Olga Ziminska

ENGL-201

12-11-2015

Final Story

Project Pentaghast: Cosplaying with Thermoplastic

15

Cosplaying is a practice of dressing up as a character from movies, video games, and even comics. Over the years the practice has developed into an immense subculture with a worldwide following.

I have planted myself in that universe. A universe where I’m able to clock-out from being myself and clock-in for the role of a badass heroine.

The art of cosplay has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Now cosplayers are making costumes that look like they’ve been yanked through a time machine. Authentic chain mail, glossy (or battered) armor—you name it and I guarantee you it has been made. Easier said than done. Why?

1. I’m a full-time student with a part-time job.

2. Materials are expensive, especially if you want to make something worthy enough to compete with.

3. I’m a little ball of paranoia that gets too nervous to start.

Despite my paranoia, once I get started on a project, I have trouble stopping.

It’s been two years since my last attempt at a head-to-toe coslay. My last attempt was my first and most difficult, even with help from my best friend, Catriona, and my dad. It was Loki, the God of Mischief from The Avengers.

For two years I played it safe with my cosplays. I kept my fabrication to a minimum and worked with premade pieces to ensure everything would be completed on time. I’ve played video games for the majority of my life. I’ve lived many lives as these heroes and badass characters that have helped me through just about every situation an adolescent and young adult could deal with (when it wasn’t just plain displeasure with reality). Fantasy has been an escape and through cosplay

I want to pull these characters away from their home world like Asgard and Thedas, and into our reality where I could step into their shoes. For a weekend at any convention, I just want to be someone other than myself.

I was once Loki, Chell, Jodie, and and Yuna. From the Avengers, to the video game Portal, Beyond Two Souls, and Final Fantasy X—I became these people who have taught me to believing in myself even when times are tough. I chose them when I needed an extra push for strength. It’s them I thought of when I needed to get through a tough day. Next I would become the right hand of the divine for the next Comic-Con, a convention that’s held in Chicago each summer.

With my best friend at my side, Catriona and I would be tackling on another big project. We need each other when messing around with materials and skills we haven’t worked on in two years.

My next attempt would be making and portraying Cassandra Pentaghast from the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition. She’s a warrior who is a devote follower of the Divine, a religious figure in the game. She’s tough on the outside, but very soft on the inside. I definitely admire her strength and devotion to what she believes in.

I had one complicated cosplay under my belt, Loki, but as always I aimed to challenge myself. Cassandra would be a new feat for me, a new test of craftsmanship, because much of her costume consisted of the type of fabrication I haven’t tackled yet. I’ve sewn and spent more than 10 hours simply adding detail onto costumes, but when it came to armor-making? At that I was still a novice. My first time making armor I only had the access and knowledge to making what I needed with craft foam I bought at Jo-Anne’s. I was done with that. It was time to get my Cassandra on with tools used in the big leagues of cosplay.

The Candy Shop of Fabric

I’ve never even heard of such a place that was literally filled from one end of a wall to the other with fabric. But it wasn’t even just fabric. It had just about everything I could use to add detail to Cassandra’s clothes and even parts of her armor. I thought my only options were Jo-Anne Fabrics and Michael's when it came to affordable projects. I’m a hardcore couponer when it comes to craft supplies. But when I walked into a discount fabric outlet, I just about lost my damn mind.

The fabric outlet to cosplayers was what a candy store was to children with a feisty sweet tooth.

“Holy shit. This is it. This is literally heaven,” I said.

Catriona, was just as dumb-founded as I was when we first walked in.

The outlet was huge. From one corner to the next, there were cabinets full of fabric, buttons, and even trim. Just about everything a person could use to make whatever they need. Of course some tedious sifting through all the buttons and piles of fabric was necessary,but at approximately 25 cents and $1.75 a yard, I thought we could put up with a little sifting.

Leather was also sold by the pound at $9.99.

Trim cost as little as 39 cents a yard.

Comparing those prices against the prices at Jo-Anne’s, well, it was a no-brainer: the discount fabric outlet would become my next go-to place for cosplay supplies

I rubbed my eyes almost comically to make sure that what was happening wasn’t one of my daydreams. All my struggles were slowly easing up when it came to finding money-saving deals while working on cosplays that required that special touch of intricate detailing. With this resource, Cassandra would be possible.

