today was somewhat stressful, therein, I'm not terribly in the mood to try and actually be productive. So...I figured I'd do some more of my past work today!

In 2007 my close friends (herein referred to as "The Group") invited me to Sakura-Con, a large local Anime Convention here in Seattle that they had attended the year before and enjoyed thoroughly. I, as I MUST state again, wasn't a big anime fan but I was interested in the idea and spent the next few months obsessively studying and examining what conventions were like. I played around with what I was going to dress up as, pretty sure that I wanted to blow people away with my costumes. (It was always about the costumes). However, how was I to know what people at conventions were really like? I assumed that the costumes I found online were just the rare people who were "really good". Actually, in real life, 90% of people at conventions actually have pretty impressive costumes. Mine never even had a chance.
I don't have pictures of this year's costumes. For this I am secretly grateful. Well, not all that secretly.....

Most people attending their first convention start small. My friends who had already attended had made simple, easy "closet cosplays" for themselves and had a great time. I, armed with my new sewing machine that I had no idea how to use, aimed higher. I cosplayed a soot sprite from Spirited Away; a (previously mentioned shiesty) Skull kid from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask; and a personal character.
Only the personal character turned out good. He was simple, interesting and just bizarre enough to garner attention from people who had no idea who it was. The soot sprite was poorly constructed, saggy and sad. The skull kid was...racist? hrm.

Despite this, I fell in love with the atmosphere. How could I not? The passion of the people and the insanity of conventions is far too addictive. That year I learned everything I needed to know about conventions:

1.Cosplay and Halloween costumes are NOT the same thing
2. crossplay is ok for girls, not ok for big, hairy men
3. Despite the previous rule, there will be big hairy men who crossplay regardless...Scarring every first time con-goer forever.
4. Everybody should shower; not everybody does
5. There are these things called webcomics, they are excellent.
6. Yaoi sounds funny. Until you look it up 0.0
7. There is nothing funnier than exploring outside of con-space in costume
8. people love people with the same hobbies
9. Conventions are like what the would be like if everybody got a +100 of extroversion.
10. I love it here.
11. Next year would be better.