Mope. That was the word of the day yesterday. Mope mope mope. Which is kind of a funny word when you think of it.
Last night was another discouraging night in the land of costumes. It was a bad brain day, and those days tend to be plaguing me more often than not lately. I let my pessimistic person out to play a bit, and a few people got the brunt of it at work. I'm thankful for their patience, but it can't be easy when someone responds to your "things will get better" with "no, they won't - they never do." Yep. Cringe-worthy pessimistic response of despair right there. Really, I should have just said "thank you" and taken their words to be encouraging. Instead, I sank further into my personal mope until the mopery clouded every other single thing I did that night.
I went shopping for some supplies for a baby shower that we're throwing for a friend, and I then questioned everything I purchased when I got home. I also went shopping for a couple of costume items - a "good enough" shirt and pants for Jyn Erso and a necklace for a Once Upon a Time Disney Bounding project that another friend of mine and I are working on for April (that's another post). I found a necklace, but it wasn't what I had originally intended to purchase; it just looked cool. I didn't find pants. I found a shirt that was perfect - but it wasn't in my size and it wasn't on sale. I did manage to find a couple of cool t-shirts for my Nerd Husband and my bro-in-law, but I still kind of left feeling let down. I then hit a thrift store nearby (which I shouldn't have; I never have luck at this particular one), and then decided - since I'm out - I might as well try Marshall's because they're right across the street.
Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Grr.
I got home and saw that all of my fun eBay purchases had arrived today (3 of them) - a baby shower item, a Jyn vest, and the Disney Bound shirt. The baby shower item was a vintage book in great condition. Check. The Jyn vest was...awful. The wrong color (tan - my fault, should have read better - but the pictures made it look less tan that it is which is...pretty darned tan). It fit funky. It was just ugh. Which - unfortunately - that disappointment carried over into the Disney Bound shirt (which I really think will be pretty cool despite it not being 100% my style).
So I sat on the couch, clicked through eBay, and moped. I texted a friend with a mope that consisted of something along the lines of "I give up - meh". I moped on Facebook about the Kohl's shirt. I even flat-out admitted to the Nerd Husband I was moping.
NH: Are you tired?
Me: No. But if you're tired, you should go lie down.
NH: I don't want to leave you down here by yourself.
Me: I'm okay.
NH: What are you going to do?
Me: Mope.
Yep. It kind of went like that.
In the middle of all of my moping, I had some people who reached out. I kind of shut out the light they were shedding on the situation last night, but this morning I want to thank them. All of them. My sister-in-law for offering to look for the shirt at another Kohl's. My friend on Facebook who gave me the info about getting free shipping if you order a different size of the same item from a Kohl's kiosk. My friend who listened and responded to my moping texts with encouragement. My NH for putting up with my sorry butt.
You all must have done your job well, because - in the middle of my moping - I made a snap-decision to purchase a new brown vest on eBay. It's on it's way. I figure if it doesn't work, then at least it's in nice enough condition that I can wear it in "real" life. I went to bed and laid there for what felt like forever, trying to sleep, until finally I drifted off into weird dreams.
This morning, I woke up with a renewed s sense of Lara Croft-ness - that is to say, "Eff you, world. I got this. You tell me I can't do something? Watch me." So today was spent with me trying to sort through some crafting items this morning, organize in my brain what I'd like to try to work on, and figure out where I can get some pieces to make this new brown vest look at least a little like Jyn. I reached out to another friend of mine who I knew recently put in a drip-line irrigation system for his outdoor garden. He has spare black tubing, and I asked if I could steal a length of it. Done - and free for me (thank you, friend!). I've got plans to go through my "bits and bobbles" box and see what I can pull out to make some greeblies. And a new text from the friend I moped to last night gave me encouragement to make sure this project doesn't feel like "work" to me - let it be my thing that isn't work in the midst of all of this other crap. Enjoy it. (Thank you, friend - I'm going to try.)
So to all of you - my Obi-Wan Kenobis in my time of need - I sincerely thank you for the hope you gave to this mope. May the Force be with you always, my friends.
P.S. - And I ordered the shirt from Kohl's today. In my size. And it was on sale with free shipping to the store. Boom, baby. I win this round.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Friday, February 24, 2017
Costumes are Built on Hope
More times than not, that title sitting up there sums up how I feel about my little hobby. Sometimes I just sit back and hope that I'm doing the right thing, buying the right fabric, creating the right pattern, and putting things together the right way. It usually all turns out. Of course, there are other times when your lightsabers fall apart before you even make it into the convention center. But you know, you can still hope that it's all good. Sometimes you run out of time and you just can't make things as awesome as you envisioned them. Or sometimes you run out of knowledge about how to make something, and you just say, "Good enough with what I can do right now." You do those things, and you hope that it will be okay.
