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Overwatch Soldier Costume How-To

Last year at BlizzCon 2015, Mario, Dino, and I wore our wildly popular Overwatch Soldier costumes. Originally, I was supposed to wear Pharah to BlizzCon but due to tight scheduling, we decided to put her off until 2016 so we can do her the justice (ha, get it?) that she deserves.

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Photo by Winged Mammal, edited by Alice Roy

Mario and his brother Dino had already decided to make Overwatch Soldier costumes, inspired by the guys that we see in the background of some of the Overwatch art, like this one:

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We made the decision to wait to finish Pharah the day before we were going to leave for BlizzCon, and though I was devastated, I quickly decided to make a quick version of the soldier costume for myself. I’ll cover how we put my costume together at the end of the post, and it’s a much easier (though not necessarily cheaper, depending on your materials) way to make the costume. Continue reading →

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Overwatch – Genji throwing stars

I have been obsessed with the upcoming game Overwatch from Blizzard Entertainment for the last few months. It’s fresh, bright, and amazingly well polished for still being in a beta environment.  The game is fun and exciting and manages to be different every round no matter how many hours you sink into it.

So, I wanted to show some appreciation to the amazing team that is building this fantastic game with a project that only cosplayers and prop-makers would think of.  After a quick question to a friend who works on the game I found out that they use cork boards primarily around the office.  (I wanted to make sure these would be useful, after all!) Now, I had seen the cheap version of normal ninja star pins available on Amazon, but I wanted to make these straight from the game.

Thanks to the Overwatch reference kits, I was able to get a perfect image to work from.

Continue reading →

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A Note on Translucent Paint (for the LED module)

If you’re considering making a glowing LED module from the tutorial in our book (buy it here for $5) then you’re going to need translucent paint in the color that you want everything to glow. For Dino’s costume, he used a blue paint to make his circles glow blue:

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but of course, you can use whatever color you want. We suggest using a spray version of the color, either in airbrush or spray paint form, since you may get brush strokes with brush-on translucent paint.

The best option would be to go to your local hobby or hardware store and pick up one there. We really like Tamaiya paints:

Tamaiya translucent blue is the one above, but Amazon has many colors available. If you have a hobby store like Hobby Town USA around though, definitely go check them out since it’s usually better to look at colors in person.

If you can’t find Tamaiya, any translucent paint that says it’s good on plastics will do! Just make sure not to put it on too thick, you want a nice, even coating.

We’re working on a post that will have links to products (like soldering irons, etc) that we talk about in our book up soon!

Thanks for reading!

 

Note: some links in this post lead to Amazon and are affiliate links.

 

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Tablets for Cosplay: Why Our iPad is One of Our Favorite Cosplay Tools

So, I’m going to be straight with you guys for a second: given a choice, we would not have an iPad. However, Mario won one in his company Halloween costume contest a few years back wearing his Priest costume, and so we have one. (If you’re wondering, we would have gotten a Microsoft Surface.)

Either way, there is one function that we use 99% of the time on our iPad: Dropbox.

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Dropbox is a place to put all of your photos, documents, etc- but we use it almost exclusively for cosplay reference photos. Above is an example of all of our reference photos, and we try to keep it really organized.

Instead of printing out a ton of reference images, we’re able to access all of our references images whenever and where ever we need them, without a wi-fi connection, which makes it absolutely amazing for taking with to fabric stores to make sure all the colors are exactly how we want them.

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In addition to this, we keep it on hand for painting reference, and for when we’re working on patterning out a costume because in the folders, we put every angle we can find of the character we’re creating.

Even if you don’t have a tablet, Dropbox works on your smart phone, too- it’s not as nice since you don’t have a huge screen, but it works in a pinch!

(Just fyi, this isn’t a paid advertisement or anything, Dropbox is just something I feel like more people need to know about!)

 

 

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Zagara Costume Break Down

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Photo by Steve Groves of ESI Media


Holy cow you guys, am I in love with this costume. This was the very first costume I’ve ever made that I was just grinning the entire time. I had some issues with the cape and wig, but throughout making the dress, I was just in love!

This costume basically started with me turning to Mario and saying, “I want to wear a big dress to BlizzCon this year.” I’ve always been in love with the Zerg, and thought about doing Kerrigan (this was way back in January before Countess Kerrigan was a thing) so I talked to my amazing friend Carissa (link is to her Facebook page, check out her work!) about helping me figure out the costume and getting my ideas onto paper.

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She blew it out of the water. This is exactly what I had in mind, and I was in love from the beginning! (Warning: Super long post ahead!)

Continue reading →

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BlizzCon 2014: SO CLOSE!

