I'm going to be there with KW Iron Man as Pepper Potts - keeping an eye on that always troublesome Tony ~_^  He is going to be doing a "Props and Armour" panel with Shelle-Chii and London Batman, but I'm just going to be hanging around the con all day ^_^

If you're in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and want to check out KCC, come to Kitchener City Hall from 11 to 6-ish (Feb 28). Admission is free, but paid VIP passes are available which give priority entrance to events and discounts from some vendors.

Hope to see some of you there!
Kitchener Comic Con on Facebook
Photo: Elemental Photography at Tri-Con 2014.

Since I have a small back-log of things to upload, it's time for a second February photo post!

First I'm excited to have nice photos of my Iron Man dress (made this past summer) instead of the selfies I had up until now. I've wanted to make an Iron Man dress for a while, but I was holding out until I could find a print which wasn't the retro character design. I had several problems putting the dress together (Burda's pattern really frustrated me for something relatively simple) but in the end I like how it turned out. Looking forward to wearing it lots once the weather warms up again!

If you have followed my blog since last winter, or have received one of my lumas [she wrote, knowing full well that while there might be a few readers in the latter group, there's almost no one exclusively in the former] you'll be aware that I make customized character-based luma plush toys, using clearkid's luma pattern. For Christmas 2014 I added a single new luma to the family, a Hulkling to go with the Wiccan that I made for Ragz last year. Although I made Wiccan knowing almost nothing about the Young Avengers, in December Ragz was kind enough to loan me a few of the books after I expressed an interest in cosplaying Kate Bishop, who I'm familiar with from the Hawkeye books. And I surprised myself by actually really liking the first two YA books ("Sidekicks" and "Family Matters") and realizing that Wiccan-Luma really really should have a Hulkling-Luma to keep him company!!! 
Tangentially, I'm not sure about cosplaying the YA version of Kate, because dat fabric and dat outfit and I'm not as young as I once was.... but it's a maybe. we'll see how I feel about being Princess Hawkguy first.

And to wrap up, the blooper reel from my "Being Izabel" video has been posted! Yikes. Never put me on camera, people >_>

Luckily, it's not all embarrassment regarding that costume - I had a total "Sempai noticed me!" moment when Fiona Staples (the artist behind Saga) retweeted and reblogged my photo; and SO MANY positive responses followed!!! I know that the numbers aren't very impressive as internet-fame goes, but those are a TON of faves and notes for someone with my usual level of recognition *_*
General thank you to the Saga fans and the universe for helping me feel really good about this costume! ^_^

Well, half of my cosplay friends (including my roommate) are currently off being badass cosplayers and partying at Katsucon, so what's a girl stuck at home in freezing Toronto to do? Work on my own badass cosplay I suppose XD

My next con is in 2 weeks, Kitchener Comic Con. I'm a little bit on the fence about what to wear - I want to stick with a comic character which leaves me with a decision between Pepper and Goldie (logistically Izabel isn't going to work for KCC). I'm leaning towards Pepper though since then I can coordinate with KW Iron Man, and Goldie isn't a terribly effective costume without other Sin City characters.

... But that's still not what I'm actually working on at the moment. Recently I've been putting together my Kate Bishop costume, a.k.a. "Princess Hawkguy". I'm doing her outfit from the cover art of Hawkeye issue 9, which is fairly casual. I like Kate, but I'm not yet sure I love the character enough to make her actual Hawkeye hero-outfit. 

Obviously, the most important part of this outfit is the iconic t-shirt. While an "I <3 hawkeye" shirt is available from We Love Fine, it doesn't match the cover art close enough for my taste. So I got a plain white t-shirt, purple fabric, and my stencilling supplies and went to town. --- Insert rant here about how difficult it is to find a white ladies t-shirt which is a) on a cosplay budget, b) not a low scoop- or v-neck, and c) not see-through. I almost wonder if I just should have made my own from scratch.---

Some notes on my artistic choices: the cover art of this issue (like all issues of Hawkeye) is highly stylized, especially in its use of colour. While the cover is black, white, and red; Kate always wears purple in the books. Always. So I interpreted the 3/4 length sleeves and contrasting collar to be purple, not black. Dark eggplant purple, granted, but still purple. Her shades are also going to be purple for my costume, again, referencing every other image in the books. I had thought about doing the heart and bullseye in purple too, to be consistent with my other choices, but in the end I decided that the shirt design really needed the "pop" of red.

First I noted where I wanted to new neck-line of the shirt to be since the original shirt was too snug at the neck. I cut off the excess, and sewed on a new purple neckband. Next was carefully tracing out the shape of the shirt's armscye (the arm hole) to match for the new purple sleeves. I stitched the purple sleeves right in to the existing sleeve's seam allowance, so I wanted it to match as closely as possible.

The stencil was done the same way I did Izabel's a few months ago. I traced the shirt design onto freezer paper (this time twice - once for red and once for black), ironed the stencil onto the shirt, and filled in the design with fabric paint. I did red first since the black arrow overlaps the heart, removed the red stencil, carefully lined up the black stencil, and then finished with the second colour. And there you have it, one Princess Hawkguy shirt.