So it's with that same hope that I'm embarking on a journey to create Jyn Erso's costume from Rogue One: A Story Wars Story. I've been lurking in the RPF thread about Jyn's costume, but I haven't really said much. Mostly I'm just information gathering and silently sending jealous waves of awe across the internet to people whose work I admire. I know that my time is now limited because every time I wanted to start costuming, something else in real life would happen. So now I'm sitting here with a little over a month to put something together and a lot of weekends which are filling up with family and friend stuff. I'm kind of to the point mentally where if I focus on just one thing beyond what it is I'm doing, it compounds into a hundred things, and I freak out.
So - since my hobby should be fun and not cause me too much stress - we're going with a goal of "good enough" accuracy. That being said, there are things I want to try to incorporate, and if I can, I will. I also decided that - with my time constraints - my best bet would be to create costume pieces from existing items found in the great Thrift Store of Awesome and the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness. I'll run through what I have, where I am with it, and what my plan is. If you can call it a "plan".
Green Jacket
Located at the Thrift Store of Awesome. The first thing I bought and the first thing I started working one. Plus, it's probably one of my favorite parts of this entire costume. Jyn's green Rebellion jacket that she wears as part of her outfit on Jedha just really felt like "me". You don't even get to see this jacket at the end of the movie, but I absolutely love it. Not sure why because there's really nothing special about an army green jacket with blood stripes down the sleeves, but I'm weird like that.
I picked up a green military-esque jacket that was a little big for me, and I set to work ripping off the pockets, pinning up the back shoulders to bring it in a bit, and pinning the collar to get a stand-up effect. Finding thread to match this fabric was more difficult than it should have been, but I have thread now and things that need stitching back up. Once the stitching is complete on these items, I plan to figure out where to hem the length (if at all), add the decorative top-stitching to the collar and lower band, and maybe add a zipper - for kicks. Because I'm cruel to myself like that.
Lastly, I really want to put those stripes up the side. The actual garment appears to have stripes that are screen printed with puff paint. I know nothing of screen printing, and the only puff paint I have a history with is the kind that I used to make a fan t-shirt for a Backstreet Boys concert (yes, you can make fun of me; I won't cry). So after some research online and determining that I didn't really want to spend a lot of money on real screen printing stuff, I took my trusty coupons to JoAnn's and picked up three colors of acrylic paint and a big ol' tube of white "Puffy" paint. I have no idea what this will make. The correct answer is probably "a mess". The answer I'm hoping for is "awesome stripes".
Jacket: maybe $3.50
Thread: $1.07
Zippers: $6.90 (because I couldn't decide and bought 2 with the intention of using them in the future)
Paint: $6.83 (with definite re-usability on the acrylic colors, but maybe not so much on the $2 Puffy paint)
Pants
Located at the Thrift Store of Awesome. I picked up a slightly-too-large-in-the-waist pair of stretch twill black pants (with the widest legs you've ever seen). This might not have been my best choice because when I sat down with the intention on trying to figure out how to taper the legs, add front seams and back seams to both legs, and figure out how to add pin tuck details to the lower leg, I freaked out. I just kept pinning things and unpinning them and telling myself I was horrible and no good at this. Until finally, I ended up sitting in my basement with my legs out in front of me, donning the in-side out confusedly pinned pants, and thinking, "What the hell do I think I'm doing? And how do I get up off the floor now?"
In the meantime, I have given up on the pants, and I set those aside so I could think. I've watched some tutorials on tailoring pants now, and I have a rough sketch in mind of how I'd like to proceed. But I'm waiting for a better brain day so we don't have a repeat episode of last time.
I did pick up some "good enough" buckles when I was at Hobby Lobby this week because all of their sewing notions were half-off. Woohoo for sales!
Pants: maybe $2.50
Buckles: maybe $1.50
Gloves
I didn't want to spend $50+ on screen accurate gloves that would have required additional work and leather dyeing (things I haven't done before), so I took to the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness. Considering I have what seem like grotesquely sized hands when you're shopping for women's gloves, I finally landed on a pair of vintage brown leather gloves, well-worn, made in Italy, size 8. Some stains on the gloves, but hey - that's what I want, right! They had a "best offer" deal going on, so I threw in an offer and was accepted by the seller.
