Robot Props!

So aggressive! 

I wanna make a robot venus flytrap for Poison Ivy. It's beautiful in my head, and the sort of thing Disney World would have a forest full of if they decided to buy the DCEU and made a sick Poison Ivy movie with meet n greet area in the DC Kingdom.

What the mind wants cannot always be created though... However simple that idea is for a robot, I don't quite know how to make it all work together, so I'm figuring it out.

1. Single movement when circuit closes
2. Movement is closing jaws
3. Circuit closes by touching the skin in the mouth of the flower

love the leafy-ness 

Therefore, I think I need these things:

1. Touch sensitive rubber/oogoo for inner mouth
2. Green outter mouth
3. Pretty spiny things
4. Clampy thingy to close the mouth
5. Connective wire
6. Green outter stem covering for connective wire
7. Holding pot
8. Motor
9. Battery
10. Spanish moss to cover up the motor etc.
11. Possibly a touch of hot glue in case everything is teetering...

That's all I got so far. Gonna start looking at supplies.

OMG so cute! #dorbs

Fem Riddler: Planning

We have green, purple, and black to play with. Staples of the costume across most appearances of Riddler are a well-cut and fitted suit, glasses/mask, hat, and cane. I’ve seen a couple fem Riddlers online, but they all take the fishnets & booty shorts approach, making them look like peacock-colored Black Canarys & Zatannas. Since these are characters I want to do later, I’d like to save that look for both of them.

That "Damaged" tattoo is applicable all over the place. 

Riddler gets a bad rap from years of mistreatment (*cough* Jim Carrey *cough*) but, no more than Mr. Freeze or Poison Ivy in the same movie. Luckily, Gotham is totally revitalizing him, and his roles in Batman:Hush, and Gotham City Sirens is just as good.  

This is my first costume I’m planning out with real thought and design, so I want it to be good. Worthy of the best I’ve seen.  The bar I’m shooting for here is DarkIncognito/Hydra Evil’s Fem Joker. That shit is unbelievably good. Details like a random strand of orange in the green wig make it pop… The classy factor also makes her seem more like a grown up (hahaha grown ups in costume) than a child wearing face paint.

After that, there’s just the debate on whether I should copy an existent, current, popular form of Riddler. Like my Harley, I lean always towards the new. I’m terrible at sticking exactly to a pre-done costume. This is for several reasons. 1) avid thrift shopper, 2) I can’t sew (yet), 3) I get bored quickly.

Skirt vs. Pants.

Don't blow that Black Canary Cherry!

My figure likes skirts more, and going the way of Missy in Dr. Who is an option – sociopathic women in skirt suits is pretty awesome looking -- nah, I’m just adding Missy to my “Future Costumes” list!

Pants are just more Riddler, I think. Skirts imply a fashion-ability that Riddler never possesses. Unfortunately, I am not able to make them look hot if they have pleats. There was one magic pair I wore as a bartender that worked to turn my piggy gams into curvaceous beauties…I’ll look for those. If nothing else, I’ll just wear some yoga pants!

Waist coat vs. Corset

The more I think of this, the more I’m leaning to waistcoat because of the Anti-Zatanna and Pro-Hydra Evil arguments. Then satin button down shirt and tie. Question mark tie pin.

Shoes…

I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy another pair of school-mistress brogues…this may be that moment.

No-one thought this much awesome was possible!

What about spats? I’ve made them before, and they’re really adaptable to all steampunk costumes, so that seems worthwhile.

Accessories

Riddler has some outfit pragmatism. He wouldn’t wear fingerless gloves, because of fingerprints. He doesn’t need a cane to walk, so it must be his weapon.

Con weapons restrictions, though, mean the $10 plain one will do just fine. In my head though, it’s more like a police stick that’s retractable and totally capable of turning a wimp like Riddler into a crazy badass. Like the gun of stationery weapons. He could do with a gun too. I have a spare Nerf I just spray painted, that’ll do. I can wrap some purple leather around the handle and get a question mark sticker of the side.

Character

I’m going to have trouble improving riddles in conversation….Never been much for the -- I’m either too gullible or too earnest! I’ll try, anyway!

I’ll update when there’s something to see!

Lookit this guy! He's crying out to be a Siren!

Harley Quinn: Lessons Learned

Harley was my first serious character. Starting in summer 2015 I was putting together costume pieces and learning that Brooklyn accent. My husband, Billy, is the voice actor and continuity guy of our outfit, and he really helped me find that place between smart and crazy and the NY local flava.

This review process is proving indispensable to my Cosplay Learning Curve! No matter how many times I've pulled out Harley from my closet, I learn something new. Usually it's something fun, which is the best part of playing her. 

