If Looks Could Kill - Making Medusa

So, as you can tell from my medusa story, I LOVE this mythological character. I think she got such a raw deal.

No matter which version you look at, whether her monstrous condition was a curse, a punishment, or a ward, she was a victim who history made into a monster. She was given this power that must, on most days, feel like a curse. It's purely defensive; no matter the myth, she never hunts down people. People invade her home, attack her, then call her a monster!

I love her and have always wanted to cosplay her, but knew that it would be a helluva an undertaking.

And, yes, yes, it was.

So it all started back in July of 2018, when I bit the bullet and bought a metric crapton of snake toys.

I'd looked online to see what kind of medusa wigs were out there and what other people had done. And, while I found many that looked very cool, I knew that I wanted something a little different. While stiffer, stationary wigs could look very cool and structured, I wanted movement in mine. But I didn't like the uncontrollable wiggliness of rubber snake wigs. So I decided to do a mix of the two by mixing and matching various different snake toys, including - yes - rubber snakes, but also those cheap, segmented plastic snakes you get in children's party bags and dentist toy boxes.

Then I proceeded to destroy the ever-living crap out of them. Like I said, I wanted a mix. But not quite the mix my friends had thought. I wasn't going to have a wig with a bunch of different kinds of snakes on them. I was going to have a wig that was made up of snakes that were made up of a bunch of Frankenstein-ed snakes.

But to make them all look more uniform, I needed to spray pain all of them.

But, even though I had a wild amount of toy snakes, I didn't have enough to create the ancient greek, cornocopia-style hairstyle that I wanted. So I took a favorite MacGuyver cosplay tool of mine - pool noodles - and shaped the swirled beehive.

Then came time to Frankenstein my snakes, taking the pool noodle strips - which I'd wrapped in black cloth - the segmented snakes, and the rubber snake heads and jimmy-rigged them all together with glue, wire, and prayer.

Then I had to stitch together the cloth-covered pool noodle strips to form the main headpiece, using thicker, heavy-duty wire to shape it to my head and create that cone-like shape.

Then I had to attach the individual snakes and style them around the main headpiece in a style that I liked. I wanted them to have freedom of movement, like I'd said, but I also wanted to be sure that they wouldn't stray too far away from where I wanted them. It was a lot of putting it on my head and shaking my head around, to make sure that, even as I naturally moved around, my snakes looked as natural as possible. I like to think that I succeeded, since, whenever I wear this costume, people always take a double-take, when they see that the snakes actually move on their own.Lastly, I finished it all off by sewing strips of sparkly blue lace on the snakes, so you could get a better sense of each individual snake along the swirl. And, of course, the Grecian headband to keep her in theme. Now, while the headpiece would be enough to make my Medusa recognizable, I wanted more. To be purely accurate, Medusa is a purely human woman with snakes for hair. But I loved the idea of making a snake dress and I couldn't resist. I love the idea of glamming her up, while still emphasizing her monstrous nature. I wanted to make her beautiful. To give her a moment to shine.That said, the making of this dress was a bit less glamourous.
Initially, I'd thought that I would create the tail by making a zip-tie cage that would wind around my body. So I went to my local hardware store, where the sales clerk informed me that I was buying a large number of the number-one, favored brand zip-ties of kidnappers. Good to know!It also quickly became clear that, while I'd planned to essentially use a smiliar idea of my homemade hoop skirt to create the winding cage, I was waaaaaay over my head and severely short on time. So, instead, I just scraped that idea and decided to stuff the tail with pillow stuffing and sew it all in place. Which lead to its own comedy of errors that had my partner laughing at me on numerous occasions.

But, in the end, I think it all turned out wonderfully. I had so much
fun running around my local geeky convention in this costume. Even though I had to get fully naked to pee in it, I still had so much fun. Like I said, I think it had the desired effect of being both horrific and stunning. People either stopped me to get a closer look at everything and ask a million questions or they took one look at me and swiftly crossed the street. For a glammed-up monster girl, I couldn't ask for a better sign of success.

Now, this costume was waaaaaaay too much work to be a wear-once-and-done dress, so when my local geeky convention's next theme was announced as mythology themed, I knew that this and my centaur costume had to be revived.

