I'm planning on trying to become more present on social media with blogging here and vlogging via YouTube. In order to do that, I've constructed a plan (along with the help of my bestie, Kat from Katastrophic Kosplay).
My goal is to post at least ONE video a month on a various topic, whether that's a convention vlog, how-to, costume breakdown, tutorial, or something else. I also am planning on having at least one lengthy vlog update here a month with details on my latest cosplay project. Bi-weekly, I will start a Feature Friday, in which I will interview some of my favorite cosplayers - I will post those interviews here with links from my various social media outlets. Overall, I want to build Maiacat Cosplay as a brand and put my name (or well, my cosplay name) out there! Be on the lookout for a lot more updates from me here and on social media (Instagram and Facebook, first and foremost)! >^.^<
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It's been too long since my last blog post - about a month. Sorry for that. Between working, building, and getting really sick - I haven't really been on my computer much to update things! In short, I took a little hiatus from my Moltres build (it's almost done, I just have to make the thigh pieces and bracers before painting everything) to work on my Gijinka Haunter.
Holy guacamole - not to toot my own horn, but it looks SO FREAKIN' GOOD. It's my largest armor build to date and the one I am the most proud of.. plus it's PURPLE. PURPLE. ~~t-minus 119 days until Katsucon 2018~~
shiny-side-up, scribble on it with the color of sharpie you want your gems to be. After doing this, you use the super clear hot glue and make hot glue dots over the colored area. I was skeptical at first, but the hot glue will settle so you don't have pieces jutting out in weird places. Once it dries, you just cut it out and BOOM! - gems. Honestly, I love doing this so our Pokémon-Jedi will probably have a lot of them.
I love doing original characters because it lets me be as creative as I wish with the designs. I suppose that's the artist in me. HOWEVER, with creative freedom comes the constant anxiety that you could've designed something better than you originally had. Man, am I finding myself anxietied (because that's a word now, I declare it) over this Moltres-Jedi mashup. I decided to scrap the entire armor build that I ALREADY did because it was too bulky. I'll for sure use it in the future for another cosplay and I plan on recycling some of my feather pieces into both Zapdos and Artincuno, SO IT'S ALL GOOD. I wanted to make the armor part of the cosplay thinner, more feminine, and streamlined. I started with the shoes - and actually ended up doing them twice before I was happy with the design. I only have one done right now. Hahah. I currently have that and the headpiece done - ready to prime and paint - and the cloak pretty much finished, aside from a few details and weathering. Does anyone else deal with constantly wanting to change their designs?!?!I seriously have anxiety attacks over these things and I don't know why. I'll sit and obsess about pieces until my stomach hurts and my heart races, and then I have to change it. I have a hard time like the decisions I make and I'm constantly seeking validation for my work. I don't like that. I'd like to be confident in my abilities... You see, I'm having this problem now with the headpiece. I think it looks to Native American.. and I'm sure there's no way to tell until I have it done and secured and I'm wearing it for a bit. I'll probably end up changing it.. it's starting to give me an attack. Things in red haven't been started, things in purple have been started, and things in green are done.
I was a cosplay guest, contest judge, and Q&A master at cosplay repair all weekend. I was actually contacted as a potential vendor, but I don’t have anything to sell, so I asked about being a cosplay guest and BOOM! there I was. I invited my friends Kat and Sam along for the trip, and I’m really really happy that they decided to come along because we had SO much fun. It was really easy to vlog with three people, and we ended up getting HOURS of footage that we now have to sift through… oh, and its spread over five different devices (three phones and two cameras). We also made it our mission to do our first CMV (cosplay music video) to showcase the amazing cosplayers that attended ComiCon Erie. Doing the CMV really helped us to network with other cosplayers and make new friends (even if it were just for the weekend). We hope to get the CMV put together and uploaded as soon as possible so that we can share it with the awesome folks at ComiCon Erie and (hopefully) get even more cosplayers to come out for their show next year. For its first year, ComiCon Erie did a really good job. It had the right balance of all the fandoms – comics, tabletop gaming, sci-fi, anime – and the dealer’s room/artist alley was a pretty decent size. We were scared because we didn’t know what to expect with the convention and hoped it would be more like Tekko and less like Steel City Con. We were pleasantly surprised. There were things to do and people to see and food to eat – that’s a big one that a lot of cons fail to address, I