Pax + Pokecomics

I really meant to do this two weeks ago, but even though its kinda late I still wanted to post about some of the neat stuff I got at PAX east, so here's a few of my favorite things;

Plants Vs Zombies was a huge deal at Pax, there were pylon hats everywhere, as well as these awesome bumper stickers and autographed pictures (top right), the picture says "BRAINZ FOREVER xoxo ZOMBIE!"

Top left is a bottle opener you got if you played Duke Nukem forever. 

The thing on the bottom left is actually a band-aid holder (with bandaids!) and it reads '+1 HP'. I didn't even realise what this was until I got home. The bottom right image is a set of heart container pins. In the middle is a Castle Crasher keychain I purchased while trying to talk myself out of spending 20 bucks on one of the Castle Crahser figures.....

Which was TOTALLY WORTH IT btw. :) I really love collectible figures, and this one I think is one of the most inexpensive ones AND best quality ones I have. It even came with a plastic case, and 4 interchangable weapons.

also stopped by the Halolz booth;

and lastly, BUTTONS! I got a bunch of free buttons from various exhibitors, and bought a bunch as well <3.

On another note, while I was sorting through all this stuff I stumbled upon some other neat little treasures in my sewing room; Pokemon comics from 90's! (Which im quite sure belonged to my sister, but I for some reason am in possesion of)

In the comic, Ash finds Pikachu (who is the equivalent of a troublesome house mouse) knawing on the electrical wires in the walls of his moms house. Above is Ash, Misty, and Brock. (Ash still ruins Misty's bike btw).

Also heres Officer Jenny (Right), Gary, and Gary's hot sister (Left).

Costume wise, I have started working on a new costume for Anime North, and also plan to finish Pokemon Trainer, and rewear Jill and Ramona :)

The Making of Jill Valentine

JILL VALENTINE!
I have always wanted a Jill Valentine costume. Specifically, Jill valentine from Resident Evil 3. The biggest issue stopping me was that I never thought I was thin enough to cosplay Jill...I still don't think I really am...but it's probobly not a healthy goal to strive for the physique of a video game character, so I did it anyways!

I think my biggest attatchment to this particular version of Jill, is the result of Resident Evil 3 being one of the first survival horror games I ever played..I think I was in 7th grade and I still remember it vividly. There was just no scary movie that could stir up the fear and adrenaline like Nemesis could when he decided to jump through a nearby window and chase you for what always seemed like an eternity until he broke your neck.



and although I had much hatred for him then (espescially when he had that rocket launcher! *shakes fist*), I must admit that I freaking love Nemesis. I mean, how can you not love that face?!

I was hooked after RE3, and still love survival horror games to this day. 

Costume Construction; 

The wig was from WigFashion on Ebay, and due to it coming the day before the con, I didnt really have time to cut it before we left, and I forgot to bring a wighead to cut it at the hotel, so I had to wear it as is.

The top was made completely from scratch. I made my own pattern. The blue is a thin, very stretchy dancewear fabric because it was all I could find in a nice blue. I lined it in a thick white cotton-lycra.

The skirt ended up being pretty simple. I had originally purchased black satin with a leathery-finish to make this skirt because no fabric stores carried any matte pleather/leather, but later decided that I wanted the leather. I found a leather skirt at at thrift store that was way to big, cut it up, and sewed it back toegether adding the seams in the front. The grey stripe on the bottom is non-stretch cotton, which was a hilarious oversight on my part, as I could barely lift my leg high enough to go up a flight of stairs with that stripe on the bottom, which prevented me even attempting to get some cool action-shot photos in this costume.

The sweater tied around my waist was also bought at a thrift store. The search for suitable shoes (or even a suitable pair of base boots to cover) was surprisingly difficult. I did eventually find two pairs of thrift store boots that I planned to frankenstein together with Shoooogooooooo to make Jills boots, but I ran out of time, and MIRACULOUSLY my friend happened to have a pretty awesome pair that she was able to lend me the night before we left for the con, I just put the straps on overtop.

Highlights in this costume:

A few of us got to be in the background for a taping of G4's X-Play, which was pretty cool; (Yeah, I'm a dork and screencapped it)

Also met a guy who's birth name was Chris Redfield (he had ID and everything), and while taking a picture with him, also met a random drunk guy who approached by bf; "HEY yuu let people take peectures with yer girlfriend?!?..CAN I HAZ A PICTURE WITH YER GIRLFRIEND?!" (he didn't actually speak lolcat).

Fixes for next time;

Finish the boots that I started

Change out the grey stripe for a stretchy one

Cut and style the wig

Get a gun prop!

This costume will be worn again at Anime North as part of a RE group (hopefully)!

Ramona Flowers...the Making Of.

                           It's Ramona! I wore her to PAX East 2011 and had a great time in it!

For each new costume I make, I've decided Ill do a 'Maiking Of' post; including details about how the costume was made, difficulties encountered along the way, lessons learned, and future plans. So here goes;

         The skirt was sewn from scratch out of 'galaxy twill' that I was lucky enough to find in all three colors.  I installed a zipper on the side, and the square pattern is attatched to the skirt with Heat n' Bond.

