Gotta keep that sword sharp.
Finally got out to take Arya pics, was planning to make obligatory winter is coming joke, but looks like winter is already here. 
photo credit: shadowgalena 
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Well after two and a half years I finally finished my Arya Stark cosplay.
Definitely the most challenging one so far, in terms of the range of skills needed to complete this. 
Everything in this cosplay was made by me, with the exception of the pants, boots, undershirt, and gloves. 
The cloak is fabric that I wove myself and lined with fur. 
The “gambeson” (or jacket, I know it’s way to short to be a proper gambeson) was an altered pattern, with the pieces cut out of a thrifted leather jacket, which were then quilted and sewn together and lined. 
Between the cloak and the jacket I set a total of 70 grommets. 
The fabric for the skirt I had custom printed with a design that I created to mimic the fabric in the show, and then those pieces were also quilted and sewn together.
The belt is leather that I tooled, dyed, and assembled myself.
The catspaw dagger and needle I made out of eva foam, and their sheaths from vinyl.
May eventually do some more thorough write ups on the whole process, but for now I’m just going to enjoy the fact that it’s finally finished 😊

Slippin on posting the content from my insta 😬

Just trying to put out more Black Cat content

my dumb ass couldn't keep my sword still

So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years.  These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it.  It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face.  Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing.  And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc.  NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres.  What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female.  I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one.  They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO.  If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone.  Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered.   I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.  

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all.  I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole.  That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three.  And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming.  People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries.  And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.  

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart.  This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.  

(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)  

Jumping on the #shepropchallenge bandwagon 10 days late don't mind me.

Day 4: most difficult cosplay to make.

My nightingale armor so far has been the most challenging.

I used a pepakura file (link can be found in my bio) and printed it out, cut out all the pieces, traced and cut out all the pieces on foam, then taped them together and then hot glued them. Then I backed everything with fabric and pva glue, did the hot glue detailing, and then sealed and finished.

There were about 114 foam pieces all together that had to be assembled. All the tracing, assembly, and finishing I did a week before a con because I hate myself 😅 because of that I barely have any progress photos whoops.

This will probably change once I finish my Arya Stark cosplay, which is more complex with all the different parts going on.

Tfw you can't move in your armor so you can only do limited standing poses.

get rekt

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Regret not spending more time when I made this because I can barely move in it but that's how you learn I guess.

was actually in the middle of speaking when this was taken

fighting stance

The Spring Maiden

completely forgot I haven’t posted any of my new Train pics

nap time

A.W.

Inktober Day 9 - Swing

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hhhhhhhh he foot too big for he gotdamn him

Inktober Day 8 - Frail (click for better quality) 
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couldn’t decide if i liked it better with or without the gold so here’s both (and its permanently gold now anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Inktober Day 1(/2) - Ring