Costume Plans of 2014

I love cosplaying but I'm not that great with sewing. But I manage to put together some interesting costumes to wear to the various conventions that I go throughout the year. I have plans to make two, possibly three costumes this year.

The first costume that I'm working on is for a horror convention that we'll be going to next month. I have a hard time figuring out horror related costumes to wear. I have my American McGee Alice costume from last year, but I'm also going to make a Disney's Haunted Mansion Tightrope Girl costume.

I love the Haunted Mansion so I'm not sure why I didn't think to do this costume before. But I'm working on it now. I have the corset and the skirt and I'll be adding on the details. Hopefully I'll be able to finish that in the next couple of weeks.

Then I'll be working on the Kaylee Layer Cake Dress 2.0. I hand sewed 1.0 a few years but I didn't do a great job and it's now falling apart. I've been meaning to remake for awhile now, but with the Browncoat Ball coming to Greenville, SC in October

it's moved up in the queue. I'm hoping to figure out how to use my mom's sewing machine so I can use that instead of hand sewing it. Hopefully that will be finished in time for Dragon Con.

If I finish the Layer Cake Dress, I might start my Ducky MoMo costume. It will actually be me cosplaying as Candance cosplaying as Ducky MoMo. It's going to be complicated but Todd has said he'll help me design it. He's the engineer so I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.

For now, that's what I'm working on. I'll post pictures on Twitter and Facebook as I put the costumes together!

Cosplay and Snobs

An example of piss poor cosplay

So I have another Heroes of Cosplay rant. I love the show for the beautiful costumes, but sometimes the attitudes on the show annoy me to no end.

In this week’s episode we see Monika being uber bitchy at every turn. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure if they edited her to be that way, but her attitude really sucked. Especially when she was so mean to Becky who I think has made some wonderful costumes. Cosplay should be about wearing costumes and having fun, but Monika sucked all the fun out.  It was a shame too since Fushigi Yugi is one of my favorite animes.

Now I’m not a very good cosplayer. I buy costumes and I hobble other ones together. I hand sewed my Kaylee layer cake dress and it turned out ok, but it’s falling apart now. I've had people look down at me for even thinking about making the layer cake because it’s complicated. I was told that I shouldn't do it unless I can sew really well and I got a snotty attitude from another layer cake cosplayer when I marched in the Dragon Con parade a few years ago.

Yes, it was kind of crappy, but it turned out better than I thought. And I had fun wearing it, which is the point of cosplay. Now I wouldn't complete in any of the cosplay contests, especially at Dragon Con, because I know my costumes aren’t that great. But I cosplay to run around in a fun costume.

I wore three costumes at Dragon Con this year. Two of them I bought and one I put together. I didn't get a lot of people asking me to take my picture, but a few people did. I can’t imagine not wearing a costume to Dragon Con and I had fun wearing the ones that I did. Unfortunately, there will be those snobby people who look down at other cosplayers because their costumes might not be as great as theirs.

In Praise of Cosplayers

Emily and I as Snow White

It seems like after ever major convention there is a post that appears on the internet that makes fun of cosplayers. I’m not sure why people feel the need to do this. But I do know why I love cosplaying and why I’ll continue to do it, even if I end up being made fun of on the internet.

My love of costumes go way back to when I was a child. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, partly because of being able to dress up in costumes. As I grew up, I discovered anime conventions. As I started to attend these cons, my love of costumes resurfaced. It is always so fun to put on a costume and pretend to be a famous character. My favorite costumes at the anime conventions were the ones from the Final Fantasy games. I even had a Summoner Yuna costume that is one of my only costumes I still have from my anime days.

I’m not the best at sewing, but I don’t let that stop me. For some of my costumes, like my Kaylee costume from the pilot of Firefly, I was able to just find the clothing items I needed. When I wanted to do Kaylee’s dress from the Firefly episode, Shindig, I had more of a challenge. But did I manage to come up with a plan to make this costume. I've worn it for several years now and it’s my favorite costume.

The vast majority of the feedback that I've gotten on my costumes is positive. I received a lot of positive comments on my Shindig dress last year at Dragon Con. It made me happy to know that other people enjoyed seeing it.

I also cosplayed as a Disney Princess last year at Dragon Con. I was Snow White because that was what my daughter wanted me to cosplay as when we marched in the parade. It was amazing to see small kids’ reactions to me. Their eyes would get wide as I waved at them in the parade. Those kids’ smiles made me feel like a real princess.

I generally talk to people in my geek groups about cosplay. But there are also several websites online, like cosplay.com, where you can connect with other cosplayers. This is a place where you can talk about costumes with people who love them as much as you do.

If you want to cosplay, I say go for it and ignore the bullies. It doesn't matter if you have the best costume or look just like that character. It just matters that you are having a good time.