These things are awesome. They fit, which is great. The leather is thin but definitely seems to hold up, so it won't feel as bulky to me as the screen accurate gloves. I felt awful at first about cutting up vintage Italian leather gloves, but I justified my actions to myself by saying that they were well-worn already and smelled of old lady perfume. So I started cutting off the finger tips, and then I took a seam ripper to rip out the vintage silk lining. It took some time and patient cutting to get the gloves down to the acceptable "height" in the fingers for me, and then I used one gloves as a pattern to match the other.
I'm currently in the process of restitching the seams so that they don't fall apart at the fingers. I have two fingers left to go, and then I can move on to shortening the gloves and using that extra leather to add the wrist strap. I'm so happy with these, and they aren't even done.
Gloves: $8.75
Vest
This is a hard one for me to count costs on because I bought material to make a vest. Jyn's vest is cotton in the back and nylon in the front, so I ended up with some quilting cotton and two different types of nylon. But then time started slipping away and the calendar started filling up, and I freaked out So I'm not going to include that cost in my analysis right now
After my freak out session, I took a trip to the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness which made it all better once again. I ended up finding a vest that looked about right to me, not too puffy, and a "best offer" deal on it. It had some stitching that was coming undone, but the seller was honest about it. Otherwise, the thing looks pretty darned good. And since I'd like to replace the stitching, that's fine by me. Plus, I can pass it off as "battle damaged", so who cares about defects?! The only thing that might cause me issue is that it's listed as "tan". I didn't really realize that until after I put in my offers, so we'll see what happens. Apparently, you can dye nylon; I did some research on it at lunch today. But then again, I might decide "good enough" and just go with it.
I would like to add new pockets, webbing, and maybe some of the contrast stitching. Maybe even add the little floss tied quilting puffs in the back (which would be something new I've never done). But again, if this stuff doesn't get done, I'm not going to be sad.
Vest: $7.00
Belt
While it's no where near accurate, I'm actually thinking about using my gun belt from my Lara Croft costume. It has the same leg wrap, and it's brown. Good enough! If I have time or patience, maybe I'll dig into something else later.
Belt: free
Boots
I think I'm going to reuse the Lara Croft boots for this as well. They're the perfect height and color. I doubt that I'll have time or resources to make the boot cover patches, though. But in the meantime, I'm going to consider this one done.
Boots: free
Scarf
This is another one of those pieces that you don't see later on in the movie, but she does wear the item on Jedha. And honestly, I just love scarves, so I really want to make this piece. I've been searching for fabric for a couple of weeks now, though, with no luck. So this is still up in the air.
Shirt
I really would love to create the shirt with the little collar flap that Jyn wears, but again, I'm having a hard time color-matching fabric. I might end up going with a gray "good enough" 3/4 sleeve shirt, but I haven't located a possible one just yet.
Gun
This one I'm stuck on. I've done so much research that my head is spinning. I could build one, but I need a model Luger airsoft gun. Plus, it's a matter of "con safe", and I want to be as mindful of that as possible. I could buy a 3D printed one, but I'd more than likely have to paint it and assemble it. The next money step up is buying one that's printed, assembled, and painted. I'm weighing my options. Part of me kind of just wants to mix my fandoms and carry a banana.
As of right now, that's the big stuff I can come up with. There are other little pieces and parts (comlink, ID tag, etc.), but I'm not really in a mind to think of that right now. Plus now I'm just laughing because River Song is pointing a banana at the Doctor. Life is ridiculous like that.
Until next time, stay shiny!
So it's with that same hope that I'm embarking on a journey to create Jyn Erso's costume from Rogue One: A Story Wars Story. I've been lurking in the RPF thread about Jyn's costume, but I haven't really said much. Mostly I'm just information gathering and silently sending jealous waves of awe across the internet to people whose work I admire. I know that my time is now limited because every time I wanted to start costuming, something else in real life would happen. So now I'm sitting here with a little over a month to put something together and a lot of weekends which are filling up with family and friend stuff. I'm kind of to the point mentally where if I focus on just one thing beyond what it is I'm doing, it compounds into a hundred things, and I freak out.
So - since my hobby should be fun and not cause me too much stress - we're going with a goal of "good enough" accuracy. That being said, there are things I want to try to incorporate, and if I can, I will. I also decided that - with my time constraints - my best bet would be to create costume pieces from existing items found in the great Thrift Store of Awesome and the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness. I'll run through what I have, where I am with it, and what my plan is. If you can call it a "plan".