New goals for this costume (since Ellen and I are basically the sane, powerless versions of these cuties) are to branch it out and start making some true-to-cartoon versions. First version I wanna do is the Attack on Arkham Harley. Why that one? Read my reviews of Attack and Suicide Squad, and you'll know...

1. Wigs are important & finicky
   
   
   Get one that fits and your head won’t be pulsating in pain by the end of the day! Try it on in the store, do not be ashamed. If it’s your first wig (like mine...) and you’re surrounded by apparent experts (like I was...in a busy mall and there were kids hollerin' and ladies waiting behind you to try on their own wigs), it’s likely they’ll try and help/advise not mock you!
   
   
   If you want pigtails you might have to sew a bunch of extra hair into the back of your wig....that was the most difficult thing done yet for a costume. whew.
   
   

   

   Sewing wefts in for pigtails...oof.

   I’m gonna keep researching the hell out of this, but it appears that different types of wig hair curl, hold dye, frizz and absorb oil in VERY different ways… My Harley wig  is a Taylor model by Its a Wig! I bought her in a store in a mall. The wefts I sewed into the back for the pigtail coverage were Arda Classic hair in Titanium Blonde. The wefts held almost no curl from hot rollers but did maintain the blue dye really well, while the original Taylor hair all greens out by the end of the day. All the hair tangles equally. Every time I wear her, I must I brush it out 4 or 5 times – Harley is so damn active that I return after 6 or 7 hours of maniacally bouncing around threatening Batmans, hitting on Deadshots, and huggin all the kiddos, o-my pig-tails are matted as a stray Shih Tzu.
   
   
   So she's been through the ringer in the last year... At this point I’m looking for a replacement Harley wig, for two reasons: 1) Bangs, 2) giant Danish skull of mine does not like fitting in there.
   
   
2. Definitely memorize your make up patterns when you find something good
   
   
   That way, when you wake up late, you can dress – body paint to eyelashes – in 12 minutes flat. Giving you 3 minutes to dye your wig. Not kidding.
   
   
3. ACCESSORIZE!!!

This is something both Ellen and I have learned rapidly about Cosplaying seriously: keep adding stuff to our costumes and they just keep getting better!

Additions to Harley this time around:

• Noosed up Batman Mopeez doll dangling from my hip,
• super swick home-made plastic hammer,
• electro shock gum gag, &
• tiki drink umbrellas to spruce up even water glasses (I was DD, so you know, keep those soda waters coming...)

Not the best, but it does capture 3 of the new accessories, the wig matts, & how mobile she is. Also, Daft Punk. 

Super Hero Bar Crawl: Event Review!

Event Review: Excellent!!!
Reasoning: All the pluses of a Con, with all the pluses of a bar crawl, plus some extra pluses!! I’ll make up a scale for rating these things later…For now just know that Transcendent Events did a bang up job creating a great day of fun.

Better Together! The group was relatively small, like 30 people. It was intimate enough that by the end of the day (we closed down the event) you’ve not just brushed elbows with ppl, but actually made friends with them – especially Loki, Rogue, Black Canary, and Wilfred.

Drinking In Stages...and on some stages too. :) Because of the bar crawl structure drinking was broken up by hour. Each hour had a designated activity! These activities kept rowdy drunks entertained and the movement kept the afternoon lively!

Trivia! Trivia we did not win by even a margin -- I think Rogue back there was making up questions.... :P

Do you want this villain team up?

All in the Timing: This is an ideal Saturday activity line up. We were joking on the way in (…late…) that only Baltimore would start a bar crawl start at noon. Then we got to Power Plant Live! And joked it was only at Power Plant, lacking the usual sloppy bros of their evenings. Then we stopped worrying and learned to love daytime option! Billy and I even got home in time to do some grading and write a little grant!

Winners, Winners, Taco Dinners: Cosplay.Cocktail entered its first costume competition, and Smashed! Our Harley & Ivy duo (our classic, fav, fav, fav outfits) got a WHOPPING 25 out of 15 possible points on the judges scale! Thank you to all the screaming wunderkinds in the bar, and the wicked-cool judges Deadpool, SuperGirl, and Guy Fieri. We are now planning a trip to the world’s greatest comic book store: Third Eye Comics in Annapolis!!! Ellen and I get to split $50 there, and it’s just going to be beautiful.

Additionally, we got a couple concert tickets we’ll be giving away to see Reel Big Fish! If you are lucky  person #50 to Like our page, these bad boys will be yours!!!

We look forward to any more events like this, or by these fab organizers! Truly, Saturday was a perfect day.

This whole thing was kinda our bag. Costumes. Cocktails. Perfect Day. 

