Intensity making of

This summer I got an awesome email from Blizzard Entertainment:
Hallo Svetlana!
Congratulation! Your costume was choosed as winner of the costume contest "Win a Trip to Blizzcon"! The first prize is a flight to the USA to Blizzcon.

Yeah.. I was a bit stunned... Just a bit, he he. I remember that I went crazy the hole day! I screamed, and jumpend and it was just amazing. I never, NEVER expect the first prize and could not believe that I would really fly to Blizzcon. Only for 4 days, but these had to be awesome!
But now I had a problem: Journey's End and all of my other staffs were too big for my case suit. So I decided to build a new one.

I searched a bit in the World of Warcraft modelviewer and chosed Itensity.



I searched for a good looking staff which was as flat as possible and matched to my Druid Tier 6. It was also not a staff, which I really really wanted or I loved it's design, but I only needed a staff which would fit in my suit case.

Cause of this it composed of 4 parts, which I could screw together. I planed the building of the model only a few days. Then my boyfriend would paint it.
In the first picture you only see my materials: Some greyboard, wooden staff parts, foam, expanding foam, modeling clay, crepe tape and newspaper. The second one shows the technique I used for the core itself. I just cut the right form out of grey board and built a sandwich of 2 grey board parts and some foam for filling it. After this I put one wooden staff inside and clayed everthing with hot glue together. Now I closed the border with crepe tape and covered the hole head with newspaper and paper maché. For those round things I used modeling clay.

For the button I used the same technique. I just put a plexiglass pipe inside for the pending ball in the middle.
For forming the middle parts I used expanding foam and carved them to the right form.Yeah, it was really simple to build this staff and I was very satisfied with the base model.
My boyfriend got the finished parts and made the paint for me. And I think, he did a great job!

 

And after 3 weeks of work for me and my boyfriend staff Nr. 4 was done!

So Blizzcon, I'm coming!

To discribe, how awesome this weekend in Anaheim was is beyond my english skills! But know that it was just amazing and some of the best days in my life. AND: I will come back! You will also find me at next Blizzcon, he he!

Druid Tier 6 pauldron and headpiece making of

Next part of my Druid Tier 6 story from World of Warcraft:

Most of my work with fabrics was done, so I started with my weapons and my props.
The sample had 2 very complicated pauldrons and one helmet.

At first I tried to model both forms with expanding foam. I used rabbit wire as a base and covered it. My plan was to carve it now, but unfortunately my skills were at the time not good enough for such a hard sample. The pauldrons were too big, too long and just looked wrong...

I was frustrated and discarded both pauldrons. It was time for a other technique so I tried the one I learned 2 years ago, while making my Druid Tier 1 project.

At first I took a polystyrene half hollow and clayed some board on it. I carved the bird skull out of expanding foam and covered everything with crepe tape, newspaper and paper maché. The wings are made of board and foam (as core) and covered them with newspaper. My boyfriend had to do the paint job and I clayed everything together and added details with fur and feathers. Yeah... and what I have to say? This time I was very satisfied!

Okay... but the though that I still had to build a second one, was just horrible...
Someday both parts were done and I started with the building of the headpiece. I made the first steps at the same time I build the first version of my pauldrons, and fortunately I was satiesfied with the first version.

Here I took some rabbit wire, cut out the right form and clayed (with hot clay) the cut lines together. I covered this base completely with expanding foam, waited a while and carved the right model with a carpet cutter. After this I covered everything with crepe tape, news paper and paper maché. Paper maché gave it the last details and i got a really flat surface after I sanded it with some sandpaper. I added some details with wooden half spheres within the paper machè like this round things on the topside. The pattern on this ear muffs were just some greyboard parts I glued on the head piece. The next step were acrylic paint and acrylic finish. I took some feathers, painted their ends with acrylic paint, clayed them (with hot clay) and... Finished!

Puh... I wrote enough for today. In the next part I will tell you something about my staff Journey's End.

Finally done!

So, after some months of work my costume was finally finished and I was able to show it on a convention in Germany: The Animagic.

I spend three great days there and it was funny that so many people also wanted to make a World of Warcraft cosplay. At least that's what they said to me there. I'm very curious how many Alliance and Horde members I will see next year. It's always great to hear that you inspired someone for his next costume!
The days there were also very hard. On friday and saturday, when I wore my cosplay, I had to stand up at 6 am to paint and dress myself. For the make-up I used a lot of Kryolan Supracolor.



