zee menace art barf

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Here’s the write-up on how I made my Angel (Borderlands 2) pant-leggings! THEY WERE IN A PAIN IN THE ASS. Let me tell you why.

I used 3 fabrics: grey/silver super spandex, black super spandex and yellow vinyl. The yellow stripe is obviously the vinyl that I heat-and-bonded to the pant legs along the black/grey join seam. The black rectangle pieces are FOAMIES SANDWICHED BETWEEN SUPER SPANDEX. I glued foam between super spandex, cut out holes in the leggings and very carefully zig-zag stitched around the edges—that’s where the parchment paper came in handy. Without the parchment paper, the fabric does not feed properly. I’m sewing on a regular sewing machine so it was more difficult. There were 16 pieces total that I had to very meticulously sew but it was so worth it because I felt that the foam padding gave the costume more “life”. It definitely wouldn’t have looked the same without the foam padding—too flat. I was sitting down in these pants, walking around a lot and none of the seams ripped so I consider this a success :)

AND NOW YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT :D

But if you still have questions you can ask me! I’m doing my Borderlands 2 shoot in 2 weeks so I’ll upload some nice photos of my cosplay soon :D

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05 / 04

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// A positive con story//

The spotlight post-con seems to be on negative experiences these days—internet, you know what I’m talking about—which is a shame because conventions have been and are a huge part of my life and the only time I’ve had a bad experience is when I’ve had to wait 6 hours in the pre-reg line.

So in light of all this negativity I want to share a very positive experience I had at Wondercon this past weekend. I was dressed in my Kotobukiya Bishoujo Invisible Woman cosplay on Saturday, and was surprised that there were a few KIDS that knew my character and wanted a picture with me. There was one in particular that made my heart melt. A little girl with curly brown hair, maybe 6 or 7 years old, walked up to me and just looked at me. I assumed she wanted a picture but she didn’t say anything. Her mom said, “If you want a picture, you need to ask for one.” She crept back to her mom and whispered, “IT’S SUE….” while looking at me, wide-eyed. Her mom repeated that if she wanted a picture she needed to ask me for one. So she mustered up the courage and she posed with me while her mom took the picture.

That moment to me just reminded me of why some of us started cosplaying—because of the fandom and our love of the same characters. It didn’t matter to this girl that I’m obviously not Caucasian and to some people, I’m “less accurate”—whatever— and my cosplay was simple—I was a character she liked and possibly admired.

I think experiences like these should be shared more often, because to me, cosplay has always been about bringing people together through their love of the characters or the craft, in spite of the bad publicity cosplay’s been getting lately.

04 / 04

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