Cosplay My cosplay wish list is long. Very long. So, like last year, I'm going to post just the costumes that I'm most motivated and most likely to finish this year. I'm sure that this isn't how it's actually going to work out, but it always helps to start with goals. Carrying over from last year, Midna and Nightingale are key, as is finishing off Cersei's embroidery by getting those lions figured out. I also really want to finish up Captain Marvel's costume, and the latest addition to my long, long cosplay list is an original Alice design to coordinate with my Cosplay for a Cure friends. Once those projects are all taken care of, then come the bottom row costumes... Espeon, Miz Mishtal, Captain Marvel (again), and Journey. And probably others from my wish list or which I haven't come across yet. I'm not even going to pretend to set deadlines for these things though, because I realllly don't want to push myself to burn-out again. Conventions
I'm planning (and hoping) that this year will be lighter on conventions for me than last year, despite that being a blast. It means my weekends become highly valuable and I don't get to see my non-con friends often :( Anyways, I only have a few events confirmed so far... G-Anime in Gatineau (January 22-24) Civil War Geekery Con in Niagara Falls (April 16) Ad-Astra in Richmond Hill (April 29-May 1) *not the whole weekend* Anime North in Toronto (May 27-29) Fan Expo Canada in Toronto (September 1-4) *at least one day* And in the "maybe" or yet-to-be confirmed category: YetiCon, ConBravo!, and Otakuthon. Who knows how many others I'll end up at though! Unfortunately, no AmeriCons are being planned - sadly the exchange rate is just way too bad right now for it to be feasible. But that just means that my friends from the States should come visit us north of The Wall and live like kings!!!
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This is part 1 of Cersei progress photos - with part 2 to be added once I actually finish the work! The slideshow below takes you though the steps of how I painted the embroidery on the sleeves and bodice of Cersei's gown. I have patience for lots of tedious work but didn't want to deal with real embroidery on this project, so I used acrylic paint and a detail brush to paint it on instead. To keep things even and symmetric I made adhesive stencils which I then painted inside. Cersei's dress is a continual work in progress, and has been more and more complete each time I have worn it. The next stage is adding the big red lions to the skirt, and this post will be updated as that part comes along. Cersei gallery page. Welcome to a new feature from Mai Sheri Costumes: Tutorial Tuesdays! I don't know how often these will be posted, but I'm looking at once a month for now - it depends on what people ask me about and how much writing time I have available. I post lots of progress photos of my work, but occasionally I get asked for a more detailed description of how I made something, and I decided to turn the answers to those questions into proper write-ups!
Take Note: this tutorial is not necessarily the "right way" to do things, nor the "best way", but is simply how I went about it when I made my own. Anyways, on to the project!
Photos of "Extremis Pepper Potts" are on my Iron Man gallery page: Click Here!
In May I made two Hyrulian postal uniforms - one to be worn with my Twili Midna bodysuit, and one for my old Imp Midna. I don't want to reiterate too much what I already have written on my gallery page, but each outfit was made from scratch to have details related to the characters, but still look like the postal uniform. For myself (Twili) I made a tank top and skirt, postal hat, and delivery bag. For Kim (wearing Imp) I made a romper and delivery bag. More details on all the pics below! Just a quick post today with all the progress images from my Kate Bishop Hawkeye costume! Blurbs on each photo ^_^ This summer is turning out to be incredibly busy as I'm being much more ambitious than usual with my event plans. Also much, much more ambitious than usual with cosplay plans! Here's how things are shaping up at the moment:
Game of Thrones One of the costumes on my (long) list that I want to make is Cersei from Game of Thrones. Although I didn't put it on my list of "next 10" back in January, I ended up bumping it up on the schedule since Shelle-Chii invited me to her Thrones-themed birthday party and Elemental convinced me that I could put it together quickly. In the end, Elemental was mostly right. I got the dress completely sewn in time (although I did miss the beginning of the party because I insisted on hemming it hahaha), but I didn't get the belt done at all. Luckily Elemental had something almost perfect for me to borrow to wear to the party. I have since finished the belt and I'm going to try to do a little bit of the embroidery detail before the cosplay picnic this weekend. Below you'll find photos from the party, and the dress with my newly finished belt. I've also decided to toss in the closet/modern/whatever version of Ygritte (my other planned GoT costume) from my trip to see the costume exhibit, since Mage posted the photos she took recently ^_^ The actual Ygritte costume currently consists of a large bag of faux fur in my storage room, a small swatch of experimental home made imitation leather, and a wig.
