Cosplay is crafting too

Hi everyone! For those of you that know me, it will come as no surprise to you that I like to cosplay, for those of you that don't, I want to introduce you to this unique crafting outlet that appeals to me so much.

I have always been a big fan of books, comics, cartoons, TV shows and movies. What can I say? I love pop-culture. So when I discovered cosplay at my first convention, I fell in love with it. People dress up as their favourite characters and attend conventions where they meet other people dressed up as their favourite characters, you make new friends, you discuss the shows, photographers get to practice on some really fun models and you don't even look like you're a weirdo if you go in costume, because pretty much half the people going are in costume.

My first cosplay was Raven from Teen Titans in 2011. I found a leotard, some really thick tights, a pair of boots, a wig on eBay and some purple fabric and then I was off. I was really absolutely no good at sewing whatsoever back then, so my mum made the cape for me and she helped me with the belt and badges. We pulled it off in time for an event at my local comic book store and I felt really happy when people recognised the character I was portraying.

Since I had so much fun cosplaying my favourite character from one of my favourite superhero cartoons, I wanted to improve it the next year so that I could debut it at an official convention.

This time I made the red and gold jewels from Premo clay and attached them to a gold chain, it didn't work very well since they were heavy and some of them fell off half way through the day, so I had to figure out how to hide the little lumps of clay stuck to the chain from the lenses of peoples' cameras when they asked me for photos. But overall, the costume went down really well and people seemed to like it. Not only that but I had a lot of fun playing Raven for a day at an actual con. I also bought some purple boots and a black turtleneck which I cut up and wore under the leotard as well as making some purple gloves, which made the costume a little more accurate to the show, since Raven has two of the gems on her hands, below purple cuffs. I even had a friend help me cut the wig into a better shape.

I've cosplayed a couple of other characters since but Raven is still the most fun I've had so far. So I've decided to improve her again for MCM expo in October 2013.

I posted this image on my personal Facebook page in my Cosplay Progress photo album and a lot of my cosplaying and nerdy friends seem really excited that I'm going to be doing this one again.

Apparently I really look the part when I cosplay her. But this time, I want to make the whole thing myself.

The leotard, turtleneck and wig are still usable and because they're parts I don't want to replace, since I styled the wig myself anyway and the leotard would be too difficult for a novice like me to make, there's really no point in changing those parts of the costume. I'm happy with them and they look right, so I'll be keeping them.

The things I do want to remake are the belt, brooch, gloves, boots and cape. It's a lot of work to do before October but I've found and bought all the items I need and have already started work on the belt, which I found in a charity shop for less than £2.

Following a tutorial that I found online, I'm making the gold bases for the red gems out of air-drying clay molded around sections of this belt, and then making the gems separately from red Premo before attaching them using a hot glue gun. Before I attach the gems the belt and air-dry clay will be spray-painted gold (and the clay sanded until smooth). I've also made the bases for the brooch and hand gems in the same fashion.

Once the belt is finished I'll be making boot covers for a pair of cheap shoes I found on sale in Tesco for £4, so that they look like Raven's boots.

I'll be making the boot covers from the same fabric as the cape, which I've found a simple pattern for online (made by another cosplayer). The fabric I chose is also much more of a blue purple, which is more accurate to the show. I've found some cut-offs from the turtleneck that I'm going to use to remake the gloves in the right colour and then hopefully everything will look a lot better!

Sorry it was such a long post today, I'm just really excited about cosplaying this character again and there's a lot of craft work that goes into making a cosplay, so I hope it's been interesting for you to learn a little bit about the cosplaying world.

I am by no means a fantastic cosplayer, I barely even make my own cosplays, and there are some incredible people out there who make absolutely amazing costumes just for the sheer fun of it so I hope if you like the idea of cosplaying you'll look it up a bit more because there are some fantastic techniques people use when making their costumes that you could probably use for inspiration in other crafts as well.

Until next time!