Hi! It’s been a very long time since my last post, but I’ve decided to focus on my other cosplay pages and no longer update this one. It’ll remain online as an archive but no new content will be posted.

Please feel free to follow me on my other pages for the latest updates on my cosplay projects! :D

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“In the name of Love, I’ll punish you!”

I love this Sailor V photo by Kairillia! In addition to being a wonderful cosplayer, she's also a fantastic photographer! :D She made my crime fighting magical girl dreams come true. :) I boosted the colours and contrast a little bit in Photoshop, but the lovely composition is all her doing. Go check out her page to see more of her work!

Working on a new costume for Anime Revolution next week! :D I’m so happy to finally be making a Sailor V costume, and I’m working really hard to make this as polished as possible so I can do her justice. It’s been challenging because pretty much NONE of the anime references for her outfit details are consistent, so I’m really just picking and choosing my favourite elements and mashing them together. The manga design details are more consistent, but I didn’t want sleeves in addition to pauldrons on a summer costume.

I still have lots to do, but I’m really happy with how it’s turning out!

I absolutely love this new photo from my Wonder Woman shoot with AK Studio Photography! Andy’s beautiful lighting really brings out the different surfaces and details of the costume, and I’m so pleased that the pose turned out quite cool, because it was surprisingly difficult! The greaves really limit the mobility of my legs and feet, and the armour is really heavy. Totally worth the discomfort, though! :D

Here's another photo of Captain Marvel from my shoot with AK Studio Photography, and I really love this one- not only is Andy's lighting and composition beautiful, the details on the back of the costume also look really good. It took a lot of effort to get all the gold piping matched up continuously across the multiple seams around the costume, but it really paid off. :D

Can I just wax some poetic about my wig? Arda Wigs are worth every single penny. I own quite a few wigs for cosplay, but this one (Arda's "Matilda" lace-front wig) is my absolute favourite. I love how natural it looks! If I didn't love having red hair so much, this would actually make me consider going blonde for real. :)

At long last, here’s my Captain Marvel costume in all its glory! :D I’m thrilled with the way it turned out and I can’t wait to wear it to Northwest Fan Fest next weekend!

Photo by AK Studio Photography. I love how heroic and glamorous he makes me look! :D

Since I wasn’t great about posting WIP shots for Captain Marvel while I was in the middle of trying to get it done, here they are now! :)

To make the bodysuit, I spliced together a raglan shirt pattern with a Kwik-Sew retro jumpsuit pattern. I cut out and sewed in textured detail panels with long seams for the sides of the suit and down the arms. Carol Danvers is tall, I need all the visual trickery help I can get! :p

The stripes were made from gold stretch satin reinforced with knit interfacing and embellished with gold piping. They were sewn directly on top of the suit, I was not about to try to make them insets. :P The stripes were mitered on the sleeves to get a nice sharp point. I covered the gold piping with the red bamboo knit to make the piping for the raglan seams, and sewed them into the armholes.

Hey, you know what you should never do? Prototype everything on a costume bodysuit extensively EXCEPT for the stand-up collar, a feature you know you always have problems with. I think I must have blocked out the unending horror that was my Ms. Marvel collar. I found out only after I’d put it all together that the shoulder and chest pieces were too short and the wrong shape for a stand-up collar, and I had to pick them out. WORST. :( I ended up draping new mockup pieces on my dressform, and they worked a lot better.

I made the star with 3 layers of fabric- interfaced gold stretch satin, black stretch pleather, and gold pleather. Each layer is carefully glued together with Heat ‘n Bond- operative word: CAREFULLY. I melted my first attempt at this star with my iron, the second attempt was much less heartbreaking. I love the tasteful little toon outline that the black layer creates. :D

The last photo is the suit finally looking like a thing, before I put the front zipper in and sewed on the star! :) I was so happy to see the top part looking so much better than before!

I’ll post the glove WIPs separately, since I was able to do a little tutorial as well. :D Stay tuned! Full-body photos of the whole costume all together are coming soon too. :)

First look at my new Captain Marvel costume, which will debut at Northwest Fan Fest next weekend! :D

I really love how this costume turned out! Not only do I feel super badass in it, it’s extremely comfortable. I love how the detail panels look on the blue parts of the suit, too. Since I wanted a bit more technical challenge and visual interest while staying true to the colour and style of the design, I added panels of a textured blue athletic knit alongside the regular navy spandex. The red fabric is a super soft bamboo knit, and the gold stripes are stretch satin and gold piping.

The photo is by AK Studio Photography! I’m so glad that I was able to get this costume done in time for our shoot! :D He got some super fun and awesome shots. I absolutely love this one and I’m so excited to share the others soon! :)

I’m so excited to share this gorgeous photo of my Wonder Woman costume from a recent shoot with AK Studio Photography!! Andy wanted to try some Alex Ross-inspired lighting, and I think the results are absolutely incredible.

I’m so grateful to have had the chance to work with him again, and I can’t wait to share more photos from the shoot! :D

Working on a new costume! :D I was invited to attend a showing of The Avengers: Age of Ultron in costume with some local cosplayers, and since I don’t feel comfortable wearing Ms. Marvel downtown at night (plus it has some fit issues and repair needs that I don’t want to tackle right now) I decided to make a Captain Marvel costume! I’m so excited to make this, I’ve wanted to do it since last year! :D While I only have just under 2 weeks for this, it’s off to a good start.