Green Jacket
Located at the Thrift Store of Awesome. The first thing I bought and the first thing I started working one. Plus, it's probably one of my favorite parts of this entire costume. Jyn's green Rebellion jacket that she wears as part of her outfit on Jedha just really felt like "me". You don't even get to see this jacket at the end of the movie, but I absolutely love it. Not sure why because there's really nothing special about an army green jacket with blood stripes down the sleeves, but I'm weird like that.
I picked up a green military-esque jacket that was a little big for me, and I set to work ripping off the pockets, pinning up the back shoulders to bring it in a bit, and pinning the collar to get a stand-up effect. Finding thread to match this fabric was more difficult than it should have been, but I have thread now and things that need stitching back up. Once the stitching is complete on these items, I plan to figure out where to hem the length (if at all), add the decorative top-stitching to the collar and lower band, and maybe add a zipper - for kicks. Because I'm cruel to myself like that.
Lastly, I really want to put those stripes up the side. The actual garment appears to have stripes that are screen printed with puff paint. I know nothing of screen printing, and the only puff paint I have a history with is the kind that I used to make a fan t-shirt for a Backstreet Boys concert (yes, you can make fun of me; I won't cry). So after some research online and determining that I didn't really want to spend a lot of money on real screen printing stuff, I took my trusty coupons to JoAnn's and picked up three colors of acrylic paint and a big ol' tube of white "Puffy" paint. I have no idea what this will make. The correct answer is probably "a mess". The answer I'm hoping for is "awesome stripes".
Jacket: maybe $3.50
Thread: $1.07
Zippers: $6.90 (because I couldn't decide and bought 2 with the intention of using them in the future)
Paint: $6.83 (with definite re-usability on the acrylic colors, but maybe not so much on the $2 Puffy paint)
Pants
Located at the Thrift Store of Awesome. I picked up a slightly-too-large-in-the-waist pair of stretch twill black pants (with the widest legs you've ever seen). This might not have been my best choice because when I sat down with the intention on trying to figure out how to taper the legs, add front seams and back seams to both legs, and figure out how to add pin tuck details to the lower leg, I freaked out. I just kept pinning things and unpinning them and telling myself I was horrible and no good at this. Until finally, I ended up sitting in my basement with my legs out in front of me, donning the in-side out confusedly pinned pants, and thinking, "What the hell do I think I'm doing? And how do I get up off the floor now?"
In the meantime, I have given up on the pants, and I set those aside so I could think. I've watched some tutorials on tailoring pants now, and I have a rough sketch in mind of how I'd like to proceed. But I'm waiting for a better brain day so we don't have a repeat episode of last time.
I did pick up some "good enough" buckles when I was at Hobby Lobby this week because all of their sewing notions were half-off. Woohoo for sales!
Pants: maybe $2.50
Buckles: maybe $1.50
Gloves
I didn't want to spend $50+ on screen accurate gloves that would have required additional work and leather dyeing (things I haven't done before), so I took to the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness. Considering I have what seem like grotesquely sized hands when you're shopping for women's gloves, I finally landed on a pair of vintage brown leather gloves, well-worn, made in Italy, size 8. Some stains on the gloves, but hey - that's what I want, right! They had a "best offer" deal going on, so I threw in an offer and was accepted by the seller.
These things are awesome. They fit, which is great. The leather is thin but definitely seems to hold up, so it won't feel as bulky to me as the screen accurate gloves. I felt awful at first about cutting up vintage Italian leather gloves, but I justified my actions to myself by saying that they were well-worn already and smelled of old lady perfume. So I started cutting off the finger tips, and then I took a seam ripper to rip out the vintage silk lining. It took some time and patient cutting to get the gloves down to the acceptable "height" in the fingers for me, and then I used one gloves as a pattern to match the other.
I'm currently in the process of restitching the seams so that they don't fall apart at the fingers. I have two fingers left to go, and then I can move on to shortening the gloves and using that extra leather to add the wrist strap. I'm so happy with these, and they aren't even done.
Gloves: $8.75
Vest
This is a hard one for me to count costs on because I bought material to make a vest. Jyn's vest is cotton in the back and nylon in the front, so I ended up with some quilting cotton and two different types of nylon. But then time started slipping away and the calendar started filling up, and I freaked out So I'm not going to include that cost in my analysis right now
After my freak out session, I took a trip to the eBay Galaxy of Gloriousness which made it all better once again. I ended up finding a vest that looked about right to me, not too puffy, and a "best offer" deal on it. It had some stitching that was coming undone, but the seller was honest about it. Otherwise, the thing looks pretty darned good. And since I'd like to replace the stitching, that's fine by me. Plus, I can pass it off as "battle damaged", so who cares about defects?! The only thing that might cause me issue is that it's listed as "tan". I didn't really realize that until after I put in my offers, so we'll see what happens. Apparently, you can dye nylon; I did some research on it at lunch today. But then again, I might decide "good enough" and just go with it.
