Blizzcon Cosplay!

Well, Blizzcon 2009 was absolutely amazing. It's completely different from an anime con, and was twice as big as the biggest con I've been to!

I'm just going to focus on cosplay in this particular post, though as you might imagine, I have a lot to say about the rest of the con, as well. Going there was an absolute dream.

I have to admit, it was very difficult seeing all of the amazing costumes, because as I've mentioned many times before, I want to do WoW cosplay very badly. However, I had several very nice conversations with some of the people in the amazing costumes, so I picked up some good tips for when I start on mine! I mostly asked about armour making, as I've heard of so many ways to do it. Wonderflex was involved on everyone I spoke to (except one person, whose friends made his armour out of REAL LEATHER. Crap.), as I assumed, but the rest was varied.

The priest (first photo) used Model Magic on top of his armor, much to my noticeable surprise. I have heard of people making things with it, but it has some issues... it shrinks a lot, for one, and can be dented during various stages. He wasn't surprised at me being skeptical, so he went on to explain that it works very well and is nice and lightweight, you just have to remember to account for the shrinking when making the pieces. I'm now confident that if I do experiments to see how much it shrinks in different situations, I could form some pretty intricate pieces with it.

A girl dressed as a... which doctor? Shaman? From Diablo 3 told me that most of her stuff was made out of Sculpey, which surprised me even more than the Model Magic guy. Almost as if reading my mind, she said that it of course is very fragile, and she has to be extremely careful not to break it. She also used the much talked about Wonderflex/Friendly Plastic combo. She also used Bondo for a few things, and I asked her how easy it was to work with. She said don't use it on things that bend, which I pretty much figured. She also had a very cool system of LED lights embedded into cast resin jewels all over her armor. She explained that all of the wires were hidden in the cloth, and they were all powered by D batteries disguised in a scroll case! That was a great idea. I regret not taking a photo of her, but she was in the costume contest, so I'm sure there are many photos of her on the internet.

Kael'thas (second photo) is the guy who was wearing a costume made by two friends; one did the armor, the other the sewing. The armor was all hand-tooled leather, and was very impressive. Leather working is an in-game skill I have that I've always wanted to learn to do in real life. Hopefully some day I will. Anyway, he was very nice, and enjoyed doing Kael'thas's voice, which was fun.

I didn't get to talk to the Draenei Shaman (third photo) about his armor, but I thought it looked very cool. The LEDs gave a nice effect because the whole con was so dark. I wasn't so sure about the scale of his mace, but everything looked really great. You could tell he spent a great deal of time on it. I was also just happy to see a draenei male! More beard tentacles next time, man. Beard tentacles.

The costume contest was great fun to watch. I didn't have good seats, so I have no photos from it. It should be easy to find on the internet. The girl who won had a very intricate and amazing costume and, almost as importantly, was in character all the time! I saw her several times throughout the con, including on stage, and she was always acting her part. Congrats to her for all of her efforts.

Overall, there weren't many people walking around on the floor in costume, and I could see why. Most of the costumes were big and bulky, and the convention was completely packed and difficult enough to navigate in normal clothes. But... I'm going to try to do it anyway! Here's hoping I can get tickets next year.

Slow progress...

Well, I did get SOME things done over the holiday. The sword is about 1/3 of the way done. I don't have any photos yet, but I should have some when the process is a bit further along. It's just as well, so that you can see where it's all going.

After much planning and discussion, the original plan was sort of thrown out, or at least modified. No more "sandwich". Now, the main part of the handle has been made out of a baseball bat, and the wings were cut out of MDF (medium density fiberboard; available at any home improvement place). I put wooden dowels into the foam for the blade for structure and support, and the bottom end of the dowel will be put through the handle several inches.

The next steps are to carve and cover the blade, and dremel the design into the wing section. I will do those some time in the next several weeks, when I have access to the tools and space at home again.

I also spent about 2 hours simply detangling the wig. What an annoying process. When I next work on the sword, I'll work on the styling of the wig more as well. I got a curling iron with adjustable temperature which I'm hoping will help solve the problems I've been having with it.

In Gwendolyn and general construction news, I FINALLY got a shipment of Wonderflex in the mail, and will be playing with it this weekend with my heatgun. I'll also be experimenting with various combinations of craft foam, polystyrene, hot glue, and the heat gun to see what comes from it. I'll post my results next week.

If you are looking for Wonderflex, I got mine from Mainstage Theatre Supply, where I got a full sheet for around $30 shipped, MUCH cheaper than cosplaysupply.com's $70ish dollar charge for a sheet. (EDIT: I have reason to suspect that Mainstage, while nice people, do not have a website that is as secure as it should be for credit cards. Please use caution when using your card over the internet. I recommend trying to phone in your order and/or paying with a different method.) I will probably still end up ordering Friendly Plastic from them, though, unless I find it somewhere else. I'm thinking about ordering some Fosshape as well... but more on that another time.

More Wonderflex and Feathers

So,
I tried to place an order for some Wonderflex and Friendly Plastic via cosplaysupplies.com, as I had mentioned in a previous post. Their methods are a little strange over there and they confirm your order via email before letting you actually place it. The reply to my order was that they were "having some trouble with their Wonderflex supplier" and therefore I can't place an order with them at this time.

All of this ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it were, because I have found other sources of Wonderflex that are far less expensive than cosplaysupplies.com.

Cosworx has Wonderflex, but their supply is apparently out at the moment. But when it's in, it sells for $30 for a big sheet, which is much less expensive than cosplaysupplies.com. I have also found a theatre supply company that sells it. I'm going to try to buy from one of these two places.

I would like to say that I still think cosplaysupplies.com is a great site and has a lot to offer, especially hard to find things like shoe-making supplies. I just won't be buying my Wonderflex from them, is all. Unless these other things fall through.

I have been doing a lot of research for supply resources, namely for plastics, armour, and feathers. I will need a lot of feathers for my Gwendolyn costume, and I was able to find a promising website or two. At Rainbow Feathers, they will custom dye feathers for you. This seems to be the way to go for this project. Their prices also seem pretty reasonable. I found a couple of other feather websites, but other than Rainbow, the only other one that seemed worth looking into was Lamplight Feathers. They seem to have a bunch of different items at a decent price.

Wonderflex and Friendly Plastic

I've been reading up on this newfangled Wonderflex and its friend Friendly Plastic.
I've been searching for something to make, at the very least, the calf armour for Gwendolyn, and potentially any and all armour for Oswald, if my boyfriend decides to go as him. Both are from Odin Sphere:

After reading the FAQs and tutorials for using Wonderflex and Friendly Plastic, I feel confident enough that this could be a good solution for making armour and maybe even weapons. I am going to order a small sheet of Wonderflex and a small container of Friendly Plastic to experiment with.
I am also going to pick up some Bondo, because (1) I have never used it before, heard some mixed opinions, and want to see what it can do, and (2) I wouldn't use gesso as suggested in the Wonderflex FAQ because there is no way that will not come off in chunks.

Once I get the materials and play around with them, I'll post my results with photos.

Links:

Wonderflex, Fosshape, and Friendly Plastic Purchase Page
Wonderflex and Friendly Plastic Tutorial/FAQ
Wonderflex FAQ