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

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

Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats HOOO!!!!!

I'll be honest, I never really watched Thundercats til I was older.  There was too much guy happening on it for little me to stay interested.  But when my friend Constantine approached me with a request to cosplay Thundercats together, there was only one answer: OH MY GOD YES!!!!!!

A few weeks later, we found out about PowerCon/ThunderCon in Torrance, CA and the plan began to form.  Constantine had always wanted to cosplay Cheetara and I fell madly in love with Pumyra:

Since a lot of people aren't super familiar with Pumyra, I'll do a "Who Is" post in the near future, but for now, you just need to know she's awesome and her design is fabulous and I love her.

That being said, enjoy the following AMAZING photoshoot from our trip to ThunderCon last weekend.  (more to come soon)

Photography: Jonathon D. Courtot (fountains and field)
                      Shawn Bean (field)
Retouching:   Eric Swartz
                      Marcello
                      myself

To see more of Constantine's Cheetara costume, visit her blog at ConstantineInTokyo.com




CosPlay with me
-Angi

Who is Princess Merida?

I'll try not to ruin the movie for those that haven't seen it yet, but I do want to do a rundown of who Merida is for those attempting to cosplay her.

Merida is the headstrong protagonist of the feature film Brave released by Disney/Pixar in the summer of 2012.

Merida was born to royalty in the highlands of Scotland and was forced to adopt certain responsibilities and expectations as part of her upbringing.

From a young age, Merida tried to fight the role she was expected to fill.  She related much more to her brave, daring father than to her prim and proper mother, relishing the days when she was able to run free from the confines of the castle instead of learning to be a lady and future queen with her mother.

Merida is very much a free spirit and her character is reflected in every detail of her design from her wild, fiery red hair to her comfortable leather boots.  She's happiest on the back of her Clydesdale Angus, firing her bow into the distance and despises being forced to sit still.

Merida's one downfall is also the thing that makes her amazing; her free spirit.  She is so desperate to be free that it blinds her and leads to a life-changing event that threatens the safety and stability of not just her family, but the entire kingdom.

Merida is stubborn, hard-headed and determined.  She'll do whatever it takes to get what she wants and damn the consequences, but she's also able to begrudgingly learn a lesson, apologize for her mistakes and will do everything in her power to protect her family when the time comes.

Merida is the role model every little girl needs and the headstrong little brat in all of us.  She's the best and worst of every woman and someone we can all relate to.  To those out there cosplaying her, please keep this all in mind and help show the world that there's good and bad in all of us and we all have to learn from our mistakes and that's what makes us all human.

CosPlay with me

-Angi

New Black Widow/Natasha Romanova Photos!

Hi everybody!  I got together with photographer extraordinaire Alex Rothauser a few weeks ago to shoot for my donation rewards and we decided to throw in a little extra - new Black Widow photos!  I'm totally in love with all of them.  Just sayin.

Enjoy!

CosPlay with me
-Angi

Merida goes to see Brave

As I mentioned, I saw Brave opening weekend at my local theater (AMC Burbank 16) this past weekend and LOVED it.

I went with a friend of mine to a special Dolby Atmos screening and debuted my Merida cosplay.  I'd been working on my Scottish accent and made sure to get into character before we arrived.

I was a bit disappointed with the reaction from my screening's audience.  I only had 2 people ask to take photos and a handful even recognize who I was.  I did have one adorable little boy behind me on line who was terrified of my hair.  Poor thing.

After the screening, I was asked by one of the Dolby employees if they could take a picture and the insanity started.

I was asked by a number of groups before I left the theater to take pictures.  When I finally made it outside, my friend stopped to take a photo of me on the stairs with the giant Brave poster in the background and I wound up with line after line of little kids asking to take pictures.

I love doing things like this for kids, so I was happy as a clam.  I had a little conversation with each one and then took the photo.  I also had a few grownups ask.

One little ball of energy ran up wearing a Brave shirt and jumped with excitement for a while (video on YouTube):

One group of lively teen/young adult ladies were blown away by my accent, claiming I was "perfect":

**You can see these girls' adorable reactions to my appearance in the top right towards the end of the above video**

One sweet little girl stood around and had a whole 10 minute conversation about archery and Angus (the horse) and Scotland.  She asked where my mother was and why I didn't bring my bow and various other little movie-related questions.

I even had a cheerful older gentleman approach for his photo stating that his daughter insists these things are "childish", but he didn't agree (nor did I) ;)

One of my photographers happened to be a blogger himself and asked my permission to use the photo in a review he'll be writing for the movie (I'll link you all when it goes up).  It was lovely to meet you, Sam Fernandez.

After the excitement calmed down, I walked to the mall where I visited the ladies' room and encountered a poor little girl who was afraid of being flushed down the toilet.  I encouraged her through the stall wall to be brave and when we both exited I learned she had seen the movie the previous day and was extremely excited to see me.

this poor little angel was so shy, but we got along just fine by the end of it

check my mad bottle holding skillz lol

it was the girl in greens' birthday! I'm so happy to have been able to celebrate with her :)

If you happen to be one of the people pictured in this post or took a photo with (or of) me at the AMC Burbank 16 on June 23, please let me know so I can credit you accordingly (or add your photo).