Catriona and I weaved in an out of the many aisles on the two floors (plus a basement!) of the outlet. I ran my hands over the rolls of maroons and purples, trying to find the right shade and materials for Cassandra’s shirt and pants. This was indeed one of the struggles when working on a costume: finding the materials that would work well with the human body—my body. Finding the right shade was one thing, but trying to stay close to the authentic form and style was much different. This is a point where cosplayers have to learn to cut corners and make sacrifices in order to actually make their characters appearances possible in our reality. With the right amount of skill and patience, much of these impossible feats in cosplay are being done and rocked. It's all about experience.

“What color do you need?” Catriona asked. Her attention was between two aisles, because she was keeping her eyes out for a light shade of tan and also creams for Aveline's shirt. Aveline just so happened to be a character from the Dragon Age universe as well. Yes, for the first time since I cosplayed as Loki and Catriona as Thor, she was back to work on a new cosplay with me.

“Purple,” I groaned, “I think.” My phone was not cooperating with the lack of WiFi in the building, so my access to my folder of reference photos was not as good as they were on my laptop. There I had just about everything I needed from close-ups of Cassandra’s face to the intricate detailing on her belt buckles that I longed to portray in my rendition of her.

Being extremely detail-oriented, I wanted the right shade of fabric to match the type she wore (an almost darker lavender),but of course the moment I found the type of fabric that would be perfect to sew and the type that would actually allow my skin to breathe through it—

It was fucking yellow.

While Catriona continued with her search for the right shade of leather, I felt the aromas of freshly cut fabric and leather melting into one head-ache inducing concoction. There was a knot in my heart that I couldn’t untangle. It wasn’t the deadline that was worrying me, but it was the process of making everything that was making it hard to breathe. Could I really pull it off or was I going to be dealing with another Loki situation where things were falling apart towards the end?

Where putting on the finishing touches was more stressful than watching an episode of an intense cooking show?

I feared the stress and anguish of things not working out, which was mainly why I avoided bringing any complex cosplay to a convention since San Diego’s Comic-Con.

“Here, look at these,” Catriona held out a buckle for me to look at when we made it to the basement of the building. There the aroma of fabric was much stronger. Even if fabric wasn’t working out for us at the moment, we had our belts, buckles and trim to work with.

Cassandra needed plenty of buckles that served both functional and decorative purposes.

“My hands are much smaller than hers..” I said, placing the buckle against my hand. Cassandra needed to fit about 4 on her arm.

That was yet another factor that cosplayers always had to take into account. Bodies were different, and there was no universal pattern for all these cosplays. Not all patterns would flatter each body type.

Taking every needed factor into account, I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but what fun projects were easy all the way through?

Being Cassandra Pentaghast

I sat at my desk with videos of Cassandra speaking and moving about the scene. My eyes don’t pay much attention to the situation at hand in the video, but I observe her body language and facial expressions like a wildlife researcher, jotting down notes. My definition of cosplaying adds the component of portraying a character to the fullest extent. Making the costume is the bulk of my worries, but anyone can buy a costume and say that they are their character.

I, and so many other cosplayers out there, kick it up a knotch.

For my coslays, I will cut, dye, and style my hair.

I will adapt workout routines that will get me closer to portraying a character, especially when I want to compete.

Now, looking at Cassandra’s lean body, I look down at mine. I roll my eyes at the sight of a number on the scale greater than one I saw a few months ago. I gained a few pounds since the summer. Since the last time I cospalyed in the Spring. Not only will I have to craft everything, but I will also have to work on my body in order for everything to fit correctly and help me be the best Cassandra I can be.

She’s a badass character, so it’s important that I do her justice. The community, as welcoming as it is, can be quite harsh. It’s the small percentage of people who view female cosplayers as nothing but eye-candy and only capable of over-sexualized cosplays, as well as those who don’t feel that people who cosplay characters of a different race are allowed to cosplay either. I try not to let comments about weight or fabrication get to me. Mainly because whatever others may say is never half as bad as what I tell myself.

I am my harshest critic.

I will not settle for anything less than my best.

But Cassandra? With the tools I acquired and the help I have, I have a chance to compete with her.

My First Cosplay was a Hot Mess

Back when I was a beginner with my cosplays, I took on one of the greatest challenges of my crafty life. I attempted to sew and fabricate a Loki cosplay from the movie The Avengers. It was a struggle that demanded plenty of blood sweat and tears. Towards the final hours of fabrication, it was mainly tears.

