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.