Meeting Ivy Doomkitty

You guys, I met Ivy Doomkitty!!! She was at VA Comicon in Richmond yesterday, and she was awesome. She's gorgeous and nice and did a panel on confidence and body image relating to cosplay. And I got her autograph and took a photo with her!

I know, you were expecting me to be Daryl Dixon. First, I ordered the rest of the leather a little later than I probably should have, so I would have been rushing to finish the vest. Then I thought, "I have to make TWO costumes before the Force Awakens premiere, because Birk wants a Jedi robe." So I've decided to be Han Solo for the premiere instead of Rey, because I think it'll be less work (slightly). Which means I can finish making the vest, use it for Han, then add the wings after December 17 so I can be Daryl in the future. (I don't plan to repeat Han.) And I won't feel compelled to make Han's blaster, because... well, it's just not a smart idea to bring that kind of prop to a movie theater, especially not on a night like that, completely packed with people.

BUT that means that I used one of my go-to costumes, the Marauder's Map dress, so Ivy and I matched themes (that's her Slytherin corset, if you can't see the crest in the photo). Which was pretty awesome.

Iron Man Scale Dress

This one is a Beth creation, but I made the lights and also I had a ton of fun wearing it and entering the cosplay contest at Baltimore Comic-Con this past weekend (and winning second-place amateur female!!!) so I wanted to share it with you guys.

That entire dress is knitted, with plastic scales from The Ring Lord (black scales that we spray-painted, because it's cheaper than buying the colorful scales and you can get the exact color you want that way).

I don't have any photos of the back, but there's a neat criss-cross of leather lacing providing a lot of support because the dress is crazy heavy. (It actually stretched out over the course of the day as I stood and walked, which was an important lesson for us to learn.)

The lights are EL wire coiled up inside a packet of vellum paper and covered with thin white foam packaging I had sitting around. The battery packs are tucked into the gauntlets past my wrist, and one inside my bra.

When I walked, it sounded like a staccato rain stick (it's the best comparison I can come up with, but pretty accurate) and I couldn't hear the high-pitched buzz of the EL wire all day (ambient noise from the con was enough to cover that up, even with three of them).

The common questions I got (other than photo requests) were:

- Is it heavy? (Yes, I would guess about 10-15 pounds.)

- How many scales is that? (About 10,000.)

- How long did it take to make that? (About 5 weeks of intense work.)

- Is it warm? (Yes, I'm basically wearing a fitted afghan.)

So this is just to say congratulations to Beth for doing a TON of work on this thing, and to say that I had lots of fun wearing it. You'll see it again in several months... we want to make some changes to it for May (and hopefully it won't be insanely warm then).

Dr. Horrible at Richmond Wizard World

In the interest of all three of us getting to wear something comfortable and easy, I was Dr. Horrible, Chris was Captain Hammer, and Beth was a Captain Hammer fangirl. We had fun doing a little photo shoot at Wizard World (Richmond). (All the photos except the last one came from Chris and Beth, so thanks guys!)

Prop creation the night before, like all great cosplayers do.
This is actually the case my Nintendo DS came in, and served as my purse for the day.