One of the most enjoyable aspects of the con for me is cosplaying, and I have constructed a new outfit for each year. Both costumes were assembled from found clothing or from scratch and I haven't bought anything from a costume/cosplay website. I like doing that because it generally results in more organic looking outfits and less like stiff and scratchy polyester.
In 2011 I went as Mugen from a show called "Samurai Champloo":
And this year I chose to be Vincent Brooks form an under appreciated videogame called "Catherine":
Toward the end of the second day of the con, a friend and I were talking about what we'd like to do for next year's cosplay. I had always thought it'd be fun to do a group cosplay, or at least do something with one other person but the group of friends we were attending with didn't have any strong ideas beyond "disney princesses" (I was going to be boy mulan and sing "be a man" everywhere I went). But then my friend expressed an interest in being a Little Sister from the videogame "Bioshock."
She enthused over the outfit because she wouldn't need to do anything more complicated then get dressed and put her hair in a ponytail. However the character isn't all that recognizable without her constant companion, the Big Daddy. Big Daddy is a genetically modified monstrosity that stomps around the game world in a frankenstined-together diving suit.
As you can see from that picture to the left, it's entirely possible to make a convincing Big Daddy costume. however, at 5'8" tall and weighing in at a whopping 125lbs, that costume over there would likely be a bit on the, shall we say, baggy side if I were to wear it. But, as luck would have it, there is one other character from the Bioshock franchise that would add some context to my friends sure-to-be-awesome Little Sister cosplay. Enter the Big Sister:
She shows up in the second game and,according to the story, she is one of the Little Sisters who grew up and felt a need to protect the newest batch of Little Sisters running around the city of Rapture. She is also super lanky, Like me! So, almost jokingly I told my friend that I could make myself a Big Sister costume and she responded with a very serious "yes." So, jumping off from the confidence of my buddy I rooted around the web for some Big Sister cosplay. Most of what I found looked like this:
Decent, and even intricate, but objectively very, very inaccurate. As I am very much a stickler for detail, some thing like this simply wouldn't fly for me. I was a bit unsure of this project having any life, until I ran across this:
Built by a creative team calling themselves "Lab 604," this Big Sister absolutely blew me away. Save for a few VERY minor inconsistencies, this costume is dang close to what's in the game. Better yet, one of the guys who works at Lab 604 posted hundreds of pictures of the costume in progress on his Flickr account.
So, it's POSSIBLE. :)
I'll add a few more posts later this evening and over the next couple of days showing my plans and what work I've done so far. The project is getting pretty intricate and I thought it might be fun to share and document the process, as well as get some feedback from other people on my choices and ideas to solve some problems. enjoy, and I'll try to be less wordy from now on. :P
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