MomoCon Atlanta Part 1: Adventure Time Cosplay, Magical Girls & a New Camera
If you follow me on Instagram or on my personal Facebook page, you've seen some photos of me pulling together this costume and some peeks from the MomoCon event here in Atlanta where I wore it. You guys, this stuff is SO much fun. Ha! I'm totally addicted. It's a ton of work pulling together a costume, not only accumuluating items for my costume, but for Cooper's, too. (At least it wasn't four costumes this time!) It can even be stressful. And EXPENSIVE. But if you're thrifty or a savvy internet shopper (like me unfortunately), you can do it on a budget.
Of course, if you are a good seamstress, you could sew your own! Although I know I'll never be handy enough to sew my own costume, I DO try to pull together something that is unique and not just buy the whole premade shabang online. It just doesn't feel as fun that way (not to mention, much more expensive. There are fantastic, quality made costumes out there though, so you're getting your money's worth!)
I've edited a few photos from the event that I took with my new (!!!) Canon 6D (oh how I'm spoiled with this thing!) that I thought I'd share here. I have sooo many more to edit. I'm currently trying to create a new photography workflow since I'm trying to go professional (no matter how hard I try not to, that always sounds douche-y)... so I've started shooting in RAW (after MomoCon) and I'm trying to figure out all that comes with doing that. (sigh... goodness it's all very complicated. Can't I just be lazy and stay jpeg? haha).
Trying to figure out how to streamline my editing process. I'll be downloading Lightroom, but for now I'm using DPP (that came with my camera) and processing in Photoshop (which I still love to do!) Although I wasn't shooting in RAW at MomoCon, and honestly still trying to figure out the basics of my new camera, I love how these photos came out.
These girls were a hybrid of the Sailor Moon Scouts and showgirls (that's how I'm reading their costumes at least!) I love it when cosplayers combine one theme with another... much more fun that way I think! Did you watch Sailor Moon in the 90s? I was in high school when it was on, so it was a bit off my radar. I had never even heard of it til this year. It was originally a Japanese manga series that was turned into anime, that was eventually dubbed in English in the 90s. (You can read more about it here, and a Facebook page about the show.) They have actually just started rereleasing individual episodes on Hulu if you want to check out a high quality version (instead of crappy ones on YouTube.) And they are releasing a NEW Sailor Moon "Crystal" series later this year.
I actually started to watch episodes of the show on YouTube before MomoCon and I considered going as one of the Sailor Scouts, but then decided against it since I felt a bit poser-ish since I didn't know a ton about the series. So, I fell back on our family favorite, Adventure Time of course! After reading about Sailor Moon, I kept seeing the phrase "Magical Girls" pop up, so I started googling about that and stumbled onto the most interesting female Japanese manga and anime characters from as far back as the 50s! (Read this great article about Magical Girls here.) My favorites are Megu-chan for her awesome 60s style and
This cute girl with her pink wig was from a series I'm unfamiliar with... I do believe it's called Madoka Magica, which came out in 2011.
So back to our costumes. Even though Lumpy Space Princess is a HUGE favorite in our house (which doesn't make us unique... EVERYONE loves LSP!!), I wasn't sure how I could pull her off and all her fabulous lumps. Cooper initially wanted to be Lemongrab who is one of his favorites (he does a stellar impression of him!), but he decided he didn't want to have to wear a mask or anything covering his face - which didn't give us too many other options for ole Lemongrab. I considered being Princess Bubblegum because she is of course adorable... but I felt like that was too easy. So the fabulously grumpy LSP it was.
I knew I wanted to come up with a fun solution for the lumps, so purple beach balls first came to mind (I didn't want to do balloons because I didn't want to deal with worrying if one could pop at any second). I did do some googling and saw one brave girl using balloons and she looked fabulous! Most people just wear all over purple with maybe a fluffy purple skirt... or they create something large that completely covers your face and body which I didn't want to do, and knew I didn't have the skills or time to do!
