Otakon 2014: More costumes

Once Ian's costume was ready to go, it was obvious that he would need a handler. His vision was limited to the two small circles of scrim right in front of his eyes. He couldn't bend over to see his feet, or even to see where a handrail was. The Baltimore Convention Center has a lot of escalators and stairs, and even if we had gotten a special pass to use the elevators, the costume wouldn't have fit. As it was, Ian had to do a lot of ducking down to get through doors.

So I would have to be his handler. The question then became, Do I make a costume for myself, or just be a handler? I decided it would be fun to be in costume as well, but it had to be something that fit with the Looney Tunes world that Gossamer was in. After some thought, I decided on dressing as Granny.

Pretty simple: a white blouse, purple skirt, and grey wig. And indeed, it was pretty quick to put together. The key was finding the accessories: I would need a Tweety bird and a Sylvester.

Fortunately, I had a Sylvester doll that I inherited from my mother (Sylvester was her favorite character). A friend provided me with a small Tweety figurine that was perfectly in scale with Sylvester, and I rounded it out with a small cage purchased at a craft store.

I'll be honest: I really thought nobody would recognize the character. But I was wrong! I got a lot of people shrieking "Granny!" and taking my picture. And they even recognized the character before they saw Tweety and Sylvester! I was very happy, especially because it was a very comfortable costume. I was able to help Ian get around, guiding his hand onto escalator handrails and making sure he wasn't about to walk into anything.

To give you an idea of the scale of Ian's costume, here's a picture of the two of us together.

Diana's Costume

This year, Diana decided she wanted to create her own character. She discovered she has a knack for fixing costume issues, so she created her own superhero: Cosplay Rescue!

The basis for the costume was this sketch:

She designed the logo herself, and I cut it out of heat-set vinyl (using my Silhouette Cameo). She made the "needle" out of wood. I made the red top with the attached cape, plus the "utility belt." The belt was stocked with all sorts of repair supplies: glue, tape, pins, thread, bobby pins... She had a veritable hardware store in there. And during the convention, she repaired more than a dozen costumes!

Here she is in action, fixing a cosplayer's wig that had started to slide off.

It was so funny to have people come up to her during the day and ask, very tentatively, "Are you really doing Cosplay Rescue?" She would then manage to pull out just what they needed to fix their costumes.

Doing the Cosplay Rescue was so much fun for her that she and I are planning on doing it in an official capacity at next year's Otakon! So I'll be making my own shirt and cape next year, and will be helping her.

By the way, did you notice the button earrings and the thread spool bracelets? Those were such fun finishing touches!