All great costumes start with awkward prototypes! I spliced together a raglan top pattern and the pants from a jumpsuit pattern to make a bodysuit, and now I’m trying to get the fit right before I cut into my proper fabric. I can already see that I need to get it tighter-fitting around the midsection and legs, raise and curve in the underarms a bit so the raglan sleeves aren’t so batlike around my armpits, and lower the sleeve seams on my back and chest a bit as they’re too high and close to my shoulders. (this may also fix the odd pulling around my shoulders) Once I’ve got the pattern fitting properly, I’ll be able to cut it up to make the different-coloured panels, and figure out where the gold parts go.

My serger is the real MVP! I’ve never been able to prototype so quickly before! :) That bodysuit came together in an evening, and that includes the time-consuming layout/pinning/cutting step. This makes me really excited that the real-deal suit will come together quickly as well.

Some more shots from the Wonder Woman shoot that I did with John (boyfriend/cosplay handler extraordinaire/all-around amazing human being) at ECCC! :D You can check out the first batch here!

I’m so happy with how these photos highlight all of the little details that I wanted to capture, like the chainmail texture, the blue strands running through the wig, the ridges sewn on the arm straps, and even my cheeky little crown earrings. John did such a great job, especially since this was only his second cosplay photography shoot ever! :)

(also, good man, he knows my angles! Not looking rectangular is a challenge in a costume with so many layers around the waist, especially considering that I’m only 5′3″, so I’m really pleased with that first photo! :D)

I’ll just be over here fangirling uncontrollably over this AMAZING Emerald City Comicon 2015 video by Beat Down Boogie.

You can see me in my Wonder Woman costume at 3:30! I’m really in love with the way my articulated armour moves, it looks so much better than it does in still shots. :D They really made me look like a badass warrior, I’m so happy!

Check out part 2 of the video here! I’m not in it, but there are so many awesome costumes and moments from the con in it!

Thank you so much to Beat Down Boogie for such an incredible compilation of the cosplay talent at ECCC!

Two of my favourite shots of my Wonder Woman Divine Armour from an impromptu fun shoot I did with my boyfriend at ECCC! No special lighting, no frills... just us, this strange park, and his iPad Mini.

I’m so happy with this costume and I’m so glad it’s done. Everything turned out exactly how I wanted. I learned so much and I feel incredible when I wear it. It’s definitely the most complicated costume I’ve ever made, and even just putting it on is a feat of strange cosplay engineering. (It’s extremely sturdy, though!)

I posted a full album detailing the rest of the build process over on Facebook, check it out here if you’re interested!

There are a few other shots from this same shoot that turned out really awesome, I’ll be posting those soon. :D

Emerald City Comicon was absolutely incredible, and this video by Adam LaPine captured so much of the amazing cosplay talent at the con. You can see me in my Wonder Woman costume from 1:10-1:15! :D

John and I took a ton of photos at the con this year, and I’ve posted them to my Facebook! Please tag if you see yourself: https://www.facebook.com/KatcakesCosplay

A proper post on my Wonder Woman costume will be coming soon! John and I did a really cool shoot that I’m really excited to share. :)

ECCC is in 4 days and I am in full-on con crunch mode to get my Wonder Woman divine armour done. I am so close to being done, after getting tons of work done this weekend. (SO MUCH PAINTING) Unfortunately, what I’ve left till last is mostly just fussy fastener and lining work, which I HATE. Why can’t this all just float in place on my body without requiring me to deal with straps, snaps, velcro, and hooks & eyes?

From top left:

- The lappets are done and attached to their band, and I’ll be attaching them to a waistband piece that snaps on to the belt. The stars are paperclay shaped with a Wilton candy mold, and the bars are Wonderflex folded around some parchment paper.

- The gladius has a wood base and was built up using Worbla, wood filler, and gesso. I added the details with Worbla, craft foam, and a hand-folded cardboard star. I’ll be wrapping the handle as soon as all the painting is done.

- The armour is my pride and joy. While the spraypaint looked good on its own, I touched up the edges where red met gold with some deep burgundy acrylic paint to add depth, and also added a bit of dark gold to give depth to the gold trim. I still have to glue the gold eagles onto the breastplate and pauldron, will do that tonight. (my brand new epoxy glue turned out to be half dried out/congealed, awesome)

- More painted things... I painted the stars red with China Glaze “Ruby Shoes” nail polish. As soon as I did that, it felt like a Wonder Woman costume for real. I’m still not totally satisfied with the sword’s paint job and will probably pick at it with little modifications until we have to leave for Seattle. :P

- The shoes began as Roxy slip-ons. (comfort first!) I cut them up, built new rounded toes from Worbla to sit overtop, and used scrap red leather from Dressew to cover them. :D These are still a work in progress, but I’ll hopefully have them done tonight.

THE END IS IN SIGHT!

(more progress shots are on my Instagram)

My Wonder Woman armour (Cliff Chiang’s Divine Armour design) is finally starting to look the way it’s supposed to!! Good thing too, as I have 9 days left to complete this whole costume before I leave for Emerald City Comicon. CON CRUNCH MODE ACTIVATED!

I’m so in love with how the red parts turned out. I sprayed the surface with a dark steel-coloured spraypaint and went over it with layers of red automotive candy coat, and got this stunning result. The photos don’t even do it justice, the depth in person is absolutely beautiful.

Tonight, I’ll be painting the gold trim on all the armour (the breastplate got sprayed this weekend too!) and getting a coat of gold spraypaint on those eagles. :D I’m also working on the straps for the greaves, as well as my sword! So much to finish, but I think I’m in good shape to get it all done in time.

You can find more on-the-fly progress photos on my Instagram!