Ep 86: Making Cosplay Discussion

Topic: Cosplay Making

 

This week, I wanted to talk to Mom about some of the Ideas I’ve had for cosplay, and such.  Any good nerd has wanted to dress up as their favorite characters.  And a lot like any good addition, it just takes the one time to get hooked.  But at a certain point, you might have to just make it yourself because it doesn’t exist anywhere out there.

 

 

 

Personal projects

 

Work Wizard Hat

This is a hat for work.  Intend to be kind of like Gandalf’s wizard hat.  The major difference being that the front and back will have stitched Lettering appropriate for work.  I also intend to hide a pocket into the top of the hat in order to hide stuff for fun.

 

Magic Book

The idea here is to make a sort of magical tome, that when you open it up, it lights up and shoots out light from it, giving the impression that fantastical magic would come out.  Ideally, you’d hollow out large book, something maybe the size of 2 phonebooks stacked on top, and then, have the middle pages with a sort of sheet paper with cut outs for the various glyphs and such.  Underneath, in the hollowed out section, you’d have a series of lights that shined in an order to give it that impression. 

 

Piranha Plant Puppet (Super Mario Bros)

This originally started as a Chain Chomp from Mario Bros, but I’ve since re-imagined it as a Piranha Plant.  The idea is a roughly 2 foot in diameter Ball, constructed like a beach ball, but with one of the 6 sizes missing. The missing space is the mouth, which will open and close with teeth and a tongue.  The intent here is for myself to be Mario, but my right hand is the Piranha plant.  I’m going to gimic my right arm and have my actual right arm in all black.  My arm is in the Piranha Plant head, and the fake arm is holding a potted plant with the Piranha plant stem coming out.  The real hard part for this is coming up with the pattern so I’m consistent with the shape of the ball shape, then from there, creating the fake arm.  I imagine the sewing of the white spots on the plan will add some challenge too.

 

Lakatu Puppet

This is the one for shooting the moon.  The idea is a puppet that looks like Lakatu, the Turtle in the cloud that follows you.  The idea was to have a full puppet, and have it riding on an actual cloud, filled by a beach ball for simplicity and weight concerns.  From there, Lakatu would also have a fishing pole, and it would suspend stuff from it.  One object being a small camera that I could actually take pictures with.  This one is more logistics and putting it together, but it will take time.

 

 

Skills for making Cosplay

Sewing

Foam Work

Gluing

Wood working

Repurposing Junk

Browsing Goodwill/Second Hand shops

Painting

Understanding materials

Lots of Creativity

 

 

 

 

Cosplays I want to do:

 

Doctor (Arknights)

Arknights the game is fairly big still, and while it is still big, I figured a costume of the Doctor would be good.  The character itself doesn’t talk, and their face is obstructed, so I would do the same, and carry around a bunch of gimic stuff as well, just to have fun with it.  Never talking ever!

 

Warlock Tier 2 (World of Warcraft)

Making the costume will be a bitch, especially because it’s a flowing robes, and the shoulders and helm are so big.  I’d want the helm and shoulders to either light up and create a smoke effect, but my skills are well out of that range.  I need to get MUCH better and working with rigid foam for that.  Plus, I kind of want to have smaller Imps hanging off me, as though I’ve summoned too many.  These would be MUCH harder to make, considering I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how. There’s a person who HAS made them previously, but is charging a lot for them.  There’s that and the staff…

 

Draenei Paladin Tier 6 (World of Warcraft)

This is one of those costumes that if I figure out Foam, I’ll be in business.  Just lots of foam… It’s the notion of making armor, a weapon, and figuring out a latex sort of prosthetic for my face.  These are blue people with tendrils.  The fun part might also be figuring out the hoofed feet too, but there are furries that do horses I can mimic.  It would be a fun thing to do, especially the spectacle, but gotta figure out foam first.

 

Gilgamesh/Archer (Fate/Stay Night)

Another one that’s mostly revolving around foam.  The bigger concern is his sword, Ea, which has three segmented blade bits that turn count to one another.  I can imagine a gear and spindle in my head moving, but I’d need to make a good template to see if it’s do able.  I really do think it can be done, but this is also something I’d love to get a 3d Printer to actually make it too. 