I would like to add new pockets, webbing, and maybe some of the contrast stitching. Maybe even add the little floss tied quilting puffs in the back (which would be something new I've never done). But again, if this stuff doesn't get done, I'm not going to be sad.
Vest: $7.00
Belt
While it's no where near accurate, I'm actually thinking about using my gun belt from my Lara Croft costume. It has the same leg wrap, and it's brown. Good enough! If I have time or patience, maybe I'll dig into something else later.
Belt: free
Boots
I think I'm going to reuse the Lara Croft boots for this as well. They're the perfect height and color. I doubt that I'll have time or resources to make the boot cover patches, though. But in the meantime, I'm going to consider this one done.
Boots: free
Scarf
This is another one of those pieces that you don't see later on in the movie, but she does wear the item on Jedha. And honestly, I just love scarves, so I really want to make this piece. I've been searching for fabric for a couple of weeks now, though, with no luck. So this is still up in the air.
Shirt
I really would love to create the shirt with the little collar flap that Jyn wears, but again, I'm having a hard time color-matching fabric. I might end up going with a gray "good enough" 3/4 sleeve shirt, but I haven't located a possible one just yet.
Gun
This one I'm stuck on. I've done so much research that my head is spinning. I could build one, but I need a model Luger airsoft gun. Plus, it's a matter of "con safe", and I want to be as mindful of that as possible. I could buy a 3D printed one, but I'd more than likely have to paint it and assemble it. The next money step up is buying one that's printed, assembled, and painted. I'm weighing my options. Part of me kind of just wants to mix my fandoms and carry a banana.
As of right now, that's the big stuff I can come up with. There are other little pieces and parts (comlink, ID tag, etc.), but I'm not really in a mind to think of that right now. Plus now I'm just laughing because River Song is pointing a banana at the Doctor. Life is ridiculous like that.
Until next time, stay shiny!
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Some Thoughts On "Cosplay"
I struggle a lot with self-doubt: am I good enough, smart enough, fast enough, skinny enough, pretty enough, tough enough, etc. These are questions we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives, I'm sure. Some of us decide the answer is, "Who cares?" and we move on. I claim that my answer is "who cares", and I attempt to move on with building up a tough exterior to hide my shaky little inner core which isn't really sure if it doesn't care who cares or not and is really just trying to seek out some little island of stability to call home.
Wasn't that a lot of personal information to lead us into a costume discussion? My apologies, good people. You put up with a lot.
I started out cosplaying (I'm still getting used to this mainstream term) ages ago now when I worked on a limited budget (i.e. poor college student budget). I thrifted. I made things as best I could. I cut corners. I shopped at the Dollar Tree. I transformed things into new things. This was the base of my hobby.
Over the years, I grew up and so did my hobby. I learned how to sew. I started buying and making patterns. I started learning new things. I started doing research on the internet, joining message boards, reading about props and costumes and realism. And somewhere in all of that, I realized that I hated some of the comments I was reading about "inaccuracies" in a fan-made costume. Where they didn't have a seam properly placed or the incorrect fabric was used or they should save up enough money until "you can afford to do it properly". Words like this kind of hurt me - the person who had started all of this in the poor college student phase. The person who had a crappy couple of first costumes but was still kind of proud of my humble beginnings. I felt bad for the people reading these comments, and it broke my heart that there was some sort of exclusionary set of "rules" that were pushing people out of the fandom because their seams were improperly cut and sewn together.
I don't like that. I don't like pushing people out because something is "wrong" or "inaccurate". Sometimes, you know, that's the best someone can do at the time. We can offer constructive criticism to that person - as long as it's constructive. You want that criticism to be helpful and respectful. Why would you want to make someone feel bad because they've done the best they could with what they had and the knowledge they currently possessed? You don't. It's just plain bad manners in my book. Offer to help. Offer to be there as a source. Offer to teach them something or show them where they can go to learn a new skill that would help them out.
The exclusion mentality and the need to be 100% accurate is the very thing I hated about doing costume research on the internet for all of these reasons. And it's also - unfortunately - now been ingrained into my very skull to the point where I've basically excluded myself.
