It's Been Awhile...

Since it's been awhile since I've posted and I'm bored sitting at the vet's office, I figured now's as good a time as any to check back in and post again. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy planning my sister's wedding, which was yesterday (congrats to them!). But because of this, I haven't done much work on cosplay, so there's not much for me to say. Anyway...

I thought I'd share the little bit of work I've done on my Scarlet Witch costume. There's not much to it. 

(Great photo, right?) 

I found a fairly basic black dress at Goodwill, added the red inset, the collar, and hemmed it. 

Pretty basic. There wasn't much to be done using the few still shots from The Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

Well, I mostly just wanted to check in. We plan to work on costumes a lot more later this week, so look for more interesting posts than this! ;) 

Thanks for reading!

-Lainee 

Ronan the Accuser (Changed) Part One

Guardians Of the Galaxy was an awesome movie. I saw it three times in less than a week. SO we decided, (in the middle of the movie), that we were going to cosplay some of the characters from it. I love Lee Pace, like a lot, so of course I have to cosplay bad guy Ronan the Accuser, blue skin and all.
One problem, though. His costume involves full coverage heavy armour and leather. And Comicon is in Phoenix. In the summer. Not gonna fly.

So instead, I started coming up with a more female-version, heat-friendly costume.

After extensive Google searches on how to create lightweight cosplay armour, that doesn't involve leather or Worbla or metal of any type, I decided to try using craft foam. Michaels sells sheets of plain craft foam, 12x18, for a dollar a piece.

So as the movie is still in theatres, there aren't really any pictures of Ronan other than the promotionals and posters he's on. Not very helpful when you need detailed pictures of armour and close ups and things like that. I basically ended up just going off of this picture, and winging what I couldn't see.

Yeah. Anyways.

The Breastplate

Since I'm making this as a female version, I didn't make the armour come up to my neck like his does. Instead, I cut the top in a sweetheart neckline, so it dips down.
One 12x18 foam sheet was big enough for the entire front. To make it even, I just folded it in half and cut it so it matched. I did the same thing on the bottom, cutting it into a point.

Like so.

Next is the complex detailing on the armour. I used a screwdriver to do the indents, but that's just because it's what I had. You can really even use a pencil to do this.

You may want to consider practicing on a scrap of foam first.

ONCE YOU MARK THE FOAM, IT CANNOT BE CHANGED. THE LINES ARE PERMANENT. THERE IS NO WAY TO GET THEM OUT IF YOU MESS UP.

I discovered this firsthand.

So, next I drew on the overlaps on the sides. I think these were originally leather.

Just like so.

Next is to draw the lines for the paneling covering underneath it. Make some of them partial, on the sides, so it looks like those indents you've already added look like they're overlapping it.

 There panels each have a line in the middle of some sort.

Then, I just added detailing based on what I could gather from that promotional picture. And made some of it up.

Easy enough. Took maybe fifteen minutes in all.

Last step is to heat it and form it to your body. Just turn on a stove burner, and hold it above it, just until it starts to get floppy and lose its shape. Then mold it to your body. Reheat and reshape as many times as needed to get it where you want it.

Coming up: Part Two, the shoulder armour.


~Michelle

Cheshire Cat Makeup Trial

So today, I made Lainee be my model to practice my Cheshire Cat makeup on. She's such a good sport. This is the trial run, I've done it a total of once on myself, so I need a bit more practice.

The Steps

1. I don't have a picture of this one, but take your black facepaint, and put a dot right above the upper lip, centered, in the indent. Then line up a dot, right below the bottom lip. Then place a dot underneath the cheekbone, near the ear. This is for the corner of the smile. Now connect the dots. 

The best picture I currently have. Now take your paintbrush and draw some thin lines across the bottom lip. The three in the middle are straight, but as you move outwards, make them more curved. 

2- Now do the same thing across the entire shape. 

Like so. 

3- Now make a triangle between each line, and fill it in, to create the point of the teeth. Fill in the space between the top and bottom teeth, as well.

4- Make little dimples on the corners of the smile. 

5- Now take your white facepaint and fill in the teeth. Carefully. 