         The jacket, tights,  belt, plain brown Tshirt, and boots were purchased. I made the logo for the Tshirt in photoshop, and printed it off onto iron-on transfer paper which I ironed onto the shirt.  

         The jacket is supposed to have white stripes down the sleeves, which I oh-so-wisely decided to hand sew onto the sleeves in the car on the way to PAX (which took 10 hours btw). When I put the jacket on the strpies looked like crap! So I decided to remove them.

         The wig was the most work. It was originally light pink with longer bangs, purchased from wigfashion on ebay. It was dyed with sharpies twice, and then I handcolored a good amount of the wig after that to make it as bright as possible. I had a short black wig lying around (cosworx Roni) that never got used, so I cut that wig up and sewed it to the back of the pink one (which was great because It actually made the wig better able to accomodate all my hair!) and sewed some long black extensions into the bangs. After cutting the wig, I wrapped small sections of hair around hair curlers, and heated the hair slightly with a blowdrier on low to make the messy curls.

 It still bleeds some pink though; it rained for a good portion of the con weekend and I prayed that I didnt get caught in the rain in this, I would've been pink for a week.

New skills;

Properly installing a zipper, Using Heat N'Bond

The Future:

Add stripes to the jacket sleeves, change the belt buckle, make the subspace bag, and remember to bring my necklaces next time!  

I think my favorite moment in this costume was when I was posing for pictures, and some random girl across the street decided to loudly state to her friends "DOES THAT B*TCH THINK SHE'S RAMONA FLOWERS OR SOMETHING?!"

umm...yes?
I guess if some random person on the street recognizes my costume I must have done a decent job making it. So I guess it was kind of a compliment.

Coming soon; PAX East con report, and Jill Valentine!

PAX Costumes

Ramona! It always has to be the simplest looking costumes that give the most grief. Maybe this is just because all the setbacks are unexpected, whereas in a larger project you expect to have a few issues.

Anywhooo I have pretty much finished the skirt (bottom left). Funny thing is, the whole time I was working on this I was thinking to myself "make sure you dont make the skirt backwards!"...and I was very convinced that I was not making the skirt backwards. However, once I finsihed the skirt and put it on, the little design just jumped to the wrong side of the skirt. I swear.  I also made the logo for the Tshirt in photoshop.

The stripes on the jacket are taking a lot more effort than expected because I have to handsew them on...I'm really not sure how I expected to feed a fully assembled sleeve through a sewing machine to attatch the stripes. Hopefully I will have a decent progress picture of Ramona tomrrow, with the fixed up wig.  

As for pokemon trainer I was very lucky to find a decent wig store locally. I bought a small poofy ponytail, and a longer curly one in order to try and recreate the giant superpoof ponytail of doom that pokemon trainer has. Im mostly just holding them on this picture but havent completely decided yet how Im going to rig this thing. I;m also going to have to take off the back section of the hat.

Still waiting on my Jill wig in the mail! I hope it comes, but at least I have this handy wig store to fall back on if it doesnt come in time. I still cant find any decent boots to use as a base for Jill's boots, so I think I'm going to have to learn to make some decent bootcovers.
One week till PAX!



Pokemon Trainer

I made the hat for Pokemon Trainer! I bought the plain white hat and painted on all of the pink with fabric paint. The shirt and vest were purchased, and are currently acting as stand-in's only. I plan on buying a different white shirt, and making a new vest (or mangling this one!).

I pretty much have all my supplies gathered, except for base boots, and hair extensions for her GIANT PONYTAIL OF DOOM! Hopefully I can find some locally because I don't have time to order any. I'm hoping to have this completed in time to get some pictures for the day of the game's release :)

JILL PROGRESS!

Jill is almost complete!

I just need to do the bottom hem of the shirt and skirt (and add the grey stripe onto the bottom in the process.) I had purchased a satin material for the skirt that had a sheen similar to leather because no fabric shops seemed to carry black leather, pleather or matte vinyl.  

Instead I ended up buying a leather skirt from a thrift store and cutting it up and resewing it, and I'm a lot happier with the result this way.

My other planned PAX costumes are also in progress. I picked up most of the supplies for pokemon trainer, and I had one more lucky thrift store find;



woo-hoo POKEBALL!



In other Poke-news, you have until March 7th to visit gamestop to get a Celebi for Heartgold/Soulsilver!

Thrift Stores

So cosplay endeavors have brought me to thrift stores more times than I can count. Unfortunately most of the time I don't find what I needed for the costume, but I do sometimes find some neat little treasures.


Found Nightmare for $1.40 2 days ago, and Nightmare 2 yesterday. Its a VHS based game for kids thats meant to be scary, but the hilarious-ness of it all is for all ages :)

At the beginning of the game, you have to write down your 'greatest fear' on a nightmare card, and if you draw this card at the end of the game you lose. Since I got my game at a thrift store, the cards were still filled out from the last people who played it, I lol'd;


I also found these;  I already have most of the subbed DVDs, but I thought these would be fun to watch for nostalgia's sake.

 and a puzzle just because I could;

So I came home with all this stuff, but did not get what I went for, being shoes I could use for Ramona, Pokemon Trainer and Jill. Then I realised that I don't even OWN A VCR. hmmmm. :P

Has anyone else ever found some great stuff at thrift stores? (Cosplay related or not)