My stuff isn't 100% accurate. I know that. I know that I do my best to replicate what I can to the degree I can with the information I have on hand at the time. I don't have a lot of skills. I lack leather working ability or access to metal working tools or anything of that nature. I can put in snaps. I can cut stuff up and sew it back together. I can make kinda-sorta pattern pieces all by my little own self. I can stitch things together to make a wearable garment. But I have never been able to attain 100% accuracy because I don't want to throw the money into it. I don't build things on the poor college student budget anymore, but I do still try to keep it to a decent budget. Therefore, my stuff isn't 100% accurate, and it actually kind of makes me feel like a fraud. It makes me feel like I shouldn't be doing this as my hobby or that I've failed in some way, and I'm not a "true" fan.
If someone else came up to me and told me all of this, I'd take them by the shoulders and look at them and say, "What really makes a true fan?" Can we really define that? Can we say, "You spent $33 dollars on the exact same model of gloves, plus the $15+ supplies to cut them up a bit, redye them to the proper color, add new leather pieces, and now you've got the exact piece that they used in the movie! You're a true fan!" Is that fair? Are you going to tell a 6 year old that she's not a true fan because she used her dad's old gloves from the back of the closet? (Well, of course not, I hope...unless you're evil.) But if you wouldn't tell a child that, why would you want to be just as equally evil to an adult? Someone of your own fandom. It baffles me. You can tell someone that it's not 100% accurate, but 100% accuracy doesn't equal "true fan" status.
This is the argument I keep trying to tell myself when I look at costuming standards for groups like the 501st and the Rebel Legion. These people are legendary in their costume skills - the folks that take the time to craft these pieces are just astounding artists. They really, truly are. I don't want to downplay that. I spend a lot of time on the Replica Prop Forum message boards lately, too, and the work displayed there is out of this world. It's like walking through a movie museum, and I absolutely love it. When I see all of this, I hear this little voice in the back of my head that says, "Shada, why can't you be like them? You could make it perfect. You need to make it perfect or else it isn't right."
That's the part of me I'm trying to squelch. The part of me that is judgemental of my own work - with the voice of judgement that is born of looking at the voices of other people's judgement and then...judging them for judging others. That's a lot of judging, and I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions in life. I need to just stop it. I need to just take a step back and remember why I do this. I do this to play. I do this to bring joy to others and myself. I do this so some little kid can think it's awesome and will want to do it, too.
It used to be that I hated the word "cosplay" when it was first introduced. I thought it sounded too "playful" - like the people who were crafting the costumes weren't being careful in their construction. That they were careless and reckless and just didn't give a womp rat's ass about any of it. But that's wrong. It was completely incorrect on my part, and in the very beginning I had an extreme misunderstanding of the word. Now, I'm actually proud to say I cosplay. I'm proud to say that I've crafted these things on my own, and that I can help you learn how I did it if you want the help. And if you want to learn something else, I can try to help you figure that out, too. No matter my level of experience or lack of skill, I can still make something. It might not be perfect. It might not be 100% accurate. But it's still full of love and devotion and research and hours or planning.
That makes it perfect in my book. Forget what the others say - that's my advice to me. That's hard advice to take, but it's advice I need to remember. Especially at times like this when I doubt myself and my abilities and my "fan" status. I can't doubt. I can't force myself to be amazing. I need to just love it, live it, and have fun with it. That's the point of all of this craziness, after all.
Wasn't that a lot of personal information to lead us into a costume discussion? My apologies, good people. You put up with a lot.
I started out cosplaying (I'm still getting used to this mainstream term) ages ago now when I worked on a limited budget (i.e. poor college student budget). I thrifted. I made things as best I could. I cut corners. I shopped at the Dollar Tree. I transformed things into new things. This was the base of my hobby.
Over the years, I grew up and so did my hobby. I learned how to sew. I started buying and making patterns. I started learning new things. I started doing research on the internet, joining message boards, reading about props and costumes and realism. And somewhere in all of that, I realized that I hated some of the comments I was reading about "inaccuracies" in a fan-made costume. Where they didn't have a seam properly placed or the incorrect fabric was used or they should save up enough money until "you can afford to do it properly". Words like this kind of hurt me - the person who had started all of this in the poor college student phase. The person who had a crappy couple of first costumes but was still kind of proud of my humble beginnings. I felt bad for the people reading these comments, and it broke my heart that there was some sort of exclusionary set of "rules" that were pushing people out of the fandom because their seams were improperly cut and sewn together.
I don't like that. I don't like pushing people out because something is "wrong" or "inaccurate". Sometimes, you know, that's the best someone can do at the time. We can offer constructive criticism to that person - as long as it's constructive. You want that criticism to be helpful and respectful. Why would you want to make someone feel bad because they've done the best they could with what they had and the knowledge they currently possessed? You don't. It's just plain bad manners in my book. Offer to help. Offer to be there as a source. Offer to teach them something or show them where they can go to learn a new skill that would help them out.
