Food and Cosplay

The Official Website of Food And Cosplay, where we share Photos and Articles relating to Cosplay and Comic-Con

Cosplayer of the Week: Valkyrie Creative

Originally from Iceland, Valkyrie Creative has brought her talent to the UK, and boy are we glad to have her here. Being bluntly honest, she deserves to have so much more exposure than she does, because there is some serious talent oozing from this lady!

Proxima Midnight
Photo by Photography by Duncan Holmes

Age: 38

Location: Middlesborough

Favourite food: pizza

Mera
Photo by The Camera Monkey

Who or what first inspired you to start cosplaying?

Well, I’ve always kinda gone to town on Halloween costumes, but about 5 years ago I met two amazing friends who shared my love for Mass Effect. We all decided to go to MCM London in 2014 as Femshep, Miranda and Jack. We spent weeks beforehand on our costumes, all with the same obsession about getting it right, but also being super worried we’d look silly… Then we turned up and the reception was just so positive and amazing, we felt like rock stars for the day. I started making more and more Mass Effect costumes as well as anything else people asked me to make. It was an immense learning curve but it was so much fun, I haven’t been able to stop yet!

Wonder Woman
Self portrait by Valkyrie Creative

What would you say is your favourite part of the costume making process?

Probably going wild on the details, once the main build is finished. Right now I’m adding oodles of puffpaint to my Atlanna suit, and it’s just so satisfying and chilled. On the other hand, there is something incredibly cathartic about going to town with a dremel carving up some foam!

What would you say is your most complex costume to date?

Probably Dark Xena. The build took over a year. I made the helmet base and sword on a weekend course at Artyfakes, and then it took me another few months to craft the chest and back armour out of foam as well as the gauntlets. Finally I made the skirt and a scabbard for the sword, as well as the chakram disc that is Xena’s signature weapon. Later on I remade the body pieces in latex so it was easier to wear. It’s still an ongoing project!

Xena
Photo by The Camera Monkey

Do you have a dream cosplay? Could you use anything you’ve learned while making Xena to help you with it?

It’s not so much a dream cosplay as a dream build… I want to make a dragon! The thought is starting with a life size head as something that can be used as a prop for images, or mounted to a wall, then working up to a moving animatronic! Goals, right?

If you could go back in time and give newbie Valkyrie one piece of advice, what would it be?

Plan for the cosplay gods sacrifice. They’ll always take their pound of flesh or blood right before con, so make sure you allow for that and have band aids and ice packs on hand!