Galaxy Fairy: Lessons Learned

Don’t wear glass accessories

• Being a fairy, one photographer very reasonably asked me to jump in the air to catch the fae in motion! When I did, the lovely air plant in Spanish moss that had been living in a tear drop terrarium leapt right off my hip and shattered all through the leaves. (worry not, we scavenged all the shards out!)
• The shock of feeling such a thing happening threw off my facial expression too, so I look less “happy in the air” and more “Eek! Shark!” Not worthwhile, my friends. 

Don’t try for two events in one day 

• Getting up really early to load on all your body paint on a weekend is not relaxing – it’s super exciting and fun! If you have full weekday schedules like you do, you probably enjoy weekends as a time to catch up on sleep…
• One event, lasting an action-packed 5 hours, has that make-uping 3 hour start, plus driving and hour or so each way, so you end up having a physical and emotional 10 hour day at least!
• The second event would not need the up-making, but would require another round of commuting, and cost another $50 for tasty treats, and by then, I could’ve kept up the fiery fairy spunk, but it would not have been my best face. I’m sorry we didn’t make it to Art All Night with the troopes of circus folk, but we did feel better for passing out with chamomile tea and some Rick & Morty cartoons. 

Avoid lip stick and mouth painting if possible

• I did this right and will try to do it right again next time! Slurping up oysters and swilling down beestings is sloppy work for a lip-sticked moue, and I’m happy to not have fallen into the touch up trap. 

 

Blue Fairy: Lessons Learned

Lesson 4: Get picture of your beautiful wings!

1. Body painting ain’t as hard as I thought!
   
   
   Use Cream Paints! I will never buy water based face paints again!!
   Applies to skin better
   
   
   Blends with other colors and mediums (like eyeliners and lipsticks you may use to augment your face paints)
   
   
   Doesn’t dry out in its container, like traditional water-based face paints, which may otherwise result in panic and despair at 7am on a Sunday morning…
   
   Stays on skin longer and looks better generally
   
   Get someone to help you paint those hard to reach places like your back. Thank Yous to my handsome husband Billy will never cease, and this help is one of the reasons.
   
   All sorts of makeup products can interplay with face paint! I had a host of eye liners and shadows, some lip liners and sticks, and if there’s a part of your face or body that should be left your natural skin tone, use concealer to blend in.
   
   Keep better track of tanning…I didn’t think I had tanned over the summer at all until I was standing in front of my mirror trying to make myself blue! I’m now applying my SPF moisturizer all over those exposed bits of body we often forget about – clavicle, back of neck, forearms, and shoulder tops. This is probably a best practice anyway – ward off the cancer.
   
   Here’s the best tutorial – you shouldscope it out. 
2. Fairies are an almost universal creature!
   
   
   

   Everyone I talked to, had a different theory on who and what the costume was! Because I didn’t have any preconceived notions about specifically mermaid or nymph or fairy, I was able to make everyone’s guesses correct! It was great to see all the parents be affirmed for the “correct” guesses in front of their awestruck children. Super uplifting and life-is-good affirming.
3. Wing assembly should take the actual act of dressing into account.
   
   
   No one can drive and wear giant, inflexible wings at the same time, so neither can I, so super handsome Billy had to help me into my wing & bra harness in a handicapped porta-potty at the Ren Faire. Those things are graciously spacious.
   
   
   Front clasp bras are hard to find nowadays.
   
   
   Pushup bras are overkill when you’re wearing not much more than paint, cellophane, and flowers.  

Baltimore ComicCon: Scarlet Witch and Black Widow

Joining us yesterday at Baltimore were Spiderman, Aqua Lad, and an Evil Morty.

This con was full of amazing art. We bought so many delicious art things. It's only a matter of time before our walls are all filled up. Truly, we're going to look like members of the Victorian Royal Academy.

Tragically, SW and BW missed the costume competition, by 10 minutes. No matter, we'll get there. We saw a lot of great costumes there -- several good Batmans and Darth Vaders, one Dr. Strange , one SPECTACULAR Tank Girl, and so many Harley Quinns (we counted well over 100) that SW lost a bet and had to buy everyone shots.

Our first cocktail was a Gin Cooler -- gin + "cooler", I suppose. It must be something like cranberry and sunshine because they were light pink and bright. It had ice, good for outdoor relaxation, and costume watching. We had front row seats to ppl watching as they exit.

Lessons Learned:

• Make a meet up plan in case of separation!
• Know when the Meet Ups and Competitions are before hand.... 
• Bring cash
• Make sure your biz card is understandable English -- that cocktail glass was messing ppl up! Is it an "I" or "Y" or not even a letter... There is only one answer that makes any sense, but that did not stop ppl from not getting it....