So I ordered the balls from beachballs.com... unfortunately they ended up not being opaque, and not the right shade of purple! Determined to make them work, I went to the craft store to get some spray paint (although knowing spray painting beach balls could be a mess and a disaster!) and stumbled onto some playballs that were opague AND the PERFECT SHADE OF PURPLE! Lucky! I couldn't believe it. They didn't have enough of them though, so I made a trip to Target with no luck, and finally to Walmart which had them in the same size and hue!
That was only half the battle. How to ATTACH my lumps?! I found the purple skirt via Amazon and originally wanted to attach them directly to that using velcro. Didn't work out so well. I glued the velcro to the balls using E600 glue and it still didn't stay (which I knew would happen - glue is NEVER a good route to go with ANYTHING.) And sticking them to the skirt stretched and weighed the skirt down. So the next thing that popped into my mind was using some sort of clear fabric to cover, and attach them to my skirt. I saw online that Joann's sold clear vinyl fabric, so I made the drive over there (see why cosplaying is so exhausting?), brought it home and finally realized that I didn't need to attach them to my skirt at all, I could just create an "apron" of sorts so that they would just sit to the front. I never intended them to be on the back knowing I wouldn't be able to sit down.
The vinyl ended up working out perfectly because the balls stuck to it really well and it was easy to position them. I created a sort of envelope with the fabric, stuck the balls inside, and then used clear packing tape to close up the fabric in the back. I then created a two "ties" using purple duct tape (similar to how I made the strap on Marceline's guitar that Cooper used as Marshall Lee). I just tie them in a knot in the back and since it's duct tape, the knot comes undone very easily. Worked out great! I tied it up high enough around my waste, and it just sat on my hips (one needs good hips to hold your lumps, you know.)
At first I was worried that it was going to look way too amateurish ... like i just put plastic wrap around a bunch of balls, but once Ethan took some pictures of Cooper and I, I could see that it translated well still, and peope loved it at MomoCon! They even said I had the best lumps of any LSP they'd seen. Best compliment ever. I'll tell you - if you want to get some major love at any comic convention or cosplay event: GO AS LSP. People will call your name from across the room, whisper that they love your lumps as they pass by, and ask you to take a picture with them. It's great for the ego! ;)
Cooper was a great Marshall Lee! It was perfect that he could use my ax bass that I made for my Marceline costume at Halloween. Thankfully I found a local wig and accessory store that helped me complete our costumes. I got Cooper's wig there (after ordering a horrific wig I bought online that I'll be returning), my purple gloves, purple beaded necklace and purple lipstick. Everything is so cheap there which was great! I did a little cutting to his wig to make it more Marshall-Lee-esque, but I think I should've cut more. He looked a little more goth-kid I think. ; ) I put the same white makeup on him that I used at Halloween.
His shirt is just a polo I found at Target and I added the plaid-ish stripes with a fabric marker. The shoes are from Payless (can I tell you how long it took me to find the perfect red canvas shoes? They are women's. And converse are so expensive!)
I decided against using purple makeup for me, b/c I couldn't commit to THAT MUCH PURPLE. I got my wig at epiccosplay.com (it's AMAZING) and created the sixties bump in the back and added my star made from craft foam. The purple leggings that I thought were tights are from target (since they were the perfect shade of purple, I went with them although I hate the look of leggings!) I already had the shoes. The cardigan I found at the outlet mall. And I of course had to wear my LSP necklace that Ethan got me for Christmas.
MomoCon itself was AWESOME. I'll be sharing more pics soon. Campbell and Ethan didn't get to go because they were on a daddy-son trip to NYC! Lucky ducks!
Here are the first pics I took with my new camera. Don't listen to people when they say that your photos really all depend on your "glass" or lenses. To a certain extent it's true.. but when I used my new camera body with the same prime lenses I used with my 30D... I could immediately see the difference. I almost cried! Ok not really, but you know what I mean. Those smooth tones and buttery bokeh that I could never 100% get with my 30d, I'm finally getting. And hardly any grain. I definitely recommend this camera if you're looking to upgrade, but don't quite have the funds for the big gun, the 5d.
