SHAKA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA

I hope everyone has been having a lovely holiday season! Sonce Christmas is this week I wanted to share some fun holiday photos with all of you!

I’ve made it a bit of a tradition over the last few years to try to do some sort of holiday cosplay photos and things keep getting more serious as I get better ideas and more elaborate with it. Let’s take a quick stroll through the last two years…

Phoenix, what are you doing?
WRIGHT GIVE ME THE CAMERA!

2016 was kind of a last-minute decision so I had to use stuff I already had lying around. If my Phoenix didn’t live a couple states away you can be sure we would have taken some beautiful photos together but alas. The next time he comes to visit, however, I might just make him do it, regardless of what time of year it is.

2017 took a bit more setup than just putting a santa hat on an existing cosplay and taking a selfie. Since last year was The Year of the Magical Creature for me, it seemed appropriate to let them all help with the decorating,. I also co-opted Ashnard’s cape that fits the holiday aesthetic perfectly without the spiky shoulder pauldrons on it. And voila, we have a beastly magical christmas.

Now most of you already know this, but I play the flute in a volunteer christmas concert every year in Peninsula, so I’m used to dressing up for this sort of thing anyway. We always perform as elves and I finally got off my lazy butt and made my own costume pieces for it. I also finally got to use the ears I initially bought for a certain Hylian that I have yet to cosplay…

Featuring Deb & Kathie, two of my fellow musical elves.

The top half has become my standard christmas attire, regardless of wheather I’m trying to look overly elfish or not.

And at last that brings us to MDC 2018, which I’m sure many of you already have some idea just from the title of today’s post…

SHAKALA! Koroks love to celebrate the seasons too! And I heard humans decorate a tree with lights and ornaments for their winter festivities. Since I’m related to trees I thought it would be fun to decorate myself! Sometimes the ornaments fall off when I dance around though…

From my family to yours, I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a fantastic start to the new year!
Cheers!

30 Cosplay Questions

So since I don’t have a ton of updates to work on, and I forgot to answer these on Twitter, I’ll just do them here and pretend like it’s a legit blog post…

1) Favorite Cosplay - Wow starting out with a tough one. My favorite at any given moment is usually whichever one I’ve just finished, and does kinda hold true at the moment with Fran. I love that cosplay to death and I love the character and I really really want to find flat silver shoes so I can wear her around at con without my feet feeling like they’re gonna fall off.

Photo by Eric Cosino

In the long term though, I have to go with Hestu. It’s such a fun and comfy cosplay, and plenty of people recognize it, and even the ones who don’t usually laugh or smile because I’m wearing a giant broccoli on my head.

2) Least Favorite Cosplay - That’s another hard one because I like pretty much all of my cosplays but it’s probably Roxas. I’m not a huge KH fan, though I have enjoyed playing 1 & 2, and I put a lot of work into the keyblades and the cosplay itself but I was never super happy with how any of it turned out. I was also lazy and didn’t have a wig and by the time I got a wig I wasn’t cosplaying him any more so yeah.
Perhaps, with KH3 coming out I might be inspired to make a new Roxas that I’m actually happy with (it was a super early cosplay so I didn’t really know what I was going in the first place)… but we’ll see cause I already have too long a list of prospective cosplays lol

3) Make or Buy - I generally make most of my stuff or alter things I find at the thrift store. But as a general philosophy I think making and buying are both great! There’s a lot of stigma in the cosplay community about buying cosplays but seriously, that’s dumb. We all just want to have fun cosplaying whatever characters we want so why does it matter where the costume comes from?

4) Favorite part of cosplaying - Making a connection with another nerd over whatever nerdy thing we’re sharing. Cosplay is a great way of broadcasting “hey I love this thing that I’m dressed up as” so I always have fun chatting with people at cons who enjoy the character or series I’m cosplaying from.

5) What order do you put makeup on - What a weird question. I honestly don’t know how to answer this so moving right along…

6) Most comfortable cosplay - Banjo-Kazooie. It’s literally some fleece leggings, yellow shorts and a hoodie. I even get to wear slippers with it!

7) Most uncomfortable cosplay - Well the last two new cosplays I’ve done have involved stilettos which make my feet want to die but besides the shoes the cosplays themselves aren’t that unfcomfortable. So I have to go with Thanatos because suspending a bunch of coffins around me was a terrible idea. The whole reason I wore it once and then threw most of it away was because it was horrendously uncomfortable.

8) Best memory in cosplay - Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Probably meeting all my TWEWY friends for the first time? Also the tiny airbender that was at the ATLA photoshoot the first time I wore Tenzin.

9) Dream Cosplay - HOO BOY I HAVE A LOT. But most of the things on my “dream cosplay” list are fairly achievable for me at this point. THIS ONE, HOWEVER, remains the pinnacle of the list because I still have neither the skills necessary, nor the money with which to purchase, HIM HEAD

10) Someone you’d never cosplay - That’s a super broad question. There’s a lot of characters I wouldn’t cosplay for a variety of reasons and I don’t feel like explaining all of them for the next hour so we’ll pick a rando from the list. How about this douchebag:

11) First cosplay - Davy Jones, featuring my mother as Tia Dalma

12) Most recent cosplay - Fran from Fate!Apocrypha. You’ve already seen the only real photo I have of her in Q1.