Phase 2 things
I managed to squeeze in a couple of "fun" projects around my costumes recently, because taking breaks from big things is good and my creation-motivation has been unusually high for a while now! I made a baby-luma on order for the new child of a friend of the Video Ninja. Apparently the baby liked it, just like his big sister's ^_^ I also threw together a new shirt for summer, which was a frustrating exercise in creative pattern placement. I bought the fabric last year not really paying attention to how big the piece was and not realizing it wouldn't be enough for the dress I wanted, but it was so pretty I had to do something with it. And I think it looks nice with my Majora's Mask leggings from Lunaria. I feel like this spring is flying by way too quickly! I've been hopping from con to con, with things like Free Comic Book Day and cosplay picnics thrown in there too, so even though it's only been 5 cons in the last 4 months (with Anime North this coming weekend), and 3 of those cons were only one-day things for me, I still feel like I'm barely getting breathing room from one event to the next. I haven't even completely unpacked from C2E2, a month after the convention! So here's the plan going forward: Anime North May 22-24 I'm going all three days of AN. Friday is going to be just for chilling and checking out the con with Mr Stark in our Viria13-designed Mai and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Saturday is a sleep-in day, hitting a workshop in the early afternoon, and then spending the afternoon and evening being a greenroom-runner at the masquerade. If you're entering the AN masq, I will definitely see you backstage! Im wearing my unofficial AN staff costume again: T-shirt Chell. Kurumasha and Yavarice will be working with me as Team Aperture again, so we will be at least somewhat identifiable in the greenroom trying to make sure everyone gets where they need to go. Sunday is my new SEKRIT SURPRISE costume, and the only plan is to have some fun with my cosplay group and get some sweet photos while we are at it. Ive been working hard on my outfit and also making parts for other group members, so wish me luck with getting everything finished on time! Niagara Falls Comic Con June 5-7
NFCC is a new addition to my convention calendar. I had planned to go to Nova Scotia in June for SouSho, but unfortunately SouSho's con chair ran into serious health problems, so they made the call to delay the convention until 2016. So I had an opening, and jumped at Niagara since it seems like all my friends who won't be at ColossalCon this year are going to be there. I'm only going to be attending Saturday and Sunday, and cosplay plans are not decided yet. If I can finish up the mk. 9 glove which has been slowing me down, I would like to debut Extremis Pepper. No idea for the other day, maybe Hawkeye? Maybe one of my other under-worn costumes? I might put it to a vote on Facebook and see what people think. Medieval Times Very shortly after NFCC, I'm heading out to a Game of Thrones-themed birthday party at Medieval Times. I debated for a while over what to wear since I don't want to dress "civilian", but I didn't think I would have time to make either of the costumes that are on my list. In the end, Elemental convinced me that since I have a handful of Simplicity patterns based on the GoT designs, that I could put off at least a simple version of something I like before the party. I have everything I need now for a (non-embellished) Cersei cosplay, and I'm pumped to start sewing it as soon as Anime North is out of the way. Atomic Lollipop July 17-19 Going back to A-POP again, because even though the con tends to make me feel kinda old, I still have lots of fun there every year ^_^. Looks like I've talked the Video Ninja into finally checking it out, and he might even cosplay!!! As for me, I'm probably going to wear Mai (depending on if other Modern Gaang people are going) and Hawkeye, because archery range. Third costume undecided. ConBravo July 24-26 I'm excited for ConBravo mostly because Kurumasha, Elemental, and I have an awesome idea for the masquerade. It's going to be fun ^_^. Other potential costumes are Mai (depending on if other Modern Gaang people are going), Hawkeye, Extremis Pepper, and Izabel Otakuthon August 7-9 The latest addition to my convention schedule, because Kurumasha and Yavarice talked me into it. Costumes: ??, but I hope that I will have Midna finished by then! Others.... There's a very slim chance that I'll drop in at Fan Expo this year, and if I do, it'll be to support Mr Stark since he has some work lined up there for the weekend. And looking at my callender, seems that the Snailoween party is the only other event I might go to in the fall of 2015. Doesn't seem to be much happening locally this year. Overall progress update, as of May 22: (see original January post for additional context) The top row is what I have dubbed "Phase One" (see blog sidebar), and the bottom row is "Phase Three". What happened to "Phase Two"? That is all gifts