think. The availability of food was nice, even if it was concession items – and they were cheap! We lived off of pretzel sticks (which we called bread dicks because of Sam) all weekend and they were delicious. SO! Here’s my recap of my ComiCon Erie weekend. Day Zero Travel day! We decided to leave on Thursday after work and travel up towards Erie to stay Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. The plan was to leave around 5 pm because I worked until 4 pm, but that didn’t happen because Kat got stuck in like three major traffic jams and a 50 minute trip took her about 2 hours.. and then we needed to go to Walmart for supplies, so we didn’t end up leaving my house until around 7 pm. Oops. We traveled west to grab Sam before heading north to Erie. Imagine cramming three people into a small car.. each person with at least two big bags of things.. some of us (me in particular) with four or more bags.. plus bags of food and prop weapons/armor. Yeah. It wasn’t fun. We ended up getting to our hotel/bed and breakfast around midnight or 1 am and literally THIRTY SECONDS after getting out of the car, the entertainment started. You see, lightsabers are like bug lights and drunk people are like mosquitoes and when you accidentally turn on a lightsaber in the darkness where there are bars around, you attract drunk people. Two guys approached the car and one of the guys (the drunker of the two) stopped and stood like two feet away from me. I asked if he needed anything and he said he was just waiting for a friend. Okay. We gather what we had - which was like three bags, three lightsabers, and a big sniper rifle, and headed into the lobby of the hotel. I made sure to close all the doors/trunk and lock my car. Inside the lobby, I watched the drunker of the two men walk to my driver-side door and try to open it, so I went back out onto the steps and kindly asked him to walk away from my car. He immediately got defensive and started walk-running down the middle of the road as he yelled nonsensically. The other guy hung around and ended up standing about two feet from my driver-side door. I asked him to leave because he was making me uncomfortable and he just kept saying that he wasn’t doing anything and even said “What are you going to do, shoot me?” to which I replied with a “No, but I’m going to call the police.” Thankfully, a campus cop was driving by and I flagged him down. He kept the drunk guy busy with conversation while we finished unloading the car and eventually got him to leave.
After the con was over, we went back to the hotel, went to the McDonald’s across the parking lot for dinner, and then got ready for the cosplay afterparty. It was a lot of fun - Bourbon Barrel (where it was held) was really nice, though no one was dancing and the DJ was playing some good music, so Sam, Kat, and I started dancing and, sure enough, soon we had several people on the dance floor. When we got back to our room, we concrunched a little bit because I had to add elastic to my leg armor and Kat had to fix up her Ursula, which she didn’t end up doing because Sam and I convinced her to be a Sith with us, to which she agreed. We kind of pieced together a costume out of random pieces that we had, and it ended up looking really great!
Sam was always the first person asleep and always the first person to complain about being tired the whole weekend. What a baby!
Be on the lookout for the numerous vlogs that we accumulated over the weekend! I will be posting them here and on social media when they are done.Originally, I was going to do Sora on Friday, Sinon on Saturday, and Umaru on Sunday. Over the last couple of days, that lineup has changed and changed again. I've settled on four cosplays for three days: Sith, Sinon, Umaru, and Casual D.Va. I may to Sinon on Friday and Sith on Saturday. It's still in the air and I probably won't decide until the drive up to Erie. One of the driving factors of this change in lineup is the fact that I will be part of a television interview on Saturday morning and I have to be there at 8:30 am. I'm not a morning person. Especially during the weekend. So. I decided that I would pick a super casual and quick/easy to get into cosplay to wear for Saturday morning. Now, those two options are Umaru and Casual D.Va. I haven't decided which one will be my Saturday morning cosplay and which one will be my Sunday cosplay. I'm almost leaning towards Umaru for Saturday and D.Va for Sunday because the cosplay contest (that I am a judge of) is on Sunday and I kind of want to wear a cosplay that I at least crafted a little bit of. Speaking of. Silly me.
I thought I was done. I had a cute hoodie. I had the headset. Then my husband chirped up and mentioned that I should do the gun, too. I have never made a gun before, so.. you know.. why not try to build one with four days until a convention.. and for a casual cosplay? SURE!
done before ComiCon Erie, I'm not going to sweat it. I have a Chi plush that I got at Otakon that I can use in it's place and do a Super Casual D.Va with Kitty cosplay instead... and then I'll have the gun for later cosplay use. The goal is, as I've said, to get it done and ready to paint by the end of the day Monday or mid-Tuesday. I think I can do it.