The exclusion mentality and the need to be 100% accurate is the very thing I hated about doing costume research on the internet for all of these reasons. And it's also - unfortunately - now been ingrained into my very skull to the point where I've basically excluded myself.
My stuff isn't 100% accurate. I know that. I know that I do my best to replicate what I can to the degree I can with the information I have on hand at the time. I don't have a lot of skills. I lack leather working ability or access to metal working tools or anything of that nature. I can put in snaps. I can cut stuff up and sew it back together. I can make kinda-sorta pattern pieces all by my little own self. I can stitch things together to make a wearable garment. But I have never been able to attain 100% accuracy because I don't want to throw the money into it. I don't build things on the poor college student budget anymore, but I do still try to keep it to a decent budget. Therefore, my stuff isn't 100% accurate, and it actually kind of makes me feel like a fraud. It makes me feel like I shouldn't be doing this as my hobby or that I've failed in some way, and I'm not a "true" fan.
If someone else came up to me and told me all of this, I'd take them by the shoulders and look at them and say, "What really makes a true fan?" Can we really define that? Can we say, "You spent $33 dollars on the exact same model of gloves, plus the $15+ supplies to cut them up a bit, redye them to the proper color, add new leather pieces, and now you've got the exact piece that they used in the movie! You're a true fan!" Is that fair? Are you going to tell a 6 year old that she's not a true fan because she used her dad's old gloves from the back of the closet? (Well, of course not, I hope...unless you're evil.) But if you wouldn't tell a child that, why would you want to be just as equally evil to an adult? Someone of your own fandom. It baffles me. You can tell someone that it's not 100% accurate, but 100% accuracy doesn't equal "true fan" status.
This is the argument I keep trying to tell myself when I look at costuming standards for groups like the 501st and the Rebel Legion. These people are legendary in their costume skills - the folks that take the time to craft these pieces are just astounding artists. They really, truly are. I don't want to downplay that. I spend a lot of time on the Replica Prop Forum message boards lately, too, and the work displayed there is out of this world. It's like walking through a movie museum, and I absolutely love it. When I see all of this, I hear this little voice in the back of my head that says, "Shada, why can't you be like them? You could make it perfect. You need to make it perfect or else it isn't right."
That's the part of me I'm trying to squelch. The part of me that is judgemental of my own work - with the voice of judgement that is born of looking at the voices of other people's judgement and then...judging them for judging others. That's a lot of judging, and I'm not qualified to make those sorts of decisions in life. I need to just stop it. I need to just take a step back and remember why I do this. I do this to play. I do this to bring joy to others and myself. I do this so some little kid can think it's awesome and will want to do it, too.
It used to be that I hated the word "cosplay" when it was first introduced. I thought it sounded too "playful" - like the people who were crafting the costumes weren't being careful in their construction. That they were careless and reckless and just didn't give a womp rat's ass about any of it. But that's wrong. It was completely incorrect on my part, and in the very beginning I had an extreme misunderstanding of the word. Now, I'm actually proud to say I cosplay. I'm proud to say that I've crafted these things on my own, and that I can help you learn how I did it if you want the help. And if you want to learn something else, I can try to help you figure that out, too. No matter my level of experience or lack of skill, I can still make something. It might not be perfect. It might not be 100% accurate. But it's still full of love and devotion and research and hours or planning.
That makes it perfect in my book. Forget what the others say - that's my advice to me. That's hard advice to take, but it's advice I need to remember. Especially at times like this when I doubt myself and my abilities and my "fan" status. I can't doubt. I can't force myself to be amazing. I need to just love it, live it, and have fun with it. That's the point of all of this craziness, after all.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Reflections of Celebration
I'm sitting here realizing that in two months, I will be boarding a plane to soar through the clouds to take me to Orlando. Not just for Disney. Not just for Universal. But for Star Wars Celebration 2017. 2017, people. How crazy is that? Then again, maybe it's not all that crazy for you. Maybe your life is going swimmingly and the years have gone by in the same manner, day in and day out. I'm betting the probability of that is low. Very low. So if you're like me in some way, you're going to look at the year 2017 and think, "How did we get here?" If you're even further like me, you're looking at Star Wars Celebration 2017 and thinking, "How did we get here?"
Let's have a boring history lesson. Perhaps if you imagine it being related to you by C-3PO, it will make things slightly less boring. Maybe.