CosPlay with me
-Angi

Brave: A Dream Come True

I've always had a thing for red-heads.  I've been drawn to them for as long as I can remember - from Ariel to Jessica Rabbit to Jean Grey to Alanna to Poison Ivy and on and on.  For whatever reason I relate to them the strongest.  They're always the headstrong, powerful, do-it-yourself women I want to be.

I tell you this to emphasize how long I waited for a character like Merida.  She is everything I ever dreamed I could be and most of who I am today - all the way down to the archery at age 5, Clydesdale as preferred means of transportation and clashing mother-daughter relationship.

I cannot express to you with enough fervency how perfect Brave was in the end.  I won't deny that the story is a bit predictable and doesn't offer much in the way of new material, but it doesn't need to.  At it's base, Brave is the story of a mother and daughter struggling to relate to and change each other to fit their own image and in turn growing and maturing as women.

I don't need to tell you that in a world where women are still fighting for equality and our children are growing up with diminishing positive media, we needed a film like Brave - A film that not only inspires young girls to stand up for themselves and fight for their own futures, but to learn from their mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

In addition, the film is expertly crafted - would you expect less from Pixar?  The sweeping views of the Scottish landscape are breathtaking and the attention to detail is incredible - as an archer myself, I loved seeing Merida line up her shot and breathe through it and then that beautiful arrow sway as it flew through the air.

I saw Brave in our new Dolby Atmos theater and was very impressed with the sound.  I was completely immersed in the film from the first audio cue and forgot everything around me until it ended.  If you've got one near you, I highly recommend checking it out.

As always, I recommend against the 3D.  It didn't detract from the film at all, but I didn't find it added anything either, so if you're on a budget, save the money and go see it in 2D.  I assure you, you're not missing anything.

Final thoughts:

The opening short was adorable - make sure you don't miss it.  Not only was it yet another incredible example of storytelling without the use of dialogue, but it was extremely appropriate to the theme of the film - family.

Make sure you stay through the credits.  You won't miss anything important if you don't, but there is a cute little scene at the end.

I had an AMAZING time at the movie.  Thank you Jonathan Johns and Robert Wilson for your donations.  I couldn't have done it without you.

I hope you all get to see it soon and enjoy it as much as I did.  I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

CosPlay with me
-Angi

The Avengers

So by now most of you have seen The Avengers and no doubt loved it as I did, because how could you not?

My only complaint with the film was a moment of Hollywood show-boating in the form of an Iron Man-Thor penis-measuring contest towards the beginning.  Seriously?  I won't deny it started out entertaining and ended epically, but around the middle I went "wait a second... are we still doing this?"  *shakes head*

Aside from that, I was blown away - and I went in with extremely high expectations.  The script was exceptional and the performances were spot-on.

I was really impressed with the way they wrote in everyone's appearances so that even someone like my parents who hadn't seen all the previous films could catch on quickly and follow along without hiccup.  *GASP*  Just like the old comics!  That's right!  Back in the heyday of comic books, you could pick up any old issue of a series and be able to catch the story and understand the characters while still including nods to the long-time readers to make them feel special.

Which brings me to the surprise at the end - Thanos  <<-- SPOILER!!!!!

I've had COUNTLESS people approach me since seeing the film to ask who the heck this random character is and I could not be happier.  The inclusion of this cameo was a display of love to die-hard Marvel fanatics like myself and opened the door to a whole slew of newbies who are now passionately interested in finding out more about this character and his story.

I'll try to write a "Who Is" post on this character in the near future, but for now, here's a nice little summary from MTV Geek to tide you over.

*by the way, the second after credits sequence is totally skip-able and I honestly felt a little jipped for having sat through my chance at a bathroom stall to watch it...

As to my experience - seeing the movie at the El Capitan was AMAZING and I highly recommend dropping the extra $$$ to see it there if you can.  Stan Lee's collection is inspiring and the atmosphere is incredible - granted I go to a lot of movies there, but this was a grand time and seeing Stan Lee's collection is worth the price of admission alone.

I went with my friends Shawn, Jon and Peter.  Shawn and Jon didn't cosplay, but they did wear Avengers-related shirts and Peter dressed as Solid Snake from Random Encounters' The Best We Can Be and he got a TON of attention for it.  It was pretty awesome.

I got a lot of attention from "press" and other theater-goers for my Black Widow costume - even though the only people that used my footage was the El Capitan video - thank you again mysterious editor man for using me!  I met another cosplayer who had put together an amazing movie Black Widow and looked just like Scarlett Johansson - like freakily so... o.O - and she only beat me out in the costume contest cuz of her sweet martial arts moves... stoopid heels... ><

Seriously, though, she looked amazing and totally deserved to win and the prize was a license plate cover anyway and I don't have a car, so it all worked out! Thank you crazy lady who drove me off the road!  Wait...

To make the night even better (seriously?  Like it could be!)  Clark Gregg - who plays Agent Coulson in the films - surprised us all before the film started and I won't lie - it was pretty awesome

Well.  Now that I've wasted half a page rambling about how FREAKING AWESOME THE AVENGERS WAS!!!!!!  Here are my photos from the night:

Seriously, though - if you don't know why I went with Solid Snake YOU NEED TO WATCH THE BEST WE CAN BE

me and the Hulk - aka Jon

 

rockin' our 3D glasses - Peter's being a creeper in the background

me and Peter on the right.  WOOT!

CosPlay with me
-Angi