My 2015 cosplay shenanigans

Another year and a ton of new costumes. This posts is more a a yearly diary for me to help me remember what I did and to see how much I develop over the years. If you are interested you can see sum up for 2014 and 2013 here :)

And what a year, several of my costumes are made just as a makeup or a closet cosplay, but they still give me alot of joy so I include them here. 

So let's take a closer look at these costumes :)

I got a challenge to do a 1920 Flapper look and got very excited by the idea. 

I was also lucky to get to take part in a promotional event for PlayStation Norway with a Steampunk outfit for The Order 1886

And even cooler was a commission I did for Noroff regarding an advertisement gig they had in April, featuring a Wow Frostfire Regalia made by me. 

photo: Sigve Aspelund/Tinagent

Qunari from Dragon Age Inquisition was made just because me sister made an awesome elf makeup. 

photo: Rojano Photo

I love group cosplay and made Shock from The Nightmare Before Christmas 

photo: Rojano Photo

Because I already had the Kraken staff and had only used it one time before I felt I needed to make a sort of Steampunk Sea Mage as an excuse to use it again. (also really fun to look pretty some times)

photo: Rojano Photo

I love Twi'leks, but their costumes can be a bit time consuming to make. But for May the 4th I made a closet cosplay of Cesi Eirriss, thinking the makeup would take 30 minutes... it did not. 

photo: Håvard Staub Nyhus

My sister was going as Tony Stark for the new Avengers movie, so I had to follow up with a closet cosplay of Black widow, I already had the hair in place ;)

One of my more different events this year was being invited as a cosplay guest to the Red Room Ball, a fetish event. The people I met were beyond amazing and I dressed up as a Ringmaster for the party. 

Another movie premiere, another closet cosplay, Mad Max apocalypric warrior

One of this years big projects were Mercy from Overwatch and I must say I learned a lot!

photo: Håvard Staub Nyhus

I was asked to make a costume for a small music video project for a school in Oslo, but suddenly they ditched the scene including my costume in the last minute. So I kept it myself and went out drinking looking like Cleopatra.

I love everything with Alice in wonderland and this was my take on the Red Queen

hoto: Håvard Staub Nyhus

I fell so much in love the the new Mad Max movie and ended up doing another group cosplay as warboy Slit. Most fun ever!

hoto: Håvard Staub Nyhus

And in an instagram closet cosplay challenge it was suggested I should make Furiosa also. All the Mad Max Love. 

The Fallout 3 Vault Dweller was this years "work on it only when I feel like it cosplay" which ended up me actually spending a full year and I still haven't any decent photos. 

One of the events I went to, Torucon, had pirates as their theme. I knew there would be a lot of Dragon Age cosplayers there, so I threw together a Isabela cosplay and I got really satisfied with the result. 

 

photo: Danarki Photo

And then we have this years most demanding and loved cosplay Red from Transistor. So many details and I pushed myself to make the best I ever could <3

photo: Artflower Fotografie

The Little Sister cosplay was also one of these cosplays I had most of the parts done, but no deadline to finish. So when my sister made her incredible Big Daddy I hurried up and joined her for debut at Spillexpo. 

photo: Katrix Media Site

Halloween is always a fun opportunity to showcase a makeup or costume around people who  don't dress up as often as I do, and even with several ideas running through my head I had to go for the Succubus year. I think I have to make several more looks for the season next year. 

Upgrades
As a part of my recycle project I like to both recycle parts of my costumes and also upgrading costumes I already have. So here are a few extra entries. 

And looking back to the list of cosplays I wanted to make last January I happy to see that I managed to finish several of them. The rest might follow over to 2016 plans maybe :D

Liara - Check

photo: Heresetai

Dovahkiin third update

Photo by Danarki

Adjutant

Update on my Demon Hunter (made hood and some thigh armor that are slightly easier to walk in)

Photo by Danarki

Other adventures
I took part in a few different projects too, some personal and some really awesome cooperation's :D

• I got to make a PS4 modification for PlayStation Norway together with Karin Olava
• I made some Fallout 3 Easter eggs that I ended up looking really cool and that I gave to you guys ;)
• For my birthday I made a Portal cake
• I got to be part of two photo shoots for the upcoming cosplay photo book project CSPLY.eu 
• Nominated for "Best International Cosplayer" by The Arcade for Arcade Awards 2015
• I have taken part in a Norwegian documentary about cosplay (among other things) that will be aired mid 2016.
• I participated in EuroCosplay representing Norway :D <3 <3 And getting 7th place!
• And was "Christmas Calendar girl" number seven during this years cosplay showcase over at Cosplay Norway

I had so much fun and can't wait to start with new projects next year. As one last treat for you, this is a photo of me, my sister and my brother from Christmas eve, where we all dressed up as the brother ;)

Happy New Years!