I was sitting on the floor, sobbing, with strips off black pleather around me. The stench of shoe polish clinging to the fabric was so strong it burnt the inside of my nose. After a week straight of working on the finishing touches of Loki, I could smell nothing else but that pleather.

I got little sleep, and by little I mean, ten minutes. It was crunch time and I still had so much work to do on Loki. My armor needed a fifth coat of paint because I noticed that some of the paint was just being absorbed into the foam, and not enough of the metallic gold covered the surface with the shine I needed. Then there was the shoulder piece that I would have fixed on my shoulder, but when I looked in the mirror it looked too big. But, I didn't have any extra supplies or even time to even consider redoing it. Cutting foam, layering all the details, using 3D paint to exaggerate some features –I didn't have time for any of that.

"Here," my dad handed me Loki's shirt already folded over with the next part that had to be sewn. Because of my attempt at pulling an all-nighter, the fatigue I felt helped me get behind in my work rather than ahead.

My dad was always big on crafting. He painted, crafted, and was just about the best person to turn to when trying to figure out how to make something look a certain way when a tutorial couldn’t help. From a weathered piece of armor on crappy craft foam to jeans from the GoodWill store that looked as if they were purchased torn. Many of my projects ended up being great because of him giving me a second opinion or just stepping in to offer some help. Despite me really appreciating the help he offered, what I liked the most was that he was there with me. I was always very close with my dad, and now that I’m older, working, and doing my best in school, I find moments of my cosplay work to be great times to bond with him. We put on some music and get working on making these characters come to life.

Loki was no different. I was falling behind because of my lack of experience. Sewing everything on my own, especially the parts that shouldn’t have taken me more than a day were bringing me down, and I honestly didn’t know if I would have a finished project to bring with me to the convention. Catriona was at her house working on finishing her costume as well. It was late; I had no idea what else I could do.

My dad kept handing me my shirt and jacket, so I could sew and keep going as long as I could before I would have to drop off the costume at Catriona’s house.

He never gave up on my projects or me. He stuck it out with me, spending long nights in my room with an absurd amount of super glue that we used on the jacket once my sewing machine deemed that sewing through twelve layers of pleather was beyond ridiculous.

Even though Loki was finished and I was still pleased with how everything turned out despite my lack of experience, I didn’t know if I wanted to go through that panic again. To be planted on the floor, crying, and being unable to figure out what to do next—I didn’t know if I could handle that again.

Making Patterns Requires Resourcefulness

The problem with starting new projects is just that: starting. Many characters are difficult to find reference pictures for, while others have plenty, but are so detailed that it’s actually difficult to wrap your heard around where one should start. Cassandra was the latter. Her body is coated in multiple fabrics, but the part that stumped me the most was her armor. Buying the fabric was the easy part, but actually working on her breastplate was another.

I purchased the material I was going to be working with a few weeks prior online. Cosplaysupplies.com was a new find of mine that sold thermoplastic material needed for Cassandra.

I spent $28.50 on that sheet of Wonderflex. On the bright side, I wasn’t taxed too much, and didn’t have to pay shipping.

With my current budget, I couldn’t afford to make mistakes that would require me to purchase another sheet to replace the one I had. So while I contemplated touching it and getting to work, I needed to take care of other parts ready before I could actually use the wonderflex.

The toughest part at the moment was figuring out how I would shape the breastplate, but more importantly, how big everything had to be. I looked everywhere online to see if there were any patterns for Cassandra’s armor. And…of course there weren’t.

There are plenty of methods when going about making a pattern for a character. I knew of one trusted technique that would guarantee my specific measurements. It was definitely odd, because it required me to wrap my body in plastic wrap, so then I could take over the desired area in masking tape. In order to keep it at the correct fit, I wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt, which was meant to simulate the approximate thickness of the final top I planned to make and wear.

To make sure that I was staying true to the needed shape, I kept my laptop opened to the image of Cassandra’s breastplate. I glanced at it every now and then. After I would take up over every bit of plastic wrap, I would be left with a form of my body. To use it as a pattern, I would have to cut it, as if making an opening for a vest. When that would be spread out, I would trace it on paper that would then serve as a more flat pattern that I could recreate on the Wonderflex.

