Wondercon 2013 - Planned Cosplays

As previously mentioned, I'm entering a slower period of time at the store which means that I have the mental capacity to actually start working on cosplay more often.  I already have tentative plans to head out to two conventions in the early part of 2013.  The first being Anime L.A. (in which I plan on cosplay Princess Tutu from the anime of the same name) and the second being Wondercon.  I mostly want to blog about Wondercon for the moment because telling people about 12+ hours of pink organza push ruffle just isn't that interesting.  I'll post pictures when that part of the outfit is done...if I can ever bring myself to finish it.

So the costumes in question!  I'm currently planning on cosplaying Black Cat from Spiderman and American Dream from A-Next.  These ladies are all kinds of kick ass and are hitting some major bullets on my "things I need to learn list".  And for that reason, I'll confess that I'm not actually doing a lot in the way of sewing.  I actually found full body bases for the costumes themselves which means that I can focus on other parts of it, like wigcraft and prop building.

Felicia Hardy, Black Cat

Shannon Carter, American Dream

I know that I can sew well, hell, I even pattern draft from scratch pretty decently but, I continue to explore cosplay more and more, I realize that to be good, truly great, I need to build my arsenal of skills.  I need to master wigcraft, prop building, armor making etc.  But, baby steps my friends, baby steps.

So I feel compelled to share my internal conversation to justify to myself why its okay that I didn't build the clothing completely from scratch.  I realize that this justification won't work for everyone, but I've made my peace.  In order to work on the aspects I don't know much about (and what I really mean to say is the aspects I know NOTHING about)  I wanted to find characters I loved who wouldn't be much of a challenge clothing wise.  I wanted to know that I could put the clothing together in as little time as possible, with as few tantrums as possible and save all the tears and suicidal thoughts for wigs and props and even, dear god, armor.  I came across an unexpected windfall through finding bases that fit both of these costumes almost perfectly, minor alterations so that the rest of the pieces could have copious amounts of time spent on them.

Ive built some tentative plans for both characters.  For Black Cat, I came across the most perfect body suit, the shape, the texture...it's all perfect, and extremely cheap, which is good because the price of the faux fur that I need to make all the trim out of made me want to barf.  $30 a yard, good grief...and of course I can ONLY purchase it in a minimum of a yard. I'm planning on opening the outer seams of the bodysuit on both the arms and legs to add the fur trim and keep it smooth as possible.  I'm still undecided on how I will add it to the collar, it's something I"ll probably drape on the dress form until I'm satisfied with the way it looks.

I manged to find faux fur that's approximately 3.5 to 4" long called Monkey Shag. In the pictures it looks like if I cut it carefully, I can get the texture that I want, but it's something I'm having to take a bit of a gamble on because I haven't seen it in person.  I think we already know how this story is going to end but, a girl's gotta have a dream of heaven.

Felicia's wig is the first wig I'll be trying after my Princess Tutu disaster.  I've decided to back pedal a little and try baby steps before I go back to that little gem.  I'll be using the Luthien wig from Arda in Pure White.  I'll be using some (supposedly) simple techniques to add volume and shape but, more about that later.

The final pieces I need to decide on are the gloves with nails, and how I'm going to do her mask so it doesn't look bulky and in accurate.  Shoes are a matter all of their own - do i go for the super butt lifting powers of a heeled boot, or stick with the more accurate parkour type shoe, like Zemgear or something.

American Dreams outfit came a bit more complete (and feels slightly more like I'm cheating).  I really only have to cut the blue sleeves short and add white sleeves. I am also planning on altering the faux corset to get the shape more accurate to the red and white stripes on her jumpsuit as well as removing some of the studs and straps.  I'll post pictures of both of the bases in their unaltered form in a few days.

Using similar techniques to the Felicia wig, I'll be creating a lusciously full blonde curly wig  (I LOVE her hair).   After that I'll be trying to stay alive in the unexplored waters known as prop making.  The helmet and mask combo, shield, guantlets with throwing disks, and knee pads.  I can't even speculate on how I am going to do any of this.  I'll post often and I promise to even post my failures so that perhaps others can learn from my mistakes, what works, and what absolutely doesn't.

I'll be posting updates more regularly than I have been, and I hope that you enjoy following the creation of these two cosplays!