13) Full cosplay or costest - I don’t know what this means exactly but I try on all the pieces as I make them so probably costest?

14) Selfie or shoot - Yes, please. Next question.

15) Friends or solo - Also both, but I definitely have more fun when I can cosplay with friends. I’ll still solo the random characters none of my friends know anyway.

16) Cute or mature characters - Also both. Sometimes at the same time.

17) How many cosplays have you done - If you include Newt Scamander who I’ve kind of cosplayed but really it was an OC who also loves magical creatures, then I believe the count is up to 46. And you can see all of them (besides Newt) in my Character Compendium.

18) How long have you been cosplaying - I believe this is my 10 year cosplay anniversary cause it should be 2008 when we had the pirate party… OH SNAP I FORGOT ABOUT NABOORU. THIS HAPPENED IN 2007 you can ignore the whole Davy Jones was my first cosplay thing…
So that makes it 11 years as of Halloween.

19) How many conventions have you been to - I’ve been to maybe 8 or 9 different cons? If we’re counting each individual time I’ve been to a convention I don’t have the patience to sit here and figure that out.

20) Form fitting or flowing garments - Yes please

21) Colored contacts or natural eye color/editing - I’ve worn contacts once for a cosplay and I’m not motivated to do it ever again really. The only exceptions I’d make would be for characters with heterochromia. I’d love to get a close-up of Fran with her different-colored eyes but I’d probably edit > contacts

22) Why’d you start cosplaying - I’m a huge nerd and I like dressing up…

23) Perfectionist or not - I tend to be a perfectionist but I cut corners like nobody’s business

24) Embarrassing cosplay moments - Ripping the entire crotch out of Zelos’s pants. As a bonus I was wearing dark underwear and Zelos wears white pants. You do the math.

25) AU or canon - I’m a fan of both but I usually stick to canon designs.

26) Dream photoshoot - getting the entire Valuan armada together

27) How do you choose your character - a) Whoever I’m really feeling from whatever media I’m consuming in that moment, b) whoever fits in well with a group y friends are doing, or c) some super-obscure character from an obscure/old fandom that I’ve loved forever

28) Secret cosplay or tell everyone - I did a secret cosplay once and I got too excited so I gave some people too many hints XD

29) Character you’ve worn most - Hmmm, honestly I’m not sure. Probably either Junpei or Edgeworth because they’re more comfy cosplays that I’ve had for a long time and have worn for lots of groups and stuff

30) Favorite prop - GURGURANT

Adventures in a New House

Welcome back!

As promised I wanted to show off my new crafting space now that we’re settled in a bit more. Things certainly aren’t all put away yet, and we haven’t even decided which rooms what furniture is going in yet, but I’ve had some time to stake out and organize my crafting areas!

First up is the armory! I already have plans to put in pegboard in the left area to hold most of these props. This is also the only area with concrete flooring so it might serve (at least to start) as my woodworking/dirty workspace. If that happens I’ll tent off the section where I work so sawdust doesn’t f*** up our utilities…
Needless to say it’ll be a bit before I can start doing much propwork again, which is fine because it’s almost December so xmas orders of other stuff I make will be picking up here shortly.

My other main crafting space is a large, rectangular room, also in the basement. Benefits include lots of built-in cabinets/drawers and counterspace!

On opposite sides of the room there are these weird-shaped desk…. things. They work fine, and I can set up a machine on either side and store stuff on the weird middle angle! The lack of drawers means that I’m gonna have to keep that space organized or it’ll just avalanche out of there.
I’m also looking for more of those sewing stools like the one in that photo; ideally one for each spot where I’ll normally sit. That way I don’t have to move that one around (since it is full of shit) and I’ll have some extra storage that is also practical!

The weird desk on the other side is going to be crafting space! I’m gonna set up some shelves to hold things like paint, adhesives, etc. It’s also going to work opposite the sewing desk, I’m gonna store stuff under the side wings and sit in the center diagonal part because the shelves underneath are set back a bit so my knees will fit under there.

This monstrosity is set up along the wall with the sewing desk. Yes the fabric is all color-sorted. I’ve been wanting to do that forEVER and I finally have room. This doesn’t include fleece or the prints I use to make my ties because I have too many so they all live in totes elsewhere.

I also sorted all of my buttons and other closures into this fun drawer-storage thing! It only took, like, 4 hours X_X

The last thing in the crafting room is this large white storage cabinet. Right now it’s housing a bunch of aror bits, props, and other random cosplay bits. My cosplay closet is a good bit smaller than the one I had at our old house so I had to find somewhere new to put all this junk.

Speaking of which, here’s the overcrowded closet! Not much to say here except good god I have so many cosplays XD

So, that’s the new setup! I’m super excited to start using it more regularly now that we’re more moved in and I have some time to work on projects again.