Blogger, Fashion Consultant, Costume Design&Execution
I had the pleasure of designing and creating this mini-Munny for my friends' wedding this year! Originally intended as a wedding topper, the weight of the Munny was not workable for residing at the top of a cake. In hindsight I could have cast a mold though...
I was in charge of making the bride-to-be's mini-Munny, and my talented friend Angela would be working on the groom's custom Munny. I worked closely with the couple for the idea, and for the dress/jewelry details I worked closely with the bride-to-be a few weeks prior to their actual wedding date. The dress as per the couples' original sketch below was not her actual dress--the bride-to-be sent me sketches and photos of the dress she would actually be wearing. Here was the original idea (sketched by the bride and groom)
I've seem to have taken some kind of long hiatus from working on my cosplays to make mini-Munnies =_=' ! But in my defense, I'm.. practicing my sculpting skills--I need those in cosplay.
I guess it was kind of inevitable that I made another Munny because I really have to practice my sculpting skills, and I saw that nobody has made a Mordecai Munny yet. Obviously I had to do something about this. I'm also addicted to making these because I love deformed toys. ANDD the best part, I always use leftover sculpey and materials so I really only spend $10 on the blank mini Munny. Win win win.
**Note: I am still currently working on Bloodwing so maybe the post title is misleading but there will be a bird in the very near future, ha..*
Tried to break up the process of this cosplay into semi-organized "sections" per post, because I was a little all over the place in working on this cosplay, didn't have enough materials, time constraints, got distracted by Mass Effect 3... I already did the write-up on Natsu's default swords, the link is here.
I decided to include all the details related to sewing the spandex pieces in this post, which consists of the bodysuit and tabi socks.
Here's the character illustration showing a red bodysuit--the in-game rendering is of a dark salmon bodysuit w/ an iridescent finish. Wanted to go w/ the in-game bodysuit but could not find this fabric ANYWHERE. Luckily I found a great spandex fabric with a nice sheen, which was a painful $24/yard. I bought a yard and a half, which was exactly enough for the bodysuit and the socks, and just enough to cut an extra pair of socks since I have never made tabi socks before!
I had some leftover Wonderflex after I cut out the armor for my Natsu cosplay, and since Wonderflex is between $30-$50 per sheet, I was not going to let any of this go to waste. I'm still drifting through my post-ME3 depression here, so I decided to make Kai Leng's eye mask. If you played the game you probably hate his guts but his facial gear looks pretty cool. I love the design and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to experiment with making masks!
I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to finish the rest of this cosplay in a week, especially since I started playing Mass Effect 3, and that's been my life for the past 2 days.... but in any case, I did finish Natsu's swords Kuzukiri and Awayuki. My dad helped me with the sanding as there were a lot of fine sanding details and I'm not that great w/ a belt sander (yet).
I couldn't find great pictures of the swords but that gave me some freedom to play around with some of the details.
Since I am a lot shorter than Natsu, I scaled the swords down so I could translate the cosplay to my body type.
I knew I needed something relatively light and easy to work with so I used MDF for the scabbards. The handle of the swords are also MDF. The blade is actually made of poplar because poplar is much easier to sand than oak or plywood; at the same time, it is rigid, I don't want a floppy blade haha. I drew the swords on Illustrator first, just to get my ideas finalized. I decided that I wanted the scabbards to have beveled edges, and the handle to be an elliptical shape. I guess if you look at the in-game screenshots the scabbards have beveled edges? There was a lot of math involved while creating the scabbards and the blades in order to have the blades fit snugly.
Did this exercise to recognize color more efficiently and render at a faster pace... this year I really wanted to train my eyes to pick up on more details at one time and work quicker this way... Really focus on adding depth to a drawing without spending hours upon hours on it. I decided to draw my favorite characters from Mass Effect/Mass Effect 2, because... let's face it I FREAKING LOVE MASS EFFECT.
14x17 marker paper, Copic markers, Prismacolor markers, Prismacolor pencils. Very minimal outlines in Copic multiliner, I don't really like to outline my pictures too much; I feel that a very obvious black outline can make the subject look flat.
....I guess I got a little bit distracted from making cosplay.... all started when I caught up with a friend who suggested I play "Bastion". I was still busy trying to finish Arkham City at the time so I stuck Bastion on the backburner. About a month later I was browsing the xbox Marketplace and was interested in seeing what demos were out. I remembered "Bastion", and downloaded the demo. I played the demo for about 2 mins; after listening to the narration and the music, I was completely hooked and added Microsoft points to purchase the game. This was a Wednesday night. I finished the game on Friday night. And here I am making a Munny of the Kid.
