Escape Velocity

Hey everyone, I wanted to pass on some info about a neat event I just found out about.

The Museum of Science Fiction is hosting Escape Velocity May 25-27 at the Gaylord Mariott in National Harbor, MD (where Katsucon is held, for those who are familiar). This year costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis will be judging the costume competition! Don't know who that is? She's a theater and film costume designer who worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark, among other notable movies.
For those interested in participating in the costume contest, entries are due by April 15th, and you can find all the info you need about entering here.

Escape Velocity has a wide variety of activities for adults & kids, no matter where your interests fall. Guest artists and authors, film screenings, games, and of course costumes are all a part of this exciting even so you should all go check it out. For more info about their guests and activities, as well as to purchase tickets, go check out their web site.

Whether you're a cosplayer yourself, or an enthusiast of any other kind, this looks like an awesome event for you!

The Gentle Saint

It's throwback thursday again and this week I wanted to show off yet another of my many Fire Emblem cosplays. While I love this character a great deal, I will admit that a big motivation to cosplay him was the fact that I could use my own hair. Yes, I'm referring to the ginger priest: Rhys.

Rhys, like many of the character in the Tellius series, shows up in both games, so it was a tough decision figuring out which version I wanted to do. While Path of Radiance was the stronger game, I really liked the details in his outfit in Radiant Dawn, so in the end I went with that (it's the same dilemma I had with Haar... at least the Laguz all dress exactly the same in both games).

Besides being able to use my own ginger locks for this cosplay, I also had a friend who wanted to cosplay as Soren so I decided Rhys would make a nice character to do alongside her, as a black and a white mage, essentially. Yes, I know Ike would ahve been better but I had (and still have) no intention of making Ike, desipte how much I love him. I mean, maybe if he got a seasonal costume in Heroes I'd consider it... but that's beside the point. Rhys also marks the first magic user in my FE repertoire, so that was pretty nice too.

The best things was not really needing to do much propwork, as most of the costume is fabric. I did make a tome and a staff, but both were fairly simple. I don't really have any progress photos or anything, because I made this a loooong time ago, but I do have some silly photos from my first Tekko, as well as my more recent wearing of him at Ohayo a few years ago.

There was a Laura, which was super unexpected. So we of course had to take a photo of us beating each other with our staves, because they added that pointless mechanic in RD.

Soren needed some healing after getting looked at by a myrmidon.

At Ohayo, I made friends with this fantastic Mia. Once again it was a miracle that I actually had a coordinating character I didn't come with.

She even swept me off my feet!

And since I made an actual Rexaura tome, I had to cast it at least once. This is probably my favorite photo of this cosplay :-D

And that's that! It's kinda ironic that a cosplay that has relatively simple props became the poster child for my prop listing on Etsy.

Materials Monday: Worbla

All of you cosplayers out there have certainly heard of this stuff by now, and it makes sense because its pretty awesome! 

Worbla can be used to make just about anything from weapons to armor and all kinds of accessories and details.
Pros:
- Versatility (you can use it for just about anything
-  Durability
-It's waterproof! (that doesn't mean your stuff won't be damages by water, mind you. Not all finishing products like getting wet, but at least there shouldn't be any major structural damage)
- You can use your scraps, so there's potentially no wasted material

Cons:
- It's pretty expensive
-You need a heat gun
-It can be a bit heavy if you're making something big/using a lot of it
-You usually need to use it in conjunction with other materials

Generally speaking, when you're using worbla you want to use it as an outside layer over some other base. Craft foam (foamies) are common for things like armor pieces and small accessories.

For the armor I made for Young Genji (Overwatch), I used craft foam (and EVA for some parts) as a base, and heated worbla over it.

When you heat up worbla, it becomes very flexible which is great because you can achieve a lot of different shapes. It also sticks to itself when it's hot, so you can create 3D geometric shapes by mushing the edges of two flat pieces together. If you heat it and smooth it over enough it becomes a very strong joint and becomes virtually seamless. On the photo above you can see the knee protrusions, which I achieved that way.

While craft foam is my base of choice because it's lightweight, very flexible, and comes in large sheets, I often use cardstock as a base for smaller pieces or pieces that have angular geometric shapes (like those knee pieces).

The other great thing about worbla is you can heat up all of your scraps and mold them into things! You can see I molded the end of the Myrnaster with worbla.

You can achieve a lot more interesting things than that too! The hilt of Masrur's sword is all worbla too!

Since I've been using worbla for a while, so I have lots of scraps. I've been trying to use them as much as possible for this sort of thing, since it's more durable than making the same thing out of polymer clay, which would be my other go-to for these types of details.

If you're wondering where to get worbla, I always order mine online here. You can get sheets in different sizes and you get discounts for ordering in bulk. That may or may not be helpful for you guys, depending on how often you plan on using it but it's still good.

As always, if you're ever thinking about using any of the materials I've highlighted in my Materials Mondays posts and you're not sure, feel free to get in contact with me, I'd be happy to give you my thoughts on what materials I think would work best for your projects!