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rallamajoopOn to day 2 of Wai-con and the costume that has been the primary reason why I haven't gotten hardly anything else done around here for the last couple of months.
I have wanted to cosplay Aqua basically ever since I first saw her in action in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep trailer at the Tokyo Gameshow in back in 2008, and while her role in the finished product may not have lived up to all expectations there was still plenty to enjoy about it and I am more than a bit in love her character design. Plus, she does a one-handed cartwheel as her dodge move! Clearly this was meant to be. My sister joined me as Terra, and while we weren't expecting to be able to find a Ven to finish off the trio we were both enthusiastic about getting to cosplay BBS.
I could talk here about all the work that went into making the costume (AARGH CORSET! AARGE SHOES! AAARGH ENTIRE-TORSO-SECTION-HAVING-TO-BE-SEWN-TOGETHER!) but I think I should really cut straight to the main event, which came out of that part where it somehow seemed like a good idea for us to have not one but two keyblades. Each.
The canonical compliance of this is a bit debatable – yeah, there's a scene in the secret ending to KHII where you see the BBS heroes finding Sora, Riku and Mickey's keyblades in an old battlefield, but like so much promotional material that's a scene that never got so much as referenced in the finished game, where no-one gets to dual wield and Sora's Keyblade is conspicuously absent. But the handy thing about the Kingdom Key model is that it's one of few from the games that could easily be made light and robust enough to survive being swung around for a combat skit – after all, there's not much point in being able to do a cartwheel holding a keyblade if you don't get to show it off on stage, right?
And let's be honest here – both the skit and the KHII secret endings were mighty convenient as an excuse to get to pose with two keyblades in photos. >D
*ahem*
The finished Kingdom Keys did end up more awkward to swing than we might have hoped – even made entirely out of foam core boards and plastic that giant key shape on the far end of the blade gives them all the fine-tuned balance of a battle axe. < /things Sora never had to deal with >, but we managed okay.
The real story of prop making for these costumes is all the work that went into our official keybledes, the Stormfall and the Ends of the Earth. Both of these are carved out of wood (assorted combinations of MDF, pine and 3 mm ply if you're curious) which is a material we have managed to avoid for most of our cosplay careers thus far and hence have next to no experience working with. In getting these made we are hugely indebted to the help of two people -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drayke_, a long time cosplay friend who introduced us to Patrick, a friend of his who has a pretty damned amazing personal workshop in his cellar and an equally amazing willingness to lend his machinery and expertise to friends with unusual projects in mind.
It almost seems a little redundant at this point to mention that there's this cycle in cosplay that virtually everyone we know goes through to one degree or another: no matter how earnestly you mean to start your next costume early so you don't have to rush to get it done, somehow you always end up going until the last minute, and BBS was no exception. What with one thing and another we weren't able to meet Patrick in person until early January, and by then time was already pretty tight. Terra's keyblade everyone was pretty confident we could get done in time; Aqua's was going to be more trouble. After a couple of sessions of planning, talking material options, calculating angles (and most of the angled pieces were being machine-cut and glued on and all the geometry had to match up) and cutting out the base shape, with only a week left before the con and the rest of my costume still not done, I had to face the fact that I wasn't going to have time to get it finished before the con. Reluctantly, and not without a lot of angst on the subject, I had to call Patrick to let him know.
Patrick responded finishing the keyblade for me himself.
I did not expect this – I was completely prepared to go to the con without it. I really cannot express how grateful I was to him for going to so much work to finish it – and it took him right up until the Sunday morning to get it done.
There was a lot of happy squeeing when I saw the finished product. Patrick still considered it a rush job and felt the finished product looks a bit rough, but in all honesty I think it looks amazing.
Moving on from the keyblades, our skit was based on the Mark of Mastery exam match fought between Terra and Aqua in the first chapter of the game. Unlike the Avatar skit, this one we only got to start rehearsing properly about a week before the con, and looking at the video footage... yeah, it could have used a little more work, but it did get a pretty good reaction from the crowd and a bunch of compliments afterwards so that was pretty gratifying all up. However, the best moment up on stage that day would have to be the cheer we got when Lisa came back on stage carrying our other Keyblades. You know those moments that make all the work worthwhile? This was one of those. :3
We took out the award for Best Group that day, and I would be very surprised if it wasn't the keyblades that did most of that.
