Yamuriaha the Sea Witch!

Every time I see I am tagged on Facebook there is always a dread for what it may be. Especially when it is someone I don't talk to as much as I should. When I saw my friend who is in the Caribbean of course red flags went up. Turns out he just wanted a cosplay group for a manga called Magi. (The anime to this is now available on Crunchyroll here: http://www.crunchyroll.com/magi ) When I saw the character I thought to myself "Of course I am tagged as the one with the huge boobs." I then found out that Johnny had been tagged too. The characters we were tagged as supposedly have thing going on. I was a little more inclined to participate when I found that out. Since I had no plans for ALA at the time, and had not seen this guy in a long time, I decided why not?
Picture we were tagged in....

I looked at the character further and decided that it really was not too bad since it was mostly a robe and witch hat. Even though I had never made a witch had before, I just so happened to have have a pattern I had been wanting to use. From there everything on this costume seemed to just fall into place. The shells on her head I decided to outsource to the lovely Vensy (https://www.facebook.com/#!/VensyCosplay), who had a mold for them since she had made a pair for someone else already (convenient!). Randomly there was a costume shop going out of business and I managed to score a plastic sea shell bra for stupid cheap. All we did to the shells was spray them pink and glue them onto a bra that I was going to toss soon anyway. As for the fabric bits we got really lucky by scoring some nice linen from the LA Fashion district for $2.50 a yard. We bought 10 yards of it since I was going making 2 costumes (Mine and Johnny's).

So for the most part this costume came together fairly easily. The only real annoying thing on this costume was the TRIM! That stuff was the biggest pain in the butt! Because there were 3 of us that needed the same trim we had to make it all the same way. Johnny, Susan and I were sweat shopping on just the trim for at least a week. We cut ribbon into slivers, which we then fray checked both ends of, and then glued down on to a green fabric we had already cut into stripes. This took a long time. Thankfully Susan did hers, Johnny did his, which left me to do mine. After Johnny had his glued down and I had mine done I then went and actually sewed down the entire thing! I got very good at turning fabric in the sewing machine.



Even though we chose an annoying way to make this trim we ended up with a uniform trim among all 3 of us which is what we were trying to achieve. The over all effect was worth it. It was so much work just to make the trim I almost didn't want to sew it onto the actual costume. I love it when costumes come together in away one does not expect them to. I had a really good time working as a team on these costumes. I hope we can choose another project where we can do group work again soon!

Information on the staff can be found on Johnny's blog here: http://junkerscosplay.blogspot.com/2013/02/yamuraiha-magi-ala-2013.html

Ycy Susan, Sushi Monster, and I

Junkers Cosplay and myself

It'll be easy they said....

I often have a hard time deciding what to make for each convention. When it comes to the things I want to make, I usually have no idea where to start, they are fairly obscure, or I want a group. This makes it difficult to choose. Johnny seems to be able to put his mind to things and make it happen which is part of why I tend to just go along with whatever he is making. This Anime Los Angeles was no different. He kept telling me about how he had a big group for the show Kuroko no Baskue and how easy it was going to be. So I decided to go a long with it because everyone was telling me it would be easy.


Well for all the guys it was! They just bought the uniform and wig from Tabao (http://www.taobao.com/index_global.php) and called it a day. They didn't even do the ordering. Our friend Susan did it for them because she can read Chinese! Susan was also part of the group and the girl she chose was fairly simple in design as well. She has just a jacket, button up shirt, and a pleated skirt. Susan works very fast and cranked out the skirt like it was nothing and got super lucky and found the perfect jacket, on sale no less!

I, on the other hand, had the hardest time with this costume! Well I mean it wasn't really hard it was just a nuisance. I was thinking "Oh I will just go buy a blue sweater and add a collar, no big deal." Boy was I wrong! I searched up and down for a plain blue sweater. Nothing! Anywhere! The malls, Wal-Mart, Target, Ross, Burlington, TJ-Maxx, Marshalls, multiple thrift stores, nowhere! It was winter too, so one would think they would have something, somewhere. NOPE.

I settled and bought a white sweater, and after failing to dye it blue, I came to the conclusion I was just going to have to make a sweater to attach a collar to. So off to Yardage Town I went! (http://www.yardagetown.com/) I got a nice sweater type fabric and pulled out a hoodie pattern from my stash of patterns and got started! Instead of cutting two for the front I just cut it on a fold, made it about an inch bigger all around, a few inches longer, and didn't include the hood. It turned out beautiful! I am so happy with how it turned out. In fact it was so perfect I was now faced with a new dilemma...how can I add a collar to this sweater when it is looks so good!?

SO I decided to make a shirt to attach the collar to. >_<  I pulled out the same shirt I pattern all my shirts off of (I seam ripped one of my favorite shirts that had a hole in it. It says "Bite Me" and has the pic of bat on it :) I love bats!) and looked through my fabric stash. I knew I had to have something left over to make a shirt out of. And sure enough, I had some white spandex just lying around, so I used that. It was super soft and had a tee-shirt feel to it so it worked perfectly. I now had the perfect shirt to accompany the perfect sweater!



To make the collar I used this (http://cosplaybrain.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/sailor-collar-tutorial/) tutorial on how to make a sailor collar which I also used for my Sailor Umbreon (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=100347813396036&set=a.100339923396825.234.100326770064807&type=3&theater).

I then attached it to the shirt and Ta Da! The top of this costume was done! *phew*
I also made the skirt. Did I mention I hate pleating? It is such a pain and I can never seem to get them even. Pleats are just tedious more than anything. I suppose that is a post for another day though. I wanted to highlight the top of this costume since that is less obvious and but took the most effort.