Love from Chrix

Red from Transistor - The wig

Styling a wig is a science and no question it takes practice. Just trying to figure out which wig to buy I leaned on more experienced cosplayers and followed their advice. 

I ended up with a Mathilda wig from Arda in Crimson. This was a deep red and sophisticated color. I also ordered extra wefts for my ventilation experiment. This wig already have a lace front, but I wanted to add a bit my self for three reasons

1. The machine made hairline was a little too tidy, I needed to make it more random to make it look more realistic.
2. My forehead is tiny and I had to lower the hairline
3. I wanted to learn something new (and mention to the judges that I could master this)

How to ventilate
It means tying one and one hair strand to the lace of the wig. Here's Arda's own tutorial for the method.

Then it was time for the trim, making sure I had both sharp scissors and thinning shears at hand I asked my sister to assist so I made sure the neck got trimmed to the right length (the Styrofoam head is a bit small)

Then we are ready for styling, using a curling iron and hairspray blasted with cool air from a hairdryer I made the curls stay in place. 

photo: Artflower Fotografie

Red from Transistor - Sum up of all the parts

Since I was spending so much time and effort on each of the parts for this costume I ended up with quite a bunch of somewhat long tutorials. This is an overview of my finished cosplay and links to all the parts that created it (for easier navigation). Maybe it can help you solve a similar problem. 

Sword
The most iconic part of the transistor cosplay is of course the Transistor. My main problem was I had to make mine dividable in three parts to be able to bring it on a plane. 

Jacket
Beside the sword this jacket is the part I'm most proud of. I have never sewed anything like this before and the details turned out beautiful.

Photo: Artflower Fotografie

Dress
The dress was actually really hard to make. How on earth can you control fabric to act like this.

Corset
I love sewing corsets, I have tried to include even more details of how I sewed this one, like how to hide the lacing. 

Stockings
These were actually easy enough to sew <3

Ring
This was a totally new technique and I loved learning it. But polishing metal takes a lot of time. 

Wig and Makeup
Styling wigs is even harder than sewing. Every hair want to go different ways. 

Photo: Artflower Fotografie

Stage props
I needed something for the stage and this is what I got. I managed to forget half of the prop at home, so I had to build it from random stuff I found :p

My Show
And last my show, or more the inspiration for my show. As the organizers have not published the video from the contest yet, here's a medley from the trailers that I used as inspiration with my friend Janno Sinclair BuzzBazz voicing the Transistor (I could not get hold of clean enough sound files and he has an amazing voice)

Red from Transistor - The Stockings and shoes

You might think stockings can be bought, well yes, but they can also be tailored to your feet, which I really wanted to do. Red has Thigh high "grey ish" stockings which I will attempt to sew. 

I was lucky and  found this amazing pattern online, by the Dreamstress, which would be perfect. She has also written a more detailed tutorial for how to sew it, so check it out. 

My fabric with two way stretch. 

The foot assembled

Formfitting the stockings to each foot. 

So far so good. 

I even got two of them

Darts matching up.

Then I was thinking, thigh high stockings like these often slouch after just a few minutes. Therefor I sewed them to a pair of dance thighs. I have seen several people use this method to make stay ups actually stay up, here's a tutorial by geekxgirls ;)

Oh lala

The shoes

The shoes are merely altered, though I let the heel stay on. In game she breaks the heel off as she rips her dress - Gotta love this practical heroine ;)

The same yellow satin fabric used for the dress was wet molded (stretched) over the tip of the shoes to create the yellow tip. I was afraid paint would chip off and this way I made sure the color matched perfectly.  

The edges are rolled hemmed on a sewing machine before being glued on. 

Last I added the yellow edge to the top of the boot, still same satin fabric. 

In action

Photo: Artflower Fotografie