Viper

Way back in March of this year, I debuted a new costume at WonderCon in Anaheim and nobody knew who I was.  That costume was Viper as she would be seen in The Wolverine.  Well now the movie's out and I am happy to report that not only am I still proud of how my costume holds up, I LOVED the character and the movie.

 

I highly recommend you go see The Wolverine and bask in it's ability to make up for the abomination that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  For those of you (like myself) who are used to Viper as Madame Hydra, it might take a second to adjust to the new character, but I have to admit, for a brand new, original character inspired by an existing one, they created a fantastic villain.  She was deliciously evil, unstoppable and absolutely fabulous.

 

Now that the film is out and the character isn't so much of a mystery anymore, I figured I'd go ahead and share some of my favorite shots of the costume from recent cons.  Photography credit goes to Jonathon Courtot and Geri Kramer.

 

The featured Wolverine is the perfectly perfect in every way Lon Brown (Lonstermash) who is hands down the best movie Wolverine cosplayer around (IMO) and should be working as Hugh Jackman's stand-in.

 

 

Print available on Etsy

Print available on Etsy

 

What did you think of The Wolverine?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook!

 

 

CosPlay with me

-Angi

Disney's Frozen

Every little girl grows up loving fairy tales.  For me one particular story always held a particular magic - The Snow Queen.  I can't really explain why; what that magical bond I felt with this one story stemmed from, but for one reason or another, when the old animated movie was on or my mom was reading, I was captivated.  To me, the story is about friendship and family and love.  It represents the bond of a true friend and the lengths to which one is willing to go to help someone they love.  It's a message I took to heart and maintain in every relationship I form.

 

Now, anyone who knows me is familiar with the bond I have with Disney.  To me, Disney is everything.  The inspiration I get from their films and desire to become a part of the company some day are what get me out of bed in the morning.  There is nothing like watching a Disney movie.  It makes my heart sing.

 

When I found out almost 3 years ago that Disney was going to tackle the Snow Queen, I cried.  It was the only expression I could manage.  I tried everything I could to get a job at the studio in time to be a part of it, but alas, my attempts failed.

 

As information leaked about the film, I became more excited.  Idina Menzel and Kristin Bell?  Sign me up!  And now the film focuses on the relationship of two sisters, one older who curses and exiles the younger and the younger who only wants to melt her older sister's frozen heart?  Sounds pretty similar to the story of my relationship with my own younger sister (that's right, I was the one who pushed her away).  Then they released the teaser posters.  While the Snow Queen didn't look the way I'd invisioned her, my jaw dropped.  She was so stunningly beautiful and captured that piercing, elegance of winter.  I started preparing the costume that day. 

 

 

 

Over time, I found more images leak from all over the world and was finally able to debut my costume at San Diego Comic Con this past weekend where I met up with my very good friend Eurobeat Kasumi who took these incredible shots of the costume.  I couldn't be happier with how this costume came out and I cannot wait to wear it again to D23 August 9-11 and to the film in November.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy these shots as much as I do and please go support Eurobeat Kasumi and the company that inspired it all: Walt Disney Studios.

 

 

 

Are you excited for Frozen?  It comes out November 27!

 

 

 

 

CosPlay with me

-Angi

Black Widow in: High Hit

When I started cosplaying again a few years ago, I had a dream to work with my filmmaker friends to make short films that represented characters I love the way I've always wanted to see them.  With my Black Widow costume falling apart, I knew it had to be first.  I went to my friend Jon with an idea: what if we made a James Bond film starring Natasha instead of Bond?  Black Widow is a super-spy.  She is the female, comic book equivalent of James Bond and no other representation felt like it would do her the justice she deserves.

 

The short takes place during the period of her career when Natasha is making a name for herself as a solo super-hero (and keeps bumping into Daredevil).  Since she regularly went up against The Hand during that time, we came up with an idea to bring in the feel of the classic Bond films where James goes up against a seemingly big-time villain with some faceless organization backing him.  We looked up leaders of The Hand from over the years and landed on 2 options: Jon as Kingpin or Shawn as The Mandarin.  We weren't completely convinced Shawn could pull off the look of The Mandarin, but our urge to include him lead us to the phone conversation featured in the short and the idea that Kingpin has other leaders looking over his shoulder.

 

We filmed this short over 1 weekend and the entire process took approximately 3 months from original concept to final product.  We brought in a fantastic team of friends from college - Alex for cinematography and color, Jon for editting, Scott for props, Matt for an original score, Peter and AJ of Random Encounters for a Bond song for the credits - and I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to work with such incredible people.

 

Please enjoy Black Widow in: High Hit -

 

 

 

My goal was always do do a video for every cosplay I complete, but production time and schedules make that hard, so for now, enjoy High Hit and look forward to the fact that more will come.  Hopefully sooner rather than later. ;)

 

 

 

CosPlay with me...

-Angi

Hail Hydra

Ladies and gentlemen, I have some exciting news for you. Viper is going to be in The Wolverine due out this summer. What's that? You knew that already? Well did you also know that her costume is stunning and I went through the painstaking process of figuring out what it looked like and putting it all together? No? WELL I DID AND IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!