Most of the rest of the costume is purchased pieces. My long-distance bestie Kurumasha is also cosplaying Kate Bishop but in a different outfit, so we are coordinating parts of the costume. We both got the same boots, sunglasses, and wigs since it's the same girl and we're dorks LOL.

So what is left to work on this weekend? some rather important props! I have commissioned KW Stark Resilient to make my bow, but I'm going to make my quiver and arrows myself. It's the first prop piece I've made in a very long time, but I'm sure I can handle it. As long as everything runs smoothly, I'm going to be wearing Princess Hawkguy at Ad-Astra (maybe with Kurumasha) and at C2E2 with Chris & Carrie and friends.

I'm psyched.

First things first: sending mad props to all my friends in the last stretch of the Katsu Krunch (and there are an awful lot of you...) even though they are all too busy finishing their amazing new costumes to be spending time reading my blog. I've been watching my friends' (and my roommate's) costumes come together through progress photos, blog posts, and almost daily Google Hangout sessions over the last couple of months, and they are all going to look amazing. On one hand, watching everyone work so hard makes me feel like a bit of a bum since I'm just la-dee-dah-ing through casual costumes with no deadline at the moment, but seeing everyone else working so hard is also doing wonders for my motivation! ... adding more vitamin D to my diet is probably helping with that though too ^_^

Anyways, it's time for a photo-post!!!! Izabel has finally been upgraded with a new wig and other "invisible" upgrades - basically fixing some of the bits that were not up to Mai Sheri quality standards; a.k.a. parts that were rushed for the Snailoween party. I was hoping to do two shoots at FrostCon but unfortunately one had to be cancelled. Luckily for me, Elemental's set from the Cosplay for a Cure booth turned out really awesome! I love getting to shoot with Amanda (which might be obvious looking through my gallery - she has literally photographed two thirds of the costumes I've worn since we met). My Saga gallery page has been updated with the full set.

I took the opportunity of being dressed in Izabel to also squeeze in a costume spotlight video with Dan the Video Ninja. I've missed doing all this stuff, and I'm really looking forward to making, wearing, and having fun in more new costumes in the coming year!

It's been snowing pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours or so here in Toronto, so what better time to talk about cosplay skating and FrostCon?

I'll be honest - I didn't really feel like dressing up and ice skating outdoors on the day of the X-Men of Toronto's cosplay skate. Not only was the weather an awful mix of mist and snow and chill wind, but I was just having one of those days when I don't want to go out into the world. I procrastinated as long as I could, then tossed on my Dragonite hoodie anyways and headed downtown since I had a bag of hats and scarves to deliver to the clothing drive portion of the event. I Pretty much said "hi" to the XMOT group, dropped off my donation and left, but I'm glad I at least made the attempt. Here's to trying again next year! (and if you're interested in more info about the event, here's a clip from Space Channel:

As for FrostCon... well, it was much better than last time, which is to say it was held in a space large enough to accommodate the number of attendees that they had, which for the most part means that there was a lot of available space in the lobby and food courts attached to the hotel via the underground PATH system. The convention space itself (exhibitor and panel rooms) was still quite compact, but because there was room for cosplayers and photographers to expand out beyond the con area for just socializing or mini shoots, I thought it served well. Can't comment on the programming as I didn't participate or go to anything, and I'm glad I didn't have to worry about travel or hotel space (a lot of my friends had significant issues there). Also, didn't bother with the coat check because *shudder*... what a disaster.

So what did I do? Mostly socialized: chatting with friends and meeting other Saga fans. Did a tiny bit of shopping (Pokemon for myself and KW Iron man *heavy hint at new cosplay plans*) and of course I had to take photos with my favourite photo booth/fundraiser Cosplay For A Cure. Izabel turned out to be a great hit; not only was I happy with how my makeup turned out for the day, and happy with all the "invisible" (and visible) upgrades since Halloween, but I got a lot more recognition from Saga readers than I had expected I would! So much love for the wonderful fans of the series <3

My next convention is Kitchener Comic Con on Feb 28 at Kitchener City Hall. It's a free event, so I suggest checking it out! After that, I'm sneaking in one more local con in April before heading to C2E2 - Ad-Astra has made it back onto my convention calender! 
Photo posts will be coming up in the mean-time since I recently got some straggler photos from last year, and I'm also really excited to share Elemental's shots from FrostCon! (And there may be a new Video Ninja collab video coming soon too...)

I'm going to hold off on progress updates for now - most of what I'm doing is too small to be interesting, or worth posting about. But a couple of new outfits should be finished this month, if things keep going smoothly! (mostly depending on when supplies I've ordered arrive XD)
Izabel: 100% (unless I decide to add a nose prosthetic after all)
Mai: 55%
Zuko: 40%
Pepper: 20%
Hawkeye: 35%
Midna: 40%  
Nightingale: 45%
AN back-up: 20%