The trial-by-fire DIY-er

Thus begins the recount of the three weeks before Halloween.

The first of the three weeks was spent on research. Cosplay 101. The basics. How-to guides.
Week two was spent gathering the supplies I thought I'd need, experimenting with those supplies, building the base of the helm,  and sneezing over sample strips of faux fur.

It was about halfway through this week that I discovered the unparalleled usefulness of the Dremel. And that's when I really got to work.
Troubleshooting the helm took about a week in itself. Working a 40-hour job with a potential for overtime isn't always the best companion for projects with a time limit.
I started with a foam head model from the local crafts store and luckily the head measurements were nearly identical to my own. From there I followed a tutorial I'd found on YouTube. It was immensely helpful and I'm forever grateful to the owner, Evil Ted Smith. You can find the link to Part 1 here. I HIGHLY recommend it if you're looking for something concise and both visually and verbally instructive. The helm consists almost entirely of EVA foam garage mats (the grey puzzle-pieced stuff in the second picture) and is held together with contact adhesive wood cement. You can see the big seam down the scalp where I didn't let it dry enough and it began resisting me when I was lining it up.

The helm went through stages. I like to label the four main stages as Magneto, the ear-less Cat Woman, Beth'tilac, and finally Arthas. Those are mostly self explanatory,  but for those of you who don't know,  Beth'tilac is a spider in the Cataclysm raid Firelands. She's got these big bulky pincers and before trimming and shaping the faceguard, that's all I could see.  Big,  ridged pincers.
Magneto:

Cat Woman:

Beth'tilac pincers!

And a more recognizable Arthas-shape:

I had more trouble with the helmet than with any other part of the costume. Part of this stemmed from the fact that,  aside from Frostmourne,  the Lich King's helm is the most recognizable and iconic piece of gear. I felt the need to get it as close to the real thing as I could. And the other contributing factor was that I was under the illusion that I had some inexplicably infinite well of time.

This resulted in a carefully created helm that, while made by rather inexperienced hands, turned out pretty well all things considered. It also resulted in a frenzied all-nighter as I tried to put together nearly everything else (bar the breastplate) before work the next morning. And while I think I did okay on the paint job, the panicked speed at which I was working definitely shows in the end result in regards to the rest of those last-minute pieces of armor. (By the way, I used googly eyes for the rivets, as you'll notice on the back of the helm. I got this tip from another YouTuber, DemonWeasel1990 in his EVA foam video, which you can find here.)
The completed helm:

And finally, the completed and PAINTED helmet!

An Insane Miscalculation - aka - The World's Longest Intro

Hey there people! This is my new blog for all future forays into the (new to me) world of cosplay. I hope at least one person reads this and manages to take some kind of useful information from it. Otherwise I'm just rambling... nothing new there!

So, I'm a gamer girl. Grew up splitting my time between the great loves of my life: jousting with "evil trees" in the neighbors back yard, wedging my nose in fantasy books, building elaborate forts with hidden candy troves, and playing BattleOn and Runescape. Oh yeah, I played before dragon plate or godwars existed,  and killed the original Akriloth when that ice claymore was still in godmode!

Years later,  my boyfriend introduced me to World of Warcraft. Obviously, for that reason,  we're now getting married.  Heh. :P

The actual interest in cosplay started quite recently. I'd never really looked into it before and as such knew very little about the cons and the staggering amount of effort people actually go to in order to make these amazing, elaborate outfits. 

This Halloween my roommate wanted to carve pumpkins. That's the beginning of my descent into madness. Instead of going with a toothy,  grinning gourd-man, I decided to jump the gun and carve out my absolute favorite Warcraft badass, the Lich King... and I got pretty far too! Until, of course,  we realized the poor quality pumpkins we'd picked out aged faster than Walter Donovan in The Last Crusade. Two days later my poor Arthas was caved in and fuzzy.

And so, with the project moldy and unfinished, I guess I didn't get the closure I needed with my beloved WoW boss.

I'd originally planned to be a murloc for Halloween - hand paint a green bodysuit, gel and chalk my hair into big red Kokopelli-esque spikes,  and airbrush my face. It wasn't necessarily a bad idea,  but when it came to my murloc mouth, it repeatedly turned out looking like some sort of horrifying, amphibious Joker. So I switched gears.
Somewhere,  at the back of my mind,  a voice kept telling me that what I really wanted to be for Halloween was the master of the scourge himself. When I shared this new ambition with my fiance,  his response was that only crafty Asian geniuses and wealthy people can successfully cosplay and therefore I should buy a costume instead.

Instead of deterring me,  however,  this comment lit a spark of determination in my chest,  which then turned into a roaring inferno of crazy and I got to work.
I read. I researched.  I Pinterested my little heart out and streamed Heroes of Cosplay because,  honestly, I was clueless and hadn't the slightest notion of what I was doing.

And I learned a few interesting things:
•Templates are key.
•Duct tape and Sharpies are man's inanimate best friends.
•EVA foam garage matting is awesome but leaves funky waffle patterns on your forehead if your helmet is snug.
•I'm terrible at cutting straight lines.
•A Dremel rotary sander helps immensely, not only with wibbly lines but also with detailing.
•Adhesive wood cement fumes make you loopy. (CAUTION: I DO NOT advise applying ANYTHING with potentially harmful fumes in a small, poorly ventilated area. I got so nuts I thought Taio Cruz was singing a pop lament on the difficulties of melee DPS, and very likely killed an inordinate amount of braincells in the process. Wear a ventilator,  use a garage and a fan,  be safe. This includes the sanding process.)
•Craft foam is inexpensive.
•Worbla is not. It also is incredibly versatile and smells like french toast.
•You can now BUY WORBLA IN SEATTLE! They recently began carrying it at Tap Plastics downtown. That's good news for all you local ECCC goers.
•When experienced cosplayers say RESEARCH,  they mean it. Look up other peoples' cosplay to get an idea of what a finished product can look like. Decide what type of finished look you're going for: shiny and new,  epically aged, bloodied from a fresh fight, you name it. If you're building something large or elaborate,  see what other people did to keep their constructions sturdy.
•Despite researching, don't be afraid to try something different. It seems like new approaches are always being discovered.  Go with something that works for you and your time frame!
• And lastly, wear something you don't mind getting dirty. You never know when you might accidentally knock glue onto your pants or singe a hem on a heat gun. Also, if your washing machine is anything like mine it might take a few re-washes to get out stubborn particles of sanded EVA.
^ And,  of course, keep in mind that this is what I've gleaned from my own very limited experiences. So, grain of salt.

Before this project, my artistic attributes consisted of a dedication to writing and beadwork, and a bit of cosmetic dabbling. I've sewn exactly two Halloween costumes in my life: Princess Jasmine and Tinkerbell. And while Tink's cellophane wings were actually pretty awesome, the stitching on both outfits was shoddy. I used a gorgeous black and gold vintage sewing machine and the whole time I was convinced and abjectly terrified that I was going to break the entire contraption. And don't get me started on hand-molding clay. I can't. Just can't.

But I'm a trial by fire kind of gal. And so I dove into this Lich King project with a sense of blind, extremely naive eagerness. And I guess that's really where the next post should come in.