It is hard to believe, but this is the first costume I ever made and somehow I only got around to shooting it this year. I think it was worth the wait, however.

I chose to make this costume way back in 2006/7 to wear to my first San Diego Comic Con. At the time, I really had no idea how fulfilling cosplay would become, nor how complicated and time consuming a hobby it is. I figured that a good place to start my cosplay portfolio was with my favorite character in the world – Lara Croft. After unsuccessfully searching for duds to make Lara’s default costume in Tomb Raider: Legend (I am still perfecting that costume to this day) I found a black halter dress that looked well enough like Lara’s garb from the Tokyo level. With that, I made the decision to swap costumes.

Fixing up the dress was super easy, even despite my complete lack of sewing skills at the time. I ripped the seems up to an immodest level on each side and resewed them so that the dress angled in from my hips. After cutting up so high, lacy boy shorts were added. I had already ordered a tactical leg holster for the alternate Croft costume I was putting together, and picked up her dual pistols online. The pistols were pulled apart and painted appropriately.

I grabbed the backpack at Target, and modified it by adding silver buckles and clasps to make it more in line with the render I used for reference. I threw on a pair of black heels (for the convention, I went barefoot for most of the shoot per the game) and was set. That was back in 2007.

I never got around to shooting Lara’s costume because by that point I had become a stickler for finding the perfect location. Turns out I couldn’t find a location that looked enough like downtown Tokyo to do the costume justice. Until this year, that is. A light bulb went off when I realized that I had a pair of free days in Japan after attending the 2010 Tokyo Game Show, so I brought my costume with after making plans with one of my favorite photographers (LJinto) to shoot sometime during my free weekend.

I made a few tweaks to the costume before leaving for Japan to ensure that it was up to the quality of my cosplay now – not five years ago. I painted and attached an ornate silver button to the belt to look like the clasp she uses, and also scavenged some binoculars and something for her grappling hook. Yes, I used an Arc Reactor Iron Man toy from Target. Quite observant of you!

We ended up shooting in the photographer’s hotel, which had a phenomenal view of downtown Roppongi. Since I was away from my pool of talented makeup artists, I did my hair and makeup myself, but I think I pulled off the look well enough on my own.

I was extremely nervous about shooting anywhere outside of his hotel room since I had a pair of very realistic looking guns and Japan has a strict no-weapons policy. Any shots in the elevator or out in the courtyard I decided to leave my pistols in the room. Not very Lara-like, but I doubt I could talk my way out of a Japanese jail cell as well as she could.

I think the photos turned out fantastic, and I am planning on doing more Lara costumes now that I’m in a bit better shape. Hopefully by summer I’ll have nice sculpted arms, and you can stare at them down the length of my barrel in my next Lara getup.

Enjoy the photos!

I can honestly say this was never a costume I intended to make. Crossplay (gender-bending cosplay) hasn’t been a priority on my list, and in reality I was interested in dressing up as Elika from Ubisoft’s recent Prince game rather than the Prince himself. However, one night while out with my friend Ashley, we came up with the idea of putting together a group for San Diego Comic Con featuring female versions of male video game heroes.

I tossed around the idea of taking on several different characters including Gordon Freeman, Dante, and Altair before settling on the Prince. The stunning art direction of the game was a major influence on my decision, but the Prince’s gauntlet pushed the idea over the edge for me. Having lots of practice making gauntlets for my Witchblade costume (and last year’s Witchblade group) I thought it would be fun to try a slightly more elaborate design.

Redesigning the Prince to be more feminine wasn’t hard. I decided to leave the shirt open as per the original design, but wear a bra underneath for modesty sake. I also made the pants significantly tighter and opted for long hair spilling out from underneath the turban.
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I started the costume back in January to make sure I had enough time to perfect it. The first step was securing the long coat. I spent hours and hours sifting through eBay results and hitting up thrift stores looking for something that would work.

After a few weeks of searching, I came across a leather duster with crochet accents that would work perfectly. I didn’t plan on keeping any of the needlework on the jacket, but by removing the ones partitioning the pieces at the bottom, it would mimic the worn and torn look of the Prince’s own jacket.

After receiving the jacket, the next step was to dye it, making sure not to stir it once fully saturated so that it would have a slightly uneven look to it. The Prince has a slightly mismatched and disjointed ensemble, and I wanted to mimic this. After dying and drying the jacket, I removed the sleeves (which I saved for later) and snipped out the crochet pieces holding the bottom of the jacket together. Next, I recruited some help to tailor the jacket so it fit tight around the waist. Lastly, I added a fringed trim around the arms and down the length of the coat to make it a bit more ornate.

Original Purchase

I nabbed the shirt at Goodwill – a lucky find since I was very specifically looking for something with embellished buttons. Not much needed to be done with it, other than cutting off the sleeves and taking it in a bit. I already owned the perfect brown bra, and simply added some of the same trim from the jacket to it to make it match.

I had no luck finding orange leggings, so I purchased white cotton ones and dyed them – again not stirring the dye bath to give it a textured look. Moving further down the leg, the sleeves from the jacket came into play. Instead of creating something from scratch, I used the sleeves as boot covers, attaching snaps to the leggings to hold them in place. Additionally, I used some brown fabric and silver buckles for extra detail. For the shoes, I opted for studded brown gladiator sandals.