Pray for me. That all being said and done, I am SUPER DUPER excited to spend the weekend with my best friend, Kathy, from Katastrophic Kreations - especially during the 4-ish hour road trip to pick up Sam. Good thing he lives on the way to Erie! We are going to have so much fun. We plan on vlogging (even though I still haven't finished my last Otakon vlog - oops), taking lots of pictures with Kathy's nice camera, and I want to try to do a CMV of the cosplay I see! All of this on top of interviews, contractual obligations, and judging the contest. Busy, busy week for us!! I finished my obi - though I'm afraid that it may be TOO orange. I don't want to look silly. :( I have the leg pieces plastidipped and the first coat of silver spray paint is applied. I also plastidipped the shoulder, arm pieces, and the belt. The arm pieces have the first coat of silver spray paint, too. I officially have one boot done! Well.. made. I struggled for a few weeks to find the right boots for this cosplay. I had a pair of knee-high boots, but they made it awkward to put the leg armor on with and I didn't want to worry about that. Finally, I found a cute pair for under $20 (my goal) at Walmart. I'm happy. I snatched them up and started on the boot armor! It's made of five separate foam pieces, a piece of craft foam, and googly eyes. I still need to seal the section on the toe where the foam comes together to hide the seam before I plastidip AND make the other boot. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it all looks together - the boot and the leg piece. The only other pieces of armor I need to make are the gloves and the headpiece (I'm still deciding on whether or not to do upper arm cuffs), then I can worry about the tabards and the dress portion of the cosplay. With the wig styled, the cosplay will be done! THEN - I get to do it all again! TWICE! Woo! Wish me luck. My fingers will be crossed for my success! Be on the lookout for more updates as I make them. Things in red haven't been started, things in purple have been started, and things in green are done.
Four State Comic Con took place at Hager Hall in Hagerstown, Maryland on September 9-10th. I was invited by Mr. Downs Cosplay to help officiate the cosplay contest and take part in a panel with Sharon Rose Cosplay, and I was all-too-happy to help!
On Sunday, I came back in as Sinon for our panel. Granted, I wasn't planning on cosplaying after Saturday because I was tired.. but my husband said to me: "You're doing a panel, shouldn't you cosplay?" and I begrudgingly pulled on Sinon and drove myself the 30 minutes to the con from my house (which was nice). Our panel was called: Cosplay, It's About Everyone, Not Just Me! We talked about how we, as cosplayers, can support one another and foster a positive environment for new and veteran cosplayers. It was nice to speak to people and share ideas with Mr. Downs and Sharon Rose. It was my first time doing a panel. I had fun! I'm used to being in front of people, so I wasn't too nervous about that - plus I wasn't alone. Everyone seemed super receptive and had experiences to share, as well! I think the best part of this convention was making new friends! I really had a chance to speak to some people that I only had slight exposure to, and would like to think that new friendships have begun to blossom - which I"m super excited about because the are amazing cosplayers whom I can learn so much from! The next Four State Comic Con is on March 24-25, which is two days after my birthday! I'll be there with Mr. Downs again!I have been spending the last week building the major armor pieces for my Moltres Jedi. It has been painless and fun to build.. because, to me, it's easy and something I enjoy. All I really have left to build armor-wise are the boots and gloves, but I need to find boots to wear and I need to make the gloves before I can make the armor. I'm not too worried about it, though, because I can whip armor out with little-to-no problem.
Tonight, I realized that the sewing portion of the cosplay (which I thought would be pretty simple because it's just a dress and some tabards) was going to be hell. I think it is due to the type of fabric I opted for - 60% polyester, 40% cotton. I chose this fabric because it's stretchy and I was looking for something comfortable. I went to create the tabards for the jedi robes out of a 100% polyester fabric, but when I tried to sew my seams, the fabric kept getting sucked down into the machine via the needle and clogging up the entire thing. This happened three times before I finally gave up in a fit of rage. I took some time to calm down before researching how to sew stretchy fabrics - which, I know, I should've done first. You live and you learn. I think I decided that I won't use the stretchy fabric for the tabards, but for the belt and opt for a different type of fabric for the tabards. Yay, another trip to Joann's! I'm going to check and see if I have a ball-point needle for the stretchy fabric and try to make the belt tomorrow. It's just a rectangle, so it shouldn't be too hard. Knowing me, though, I'll mess it up somehow. Fingers crossed that I can do it. I need to sew a dress, a belt, two tabards, and two gloves. Positive affirmations, everyone. I've been trying to work little-by-little each night on this cosplay. I do best when I work off of lists, so for my own sanity, I'm going to do what I did for Sinon and keep a colored list of updates as I get this done. Of course, I have to do THREE of them, starting with mine. Things in red haven't been started, things in purple have been started, and things in green are done.
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AuthorMaiacat Cosplay Archives
July 2018
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