It took about three hours until I was ready, because I had to paint almost all of my body. And removing it afterwards was just horrible! I used a creme based grease paint, so I couldn't remove it just with some soap and water. I had to use a sponge for scrubbing it away! And this hurts!
Then I learned of this fluid on the top of the picture. It is a special oil and I just put a bit on a sponge and use it before I go under the shower. If you cover all painted parts of your body with the oil, you can wash everyhing away with some water. But the remaining parts you still have to scrub.

So, here are some pictures of me and my cosplay partner:









My cosplay partner Elenja and I have a cosplay skit, too. You can watch it here:

Journey End making of

Next part of my Druid Tier 6 cosplay: Journey's End and Intensity

Journey's End was a hard, long project and I worked some months on it. I did not use the right technique for the building, because I just daven't had enough expirience with such props. Today I work very differently, but this is a story for another post.

I was glad, that my sister gave me the Broll Bearmantle Figure of the World of Warcraft figure series for my birthday. So I got the perfect sample for my work

My first step was to find the right form for it's head. I painted the silouette on greyboard, cutted it out and copied this to a second greyboard. With these two parts I made a sandwich of greyboard and soft foam for filling. The foam also helped me to model the elevation of the snout, the jaws and the neck. I used crepe tape to model with this foam and covered it with newspaper after this.

The base was done. Next step was to cover it with paper machè, which gave it a solid base.

There was still a lot to do and you see that I had to work on the ears, the crest and the antler. And at this time I really had no idea how I should build the last one...

Some days later it looked a bit more like a horse head. You see, the ears are just pieces of greyboard. The crest was made of foam, which I covered with crepe tape, newspaper and paper maché again. Now I tried to build the antler. And that was really hard...

Here you can see my second try to make an antler for my staff. My first attempt was too complicatetd and too crappy. Yesterday I finally got the right idea: I bought some pvc pipes, 3 cans of foam and a buzz saw blade for my dremel and tried it a second time. I cut the pipe in short parts and glued it together with hot glue to a form and covered it with a lot of foam. Then I carved a little bit and yes, I got it! Yeah, I was really happy to have managed it. And this was my very first carving expirience with expanding foam. You will see, I'm very excited about this stuff!

I covered it with a lot of newspaper to save the foam inside, because I was so afraid that it would break. This made it very solid and durable and the finishing layer of paper machè helped not only at the modeling part.

With a lot of sanding and after many hours I got a flat and smooth looking surface of the horse head. Now I used a barken look for it. So I took my dremel and made a lot of long, deep lines into the paper machè with it. The surface looked totally scratched and chaotic, but it really hit the spot. After that I asked my boyfriend to paint it. He is very talented and gave my work a beautiful artistic look.

And what should I say? He did an awesome job!

You see, the paint is almost done. I also put the antler into the head. For this I made some holes in the front of the head, filles these with some expanding foam and sticked the blank PvP pipes of the antlers into the holes. Some hot glue and paper machè helped to fix it firm enough.
So, the head part was finished and I had to work at the hoov.

This is a picture of some steps later, but I wanted to share the work of the hoov and the head.

Building the hoov was not very complicated. I formed a cone with greyboard, put my staff into it and filled it with expanding foam. I cutted the buttom to the right angle, covered it with a greyboard pard and modeled and fixed everything with paper machè. Milling of a wooden texture (for looking like bark) and runes followed. Then my boyfriend used acrylic (brown, bronze and blue) color for painting. At last I covered it with a silk gloss paint.

Now some words about the transport of my staff:

You maybe are curios how I transported it or put it into a car. The answer is, that it consists of three single parts. The head, the hoov and the middle section. I bought a wooden staff in the home office, let them cut it appart and visited a craftsman for drilling them. To put them togehter again, I spinned the botls in the picture into the wood and... finished!
Now I can split them and put them togehter whenever I want.

Yeah... my staff was done and it was a great feeling after 4 months of work!
So here are some pictures:

Druid Tier 6 robe making of

It was a long hard way and a half year of work after I was able zu finish this project. So here is my story:

In summer 2008 I was still stunned of World of Warcraft Tier sets of the Druid. After I finished Druid Tier 1 and Tier 3 I searched of a new challenge, a new project which will give me new expieriences, new techniques and materials. I searched the roots of the Druid Tier 1 looked and found the Druid Tier 6 set in my modelviewer.