The Finished Belt

Aside from the gauntlet, the belt was the hardest part. I sewed the entire thing from scratch with several different types of cording on the edges and in the center. I used a patterned felt for the diamond shapes that hang from the belt. To make the jacket fit slightly better, I attached a pair of hooks and eyes on the jacket/belt so that everything stayed in place. Lastly, I found orange and blue fabric and sewed it together in long, thin strips for the head piece, taking a second to fray the edges of both colors.

With the bulk of the costume done, all I had left was the gauntlet. I started with a leather gardening glove that was the appropriate color, and made it longer with Wonderflex covered in the same brown fabric as the belt. Next, I used paper to pattern out the pieces for the claw, then traced them on the Wonderflex and cut them out.

Glove Template

I made a point to cut and position the pieces so that the fingers would still articulate.  From there I heated each piece up and molded it to my hand, which was quite difficult considering one hand had to be in the glove. Once all the pieces were molded, I used Puff Paint to add the texture and patterns. Once finished, I sprayed them bright silver and then used paper towels to dampen the color with a less lustrous metal paint.

Before adding the pieces onto the glove, I sewed some chain on to the tips of the fingers and wove it in and out of the material. I then used hot glue to attach the pieces to the glove and added accents (metal fasteners and circular beads) to mimic the very detailed design from the concept art. Once everything was in place, I finished it off with a bit more paint – using darker colors on the joints of the glove.

I finished the gauntlet just one day before SDCC, so I didn’t get to see the entire ensemble together till I put it on the day of the convention. Just as with Velocity, my friend/makeup artist Hydred Makabali helped with my makeup the day of the show and did a phenomenal job. I asked her to make everything look slightly messy to give the impression that I’d been out in the elements. The best part, hands down, was the scar. Hydred painted it on using a special product that physically puckers your skin, and most people thought it was real. Hydred’s assistant Nesreen helped me tie my turban correctly – something I had been struggling with at home, despite lots of practice.

Makeup Prep

I am very happy with how the costume came out and even happier with how the group came together. All in all we had eight girls participate: Raychul Moore as Kratos, Ashley Hay as Starkiller, Christa Browning as Link, Emily Husley as Mario, Andrea Fries as Wario, and Candace Miller as Altiar. Also joining us was Jessika Malic as Elika from the Prince of Persia
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Right before we made our way to the show floor we snapped some group photos with our friend and photographer Chanh Tang, and then peppered in some individual shots as well. Check out the gallery below to see how everything pulled together.
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After walking the show floor as a group (and by walking, I mean standing in one place), Jessika and I met up with cosplay photographer LJinto for a more structured photoshoot. It turns out that the pool of our hotel – complete with waterfalls and a grotto – was a perfect location to snap photos. Jessika and I took solo and group shots, and the resulting images are some of my favorite cosplay photos ever.

Enjoy the gallery below!
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As a huge fan of Fatal Frame III, I was excited by the idea of crafting a costume from the game. Namely, I wanted to give the Tattooed Priestess Reika a go, as it would be a drastic departure from the type of characters I’ve portrayed in the past. My friend and cosplay cohort Ashley Hay joined me as the game’s main protagonist Rei.

The costume was quite easy on my end – I made the bottoms out of folded cloth with some help from online instructions. Very little sewing was needed. I already had the wig for my future Elektra cosplay and I wore a nude bodysuit to cover my top, knowing that it would be airbrushed with the tattoos the day of the shoot. Ashley’s costume was a bit more complicated, but she did a fantastic job pulling it together – the shirt in particular. The only other thing needed was a camera prop, and I ordered one off of eBay that looked similar to the in-game Camera Obscura.

Photographer Todd Edison and I had wanted to work together for some time on a thematic project, and as a fan of Fatal Frame III, he jumped at the opportunity to collaborate. Even better, Edison had done some airbrush work in the past, and so was able to help out with that part of the look.

The day of the shoot, Ashley and I went to makeup artist Masha Chebotayeva to get my ghostly pallor, and then went to meet Edison for the rest of the process. Mostly, it involved me laying on the floor for several hours while he placed carefully crafted stencils all over my torso, then sprayed them with black airbrush paint.

The funny thing about this shoot is that I remember the exact date of it, because it was while I was having my makeup airbrushed on that I got the news that Michael Turner died. Owing my comic fandom to Turner, the news got to me and we had to take a break from the spraying while I gathered myself.

The shoot itself was unlike anything I’ve ever done before. Edison knew of some caves in the St.Paul area that were very rarely frequented by other people and that would provide the perfect place for us to shoot during the day without pesky sunlight getting in the way. Getting into the caves, however, wasn’t particularly easy. It required a 30ft belly crawl down a suffocating entrance into the darkness, with only a flashlight to guide us.

Taking the photos was quite an experience, too. We used small candles to give enough light for the camera to capture our image, but it still required us to hold perfectly still for up to 30 seconds. If I moved, my image would end up looking ghostly, which was appropriate. But Ashley had the harder end of the bargain. The time and effort it took to capture a clear photo is why there are less finished images than I usually have for a cosplay shoot.

I did a significant amount of post production work to make the pictures look more like a tribute to the game. Mostly, I gave the photos a blueish hue and then used other composite imagery to make it look similar to Rei’s notebook that she updates throughout the game.

Enjoy the photos!