However, then COVID happened and the convention had to cancel for that year. Which was sad, but meant that I had time to revamp this costume to be closer to the one I had in my head. So I ripped up the entire tail, cut it from the dress as a whole, and got to work. Including making the cage tail I'd planned to. As well as adding a zipper to the top of the tail and the bottom of the dress, as well as a hidden zipper in the side of the dress, so I could finally go to the bathroom in this dress more comfortably, by removing the tail in stead of stripping in the hotel's tiny toilet stalls.

However, like many people, quarantine played havoc with my body, which meant alterations. I had to quickly figure out how to add two inches to my dress's bust and wait and five inches to the hips. And, since I'd chosen the dress's initial fabric because it was drastically discounted for being discontinued and I'd mostly used it all up for the initial dress the first time, I had to find a fabric that at least looked like it went with it. Luckily, I had this other gold fabric that I'd intended to use for a different costume but never did.

Added to that, because of the pandemic, I needed a mask to go with
this costume, because of course I couldn't let her show up in just a regular disposable mask. So I decided to use the leftover teeth from my Glam Demogorgon costume and create a monstrous mask for my medusa. Again, I think it all came together well and had so much fun in this costume. This was my first big in-person event since quarantine started and it was so amazing and I love that this costume got to be a part of that. I even found a gold snake bracelet that matched it in the dealers' room!

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Box of Doom Cosplay

As I said in my Box of Doom making-of post, I've been slowly working on this costume for a while now. I'm so thrilled to see it all together.

Like I said, I was intrigued by the idea of mixing Dimension 20's Box of Doom with a cigarette girl. From the moment I first saw the box be brought out on screen, I had this clear image of this costume in my head and could not get it out.

I cannot wait to wear this around the Convergence convention this year! Hopefully, I'll find some intrepid heroes brave enough to roll my dice.

This cosplay was actually featured in Dropout's behind the scenes special about the D20 Madison Square Garden show!

In honor of that show, I also did a fun Savory Cannoli video:

To see more of my D20 cosplays:

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Arachne Queen

So Convergence's theme this year is a celebration of cosplay, so I thought what better way to honor that than tackling a costume I've been wanting to do for a while now: an arachne woman.

While not the biggest spider fan myself, I've written an erotic short story featuring an arachne woman, "Playing With Your Food," that I then adapted into a romance novella, Thoughts & Preyers. What can I say, the mind latches on to the weirdest things. And, ever since, I've wanted to see if I could make this into a costume.

Taking what I learned from my centaurette costume, I've been constructing the "bones" of what will become my spider legs.

First lesson: Make it lighter. Conventions are walking events; everyday you are putting in your steps. So, whatever you wear, it'd better be something you can move around in.

I love my centaurette costume but, with all the wooden and plumbing parts, it is a beast to lug around with me everywhere. By the end of the day, it feels like I'm dragging around a dead body behind me.

And, with an anthropomorphized arachne, you've got two extra legs to contend with. So, being the cosplay MacGyver that I am, I decided that soda bottles were my solution. They're light, retain their shape, and even when dented, can be popped back into place. Plus, they're cheap and easily obtainable which, when taking into account how many of them I needed, was important. All in total, it took 9 liter bottles and 12 16oz bottles.

Next, again, taking what I learned from my previous cosplays, I decided to use grocery bags to hold my bottles in place. Mostly, I just needed sturdy, cheap fabric that would help me shape my legs and old shopping totes that I already own and don't do anything with... yep, that fits the bill.

Cutting up all the bits, pinning them together, and stitching them all up was a feat and definitely fulfilled the "it isn't cosplay until you bleed" requirement of my costuming process. Ouch.

Next lesson: Gotta be able to sit and pee in it. While I love my Medusa costume, wearing it the first time around was a teachable moment for me. While I am a firm believer that cosplay necessitates a certain amount of masochism, not being able to go to the bathroom easily is my hard limit.

Hence why, for this, I opted to go the centaurette route again and attach all this to belts.