Celebration has a history that intertwined with the release of the Star Wars Prequel trilogy, and Celebration I was held from April 30-May 2, 1999 at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, Colorado. The event was held three weeks before the official release of The Phantom Menace, and it was the first Star Wars convention since 1987.
When Attack of the Clones was set to release, Celebration II was held in Indianapolis, Indiana from May 3-5, 2002. I missed out on this one by about a week. I found out about it maybe a week after the convention had been held, but there was no way I (at the time, a poor, young college freshman) could have made the journey by car and paid my way into the con. But I vowed that I could make it to the next one - because I had faith their would be a next one. I gathered up an old coffee can, printed out a little label with Obi-Wan staring at me and "Celebration III Fund" written in Star Wars font. I put every dollar I earned and every penny I found into that little can.
When Celebration III rolled around from April 21-24, 2005 in Indianapolis, I was there. My funds had taken me this far, even though I ended up a bit shy due to some unforeseen issues with hotel rooms. But thanks to the grace of a friend who allowed me to pay back my bill monthly, I was there. A college senior. There with a Jedi costume of my own, in the middle of a severe bout of depression, but so stinking excited because I was freaking there. I met people I had talked to on the StarWars.com message boards from all over the word (the board are history now, sadly enough, but I still miss them). I waited for hours just to get into the dumb Celebration store. I saw props and costumes. I tried to get into lines that were always "capped" due to capacity. It was one heck of an experience, though - even when dealing with a tough time in my own personal life. I wouldn't trade it.
Since my days at Celebration III, I have made every effort, saved my pennies, and attended each Celebration held in the US: IV, V, VI, and Anaheim 2015 (why did we stop numbering them?). My fellow fans around the world have been able to take part of international Celebrations held in England, Japan, Germany, and back to England again.
So that's how we got here. That's how a poor college freshman who missed out made sure she didn't miss out later on. That's how that 19 year old kid grew into a 34 year old adult(?) who still does a lot of child-like things despite having grown-up responsibilities. And that's how we've made it to 2017 and will push on to Celebration 2017. We learn. We grow. We fall down. We pick ourselves back up. We learn some more. And we grow some more. It's a process, one that I've been following like everyone else has in life.
And it's a cause for Celebration in my book.
Let's have a boring history lesson. Perhaps if you imagine it being related to you by C-3PO, it will make things slightly less boring. Maybe.
Celebration has a history that intertwined with the release of the Star Wars Prequel trilogy, and Celebration I was held from April 30-May 2, 1999 at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver, Colorado. The event was held three weeks before the official release of The Phantom Menace, and it was the first Star Wars convention since 1987.
When Attack of the Clones was set to release, Celebration II was held in Indianapolis, Indiana from May 3-5, 2002. I missed out on this one by about a week. I found out about it maybe a week after the convention had been held, but there was no way I (at the time, a poor, young college freshman) could have made the journey by car and paid my way into the con. But I vowed that I could make it to the next one - because I had faith their would be a next one. I gathered up an old coffee can, printed out a little label with Obi-Wan staring at me and "Celebration III Fund" written in Star Wars font. I put every dollar I earned and every penny I found into that little can.
When Celebration III rolled around from April 21-24, 2005 in Indianapolis, I was there. My funds had taken me this far, even though I ended up a bit shy due to some unforeseen issues with hotel rooms. But thanks to the grace of a friend who allowed me to pay back my bill monthly, I was there. A college senior. There with a Jedi costume of my own, in the middle of a severe bout of depression, but so stinking excited because I was freaking there. I met people I had talked to on the StarWars.com message boards from all over the word (the board are history now, sadly enough, but I still miss them). I waited for hours just to get into the dumb Celebration store. I saw props and costumes. I tried to get into lines that were always "capped" due to capacity. It was one heck of an experience, though - even when dealing with a tough time in my own personal life. I wouldn't trade it.
Since my days at Celebration III, I have made every effort, saved my pennies, and attended each Celebration held in the US: IV, V, VI, and Anaheim 2015 (why did we stop numbering them?). My fellow fans around the world have been able to take part of international Celebrations held in England, Japan, Germany, and back to England again.
So that's how we got here. That's how a poor college freshman who missed out made sure she didn't miss out later on. That's how that 19 year old kid grew into a 34 year old adult(?) who still does a lot of child-like things despite having grown-up responsibilities. And that's how we've made it to 2017 and will push on to Celebration 2017. We learn. We grow. We fall down. We pick ourselves back up. We learn some more. And we grow some more. It's a process, one that I've been following like everyone else has in life.
And it's a cause for Celebration in my book.
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