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Cosplay Stories : Mothra & Godzilla / btanselanoican’s gijinka D&D/fantasy kaiju series by strangecatcosplay & Fooprawn

Mothra & Godzilla from btanselanoican’s gijinka D&D/fantasy kaiju series // Cosplayers: strangecatcosplay & Fooprawn // photos: Ejen Chuang
My Mom is a skilled sewist and used to make Halloween costumes for my sisters and I when we were young. My sister was born on Halloween so we always had costumes and fun celebrations. That started my fascination with dressing up in costume and I always had fun doing it.
As I got older, my Mom taught me how to sew. In 2010 I saw Alice in Wonderland, and fell in love with the costume designs Colleen Atwood brought to the screen.
My Mom helped me a lot with making an Alice cosplay, and I went to my first anime convention. I had never been to one, and after that I wanted to go to more. I fell in love with the fun process of making cosplays and have been doing it since. It’s a huge part of my life now, and I met both of my partners through cosplay.
Godzilla movies have a special place in my heart. I always loved sci-fi and fantasy, monsters and crazy costumes. Mothra and Battra are my favorites, so when I saw the designs by btanselanoican, I was inspired. It brought back a sense of nostalgia and happiness while making parts of the cosplays. I still have more details that I want to add and fix, but my Mothra cosplay is one of my favorite projects I have worked on in a long time.
It was a long process, and involved many different materials. For Mothra, I started with the wig. It involved a lot of cotton batting and white felt to build up the shape without adding a lot of weight, then shaping the wig fibers over that. I made the antennae out of wire and painted felt. The earrings are made of cut brass and painted beads. For the dress, it was a lot of patterning by pinning fabrics to my dressform, making a first draft, then using that to cut the actual fabric. I made a corset and skirt, and then the robe/dress piece that wraps over that. The skirt started out white, but was then dyed to the right colors. The sleeves were the hardest part to figure out. They were dyed and painted by hand, before being sewn to the dress. There are also a lot of appliqued gold fabric pieces on the dress. I made the belt, and all the shiny belt petals are also hand-cut brass pieces.
The wings are made of wire and old tights, that I then stitched, painted, and shaped to fit along my back.
The staff is made from a PVC pipe and foam base, then I added the electronics. There are green LEDs, and a small 10rpm motor that makes the moth wings move. I covered everything with foam strips, making them look like wood and vines. There are compartments made of foam and magnets, that way I can get to the battery pack or motor if I need to. I then added the paint and flowers. The moths are made of foam, pipe cleaners, painted posterboard, and faux fur. The moth wings are attached to the motor via some old ukulele strings. The monofilament keeps its shape and is light, but also strong. It’s fed through old metal brakeline tubing that goes through the staff.
For Godzilla, it was a lot of use of canvas cotton. We found these huge canvas dropcloths at the hardware store, and they were surprisingly soft, but sturdy, after washing them. They have a thick woven texture and take fabric dye really well. We used that for making Godzilla’s pants and shirt. The cape was made of thick cotton, cut, weathered, and painted. The spine has LEDs in it that go up into the hood. His chest and hip armor is all actual leather, patterned by hand and stitched together. The chainmail on the hip armor is hand made as well. His arm and leg armor is more canvas and layers of thick fabric. His shoes are leather and layered canvas and cotton. They are made by hand, and if you look on the bottom they have a Godzilla footprint.
All the “claws” on his hand armor and foot pieces are made of bamboo from the backyard. All of the woven rope pieces are cotton wrapped fleece, braided together for a thick and lightweight rope.
The sword is PVC and foam for a base. The lights are two different sets: a LED string light set, and a neopixel setup. The neopixels were soldered by hand, and are controlled by a command board that also controls a speaker. We set it to play Godzilla’s roar with custom light animations. It has a plastazote foam to diffuse the lights, and then more EVA foam on top.
When I saw the designs I fell in love with the props, the attention to detail, and the use of color. Plus, I have always loved Dungeons and Dragons, so putting them into that universe was such a wonderful idea. I also look for fun challenges when it comes to props, and Mothra’s staff was so beautiful. I couldn’t resist.
Having experience in textile studies has helped me so much with my understanding of how different fabrics work with dyes. I used a lot of dye techniques for different parts of these cosplays. Godzilla’s pants and shirt were dyed, Mothra’s skirt was dyed two different times, the sleeves were dyed, painted with more dye, and then painted again. I don’t think I would have been able to make my Mothra cosplay the way I wanted to without that prior knowledge and experience.
The best part is the magic staff. I am so proud of how it turned out and the way the moths move makes me so happy!
The only thing that I get tired of is that occasionally I run into things with the wire wings, and the long dress can make it hard to go through crowds in convention halls.
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