rants and future plans

So as I've been planning this cosplay list I've thought a lot about picking characters. I tend to pick characters I identify with in some way, or characters that resemble me not only physically but mentally as well. I think its fine to pick a character in any way really, the thing I can’t understand is this endless competition that seems to be going on in Finland of who makes the costume first and who makes the best version. This may sound silly, but I know for a fact there has been people who have gotten mad over someone else announcing that they are going to cosplay the same character… What the hell is that about? Whatever happened to twenty Narutos running around one convention? No one complained then (well actually they did, but not because someone was cosplaying the same character as they…).

So I do kind of get where people are coming from when they hope they are the only one cosplaying a certain character. For example last year, I saw an awesome Gokudera and it made me feel really inferior. But was I mad at the other cosplayer? NO! Why should I have been? Should she have called every person in the cosplay community and announced she was going to make an awesome version of Gokudera "so if you want to feel good about yourself stay at home?". I think not.

Which brings me to the role of the mighty internet. It seems that its expected from every cosplayer that writes a blog or is active in the internet community in any way, to announce what character he or she is about to cosplay. And if she doesn’t, and shows up as the same character as another blogger, all hell breaks loose. This sounds silly I know, but believe me I know for a fact it has happened… If not literally that way, in a very similar scenario.

But what about the people not online? Are they also supposed to read your mind and pick a different character? And since some (normal) people don’t give a shit about what character someone else cosplays, how are we to know which ones are gonna rage about us in their blogs or on a forum?

I must say I kind of get the competition as well. If you take cosplay very seriously, you are bound to compete with others at some point, after all, who doesn’t want to be the best? But being mad at someone for liking the same character? And just happening to pick it for the same convention? Well I think this is where we se how immature some people are…

I study advertising which is a higly competitive field. People are constantly fighting over who has the best ideas and who gets to do them first. When we discussed this in our class one of my classmates said that the best way to secure an idea is to talk about it! That way people have heard you talking about it and cant say you are imitating or stealing ideas... So heres me talking about my future cosplays to avoid drama! 

Cosplay Gaala (if I can make it)

Digging Luneth (Final Fantasy III) out of the closet:

costume and picture from last summer :)

Desucon Frostbite: (February 2013)

 

Serah Farron- FFXIII-2  (part of a group)

  

Pixie- X-men (part of a group)

No conventions decided yet but in my plans:

Lilith- Borderlands

Princess Shirahoshi- One Piece

Night Elf Druid (T9)- WoW

Luna Lovegood- Harry Potter

Trucy- Apollo Justice

One costume I'm still keeping a secret though :D

tataaa!

The epic pics of awesomeness

Okay so last weekend I finally got to wear my blood elf cotume at Tracon. I don't have much to say about the convention, it's always pretty fun, but also left room for improvement... I must say I was very surprised by all the lovely comments I got, clearly the WoW fandom has a huge heart! And even the people who didnt recognize the character were extremely sweet! Thank you so much, I don't think you know how much it means to me. It makes all the hard work I put into it worthwhile!

But you don't want to hear me rambling on and on so here are the pics! Elina was kind enough to take them, even if she was running a fever and didn't feel well at all! I hope I get to photoshoot this with Yuki soon as well...

evil glare

and some not so evil...

some epic posing

and the mandatory con-shot

the battle commences

and developes

lots of this going on at the convention, I'm so grateful towards my friends who helped me move and look good in this... Also Anni looking freakin epic as Raistlin!

Me, Raistlin and Helena as the cutie Dalamar. I really wish I could have moved in this more, but Ill try to get a few things fixed for the upcomming photoshoot!

comeone, this was what you were waiting for!

what is this I dont even.

 So thank you to everyone who made this convention awesome! Ill be back with my new cosplay plan (because it changed a bit) and propably some general thoughts about where I am right now cosplay-wise!

Victory fucking fanfare!

I can't believe it. I just glued the last flippin' piece onto my skirt aaaannnddd... I'm done! I am so proud of myself! I have never done such a huge costume, and a year ago, I still thought this one in particular would never happen. But here I am, completely ready with my Blood Elf Paaladin. I think some pics are in order yeah? If anyone is interested I might do a detailed making of post about some of the parts, any wished?

Anyway, onto the picture spammmmm! you will have to wait for pictures of me in the costume ;)

its a long way Iv'e come from this mess...

armours to the extreme...

and some more!

the skirt is ready!

but before that it looked like this for a very long and agonizing time...

pauldrons also ready!

tataaa thats all youre seeing for now!

Now I'm gonna go celebrate with some fruits and desperate housewives!

A load of my shoulders...