As for the rest of the costume, I'm variously more or less pleased with how different parts turned out. The shoes and armour are my favourite parts – both made with glue sealed craft foam, which is more time consuming than coating it with plastic sheeting but gives you a more flexible finish. The plates on the arms are all attached separately so they can move over each other as I bend my elbow, and the whole costume turned out surprisingly comfortable and easy to move in. This is Very Important when your skit requires you to do cartwheels up on stage without anything falling off.
A lot of the rest of the main body of the costume I feel could still use work though – even despite having sewn or tacked everything above the shorts together it still doesn't quite sit the way it really should, and I still need to figure out how to pose in it better. The wig was thoroughly last minute, and grateful as I am to Lisa for all her help in getting the thing styled, it could probably still use some touching up. None of that's too unusual for the first wear of a new costume though, so I'll have another go at it for photoshoots and Supanova later in the year.
The final awesomely unexpected surprise we got shortly before the con was that it just so happened that a friend of a friend was going to be cosplaying Ven on the Sunday, and she didn't have a Terra and an Aqua to join her. There may have been a certain amount of bouncing up and down at this news.
Officially we may not have been part of the same group that day but we grabbed the chance to go take photos together afterwards.
Christie also took out Best Female for her Ven cosplay that day, which should come as no surprise. *g*
Oh yeah - one last picture I ment to post, taken in the change rooms backstage withvelithya when we realised that we had, despite completely unrelated characters, bought the same wig.
Aqua Blue Hair Dye! Now Available At All Good Stylist and Retailers!
I have wanted to cosplay Aqua basically ever since I first saw her in action in the Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep trailer at the Tokyo Gameshow in back in 2008, and while her role in the finished product may not have lived up to all expectations there was still plenty to enjoy about it and I am more than a bit in love her character design. Plus, she does a one-handed cartwheel as her dodge move! Clearly this was meant to be. My sister joined me as Terra, and while we weren't expecting to be able to find a Ven to finish off the trio we were both enthusiastic about getting to cosplay BBS.
I could talk here about all the work that went into making the costume (AARGH CORSET! AARGE SHOES! AAARGH ENTIRE-TORSO-SECTION-HAVING-TO-BE-SEWN-TOGETHER!) but I think I should really cut straight to the main event, which came out of that part where it somehow seemed like a good idea for us to have not one but two keyblades. Each.
The canonical compliance of this is a bit debatable – yeah, there's a scene in the secret ending to KHII where you see the BBS heroes finding Sora, Riku and Mickey's keyblades in an old battlefield, but like so much promotional material that's a scene that never got so much as referenced in the finished game, where no-one gets to dual wield and Sora's Keyblade is conspicuously absent. But the handy thing about the Kingdom Key model is that it's one of few from the games that could easily be made light and robust enough to survive being swung around for a combat skit – after all, there's not much point in being able to do a cartwheel holding a keyblade if you don't get to show it off on stage, right?
And let's be honest here – both the skit and the KHII secret endings were mighty convenient as an excuse to get to pose with two keyblades in photos. >D
*ahem*
The finished Kingdom Keys did end up more awkward to swing than we might have hoped – even made entirely out of foam core boards and plastic that giant key shape on the far end of the blade gives them all the fine-tuned balance of a battle axe. < /things Sora never had to deal with >, but we managed okay.