Next came attaching all the legs together,
again, using the handles from all the grocery bags to connect the joints, meaning more pins and more poking. But so worth it when it all came together.

I even got to do a crafting stream on Twitch so people could watch a bit of the process. I might do more of those, so keep an eye out!

Eventually, I'll be adding strings to all the legs, much like with the centaurette costume, to help both emphasize the shape of the legs and help lift them off the ground. Both the centaurette and Medusa costumes taught me that it's best to have as little dragging around on the floor as possible. Not to mention covering it all with fabric to make them look like my legs and adding the same stocking I'll be wearing to them. And I needed to attach the tutu-esque skirt that I plan to wear for this as well. 

Here it is all finished:

 

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Delloso Della Rue's Seaside Tea Dress

I love this character; they are such a meaningful and beautiful delight and their design is flawless.

And, of course, in the beginning, I thought this would be a super easy costume to make. I figured I'd buy and modify most of it. Get a dress, get a hoodie, throw some feathers and flowers at it. Done. Easy-peasy.

I never learn.

I could not find a dress or hoodie that I liked, but I did find discount fabrics and forgotten curtains. Not to mention handmade feathers woven from yarn. So from scratch it is.

I try on my Seaside Tea Rue dress with my shapewear; it fits. I take it off, take off the shapewear. I sew it up. Pin some flowers on it. Go to try it on, so I can see the placement of the flowers… and my dress is now a size too small and will not fit over my shoulders or hips.

I am freaking out. Did I sew it wrong? Is shapewear fucking magic? Will I have to rip it all apart and start over again? I have, like, no leftover fabric, so will I have to get brand new fabric for this dress? Fuck!

I’m literally watching Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey & Flowers. The very scene this dress is from. And, as I’m lamenting the sudden shrinkage of my dress, I’m, like, “I’m so sorry Oscar & Aabria; I’ve failed you!”

Then I realized I’ve flower-pinned the front of the dress to the back of it and that’s what’s messing it all up.

I’m so smart…

This was definitely on my “if I have time to make it” cosplay wishlist this year. The Green Hunter was a great running gag of A Crown of Fae & Flowers and who doesn’t love a good book purse.

Plus, I had this great leftover faux green leather that I got extremely cheap years ago. Then I happened to find the perfect book box at the craft store and I knew it had to happen.

I remember using this green material for my Oglaf’s Mistress crown, only to find it unwieldy and hard to work with. So this time I got serious. Using a generous amount of wood glue, screws, and clips to hold it all in place while it dried, I made sure this faux leather stayed where I wanted it to stay. Very pleased with how it turned out.

The salt goblins were also one of the best parts of the season, stealing every scene they were in. I loved the idea of incorporating them into my costume somehow. I also loved the extra, behind-the-scenes lore about the pepper goblins who kept dying out due to fatal sneezing fits.

So I bought really cheap salt & pepper shakers, sawed them in half & decorated them with gold paint. Then I attached them to the box with and sculpted my goblins out of foam clay.

My biggest obstacle with this was just not being able to find everything I wanted and just having to make do. My craft store used to have a ton of purse-making supplies. But I spent more than an hour combing through that store and came up with nothing but that perfect book box. So, like I always do, I made do.

The box, perfect as it is, only has a very small, very weak magnet holding it closed. Which is not ideal for a purse. Using a leftover latch from my Box of Doom and a bit of scrap leather, I managed to make a very secure clasp for my purse.

Using some more of that scrap leather and some discount flat mount D-rings meant to hang pictures frames, I was able to create an over-the-shoulder strap for my purse.

This was definitely a whirlwind project. In a crazy crafting fit, I stayed up until 4am building & painting my box. The whole thing, from start to (almost) finish, was done in a single evening. Sometimes, it happens like that.

Here it is all finished! I love a costume that lets me wear my claws again.

 

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Tip of the Hat - Box of Doom Girl Hat

Finished my Dimension 20 hat for my Box of Doom Girl cosplay.

It started out life as a chip and delivery box that I cut up while Husband played the new “God of War” game.

A little felt & hot glue later, it was starting to come together.