I try to do some marker drawings here and there but as you may or may not know they usually take me FOREVER = 6 hours minimum, so I really have to figure out how to balance my time among cosplay, drawing and gaming. New Years' resolution--MUST.DRAW.MOAR! So I will. I have recently been very inspired by a game I just finished playing this week but I will write about that soon... because most likely I will post fan art, haha.
SO. Here's the first drawing of 2012. Stunna-K did the concept and line art, I just colored it. We went back and forth on the color for probably an hour and somehow we settled on yellow even though I don't really use yellow, ever?? I think it turned out alright for being completely cracked out post-ALA and finishing this at 4am while listening to him play Dead Space 2 the whole time.
You can watch the short video of us drawing/coloring below.
After all the glue had dried, we (from here on now, we = my dad and I) went about putting bondo on the ends so we could sand them and therefore the edges would be flush.
Ok, I don't know what it is with the characters I choose that prefer to wear booty shorts borderlining on diapers for strippers. In any case, I get to make a huuuuuge sword with this cosplay and crazy knee-armor-shoes.
I admit I am not a wig-styling expert and had to do a lot of research / trial-and-error in order to feel confident enough to write this tutorial as well as show what my wig ended up looking like for my Kagura cosplay. I thought writing this would also be helpful considering I only found 1 helpful tutorial on creating a back parting :( But since we all buy wigs from different places not all tutorials are applicable, so whenever possible I will try to explain how I worked on each wig (if somewhat complicated).
My technique is based on Katie Bair's excellent tutorial on parting wigs. She has tutorials for everything in case you are a wig n00b like me. I did not have those uber long extensions she uses though. I also do not have a heat sealer. I eventually ordered one through her website but I didn't get it on time =_=
For this cosplay I used a medium-length wig from Epic Cosplay. All my wigs prior were purchased from Hollywood Wigs in Hollywood on Hollywood Blvd. Their synthetic hair is amazing for the price. About $30-$50. I also like to try my wigs on before buying them because I had a terrible experience with buying wigs on eBay -- scarred for life. But I heard good things about Epic Cosplay, and my wig shop didn't carry the shade of orange I wanted for Kagura (yeah, I know, cosplay problems...) so I took a risk on the internet again. Let me just say that this is one of the best quality wigs I own, it's also heat-safe so you can do whatever the fuck you want with it and the fibers probably won't melt unless you stick the wig into an oven or something. Luckily I didn't have to do anything crazy with this wig so no heat was required.
This is what the wig looks like:
I won't go into too much detail into this cosplay because I made it in 2 days, YIKES. But I thought that I'd have time to make something for ALA (Anime Los Angeles) in addition to my Kyoko outfit so I decided WHY NOT. The hardest part of this cosplay was styling the wig. Usually I don't like to work on "easy" cosplays because I like a good challenge, but I just love this character way too much. It's difficult for me to choose a favorite female character in "Gintama", but I think Kagura definitely delivers the most laughs, and she is one tough cookie. Also kind of brainless but she's a kid. She also likes to eat rice all day so that is something I can easily accomplish. Cosplays you can eat in are quite good. It's also fun for me to have an easier cosplay to wear at a convention because sometimes I don't want to worry about a prop or my outfit being damaged if it's delicate or slightly ... unwieldy. I also don't run into that many Kagura cosplayers at conventions these days and it makes me kinda sad because she really is such a great, memorable character and I wonder how a Kagura cosplayer would act at a convention--would she be walking around with a piece of sukonbu in her mouth while picking her nose? If so, I would applaud and cry otaku tears.
This cosplay is surprising for me for 2 reasons:
1. I don't usually make anime-derived cosplays
2. This is a magical girl cosplay. I don't make those. (usually cannot relate to magical girl stories or characters)
But as you've read on my previous post about Madoka Magica, this story is unlike any other magical girl story I've ever experienced, and a huge part of me wanting to make this cosplay was because I am cosplaying with my sister! And one of my best friends! So of course I wanted to participate! I do also like the Kyoko character very much, even though her screen time in the anime was a bit short.
Well. I never thought I'd be making any magical girl cosplays anytime in the near future but here I am talking about a Madoka Magica cosplay! Er, sort of. Inspired by, I should say. My buddy Ashli finally convinced me to watch the series, which... actually has a huge twist and is NOT your typical magical girl anime. I highly suggest you watch it despite the "cute" style of the animation, and the horrifically misleading trailer.