 

Boo Ghost (Mario Brothers)

This one is very technical.  The idea is not too dissimilar to the Parana Plant Puppet, but instead of actually being a moving puppet, it’s a projected Puppet.  What I’d do is buy a small little hand held projector, and then suspend it inside a clear ball with theatre fabric, for the light to bleed through.  The intention is to have the projector display an animated Face for the puppet.  The fun part will be switching between the ghost looking normal, and then animating to hiding.  The sequence would go like this:

 

1. Normal Idle animation
2. Transition to Hiding Animation
3. Hiding Idle Animation
4. Transition to Normal animation
5. Maybe something silly? Like a tongue lick or such? Animation.

 

It would work the best if run off a smart phone, WHICH I have a spare one.  The only trick is programming a custom app to run the animations from, and if you could get a simple clicker or something to transition, even better.  There might be other ideas here that would best with it, but this is a matter of researching technology and working through it.

 

Bowsette Kimono (Mario Brothers)

I had an Idea, after the initial Bowsette Cosplay, was to come back in a Japanese Kimono.  The intention was an all Black Kimono, with a green Obi-sash(For the turtle shell), with a yellow Haneri (inner cloth).  What would make it unique is that there would be stitched in Mario Style flowers, but drawn/done in the style of an ukiyo-e painting (Traditional Japanese Art).  The flowers would start at the hem and kind of crawl up the kimono till just above the knee and on to the sleeves.  I wanted to do the longer sleeve, the kind that draped down to like the knee or such.  And then, the real kicker was that the sleeve on the inside, showed a Mario 1 style castle and flag pole on the left sleeve, and a set of stairs with Mario on the right sleeve.  This way when you fanned them out, you’d get the image.  My only real concern with this cosplay is partly the Japanese style Mario flowers, I don’t know how to ART that, but I know a person with a stitching machine, but it would be LOTS of colors.  And then there’s also the concern over taking a Kimono and making a joke out of it with Mario stuff.  I’ve seen people make Yukatas, a simple summer style Kimono which are very laid back, and made with various printed cloths, but I would feel strange about mimicking and making a Kimono, especially as I’d do it in drag too. 

 

Japanese style Bowser / Dr Robotnic

Unlike Bowsette, a Japanese inspired Bowser or Dr Robotnic would probably be cool.  I’d probably go with Dr Robotnic, and get a navy blue Yukata, pair it with a yellow sash, and then a Red Hori coat, and switch in the Eggman symbol on to the back.  If I could as well, I’d love to make FAKE tattoos, along my arm and chest, give the impression of a Yakuza.

 

Ursula (Little Mermaid)

Okay, this one would be a Drag performance, but I figured that if I have the Big Black Dress from Bowsette two years ago, and I could make the tail, I could probably make octopus legs as well.  My thought here would be to get a bunch of strings and connect them to my wrists, so when I moved my arms, the legs would move as well.  I figured this for making the eels hangs on my in a similar fashion maybe.  The only issue with the octopus legs would be their weight and having them come out of the body evenly.  Plus this has already been done before, so I wouldn’t be new to the party.

 

Doctor Strange (Marvel)

Okay hear me out, this was a really COOL costume from the Marvel Movies.  What to add to it, there’s a spinning LED light board, and from there, you can program it to do the Doctor Strange magic circles.  It would look really cool , especially if I could get a light up necklace as well, even better. 

 

Foam Sword

This would be the first project I’d do with Foam really.  Making a sword, because I’ve had a few different designs that I’d love to actually just create.

 

Peace Bond Armor + Sword

Okay, this one takes some explaining. 

 

Peace Bond itself is when you wrap a strap around your sword to keep it secure in its scabbard.  The intention was that if you were there for peace, you’d never need to draw your sword.  Whether this is a real element or just a story, this is the idea atleast behind our Modern con verion.

 

Peace Bonds for Conventions are these colorful Zip ties that you put on Prop Weapons so that Con Staff know it’s an approved item to bring in to Cons.  This way no one gets hurt from a sword, an actual gun, or such.  I want to make an entire sword and armor out of these colorful Zip Ties.  And especially as it’s a joke, you need to have the armor/clothing made out of very commonly found items at a Con.  I figure FF7’s buster sword, maybe a One Piece Hat, and then some other commonly seen stuff at cons.  It’s that or just make a really big Buster Sword(Comically Large swords), and some armor/cape, maybe a gauntlet and gladiator skirt.  Something silly and stupid, which would be a Joke for the Con itself regardless.  This one would take LOTS of Zip Ties and figuring out how to layer them in such a way that makes it look like stuff.  Another example of foam coming into help on this one.