I love Viper. She's awesome. And I'm insanely excited for the new Wolverine movie, so as soon as images started leaking, I began collecting materials and I am happy to say it all finally paid off. The night the trailer was released, I started construction. Two days later, I debuted this bad boy at WonderCon with my good friend Lon Brown (who is literally the greatest movie Wolverine cosplayer ever) and you all get to reap the benefits! So, without further ado, I give to you the first ever cosplay of Viper from The Wolverine.

HAIL HYDRA!

There's lots more where that came from, everybody!  Feel free to spread this image around and get the hype going for The Wolverine!!!!



CosPlay with me...
-Angi

Gotham City Sirens

This past weekend was PMX (Pacific Media Expo) in Los Angeles and Saturday, Constantine, Steffy, Lon, myself and a few photographers headed to the Old Zoo in Griffith Park for a photo shoot.  This is what happened next:

Enjoy!



CosPlay with me
-Angi

The most amazing picture of Merida you will ever see

Hello darlings,

So I did a photoshoot in the woods recently with the amazing Jonathon D. Courtot so I could get some quality shots of my Merida cosplay to share with you guys.  There are some AMAZING shots coming, but I have one here that deserves special mention.

Our location featured a small waterfall (a rare find in Los Angeles) and for our last shot of the day, we waded into the lake to stand below it and Jon, genius that he is, framed it to include the top of the waterfall, thinking we could do something interesting with it later.  And so, I picked out my favorites and sent them to the ever-remarkable Alex Rothauser for retouching and he came back with this:

Alex added the bear and will-o-the-wisps in addition to color correcting the whole thing to make it beautiful and as close to the movie as possible.  Alex and Jon are amazing and I cannot thank them enough for making this happen.

Stay tuned for more recent photoshoots and check out my YouTube channel for new videos.



CosPlay with me
-Angi

Up-Close and Personal with Merida (Brave)

Seeing as how EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER wants to be Merida for Halloween this year (which I think is totally the greatest thing ever btw), I wanted to toss out an up-close look at how I made my Merida costume.  As always, feel free to comment, email or tweet me any questions on the process.

Also, check out my Etsy listing for your own custom Merida costume including under dress, over dress, belt and free goodies! (I also offer special orders for the full dress and wig set)

I'm going to start this breakdown with a bit of a rant.  Anyone who follows me on Twitter or knows me personally has heard this already, but I want to reiterate it for those of you who have not yet made the mistake:

MERIDA'S ARCHERY DRESS IS NAVY BLUE NOT GREEN

I apologize if it comes off harsh, but there are a frightening number of people out there who are still convinced that her archery/lounge dress is green and it most definitely is not.

To those who may wish to argue this with me, here's how I know it's blue:

1)  Observe the following still from the film:

that sure looks like blue to me, you?

2)  Observe the following character doll approved and released by Disney:

I'm pretty sure Disney's been doing this long enough to not release a doll with the wrong color dress...

3)  At the Comic-Con 2012 Brave panel, an audience member asked the panel of creators what color Merida's archery dress is.  Their answer?  Navy Blue.

I will acknowledge to a slight green tint in a few photos, but her dress is most definitely NOT forest green like it is being depicted by so many cosplayers.  PLEASE, COSPLAYERS, DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!!

</rant>

Now that that's out of my system, on to the breakdown:

I started with the under dress.  I've seen a number of people create Merida's dress as one solid piece, which doesn't look terrible, but I like to strive for accuracy and since you can see that she has 2 separate layers on in many shots, I decided to do it a little different.

For the "bodice" part of the dress, I used the Under Dress A pattern from Simplicity 2573:

BUT, I replaced the sleeves of the dress with the B/C/D sleeves from Butterick B5008:

Merida's under dress has ruffles on the sleeve cuffs and neckline

I sewed the dress as instructed minus the neckline ruffles.  Then I sewed the sleeves with two alterations: I closed the wrist cuff so it made a small tube, leaving a space open for elastic and I folded the ruffles in half because the pattern calls for them to be too long.

Next I added the sleeves to the dress.  Once everything was lined up, I cut the sleeves to fit the shape of the dress and added the neckline ruffles and elastic:

Once that was complete, I moved on to the over dress.  For this, I used Butterick B4827:

For this part, I started by basically just following the pattern, except I left the sleeves off and closed up the sleeve edges:

I also added a little block to the middle of the upper edge lining in preparation for the opening later.

For the sleeves, I sewed them together so they fit and then lined out where I wanted to cut them.  I cut both sleeves into two pieces and used the sections I had cut out to make the little straps between the sleeve sections.

I attached those to the sleeve opening on the dress and cut the opening in the front:

In the film, Merida has lacing holding the opening in the front closed, so I poked a few holes and strung a little extra leather lacing through:

The belt was very easy.  I used the belt pattern included in Butterick B4827 with a brown faux leather.  Once the belt was sewed and clasps attached, I overstitched the edges with about 5 strands of a very dark brown thread to create the look from the movie.

The final step was to style my wig.  For my costume, I curled a straight orange wig I bought off eBay.  Stay tuned for that tutorial.

For shoes, I purchased a pair of brown leather flats from Payless and wore a pair of white stockings.  In some images, Merida's shoes look like flats and in others they look like boots, but they are definitely brown leather and she wears white stockings under her dress.

Hope y'all find this helpful!  Feel free to ask questions or send me pics of your version! :)

CosPlay with me
-Angi