Ashli posted a beautiful picture of some Madoka fan art on her tumblr, and next thing you know the both of us are oogling and trying to figure out how the hell to integrate these outfits into our schedules. Since I actually have pink hair now (and Ashli has blonde hair) we talked about doing a photoshoot with these outfits, inspired by this concept art and our love for Madoka. It worked out that she was in love w/ the Mami outfit and I love the colors from Madoka's image.
Anyways, I was excited to finally not worry about being accurate to reference images for once, so I set out to buy fabric right away. Once again this fabric DOES NOT EXIST IRL (-_-) so it was back to hours and hours of painting fabric again.
Finally blogging about how I made the kabuki mask at the back of Alice's dress. I'm not 100% pleased with how it turned out but I'm sure I'll work on a new version sometime soon for my photoshoot.
I did not finish the skull belt in time for Halloween (ran out of skulls at the last minute) but I can wear it on another occasion now that it is completed :)! Luckily I live close to a Halloween supplies store so I bought 3 bags of skulls. 2 bags of 3-1/2" tall skulls and 1 bag of 1-1/2" tall skulls. I only needed 1 small skull for the wig, so I just have a bag of skulls casually sitting around in my house. Yeup.
Here's a quick post on how I made the Omega necklace for this particular Alice:Madness Returns outfit. After staring at reference image after reference image, I realized the string of the necklace wasn't a flimsy string--it was wired, round. To make things easier for myself I bought a wired jewelry choker for $2. I wrapped the wire with embroidery floss, applying tacky glue onto the wire as I wrapped the floss tightly around.
Ah yes. I know I haven't posted in a while but I was also purposely waiting for Halloween to post my own costume! FIRSTLY LET ME JUST SAY THAT I MADE THIS COSTUME IN 2 DAYS SO THERE IS A DIRE LACK OF PHOTOS. SORRY. ANYWAYS--
After seeing Kotobukiya's lovely rendition of Mystique for their Marvel Bishoujo line, my friends thought I was going to do a Mystique cosplay after I posted the illustration to Facebook. I decided why not, I've never dabbled with body paint, and besides, Mystique is a fucking badass. Cosplaying is the only time I get to be a badass, so why not...
I realized that almost every single project I work on involves bias binding, which I call the ragequit of sewing. Especially since I usually end up making my own bias binding, I always have a ton of scraps leftover I can't ever use for another project since the colors I choose are always so damn obscure.
On this project especially, I had to use bias binding to finish all the edges of my silk pieces... which is basically the entire dress. Overlocking the edges of a silk piece is blasphemy. Never do it. Merrow edges are ok but those are mostly decorative anyways. I just think overlocking the edge of a silk piece lessens the quality of using silk in the first place (or maybe I just like to torture myself). I used bias strips cut from the lining fabric, which was a soft acetate. Still very difficult to sew considering my silk was stretch silk and the lining is very thin as well. The hem of the skirt is finished with self bias binding (the silk). You can imagine how long this took me, I pretty much wanted to call it a night after sewing the entire hem.
What's an Alice cosplay without her trusty weapons?
The first "weapon" I set out to make is not really a weapon, it's more of a shield if we want to get down to specifics. There aren't many reference images of this item on the web, I basically had to pay extra attention during the game and come up with my own interpretation.
Well of course I started working on another Alice:Madness Returns cosplay! I have a couple huge projects lined up for next year so I had to choose a costume that would be relatively "simple" to make, but not so simple that I would be unmotivated to work on it diligently. I love the colors from the "Oriental" dress from the game-- this Chapter was my 2nd favorite, I really enjoyed the side-scrolling levels and those samurai mosquito enemies, lol. The environment was just gorgeous, by the way, if I could cosplay as that entire Chapter I would, but that's... just not physically possible, no.
If you want to see more photos and a pretty damn detailed run-through of what people do at PAX, go to my friend Collin's blog, asiandoood.com. He did a great job of doing his convention write-up. Here I will shamelessly post pictures of my cosplay.
The final part of this costume (not including the Omega pendant) was the top hat. I really didn't have time to search for a top hat exactly like the one in the reference image, and I also kinda wanted to try making my own hat. Yes, that is my logic--no time to find one to modify so I'll make one from scratch.
I did some research on how to make hats, and stumbled upon Fosshape. There's a pretty good fosshape tutorial on cosplaysupplies.com, but I think you're really going to need to just experiment via trial and error, which I expect to do more of when I make the Clockwork Bunny.
Here comes the part where I hauled my unfinished cosplay to Seattle and finished the rest of it at my friend's apartment, yikes!
For the "shoes" I made the calf-boot separate from the paw-shoe. I really don't know what to call them, sorry if they sound lame. Anyway, I cut 3 pieces for the paw-shoe, using a pattern similar to the one I drafted for my Zephie shoe.