for other people including crafts, clothes, and costume pieces. Since January, Mai, Zuko, and Hawkeye/Katie are done (plus completion on Izabel), and the other three are still in progress, but I expect to have Extremis Pepper finished in the next two weeks. I consider myself to be well on the way to completing my goal of these six costumes by the end of the year. The idea is that I'm not allowed to move on to Phase Three costumes, or add new ones, until Phase One is done, which has been working relatively well so far. I mean, I've already gotten more done this year than in the entirety of 2014! Exceptions: I added a back-up Anime North costume, which ended up also including some pieces for friends' AN costumes because groups... but all three of those are done now and ready for their debut! The only other addition that I'm allowing so far is Cersei, and that's only because it's for a specific party, it doesn't have to be 1000% accurate, and it was already on my list (the Phase Three choices in the image were almost arbitrary from my long list of costumes I've already bought supplies for). I was going to do a photo post of Mai last week, since I have shots back from both Very Frank Pictures and Everage Photography now... and then all kinds of STUFF happened. Cosplay: I've been working hard to finish my Kate Bishop costume, but I needed to stop to get grommets for the quiver. Which I then couldn't find (for a reasonable price). Between many hours wasted searching 5 different dollar stores and then the Easter holiday store closures, I just got a hold of what I need from Fabricland today. So, barring any more disasters, I want to finish assembling the quiver as soon as possible and get the shoulder straps attached before Friday. Since I didn't do any work on Hawkeye over the long weekend, what did I do? Good Friday: Elemental and I were joined by Darthmarysue at the Mystery Shack for a day of thermoplastic, wig-styling, and spring cleaning, apparently. I had planned to work on Hawkeye and Midna, but tidying up a few things so I had room to work soon became a full-scale clean up of my studio area. The cleaning was long over-due... I managed to purge two garbage bags of trash, and I have two more bags of stuff to donate or give away. There's still much more to do, but in terms of my fabric stash I've achieved a lot, and only have a couple more boxes of fabric to sort, label, and repack. .... once that's done though, the next big job is getting rid of most of my retired costumes. I still have more storage space to reclaim! Seems a little corpsey around here: The following Saturday, Sunday (and Monday) brought a BIG change of pace for me. Hannibal is one of the ongoing TV shows which is produced in Toronto, and my friend Katherine is working on the effects team. They needed some sewing done on a costume for the upcoming season, and since their usual seamstress is on vacation I got the opportunity to fill in! "Baby's first industry job" was the phrase of the day. It was really cool getting to spend a few days surrounded by display pieces from Hannibal and all the Saw movies and more, and to see some of the process on various FX pieces, even though I myself was mostly stitching velcro! I'm not going to post about exactly what I was working on until the episode airs, but I will be sure to follow up on that ^_^ Ad-Astra: This con really snuck up on me! I'm working on last-minute fixes/additions/repairs/finishing touches on all of these costumes, but I have faith that everything will at least be wearable. Aside from the masquerade, I'm not planning to participate in events or panels, but I'm looking forward to doing some photo shoots with Elemental and hanging out with Kurumasha and Calamity; girls from the awesome Ottawa cosplay crew. only second to Anime North, Ad-Astra is one of the conventions I've attended the most, and I'm definitely excited to be back again this year (even if most of my cosplay friends are going to GTA Comic Con instead :P) C2E2: Things seem to be coming together nicely for my Chicago trip with KW Iron Man and Ragz, although I still haven't picked out a costume for Sunday. Plans for Saturday are set in stone though since I'm going to be competing in the C2E2 Crown Championships of Cosplay!!! It's my first ever competition at an AmeriCon* and I'm really excited to get to go on stage with so many very talented people! I can't wait to meet everyone and ogle all the costumes backstage. And I'm also excited to get to talk to the judges - it's not often that I have my workmanship judged by a panel of cosplayers, FX artists, and TV costume designers. You should totally check out all the entrants and judges on the competition page! Still going to try to get those Mai photos posted soon, but with everything else I'm working on at the moment, I'm not making any promises.
*AmeriCon: convention in the US. I'm a literary genius. Detailed construction notes and behind-the-scenes photos from my work on Mai in the slideshow below: |
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