Hela
Self portrait by Valkyrie Creative

Past Cosplayer of the Week
Hailing from North East England, Corvidae Cosplay Emporium is made up of a fearsome duo of foamsmiths and sewing masters. They’re no strangers to guesting and judging at cons all over the UK, and looking at the calibre of their work, it’s not hard to see why! We caught up with Olivia to talk more about their costumes. Orochi and NobushiPhoto by Dr Whero Photography Age: 24 Location: Thornton Favourite food: pork belly ramen Who or what first inspired you to start cosplaying? I’ve always loved costumes but games were and are the most inspirational thing for me. The same goes for Ryan, the other cosplayer that makes up Corvidae Cosplay Emporium – we’re both massively inspired by games and making characters come to life. Taniks the ScarredPhoto by Dr Whero Photography What was your first costume? How does it compare to some of your more recent work? Our first costumes were when we were very little – our families have always been into us making and wearing costumes. Mine was a big foam Flounder when I was about 5! Ryan used to have kid’s armour that he would take on camping holidays to castles and he would run around pretending to be a knight! But our first cosplays were when the first images for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate came out; we knew it would be Victorian England so we made steampunk Assassins. In comparison to recent work they were good but very sewing based and amateur-ish. Ryan’s good at sewing as he used to work at a tailors, but since then I have completed my degree in costuming so all our patterns are made from scratch from our own basic clothing blocks and then adapted into what we want. We also are a lot better at foam work and use more technical things such as a 3D printer, airbrush, we resin cast and use LEDs in our cosplays too. They’re a lot more advanced these days! Monster Hunter World huntersFeaturing Kamui Cosplay What would you say has been your most complex costume so far? Probably the Monster Hunter World costumes that we won the Cosplay Championships at London Film and Comic Con in last year. They were complex base patterns, the armour was mental and we had to use a lot of different types of foam with different densities and thicknesses to achieve the final result. We used foam clay too, which was the first time we had worked with it. There was LEDs that had to change colour, weapons that are taller than me (and were a pain to get on and off the underground with!!!) and we had props to go on stage with to make our performance more interactive. We made the 3D files and printed numerous sections of the build, which was great fun as it was the first time we had utilised the 3D printer for complex designs, and we had about 5 weeks to make the costumes around working… safe to say we didn’t sleep for 4 days before the competition. I’ve never been so tired and pumped in my life! The costumes still aren’t done either – there’s lot we want to finalise or aspects that need changing (the Championship was the first time we both wore our costumes so there’s a bunch of stuff that can be reworked to make them better) but the entire thing took so much out of us, those costumes are packed away and we’ll sort them out when I can cope with looking at them again! Metro StalkerPhoto by Dr Whero Photography Do you have dream costumes? Can you use anything you learned while making your Monster Hunter outfits to help? For me it would be to replicate a Kaiju from Pacific Rim, it’s my all time favourite film and I would absolutely love to have the skills to do a good job with it. It’s an end goal though, it’s nothing like anything we’ve done before and I need to learn more about old school character methods from filming to attack that bad boy with the vigour that it deserves! Ryan says his dream cosplay would be Predator, either original or elder, because of the cape! I think realistically he poses the skills required to make it, but again it’s a case of wanting to master different techniques so we can both really nail the costumes and do the original inspiration proud! What’s your favourite part of the costume making process? We both love working with foam – making a 2D design into a 3D detailed reality, that’s an amazing feeling. The figuring out of how to put the costume together and how everything will work from a technical perspective is always good fun, especially considering how we need all our costumes to be not just aesthetically correct but also correct and fitting to the settings you’d find them in (like fabric choices for a Samurai costume or the cut and sewing techniques on a sci-fi piece) and, most importantly for us, that we have to perform in them – performance and being the character is the most important aspect in our eyes, so the costumes must be designed to withstand this. Then there’s obviously the final piece, when you’re wearing it and people respond to you as though you’re the character – I absolutely live for that narrative that people create with you in costume. Hunter from DestinyPhoto by Dr Whero Photography Like this:Like Loading... [...] Read more...
I believe I discovered Bacon, Bitches & Cosplay by accident while looking up something completely unrelated, but her name made me chuckle so I thought I’d check her out; I’m glad I did! This German cosplay is a master mermaid, a brilliant seamstress and a dab hand at creepy makeup. Bacon, Bitches & Cosplay is a great all-rounder. Twi’lek Age: 25 Location: Bavaria Favourite food: bacon, of course! ValkyriePhoto by BildRausch Who or what first inspired you to start cosplaying? That’s a tough question. I think it was a Marvel-related fan group on Facebook that I’m part of. I met a few members in person and we had the idea of a Marvel cosplay group, which worked out great! After a meet at the Leipzig Bookfair, we founded our cosplay group, “Young Avengers Europe” and we still cosplay together now. In the beginning, I only made Marvel cosplays, but now I have many fandoms. FaunPhoto by Eschnapur Photography What would you say is your most complex costume so far? I don’t think I have very complicated costumes, I’m currently working on a post-apocalyptic outfit which is a lot of work, but it isn’t finished yet. I think my most complex is Medusa from Inhumans because I made everything except the shoes. I even braided 6 metres of wire in the hair! MedusaPhoto by BildRausch What’s your favourite part of the costume making process? The best part for me is wearing the costume, either at a con or on a photoshoot. I have so much fun really playing the character. When wearing costumes at a con, in German we would say “berufsrisiko”. You have to watch out that you’re healthy, hydrated, etc. If my feet hurt, I take off my shoes. If my head hurts, I pull off my wig. It’s so simple and I don’t care what other people say about it! Do you have any advice for new cosplayers? Just do it! If you fail, so what? Cosplay is about having fun, keep going until you’re happy. Narcissa MalfoyPhoto by Vanity Art Photography Like this:Like Loading... [...] Read more...
Despite being a relatively new cosplayer in the grand scheme of things, Nirel Cosplay blew me away with the sheer quality of their costumes from the moment I discovered them. You want anime cuteness? Gaming badassery? The Dark Lord himself? Don’t worry, Nirel’s got you. SamaraPhoto by Steeve Li Photography Age: 22 Location: Paris Favourite food: croziflette (a French dish based on Reblochon and pasta) Paladin T21Photo by Marc O Carion Moc Who or what first inspired you to start cosplaying? It was Shoko and Jerome Cosplay. In 2013 I went to my very first Japan Expo in Paris. I already knew what cosplay was, so I wanted to watch the cosplay contests, especially the ECG (European Cosplay Gathering) finals. There they were with their awesome Monster Hunter cosplay, they were amazing on stage, I had tears in my eyes! They won the contest. Two years after, I finally started to cosplay, and every day I keep thinking about their performance, and it motivates me a lot. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make cosplays as great as they do! LokiPhoto by DriStudio Photography What was your first cosplay? It was “Le Nain” from “Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk”, a French MP3 saga! I made it with really cheap green foam, and as it’s a dwarf I had to make a beard, so I bought a Santa Claus beard and orange hairspray, mixed them together and tada! My chainmail was just a grey fabric, so it was really cheap dwarf. What would you say has been your most complex costume so far? As I like to improve my skills with every costume, they’re all complex in their own way, but I think the one that introduced me to the most different techniques is Gimli. I had to make real chainmail, and a beard! I had to work with leather, armour, fabric, and make up! GimliPhoto by Christian Poulet What’s your favourite part of the costume making process? I think it’s painting, I’m a perfectionist on that. I need to have the right shade with the right shadows and lighting so sometimes I can use five different shades of the same colour on just one armour piece! Do you have any advice for new cosplayers? Keep trying! Keep trying new techniques and challenging yourself, and never forget to have fun. NightcrawlerPhoto by Steeve Li Photography Like this:Like Loading... [...] Read more...

Next Post

Previous Post

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

© 2024 Food and Cosplay

Theme by Anders Norén

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x