Animania One Piece cosplay plans

[rallamajoop]

A couple of months back we caught up with Kenny, one of our cosplayer friends from interstate who was over in Perth on business for a few days. Since Kenny's heavily involved in the running of Animania, one of several eastern states anime cons, he took the opportunity to plug the upcoming Sydney Animania to my sister and I. The conversation went something like this:

Kenny (for full effect you should read all his lines in a moderately strong French accent): You guys should really come to Animania this year.
Me: Oh, well, we're probably going to be doing at least one interstate con this year but we don't really know which one yet... *hedgehedgehedge*
Him: Our special guest this year is Akemi Okamura - she voice acts Nami from One Piece.
Me: !!!! LISA, CANCEL EVERYTHING, WE'RE GOING TO ANIMANIA!

And that is how we decided hey, why not check out Animania this year? *cough*

As per usual she'll be running a table selling art prints and whatnot, and we'll both be cosplaying. She's cosplayed Robin before and is making her Thriller Bark outfit for the occasion. As for me, tentative plans to put together a Nami costume for Waicon at the end of the year have been brought forward a few months. I've still got a lot to finish and there have now been bits of clima tact taking over the dining room table for weeks, but it's all going Pretty Okay so far.

I'm making this outfit, from the early Thriller Bark episodes.





Probably not one of her better remembered outfits, but it means I get to wear shorts instead of a short skirt, and it shows off her tattoo nicely, and I do like the boots.

To-do list:

White top: Almost done! JFC that red-and-yellow trim gave me more trouble than it was worth, but I'm down to finishing touches.
Purple shorts: Almost done! Just need to sew on some hooks and trim some threads.
Brown boots: Bought, still to be modded.
Wig: Has arrived, still needs styling.
Brown contacts: On order
Yellow belt: On order
Patterned handkercheif: To be made using all those handy silk-painting techniques we learnt doing Okami, not started yet.
Log pose: To be made from craft foam and a clear Christmas Bauble, not started yet.
Necklace: Still hunting for some appropriate beads, hoping to buy them locally.
Gold earings+bangle: Still to be bought.
Tattoo: Still need to sort out how we're doing this.

The costume is the easy part. Since I am making this outfit for an event where the actual voice actress responsible for Nami is to be in attendance, I feel it is vitally important that I have an amazing recreation of her clima tact staff that will upgrade the whole affair from 'predictable and slightly creepy' to 'indisputably awesome'. It will actually shoot lightning! It will not actually shoot lightning, but if all goes to plan it will at least have one section with flashing LEDs and another that blows bubbles. To this end I have already disassembled one bubble gun and been playing around with addressable LED strips in between sawing up large Christmas baubles and a lot of plastic pipe (which is pretty much business as usual around our play anyway).

Not sure yet quite how much I'll be able to get to work, but I do love making weird props.