So, I decided to make an own entry for the pauldrons (or shoulder armors) since it turned out to be a rather large project. I wanted to kill myself over this costume more than once, and the shoulder armorus were the main reason... I finished the basic shape and decorations just before I leaped over the edge of crazy, and now I only have to glue the books and daggers on and I'm done bitches.

for refernce, here are the pauldrons I'm making

I have made shoulder armours before, but those were way smaller and ended up looking really bad, so I decided to go in a slightly different direction this time. Not to mention the ones I did before were meant to look like iron armors, the ones I made for this costume didnt look like that in my opinnion.

So last time I made a mold out of paper mache, and then I coated them with plaster. The result was really lumpy and uneaven, not to mention how heavy they were! They kept falling of my shoulders during the convention, and even at the photoshoot where I had tons of duct tape holding them in place, they kept falling of. So I wasn't too keen on repeating this.

le Cloud shoulder armors in all their lumpy glory

My first idea was to make them completely out of isolation foam. Which did not work. My ability to comprehend shapes is really bad and I ended up making two versions that weren't high enough. I soon decided I would never get a good result this way, so I gave up and tried something else.

The only thing that came out of these was a messy balcony.

My second idea was to make the mold out of paper mache and then coat the molds with leather.
I have no pictures of the process of lying down the paper, becuase my hands were in no condition to touch a camera during the process. But here is the result, and yes, needles to say, I ditched these pretty fast.

successful pauldrons are successful.

HOWEVER The plaster I used was PINK. I had to take a pic, that was the only cool aspect of the second try...

The third and final process is hard to explain but I'll give it a try, illustrated with some pics:
So, first, I made the basic shape out of isolation foam, and some cardboard. When the shape was ready I covered it with duct tape to make them stronger and to keep their shape. When they were strong enough, I took them of and coated them with leather. At this point I also covered the foam with leather and black paper, to prevent the ugly yellowish foam from peeking out from under the armors and made some extra panels to hide the parts that were still showing (as seen in the big pic in the middle). Finally I hotglued the whole shebang onto the base and TADAAA!!:

1,2,3,4,5 aaand we have ourselves the basic shape!

I then proceeded to making the decorations, I made them out of craft foam, and glued them on. ( I just have to mention I hate gluing! Thats the part I dislike most in costumery. You have to hold the parts in place forever and they still end up peeling of! Hotglue is another story, that part I really like. Which reminds me: this was the first costume in which I used a hotglue gun! My boyfriend bought it for me as his contribution to this costume!)

But as these things usually go, I failed again. The decorations ended up looking like a third grade crafts project and I went completely cockoo. When I finally calmed down I made patterns for new ones with thicker edges. Crisis averted.
I then had to paint the new ones, but after a tremendous amount of extra work and more fucking gluing, the decorations were on and living up to my standards!

the decorations are actually a nice shade of gold, but they look yeallow in this picture becuase my camera hates me. Also, why is there always work out equipment in my pictures? This gives a false picture of my life, I hate sports!

I also glued on those red decoration parts I had made ages ago... The red parts are leather and the golden trimmings are made out of foam. I made the scales that go on the red parts out of clay while I watched a NFL pre-season game (The Saints vs. the Cardinals) but I don't like the way they turned out so I might re-do them or just paint the scales directly on the leather part, depending on how much time I have left when I'm done with everything...

As for the books on the armour, I decided to use actual books. I bought two erm.. "romance novels" and stapeled the pages together. I then sprayed them golden, and made some small trimmings for them out of foam. I am going to gotglue them to the pauldrons later today  when they have dryed when I get of work.

I have no pics of the books yet but as a bonus: Look at my resin jewlery! This was my first time making any! A huge thank you to this lovely gal who answered all my questions and directed me to a tutorial by these two lovelies. I couldn't have done it without her, check out her amazing jewlery! I can't wait to rampage through her stand at Tracon! Visit her gallery if you didn't already do it you lazy bums. click it!! NOW!!

One of them (the biggest one) reacted in some way to the mold... Look at that surface, it has some sort of a funny texture going on... had to make a new one which is currently drying...

I used some plastic easter eggs as molds for the jewlery, I coudn't get them out so I had to smash them all -_-

And then finally, I found a perfect spellbook for the costume! But oh my god, how do I even describe the book...? It's called "a womans home doctor" and it's a medical guide for housewives from the 70's. It's so disturbing. At the end, after all the actually pretty usefull but oh so old fashioned tips about health and mental healt it offers some tips on how to do your perfect make up. I shit you not. It's a medical book for women... with make up tips. Face palm.

possibly the most offensive book I've ever read...

Needless to say, I painted over the text, and it now looks perfect! Just have to attach the chain!

Feeeeew, that sure was a long post! Hope it was at least remotely interesting... I'll be back soon with an update on the armour (which is finished) and the dress and skirt (which are 99% done).

Tataa!