So… as of today, we leave for BlizzCon in 14 days! We’ll be driving down on Tuesday, stopping halfway, and getting to our hotel on Wednesday. This year we’ll be spending the con with Mario’s mother and brother, and we’re super excited to share the experience with them- especially since they’ll both be cosplaying!

I’ve been preparing for the con by putting up several video tutorials on our YouTube channel, so I wanted to post them all here for you guys, too!

Since we didn’t update here, Mario has set aside Urzael until next year, and will instead be wearing Roller Derby BRova! Here’s a preview of my Zagara- I decided to go with an original 18th century version.

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And just for you guys- a makeup test!

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We hope to see you all at BlizzCon! Make sure to say hello if you see us!

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Spell Breaker Break Down: The Costume

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I know, it’s been almost a year, but we’re finally doing a post about how we made Mario’s Spell Breaker costume for BlizzCon 2013! This post will focus on the costume/wig/mask part of the cosplay, and the next post will be on the weapon and shield.

Continue reading →

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Product Review: Plaid Leather Studio Acrylic Paint for Leather and Vinyl

2014-07-30 16.36.25While browsing JoAnn Fabrics the other day, Mario and I came across this paint- it was in the aisle where the fabric dyes and fabric paints were, not in the acrylic paint aisle.

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This was only half of the display (top shelf) but there were many, many colors and shades to choose from. They were just over $2 each (we did buy this ourselves, this isn’t a sponsored post), but of course JoAnn always has some sort of coupon so there’s no reason not to get it discounted.

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We grabbed black since it’s a good staple color, and tested it on four different types of fabric: leather, pleather (it’s stretchy with a soft, cotton covered back), thick vinyl (from the upholstery section), and stretch vinyl, the thin stuff.

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The paint went on smoothly and was incredibly easy to work with. It was opaque in one coat on each one except the thinner stretch vinyl, but it would be opaque in two coats. It dries to a satin finish.

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It stayed flexible, thin, and as you can see here, did not crack or flake at all when bent.

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Even with the pleather, which was stretchy, it had no issues stretching with the fabric.

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The thick vinyl is folded in half here, and it’s still flexible and none of it came off or cracked.

I didn’t get a good photo of the stretch vinyl, but it had the same effect: stayed flexible.
We’ve had issues in the past with getting paint to stick to vinyl, so we’re extremely happy to have found this paint. I can see it being especially useful with plug suits or other vinyl costumes that have a lot of details in different colors. If you used a stencil or taped it off to get clean lines, it would look as if it were part of the fabric and not painted on. We’ve never had any issues painting leather, though; the leather we’ve painted has always soaked any paint right in and not had any issues with it cracking, but we also didn’t bend our leather more than you would for a belt.

 

This is a great paint, so if you have to paint vinyl, definitely check it out!

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BlizzCon 2014!

Of course we’re attending BlizzCon this year, and if you haven’t seen or you don’t follow our Facebook page, we’re working on these two costumes for day one:

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Urzael from Diablo III, and Zagara (based off of a few different images, since there are several of her) from Starcraft II and Heroes of the Storm!

 

We’ve both been incredibly busy getting these together for the convention- we’re in the double digits with the countdown, now! Here’s some progress for Urzael!

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Mario first carved the rib structure for the cannon out of pink foam, then got it perfect and smooth and cast it in a quick matrix mold.

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As you can see, the first few (on the right) don’t look quite perfect, but once he switched to the drill squirrel mixer, every batch came out exactly as it should. He used a two part rigid, self skinning polyurethane foam that he tinted black to help him with his painting later.

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This is how the ribs will look on the cannon!

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We also got a male mannequin to sculpt on, since it’s very close to Mario’s size, and we’ll be molding and casting the chest and upper arms for Urzael, since it’s impossible to 1. be as muscular as he is and 2. have orange glowing from under your skin! The Hulk hands will potentially be used for the costume, as well!

 

On day two, I’m going to wear my Lovely Purple Dress from my first year at BlizzCon, 2009, and Mario is still working on his second costume!

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Here’s one of the few photos I have of it- at least I know a good quality wig now!

Oh, and this costume is a great example of finding the right undergarments. I was fully covered under this dress, but it was hidden in a way that it didn’t take away from the costume!

Also, Mario did a Prop: Live with Bill of Punished Props, so if you didn’t get a chance to watch it, you can watch it here!

 

We’re going to try and update more often with tutorials when we have them, so keep an eye out!

 

 

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Auriel from Diablo III Costume Break Down!

Photo by OTL and MLZ studios

Photo by OTL and MLZ studios

(Note: this isn’t going to be a full blown, step by step tutorial because I don’t have that many photos, but I’m going to try to cover everything I did! Feel free to ask questions in the comments, we’re always happy to help!)

So, Auriel! This costume was made for Blizzcon 2014, and based off of Auriel, Archangel of Hope from Diablo III. Continue reading →