Using the leftover foam board from my Box of Doom bricks, some scrap material, & embroidery floss, I created a skull & dice patches. I also used the Dimension 20 logo from my Box as a pattern for the hat as well.

I chose to do a cuter, cartoonish skull to help balance out the gruesome, grotesque skull of the box. Plus, it reminds of the fantastic, adorable animated art that Dimension 20 does of their characters.

All finished! It turned out so cute! Again, I love the whole old-school casino feel of it; it fits so well with the whole dice-rolling aspect. Also, I’m amused by the “Nat 20” and “Two Crew” rolls of my dice patches.

Check out the full costume!

 

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Anxiety Crafting - aka My Dimension 20 Box of Doom

So, sorry. My attempt to get back into writing and posting, not to mention streaming...did not go exactly as planned.

I have had days where I've written things. I've definitely had more days where I haven't. All part of the process, as they say.

I think I'm just having trouble finding the joy in writing again and artificial, arbitrary deadlines for stories that no one is waiting for isn't helping things. So we'll see how things go.

As you can probably guess, while my own stories have stalled, I've been rabidly consuming others, specifically DropoutTV's Dimension 20, a D&D storytelling show that I've become absolutely obsessed with. From Fantasy High to Unsleeping City to Misfits & Magic to A Court of Fey & Flowers, I've loved going on these Intrepid Heroes journeys. Filled with humor and heroics, romance and tragedy, rebellion and revelation, they are amazing stories told expertly.

So how could I not want to create my own little piece of that?

So, taking advantage of those post-Halloween sales, I started my next convention cosplay: a Box of Doom cigarette girl aka the Babe of Doom, if you will.

For those unfamiliar with the show, the Box of Doom is a dice-rolling box reserved for the most influential and pivotal rolls of the game. It can determine a character's fate: to find love or not, to triumph over adversary or not, to live or not. Every time it's brought out, the stakes of the game and story rise and make the storytelling seem thrilling. 

I'm not entirely sure exactly why I thought crossing it with a cigarette girl made sense, except I really like the idea of inviting people to gamble with Destiny and disaster. And there is something about the classic cigarette girls, who literally - though they may not have known it at the time - doled out death with a flirtatious smile. I think the Box of Doom, despite it's ghastly appearance, does the same, in its own way.

Also, why do so many of my cosplays make me look like a serial killer?

Taking that discount skull, I screwed and glued it into a hinged box, adding clasps to the front and foam board "bricks" to the sides. I then covered those with foam clay. I created the Box of Doom's cliffs using tin foil, before covering that in more foam clay. And, of course, using more of that foam clay, as well as hot glue, to texture the skull.

Then it was time to spray pain the box, using textured "stone" spray paint. Then I used acrylic paints to add shading, that left my hands looking like I'd messed around with the Darkhold, as well as highlights.

Then I lacquered the box and added a ribbon harness, using some discount, remnant fabric I found. I added a bow that is both decorative as well as stabilizing, as it's sewn directly into the box and the ribbon strung into the box through holes I drilled into the box.

For those who haven't watched Dimension 20 (though you should, both Fantasy High and Unsleeping City are available for free on Youtube, and the rest are available via subscription to DropoutTV - which is well worth the price for the hours upon hours of content), the show is shot in the Dimensional Dome, a color-changing room in the shape of a large multi-sided die. And I really wanted to incorporate that into my design. So, grabbing some double-sided tape, battery-powered Christmas lights, and construction paper, I got to work.  While it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, I'm so happy with how it did turn out.

So there it is, all assembled and ready. I'm not sure when I'll actually begin working on the dress. I have all the materials, but I might take a bit of a break. Or start another of my many projects (I have two other planned cosplays for Convergence this year - an arachne woman, like in my novella Thoughts & Preyers, and Delloso de la Rue from Dimension 20's Court of Fey & Flowers).

Or maybe I'll write.

Who knows.

But this was fun and I can't wait to invite my fellow Intrepid Heroes to take a chance and roll in my Box of Doom.

Check out the full costume!

 

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Fantasia's Racist Centaurette (I'm Taking Her Back!)

So I have an awful, awesome habit of too often dreaming too big when I jump into a new hobby.

