EuroCosplay Championships and... whaaaat?!

Oh dear, I don’t even know where to start! I’m still feeling the con-lag and after a major convention like MCM ComicCon I suspect that it will last quite some time. Also to add to the confusion we happened to fly on Monday, the day the storm hit London. The situation with apocalyptic weather, with no trains and huge traffic jams it was a miracle that we got to the airport in time. It was literally matter of minutes! Thank goodness the main organizer of the EuroCosplay Championships is a man with a heart of gold! He helped us out and without him we had missed our flight for sure!

Next to the confusion I’m feeling so, so blissful and grateful…

I received Judge’s Choice from Cathy, who is the talented and creative woman behind God Save The Queen Fashions! I was so dumbfounded that Yoki had to push me towards the stage to receive the prize!

Aah, I’m just so happy that I’m lost for words! So I’m going to get back to ComicCon and the Championships after some amount of well slept nights.

Congratulations to this year’s champion Iloon and to Zula and Sara! Also to Dulcinea and Cassidy, who also were Judge’s Choices! And best wishes to all contestant and their helpers! It was great to meet you and share the awesome experience and weekend with you all!

Photographs: Emilia Lahtinen
Cosplay and model: Hiron/ Casualty Cosplay

London calling! And EuroCosplay!

It's only few days away! I can't believe it! But surely it will happen and I have been updating my costume with new boots, jewelry and few other things I didn't have time to make before. Over all, I'm really happy how the costume now looks and feels! I will write whole lot after ComicCon, because I think I will have so much spare time that I really don't know what to do with it...

I should be packing and panicing, but I just wanted to stop by and thank everyone who have encouraged me during this project! If I could only hug you all, I surely would!

But of course the biggest thanks goes to Yoki, my dear sister and supporter. She will carry camera around at ComicCon, so we might actually update our Youtube after long radio silence in few weeks.

I also want to send special thanks to Emilia Lahtinen and her assistant, who photographed my costume at Tracon 8. Thank you!

I got asked about the previous entries of the costume and thought it would be nice to share links to them. I announced the costume in February and made few work in progress posts from the jewelry (actually two), the first boots I made and a general one. I had a photoshoot for the underclothes before the qualifiers and also wrote a report from Desucon.

Yuma photoshoot and trivial information

Last weekend I squeezed into Yuma’s costume and we headed to a nearby nature trail for a small, autumn photoshoot. Karan, who has taken our photos as FemBots and Lady Doctor was kind enough to act as a photographer and Yoki was the sword wielding, grass bending assistant.

Ideally we would have left to our shoot in the morning, but because I had to work late on Saturday we only had few hours of day time left. And it was rather chilly, but gladly no one cached a cold. The outcome was a lot of interesting facial expression and few gems in the mix.

In the shoot I wore the cape that I made, but didn’t wear at the convention few weeks ago. It was too hot to wear it at the time, which is rather hard to believe now with nights below zero. The cape is basically a circle with drapes on the back. I made it from “brushed” polyester for the weight and flow. I usually try to pick natural fibers over synthetics, but with Yuma I made all the exceptions.

With Yuma I wanted to concentrate on textures, matt versus shine and fit. The bodysuit, which is actually shirt and pants are made from polyester jersey with lycra. I remade the pants three times before I was satisfied with the fit. First version I made out of wetlook spandex, but in the end it looked too much like the fake leather I used in the armor parts.

The second version had a seam on the center both back and front, but because the references didn’t have any seam on the front I remade the pants again. The third version was a success with “hidden” seams. The stay-up socks are fake; I sew folded strips of fabric on the leggings to mimic the look. I didn’t want unnecessary moving parts and separate pieces of clothing in the costume. More so, when I had to attach the armor parts to the “socks”.

I patterned the foot piece directly to the leggings trunks and glued old canvas shoes on with hotglue. Normally hotglue is not ideal with shoe covers, but I tested it and found that it worked with the materials I was using. By the way, Yuma is the first costume I have to use a shoehorn to squeeze in.

During the photoshoot we might have spooked few joggers. One felt sorry, that she interrupted our movie shoot. Yuma is a movie star!

Photographs: Karan
Modeling and costume: Hiron/ Casualty Cosplay