Although I knew what I was doing, I still needed to finish laying masking tape over the plastic wrap.

I was alone that day, and making a pattern like that is often a two-person endeavor. When I was being fitted for my patterns for Loki, Catriona would be walking in circles, wrapping my chest and shoulders in the plastic wrap to create a pattern for a shirt that needed to be tightly fitted. I remembered doing the same for her. To this day we never fail to ignore how close we are due to our cosplay adventures.

The door to the garage opened while I was in the middle of sticking on a strip of tape. Oh, thank God. Perfect Timing.

I stepped out of my room with the Mass Effect soundtrack playing behind me. A Intergalactic take on the tango accompanied each step.

“Oh boy!” Mom said with a thick Polish accent.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dad asked.

“Can you tape up my back? I’m making a pattern.”

“How Do You Plan on Making that?”

My dad stood in the doorway while I worked on cutting out pieces of Wonderflex in the shape of the pattern I made a week ago. All of it was going to be Cassandra's breastplate, so I needed it to be a little thicker. That was the reason for the multiple pieces of the same design. I had to layer it in order to get the thickness and sturdiness that I needed. Wonderflex was relatively thin, which when shaped wouldn’t be as sturdy as it had to be.

I never had a chance to work with Wonderflex, so it was a brand new experience for me, one that I put off for a long time, because I was afraid of starting and messing up. When I moved up from making armor from craft foam, I also had a bit of a strain put on my budget. Working on armor with a thermoplastic required the actual material and a heat gun. Wonderflex was one of the more elite materials that cosplayers use. It’s easy to use and manipulate when heat is applied. In the same family is a material called Worbla. Unfortunately, Worbla wasn’t as budget-friendly as Wonderflex. I had to pick Wonderflex for obvious reasons, but I look forward to the day I can actually give Worbla a try without it burning a hole in my wallet.

Luckily, what is great about the material is that heat manipulates its shape. So, if I would make a mistake, I would just have to reheat it and reform it. Simple.

"So how is this going to work exactly with the sheet?" Dad asked. He was curious as well since our last attempt was much different.

I showed him the white sheet. It looked normal at first, but upon further inspection the difference is visible. One side of the sheet was smooth like poster board while the other was textured, with something that felt like little beads. When those would heat up, the Wonderflex would become easy to manipulate.

When it came time to actually heat up the sheets, Dad wanted to be the one to use the heat gun the first time. He always worried about me burning a finger. I didn’t blame him. That heat gun could heat up close to 1,000 degrees!

While we waited for the heat gun to heat up, I kept my eye on a tutorial I left open on my laptop. There were essentially three parts to making this work. First I had to combine the sheets of Wonderflex in order to get my desired thickness of the material itself before applying it to a thin piece of craft foam to have on the reverse side.

“So we just keep heating it up then letting it cool?” Dad asked, placing the breastplate pattern to the side to cool.

“Yeah. See, once it cools we can figure out how to stick it onto the mannequin, because the next part is actually shaping it to my form.”

While the Wonderflex is still warm, it is simple to manipulate its shape. By pressing it against my mannequin, that I made to fit my own body, the breastplate takes on the same shape, so when I end up wearing it, it will actually look like a piece of armor that was crafted just for me, rather than a flimsy sheet of paper that I cut out and stuck over my head.

Trial and error was the biggest part of working with Wonderflex for the first time. I couldn’t have been happier that it was a thermoplastic that allowed do-overs, otherwise I would have needed 4 more sheets of the Wonderflex to simply redo everything.

Once I Get Started…I Won’t Be Able to Stop

My armor is sitting in my room. It’s in need of more shaping before I start adding another layer of Wonderflex onto it for the detailing on the breastplate. With a few more rounds with the heat gun and a few more pokes and adjustments, I’ll be that much closer to applying my first coat of metallic paint that will later have to be weathered.

Staring at it, I think of ways that I can improve my previous cosplays knowing now that working with Wonderflex isn’t rocket science.

“How’s your armor coming along?” Catriona asked me over Facebook the other day. I thought of an appropriate response. My armor wasn’t done and there’s still so much work left to do, but when the little goosebumps of stress travel up my arms, I breathe out and remember the best parts of cosplay: getting to work on them with my dad and my best friend.

“Come on over to work on your cosplay, and I’ll show you my armor.”