There was a lot of luck that I found the right patterns for this: Teflon leather (I think it's called swedenleather, too.) It's normally used for upholstered furnitures and it's buckskin look was just perfect for the wild, natural Druid Tier 6 set. It was sold for a very low price in my drapery and had a great attribute: My boyfriend was able to give it great details by soldering the fabric. Just take a look:

(Here you see the finished front part of my skirt.)

I was very easy to sold the fabric. You just need a steady hand and a bit of fantasy.

Feathers and a fake fur worked also gread for a natural look So, here are some progress photos:

Oh, I look so silly here!

Sometimes the easiest way is best way... I tried a lot, to start with this, searched for bra patterns, cut a lot of rubbish out of my look-a-like leather and still didn't get it the right way...
But finally I just took an old bra an some glue and began trying... This method was really the best and so I almost finished my work on this part.

In the last months of my project I tried to loose some weight and I hope you see, that I was sucessful. I lost about 14 pounds for this night elf cosplay and was very satisfied with the result.

I glued a lot of the costume with hot glue because it was just easier than sewing it. There are a lot of single parts on it, like the skirt, the soldered front skirt part, the covering skirt layer with fake fur and featers, the bra, gloves and the bracers. All of this I put together with some Velcro tape, which was glued on every part.

Druid Tier 8 pauldron making of

Soooooo, here are some progress pics of one of my actual projects: Druid Tier 8 from World of Warcraft.

Here you see a preview of the sample for my pauldrons from the World of Warcraft modelviewer. The first steps were really easy: I took half of a styrofaom ball, cutted some pieces out and glued a bit of greyboard on it. In the last picture you see some stripes of foam. I used it to model or fill some parts on this prop.

The followings steps were very easy, too:
I cut some pvp pipes in short pieces and covered a aluminium wire with it. Hot glue helped to put and fix them togehter. After this I used a bit of expanding foam to model the form of the pauldron. You only need a knife or carpet cutter for carving it. It's very easy to deal with it and I love the carving parts the most!
Then I stick the aluminium wires into the expanding foam, covered it with this stuff too and carved the twines I needed for my prop. In the last step I covered everyhing with crepe tape, newspaper and paper machè. These tree layers give the expanding foam a solid surface and you can paint it after a finishing polish.

Hello guyz!

This is my first blog entry, so I wanted to introduce myself at first:

My name is Svetlana, I'm 23 year old and live in Germany (so, excuse my grammer faults). I discovered the cosplay szene in 2003, but only in 2006 I found a real desire in it. So my Druid Tier 1 from World of Warcraft costume was the first challenge. I learned a lot from this project and started with further World of Warcraft Tier sets. Druid Tier 3, Tier 6 and Tier 8 followed. The last one is my actual work.
So I'm very excited for weapon and prop making. I'm always searching for new techniques and new materials and try to improve my skills with every new project.
On my blog I will show you my progress, explain my techniques and show you some tutorials I made. If you have questions or problems with your work, feel free to ask me and I hope I will be able to help you!

TOYCON 2011 Today and Tomorrow!

Here now at megamall to cover ToyCon 2011, though I am on a budget I would like to still experience this event as I have done in the last 3 years. More details and pictures to come after this so stay tuned as we also await the birth anniversary of Jose Rizal tomorrow because I will be at Rizal Park before going to the second day of toycon. 

COSPLAY ALERT: SM Marikina Women of Cosplay

Before Independence day, lets Cosplay at SM Marikina with the women of Cosplay! With special guest, Alodia Gosienfiao and top women cosplayers, and also open to other cosplayers as a celebration of freedom like what cosplay really is. To bring out the cosplayer in you. SM Cyberzone looks at cosplay as the next big thing in the country as more and more people are into it. Though its not the first time SM Marikina has hosted a cosplay event, but they are excited to see new faces in the community as SM becomes the common venue for these conventions. So see you on June 11, 2011 for the whole day event!

TOYCON 2011 The Venue of a Cosplay Movie!?

Be one of the cosplayers present at the TOYCON this year and be part of movie project called COSPLAY NATION. As we all know that the cosplay community in the Philippines is expanding and also attracting a lot of audience. And with the burst of cosplayers and conventions, I think its time for us to make at least a documentary about this industry. And of course, this will be lead by the cosplay Goddess of the Philippines, Ms. Alodia Gosiengfiao!  And also TOYCON goes bigger and bigger this year as it celebrates its 10th year. I have been attending TOYCON for years now and also saw that progress and support it got from the public, cosplayers and toy enthusiasts. Again this will be on June 18-19, 2011 at Megatrade Halls 1, 2, & 3!