The real story of prop making for these costumes is all the work that went into our official keybledes, the Stormfall and the Ends of the Earth. Both of these are carved out of wood (assorted combinations of MDF, pine and 3 mm ply if you're curious) which is a material we have managed to avoid for most of our cosplay careers thus far and hence have next to no experience working with. In getting these made we are hugely indebted to the help of two people -
drayke_, a long time cosplay friend who introduced us to Patrick, a friend of his who has a pretty damned amazing personal workshop in his cellar and an equally amazing willingness to lend his machinery and expertise to friends with unusual projects in mind.It almost seems a little redundant at this point to mention that there's this cycle in cosplay that virtually everyone we know goes through to one degree or another: no matter how earnestly you mean to start your next costume early so you don't have to rush to get it done, somehow you always end up going until the last minute, and BBS was no exception. What with one thing and another we weren't able to meet Patrick in person until early January, and by then time was already pretty tight. Terra's keyblade everyone was pretty confident we could get done in time; Aqua's was going to be more trouble. After a couple of sessions of planning, talking material options, calculating angles (and most of the angled pieces were being machine-cut and glued on and all the geometry had to match up) and cutting out the base shape, with only a week left before the con and the rest of my costume still not done, I had to face the fact that I wasn't going to have time to get it finished before the con. Reluctantly, and not without a lot of angst on the subject, I had to call Patrick to let him know.
Patrick responded finishing the keyblade for me himself.
I did not expect this – I was completely prepared to go to the con without it. I really cannot express how grateful I was to him for going to so much work to finish it – and it took him right up until the Sunday morning to get it done.
There was a lot of happy squeeing when I saw the finished product. Patrick still considered it a rush job and felt the finished product looks a bit rough, but in all honesty I think it looks amazing.
Moving on from the keyblades, our skit was based on the Mark of Mastery exam match fought between Terra and Aqua in the first chapter of the game. Unlike the Avatar skit, this one we only got to start rehearsing properly about a week before the con, and looking at the video footage... yeah, it could have used a little more work, but it did get a pretty good reaction from the crowd and a bunch of compliments afterwards so that was pretty gratifying all up. However, the best moment up on stage that day would have to be the cheer we got when Lisa came back on stage carrying our other Keyblades. You know those moments that make all the work worthwhile? This was one of those. :3
We took out the award for Best Group that day, and I would be very surprised if it wasn't the keyblades that did most of that.
As for the rest of the costume, I'm variously more or less pleased with how different parts turned out. The shoes and armour are my favourite parts – both made with glue sealed craft foam, which is more time consuming than coating it with plastic sheeting but gives you a more flexible finish. The plates on the arms are all attached separately so they can move over each other as I bend my elbow, and the whole costume turned out surprisingly comfortable and easy to move in. This is Very Important when your skit requires you to do cartwheels up on stage without anything falling off.
A lot of the rest of the main body of the costume I feel could still use work though – even despite having sewn or tacked everything above the shorts together it still doesn't quite sit the way it really should, and I still need to figure out how to pose in it better. The wig was thoroughly last minute, and grateful as I am to Lisa for all her help in getting the thing styled, it could probably still use some touching up. None of that's too unusual for the first wear of a new costume though, so I'll have another go at it for photoshoots and Supanova later in the year.
The final awesomely unexpected surprise we got shortly before the con was that it just so happened that a friend of a friend was going to be cosplaying Ven on the Sunday, and she didn't have a Terra and an Aqua to join her. There may have been a certain amount of bouncing up and down at this news.
Officially we may not have been part of the same group that day but we grabbed the chance to go take photos together afterwards.
Christie also took out Best Female for her Ven cosplay that day, which should come as no surprise. *g*
Oh yeah - one last picture I ment to post, taken in the change rooms backstage with
velithya when we realised that we had, despite completely unrelated characters, bought the same wig.Aqua Blue Hair Dye! Now Available At All Good Stylist and Retailers!
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Date: 2011-02-21 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-22 05:29 pm (UTC)I know that you are a huge Deadpool fan, and I'm pretty sure you know that Deadpool is a playable character in Marvel VS Capcom 3. So I thought you might be interested in a scanned page from the promotional MvsC3 comic, where Deadpool banters with Dante. Sadly, it's just one panel, but it's pretty funny :)
http://community.livejournal.com/devil_may_cry_c/348198.html
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Date: 2011-02-23 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-23 01:55 pm (UTC)Pretty silver-haired guy too ;P
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Date: 2011-02-23 02:10 pm (UTC)I suspect his arsenal may be an even greater attraction, it's very much Deadpool's style. ;)
Even though I only know DMC by reputation I think I'd be quite disappointed if we didn't get some Deadpool/Dante slash out of this game.
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Date: 2011-03-04 04:08 pm (UTC)