Cosplay WIP – Prepping for Wondercon 2013

So… the big question is, who was able to get tickets for San Diego Comic Con this past Saturday?? Even though I actually already have my tickets, I was online helping a friend anyways and just like the other hundreds of thousands of people, I too was trying to connect to those awful servers. And after two years in a row of somehow magically getting into that waiting room, I’m starting to believe that my computer is pretty damn lucky!

You might think that the ginormous San Diego Comic Con is my favorite con, but actually Wondercon, coming up at the end of March, is one of my favorite cons of the year, that is, when it was still just a short drive away in SF. Now that it’s in Anaheim, it’s definitely a little more difficult to go, but I figured I could always just make a trip out of it and head to Disneyland. So it’s official, I’m going to Wondercon! Of course once I was committed to going, I immediately started brainstorming some cosplay.

When I like a show, movie, game, or character, I LOVE that show, movie, game, or character. By love, I mean obsess. And lately, I’ve been obsessed with Adventure Time (as you can tell if you follow me on Instagram). I already cosplayed Finn and my other obvious choice might be Marceline, but I didn’t think I’d have time to make her bass axe. So I thought a fun variation of PB might be a fun/easy project to do. I already have my pink wig and dress and I’ll be adding a cool twist to this one!

And since PB wasn’t going to be too hard, I decided to be a little ambitious and try going for two cosplays in one con! Mind blowing, right? ;) Since I never actually wore my Nathan Drake outfit/cosplay anywhere, I decided that this could be my second one. Of course, the Nathan Drake cosplay needed a lot of work to make it more accurate so I set forth on learning the art of leather crafting in order to make his shoulder holster and his other signature gear. I did some basic leather work on my Han Solo holster, but this time I wanted to do it right. I visited my local leather factory and bought some veg tan leather, dye, and all the necessary hardware and parts to get started.

For me, part of the allure of cosplaying is the challenge of figuring out how to do stuff or learning and leveling up new skills. Figuring out what materials to buy and where to start is half the fun and it felt really good to get a lot done over the weekend. Check out some progress pics!

Here’s the template I made for the holster. That was probably the most time consuming.

Next I cut all the shapes out on the veg tan leather.

And then I used a water stain to dye it.

 And wet forming leather for the gun holster.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more progress pics!