A year ago I started this blog 🙂 So to celebrate I’m going to tell you all about Denver Comic Con and my adventures in Cosplaying.  By the way… That’s what I’ve been up to.  Each week leading up to the conference I was piecing together different aspects of my costume.  I’ve also been traveling and what not so my TimberGirl Designs has been neglected 😦

So who did I dress up as?  I had a list of different options but I narrowed it down to Shiro from Deadman Wonderland.  It’s a fantastic anime/manga series.  So Shiro is a girl who lives in the Deadman Wonderland park.  She’s absolutely adorable and bubbly.  However, don’t irk her cause she will kick your butt.  Ohh… And she happens to have a split personality of a psychotic mass murder who will dismember anyone who crosses her path (next year’s outfit).

Here are some photos from Shiro.  They were taken from the Manga and so not my person pictures.

Now to walk you through my construction of Shiro

Painted Suit

I found a spandex suit from Amazon and decided to use fabric paint to adorn it with the proper designs.  This was an excruciating process for someone who apparently has slight OCD.  Not only did I want to get the markings correct… But I was crazy concerned about getting the left and right to match.  Specifically the hip designs.

Once I got my leotard, I put it one and drew out rough sketches of the designs.  I used a regular pencil and found myself worried that when I gently washed it the pencil wouldn’t come out.  Mom was sweet and reminded me that there are fabric pencils… It was a tad too late.

As per Katlin style I got paint on the table, the walls, my computer and myself.  If I ever paint and just get it on my canvas…. Well that will be a story to tell

The Collar

OMG… The darn collar.  What a disaster.  I had scouted out several ideas on different blogs, deviantart, reddit, etc. And I didn’t really see any that I loved.  I had a mission to make this look good and pretty accurate to the actual design. So my first stop was the hardware store for some sort of metal mesh material that I was going to cover in something that would eventually resemble a collar? yeah…  I walked out of there with a $2.00 mesh gutter cover.  PERFECT!  It was slightly bendy and retained manipulation well.  Please admire my work in progress (many were questioning of my choices in materials)

So next, I decided to be cheap and make my own Magic Model clay.  Cause, why not? Lots of recipes on the internet.

 

Bad idea… Terrible!!  My ingredients were Cornstarch and Glue.  I put it on and it started to ooze off.  Quite lovely.  Oh and the next day? It was cracked and falling apart.  Lesson learned.  Don’t try and create your own Magic Model.  Just don’t.

So then I discovered a 40% off coupon at Micheal’s.  Yes I did buy one packet of Magic Model, then walk out and return to the store a minute later to buy another.  A total of 4 packets were used and it was a whole lot cheaper then I thought it was going to be.

Doesn’t that look a million times better? I agree, it sure does.  After it dried I primed it with grey paint and then added a silver shine to it so make it look more metallic.

The next concern was how the heck was I going to get it on my neck?  And make it comfortable to wear…  First I cut out a section in the back.  Then I added some beading felt that was getting old and i wasn’t going to use anymore (much softer then normal felt).  I used Velcro to attach everything together.  😀  Success!!

Eyes, Gloves, and Wig

I’m combining these two cause I neglected to take pictures as I created the gloves.  Oops.  For the gloves I basically stitched up some mittens. Wasn’t too hard.  As for the eyes, well I just bought red contacts.  However, I then learned how to put contacts in.  Dear lord… I’m glad I practiced cause man it took so long the first few times.  Still took awhile the day of the con but at least it was shorter then before! Oh and no pics of the wig yet.  Bought it on Amazon.  I’m glad I bought it early. 🙂

 

Shiro!

The hard work that I put into the costume really paid off.  I loved the final result.  Plus so many people recognized me!  Shiro was sad that there were no other Deadmen at the conference.  Perhaps next year.

The Rest of the Anime/Manga Characters from Saturday

Overall Denver Comic Con was a hit  I can’t wait for next year 🙂 Thank you Eric for the pictures from the con!  I’m already thinking about next year’s cosplay… But now it’s time to make my apartment home.  My first task is to finish this dang Totoro dresser.  Painting resumes this afternoon. ❤

Now for another great year of blogging!