 6- Last part! Add a nose by tracing a line from the upper lip to the bottom of the nose, then tracing a black line around the tip of the nose. Fill it in with pink eye shadow. Then add three or four little dots for whiskers on the cheeks.

And done! I also gave her eye makeup with blue and silver eyeshadows, added blue shadow to her eyebrows, and she's wearing fake lashes.


In all, I think it turned out pretty well!


(Lainee- Thanks for being my model!)

~Michelle

Harley Quinn-Pt. 1

I must say, I have been having too much fun making this costume. Honestly, I'm rather impressed with myself because the extent of my sewing experience comes from theatre and the dreadful sewing classes I took about 8 years ago. 

The process was rather simple. For the top I bought a red and a black camisole (2 for $10 at California Girls!), cut em each in half and sewed seams up the front and the back. 

Before:

Step 1:

Step 2:

And finally, the finished product!:

In the end, the top took me only about 30 minutes. 

I made the skirt using the same basic process (I failed to take pictures of it). The only difference was that I had to hem the skirt (easy enough). Once I add the finishing touches to the skirt, I'll post more pictures. 

Not bad for for about $20 and an hour's worth of work, eh? 

Thanks for reading! 

-Lainee 

Run Like Hell ~ Pietro Maximoff Cosplay

My Evan Peters obsession is pretty bad, I'm telling you.

Yeah...

But really, when we saw X-men: Days Of Future Past, I knew he'd be a pretty awesome character to cosplay. I mean, just look at him..

But seriously, lookit how cute he is...

Nevermind.

Anyways, but here's my Pietro (Peter) Maximoff Cosplay.

Fairly easy, as far as cosplays go. The jeans and the Pink Floyd T-shirt I already owned.

Shoes
The shoes are fairly close to the trainers he wears, found in the boy's section at Payless.

Just plain, grey Airwalk skateboard shoes. They were $15. I pulled out the laces on the one and replaced them with blue laces, also from Payless.

Goggles
For the goggles, I ordered a plain pair of welding goggles online, just the cheapest pair I could find. They were 8 dollars or so. Apparently these things don't come cheap.
They started out dark green, and had two lenses in each, one clear glass and one black sunglass-type material. I took out the black part, leaving the clear, and sanded, then spray painted, the rest of it silver. It only needed two coats, it covered really well.

Jacket
Of course we can't forget Maximoff's signature silver blazer...

Ten bucks at Saver's.

Hair
Last but not least, there's the mutant's iconic silver hair. Since I didn't feel like trying to figure out how to get my hair silver, I bought a really terrible white wig from Party City. But, what can you expect, it was fifteen bucks.

I bought some Rit fabric dye and soaked the wig in that for two days, during which it soaked up a surprisingly small amount of dye. Snarl. But it was grey, even if it wasn't as dark as I wanted it.

Lainee had some silver hairspray, and gave it to me, so I'm going to add a bit of that to it to make it kind of metallic. Maybe I'll get some darker dye and try again, but I don't have high hopes.
The last thing I need to do is straighten it, given that it's kind of wavy/weird spazz/curly. From what I've found on Google, to straighten a synthetic wig, you have to pour boiling water over it. Ai. We'll see...

Anyways.
So that's Quicksilver. I'll be wearing this costume at Phoenix Comicon in May. Lainee's matching me as Pietro's twin sister Wanda, AKA Scarlet Witch.


~Michelle

Lainee's List

So I guess it's my turn to list all the awesome stuff I bought at Phx. Comicon. Although in the end I came from it pretty dang broke I'd say it was well worth it. So here goes:

-20+ buttons including but not limited to various Marvel, DC, Firefly, Castle, Harry Potter, and Doctor Who pins, among others.

-3 badges I am currently sewing onto various jackets: Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Smallville Highschool.

-Countless vintage comic books, plus Spiderman, The Death of Wolverine, and the most recent Firefly comic.

-A free copy of Red Rising signed by author Pierce Brown.

-Wonderwoman swimming suit. (Yes we match)

and

-Autograph and picture, which I would attach if I had the patience to figure out how, (check back later), with the one and only Cary Elwes!

I think that covers it all pretty well. I must say, Phoenix Comicon was one of the best things I've ever experienced. I'd say it was pretty successful for my first time ever. But more on that later!

Thanks for reading!

-Lainee