If you read last week’s article, you’ll already know who Red Widow Cosplay is (don’t worry if you missed it, there’s a link at the bottom of the article!). Red Widow is without a doubt one of my favourite Nebula cosplayers, and it certainly doesn’t look like an easy outfit to make! Read more about that below…
Squirrel Girl
Photo by Alice Marshall
Age: 32
Location: Leicester
Favourite food: chicken tikka
Black Widow
Photo by Alice Marshall
Who or what first inspired you to start cosplaying?
I went to my first MCM in London in 2006 and I loved seeing all of the other cosplayers there and wanted to try it myself! I started off pretty basic. I think my first cosplay was John Constantine (the movie version) which is just a suit, but I had such a good time!
What would you say is your favourite part of the costume making process?
Wearing it! Because you get to see it all together and feel a sense of achievement, especially if it’s been a long or tough build.
Nebula
Photo by Doctor Bell’s Magical Mirrorless Picture Box
What would you say has been your most challenging costume to date?
Definitely my Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy. It took 4 months to make everything from scratch! It was totally worth it though as it got a great reaction.
Do you have a dream cosplay you’d like to work towards one day? Has making Nebula taught you anything that will help you with it?
I think my dream cosplay at the moment is Junkrat’s (Overwatch) “Junkenstein” skin. I don’t think that making Nebula will help a lot with it, but as I’ve already made two of Junkrat’s skins I have a bit of a headstart! The only difference is that Junkenstein is much more complex in that there are lots of lights and moving parts.
Junkrat
Photo by Dr Whero Photography & Cosplay
If you could go back in time and give newbie Red Widow any advice, what would it be?
Don’t procrastinate! Leaving things until the last minute is a bad idea, even if it looks easy. It will take at least double the time you think it will!
Galahad
Photo by Lady of Chaos
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
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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
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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
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