While I'd done Halloween costumes before, they were often just Found Costumes—costumes that piece together store-bought items, often on-the-cheap and/or last-minute to create a costume (a practice I still do often). But, if I was going to try out—really try out—cosplaying from scratch, I was going to do it. Go big or go home, right?

Well, a costume I always thought would be fun to do was my favorite Disney character. 

I love Fantasia; I think the music and imagery is beautiful and, of all the gorgeous characters in that film, this centaur in particular always stuck in my head. Admittedly, there's nothing all that special about her. In the 1990's VHS copy I owned at the time, there was nothing particularly special about her. She didn't look or act in any way that really made her stand out from all the other centaurettes prancing about that Bacchanalian vignette.

It wasn't until I was much older that I discovered exactly what made her special. Mind you, the VHS version I owned was the re-edited copy where the extremely racist depictions were taken out of the film—to everyone's (worth listening to, at any rate) enjoyment.

I was horrified. Here is my favorite Disney character—the character my young mind gravitated to and admired so—and she's being serviced by this horribly racist cultural stereotype!

This could not stand.

I was taking her back.

I was taking this beautiful, graceful, magnetic character and restoring her to the wonder I'd felt as a child, before I knew her dark secret of why her hooves shined so bright.

The question was how.

Like I said, I'd never really done cosplaying before. My most complicated costume to date was tying a bunch of yarn to some blocks of Styrofoam and calling it a marionette (a pretty good homemade costume for a week before Halloween, I think). That's a far cry from figuring out how to tack on two more legs and a tail.

So I started out with the body of my horse-half. Which was formed from a discount trash bin for the torso, leftover packing foam to pad me against the sharp plastic edge, a wig for the tail, and miscellaneous plumbing bits to hold the tail in and to form the hips where the legs with attach.

Then came the skeleton of the legs. Made up of even more various plumbing bits and wrapped up in duct tape and cut-up re-useable cloth shopping bags. All held together with wire, duct tape, and hope. But, look, bendy joints!

Then I covered the legs in pillow casing and stuffed them like morbid sausages with pillow filling.  

You have no idea the odd looks I got while working on this on the bus and in the office. I looked like a serial killer Dr. Frankenstein.

The legs were measured and modeled after my own legs so, when I put it on, it looks as much like one cohesive piece as possible.

Then it was more pillow bits sausage stuffing to put everything together. Before being nicely covered with sweatpants/sweatshirt pieces. Held all together with screwed-in belts which went around my hips so the whole piece could roll around behind me. By the way, this color velour tracksuit is apparently ridiculously and thankfully popular. I had to buy two pairs of pants (for the back and front legs) and two sweatshirts (for the torso) at the thrift shop and this was the only color that had enough items to cover that amount of material.

To finish off the costume, I took a "flesh-tone" strapless bra. Which, if you're a woman of color, you know isn't actually your skin tone. So I covered it in pantyhose, to give it a darker color that much more closely matched my flesh-tone. Added more panty-hose material to go around my arms to create the wrap-around garland my Centaurette wore. And covered all that with fabric flowers and leaves.

If you look closely, you'll see that in order to make it so my horse half rolled nicely behind me—as opposed to dragging like a corpse behind me—I had to add a harness with straps that went around my shoulders and hooked onto the belts like suspenders. Those were then attached to a woven cord of clear plastic that was drilled into the body's base, right above the tail.

It wasn't perfect—and lord knows it made going up and down stairs a challenge—but, it created a quite realistic effect. To the point where people at the CON came up to me, thinking that I was two people with someone else cosplaying as my lower half.

This was, by far, my most challenging piece of costuming that I have ever done. It took something like six months of planning, shopping, MacGyvering, trial-and-erroring, ripping it apart, and putting it back together again before I finished it. There were many, many, many times where I tossed it down and never wanted to look at it again. Only to be struck by inspiration and insanity, working at it almost non-stop.

It was a crazy, fun first step into a hobby and world that I now love. I will forever be so proud of it. I swear that I will find another event to wear it to someday! And, I can sufficiently say that, yes, I took her back; whatever she was in her past, I can feel her wonder again.

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