So here is the final product! With and without sweater! *Sigh* No one will ever know I made everything I am wearing. ;_; Oh well. I am happy with this costume and that is what matters. I got some nice photos of it with the sweater at ALA, now to get a shoot with out the sweater. :)

My adventures painting myself green.

I have been getting asked how I managed to get myself green for my Ame-Comi Jade costume a lot, so instead of explaining it over and over again I decided to take the time to do a write up about it.

As soon as I saw the figure I just knew I had to cosplay it. But the main problem I had was how I would get myself green. I had never done anything like that before. After doing some research I kept hearing about this method of body paint called PAX. My good friend Kiwi5Frog (https://www.facebook.com/Kiwi5FrogCosplay) ended up using this method for her Killer Frost costume and I thought she looked really nice. She had nothing but positive feed back on the method and result so I decided I should look into this method. Upon further research, and long talks about it with Kiwi5, I found out PAX is a mixture of Pros Aide (a medical grade prosthetic adhesive) and a water based paint (most commonly acrylic) with a ratio of about 1 to 1. Seems easy enough right? So I decided to give it a shot!

I set off to gather my materials. I went where Kiwi5 had gotten her supplies, the Costume Shoppe (http://thecostumeshop.net/). I like this store but you really have to know what you are looking for since everything is neatly packed away. When I went they were fresh out of pros aide! So after explaining to the owner of the shop what I was wanting to do she recommended that I use Ben Nye prosthetic adhesive because it is slightly less tacky and dries faster then pros aide. This sounded much more appealing so I went with this recommendation.

I am glad that I had friends do this before because I would have missed a few key steps when applying the mixture. First off you have to apply it in small patches. This is because when it drys it begins to stick to you. this is what you want it to do, however this means it does not spread very well. So you apply a small patch, wait for it to dry, which can be aided by a hair dryer, and then move on and repeat. It does take a couple layers to get even coverage. It took me 2 layers to get my green streak free. I don't think that is too bad.

The other thing I would have missed, and this is important for this costume, is after a small patch is dry you apply baby powder! Why? Because you are using an adhesive, it will begin to stick to itself! It is especially important to do this anywhere it will be touching itself for example the crook of your arm, the back of your leg where it bends, your inner leg/thigh. For me, with this costume, the most important place to do this was my cleavage! XD If I had not applied a crap ton of baby powder to my cleavage I would have had a uniboob due to it sticking to itself. The baby powder helps to get rid of some of that tacky residue the adhesive leaves.

Because you are essenctially covering yourself in a glue it sticks to your skin! This is the reason I like this method because that means it does not come off on casual contact. I had people coming up to me all day wanting to huge me but were afraid to so I would put my arm out for them to touch and they were always amazed by how it did not come off. When trying to get it off the areas that it tended to stay the most were around my ankles and the crook of my arm. Because of this I decided it would not be a good idea to use on my face. I would suggest finding a face paint that matches your paint of choice. There several reasons for this, one you want your body to be able to breathe and the mixture hard is to get off. The face paint just makes things easier. I used a Ben Nye cream on my face (http://www.stagemakeuponline.com/02-CL/Creme-Color-Liners-Ben-Nye.html). I also did not paint my hands. I made gloves and tried to match the color of the fabric as much as I could. Kiwi5 said that when she did it cracked there the most because you move and use your hands.

As far as time to apply goes, it took me 3 hours to completely suit up at Comic-con 2012. I was in this costume from around 12:30 pm to 9 pm. It showed a little bit of wear and was beginning to peel but for the most part it stayed really well. I did have a friend help me get those hard to reach places like the back of my arms and legs and my back. Other then that I was able to get the rest of it.

My other note is I would recommend the Ben Nye over Pros Aide. When I first wore this costume at Anime Vegas 2011, I had a friend who made the Poison Ivy Ame-Comi, which is also fully green, and when we were painting her it took about twice as long to dry, it didn't spread as evenly, it was tackier, we had to apply more baby powder, it took an extra layer, and it took a lot more work to get off. I finished before her so I helped her finish up by painting her back. A lot of that time was spent standing there drying her back with a blow dryer.

BY THE WAY!!!......this method does not rub off! I did not leave any green on that bed! :)

I would say the draw backs to doing this method are it takes a long time, and getting it off! Kiwi5 found that the best way to get it off is actually with tape. Like the wide clear tape. I just cut it into strips and treated it like I was waxing. This not the most pleasant way but I found it was the most effective way. Soap did not help much unless you wanted scrub off your skin with it and the actual remover for the prosthetic adhesive just left me with a chemical burn (maybe because of the paint?). Also be prepared to make a mess of the bathroom when trying to get this off. It will come off in flakes. I also found that you should clean the shower as soon as you are done because if you leave it the flakes dry and because it is an adhesive they then stick to the shower making it even more of a pain.

I would say that even with the pain it caused I would paint myself using this method again. It is cheap and the materials are easy to come by which makes matching colors fairly easy. It is a pain in the butt and makes wearing this costume annoying but I feel the end result is totally worth it. I don't think it is much worse then putting on a ton of make-up and doing your hair. My thought is don't knock it till you try it!

For the build of the head phones check out Junker's Cosplay's blog here: http://junkerscosplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/ame-comi-jade-sdcc-2012.html

Testing...testing...1, 2, 3....

It is about time I got myself in gear and created a cospaly blog....so here it is! Nothing much to it yet but hopefully soon it will be flourishing with posts about my cosplay shenanigans! Stay tuned as I write up some work in progress blogs and convention reviews!

In the mean time if you have not done so already check out my facebook here- https://www.facebook.com/spacepizzacosplay

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