And 2014 was over - what a cosplay year!

Thank you for a another fantastic year, this one has brought me so many new cosplay related experiences, new friends and a bunch of new costumes.

Photos by:Martin Eriksson,  Nils Katla Photography, Danarki, SAKS photography and Kake Costumes

And as tradition I want to sum up what I have done and some of my experiences, and this is also a great overview of this years tutorials. 

My first great achievement was finally completing the Adjutant cosplay from StarCraft 2 that I had wanted to do for ages. And I even won a few amazing prizes and got to meet Yaya Han and Kamui at DreamHack while wearing it. See makeup video here. 

Photo by Martin Eriksson

Besides doing a few big and detailed cosplays I focused this year a lot on fast cosplays where cheap materials were used (eg. cardboard), mostly to show that it is possible to make cool stuff no matter how much money you have to spend :)

Poison Ivy was mostly a makeup project with a flare of closed cosplay (meaning that I used clothes I already had)

Bellatrix Lestrange was another costume made with little funds and lots of excising clothing, and the idea came to me just because I had messy hair one morning. 

Photo By Nils Katla Photography

I joined a My Little Pony group, as group cosplay is always fun. I went as Twilight Sparkle, but I have to say, not the costume I felt the most comfortable wearing. Might sell this one. 

Photo by Danarki

For the release party of the cosplay issue of the magazine Pegasus (featuring your truly) I dressed up as a Party Asari together with Karin Olava and Bettcanard. 

Post Apocalyptic PowerPuff Girls, awesome group cosplay, with Bettcanard and Martine Ugland. 

Photo by Danarki

The Bee Queen was a complete costume I designed and made myself, and I love how it turned out. 

Photo by SAKS photography

I love being dressed up as an alien, this is my take on a Twi'lek Sith Lord, and I will definitely use the Lekku more often next year. 

Photo By Nils Katla Photography

And another group cosplay with my amazing sister Bettcanard. I was the Comedian from Watchmen (Genderbend)while she was Silk Spectre. 

Photo by Danarki

As another personal challenge to myself I made a Dragon Warrior named "Cardboard" because the armor and weapons are made out of cardboard. 

"Blue Vi" was an original take on a new skin for Vi from League of Legends. 

I love Alice in Wonderland, I want to cosplay every version of her. This time is was a steampunk version. 

Photo by Danarki

A little upgrade on my Skyrim armor, I'm going to have the most amazing photoshoot in the woods with Bettcanard and Karin Olava Effects, just need a little more snow now. 

Photo by Tom Vidar Photo

And an upgrade on my Morrigan outfit, all the little silver flies are now added. Can't wait to go to another photoshoot, one again with Bettcanard and Karin Olava Effects (must be the only those who survive the constant cosplay talk).

Photo by Rojano Photo

Mystique from x-men was another fast cosplay where I mostly just wanted to wear the white mesh lenses again. (get the most out of every part of you cosplay, lenses aren't cheap)

Photo by Kake Costumes

And my second great cosplay of the year, Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. This awesome cosplay gave me a ton of experience with working with worbla, and I won two amazing prizes. And not to mention how proud I am that I managed to make a crossbow that opens. 

Demonic makeup for Halloween (even though I didn't get to celebrate). But I love those white mesh lenses. Can't see very well, but they do give an amazing effect. 

And I was the Grinch for a Christmas Party, where me and my sister are currently working on a dual makeup tutorial video, it will be released early next year. 

In other news
And a few of my costumes from earlier years got a little extra attention too. 

• Dragon Age shared my Morrigan cosplay on their page for Fan Friday.
• Pegasus featured me on the cover of their magazine. 
• I got interview by LevelUP from VGTV, ending up with a 10 minute feature on cosplay and my work. 
• I made a steampunk commission that will be featured in a music video for Jim Grim.
• I held a cosplay panel for Riot Games at DreamHack while wearing my Vi cosplay ;)

Photo By Carl Oscar Photography

• I got invited as a cospaly guest to several amazing conventions, Närcon, Genki, Torucon, Raptus :) And held several panels, I'm so glad I get to share what I know about costume making. 
• I won first place at Desucon Cosplay and Japan, which means I will be representing Norway at EuroCosplay next year :D
• I got featured as a Artograph card 
• And I finally got stuff out on my youtube channel. 

To sum it up I have made 18 Cosplays/Original characters/upgrades this year. And I still have plenty of ideas of what I want to make next year :D

Happy new year

The Grinch who pranked her colleagues

Last year I made a Couture Deer makeup for a Christmas party with my colleagues. This year I though the Grinch would be a perfect "costume", as it is only makeup, but will still got a lot of attention. To make matters even better I conspired with my talented sister Bettcanard to put on the same makeup and just confuse everyone I work with.

So operation "The Grinch who pranked her colleagues" was initiated. And the whole makeup process was filmed. Since I don't think you want to see an hour of green stuff being applied to out faces, you have to wait a bit for it to be edited down ;) 

Merry Christmas

Bellatrix Lestrange

As I mentioned on facebook a long time ago, you get your cosplay inspiration from the most random things. One day i woke up with very messy hair and I had to make a Bellatrix Lestrange cosplay. 

It might not be screen accurate (especially since I had a sidecut hair style at the time), but I am so looking forward to be this evil. 

Photo by Nils Katla Photography

Wand, there is no place like Ollivanders.

I needed to make a wand like hers, with limited amount of time and budget. 

My solution was two chop sticks glued together in an angle and covered with paper clay. I used a blunt pencil to carve out the wood grains. 

Base color

And a dark wash

Clea coat finish (even Bellatrix needs a nice wand)

Jewellery
The bird skull was hand sculpted in paper clay and painted silver. 

The clothes
I had a lot of stuff already, like a leather corset and boots. But for the skirt I found a light flowing wool fabric that I could distress nicely along the hem and add silver markings with a fabric pen. 


Dark MarkAnd last, the dark mark. Hand painted using water based color (lucky it was gloing on my left arm). You could also use a liquid eyeliner.

The finished look
The hair was teased and curled (and even colored darker). And carefully placed to cover my side cut ;)

 Photo by Nils Katla Photography

Photo by Nils Katla Photography

Photo by Nils Katla Photography

Demon Hunter Helmet

I altered the the designed a little, since the resolution of the concept art of this feature was a bit undefined. I wanted to add a bit more edges to the horns and detailing in the back. 

I had no idea how to begin this build process, so I did what I know best - cardboard. 

And then wrapped the cardboard mock up with worbla. Sine the look of the helmet is forged it works great with this slightly uneven surface. Still a way to go, but we are getting there. 

The horns were expanding foam base (see horn for the pauldrons). 

Then the horns were carved out and covered in masking tape. 

To get a different texture on the helmet than on the pauldron horns I added Glue gun glue around and round the horns (took forever). Then They were spray painted gold and heavily weathered with brown acrylic paint. 

Back to the base of the helmet, testing horns, not happy yet. 

Details added. 

The base was painted the same way as the horns. 

To attach the horns I have embedded 5 mm nuts in the horns and secure them with 5 mm bolts. I have even made a youtube video explaining and showing how to take them on and off. 

Looking good.