Pinup Princess Cosplay

So I did a thing and entered my very first (in person) Cosplay Competition on Sunday. Of course, I couldn't just start small with the standard comp, I had to go and enter the 'Championships of Cosplay' comp at Oz Comic Con, competing against some of the best cosplayers in Sydney!

Honestly, it was a wonderful experience, and although I didn't win anything (I really didn't expect to), I still felt like a winner just for being accepted and sharing the stage with all the other amazing cosplayers! I'm still on a high and feeling so inspired, and already thinking about what my next competition-worthy cosplay could be and what skills I need to improve upon.

This is the whole reason I do cosplay. I love learning new skills, the problem-solving, and the consistently getting better at sewing and other techniques. For me it's all about making the costume. Getting to show it off at the end is just a bonus!

I'm also blown away by how nice everyone was. You would think at that level that everyone would be really competitive, but everyone was sooo nice and encouraging and supportive. Making new cosplay friends was my favourite part of the whole experience!

Big ups to all my fellow competitors, the amazing judges and congrats to and Giorgia Costumes for their wins!

And also a big thanks to JusZ Cosplay for making us all feel so good on the day! ❤

In preparation for this weekend's Championships of Cosplay Competition at Oz Comic Con, I made my very first Build Book!
But, as a graphic designer with over 25 year's experience, I wasn't going to just pull together a few PowerPoint slides. I had to, of course, design a full 24 page book. 😂

Aside from being a useful tool to explain my build process to the judges, it's also a really nice memento to keep to remind myself how much work I put into this costume, and also hopefully in a few year's time I'll be able to look back and see how far my skills have progressed.

Regardless of what happens in the competition, I'm really damn proud of this cosplay and I'm just looking forward to showing it off!

Forget Barbie the Movie, I'm holding out for a Dolores movie instead!

A day at Sydney Supanova and we had so much fun cosplaying as Mabel and Dipper from Gravity Falls!
Also, got to get a photo and autograph with the lovely Michelle Gomez, and buy lots of geeky things.
oz.play

Can we just take a moment for a Steamkittens appreciation post?

This is just a selection of some favourite photos he has taken of me (and my cosplay partner-in-crime ) over the years - all awesome, and all for free! (although I'm so happy we can buy the HR images now to help support him).

How lucky are we to have such an amazing Con photographer to capture all our hard work? ❤️😍

Can you all please just show some love and buy this man a ko-fi (or 3)!
ko-fi.com/steamkittens

Supanova Comic Con & Gaming

Had an awesome time at Oz Comic Con Sydney last weekend and finally got to debut my Woody cosplay!

This was a relatively simple cosplay to make, but took quite a long time due to all the hand drawn lines on the shirt and the painting of the pattern on the scarf.

The shirt was an Amazon purchase which I dyed (couldn't find one in the right shade of yellow), hand-drew all the red lines onto with a fabric marker and replaced all the buttons. The vest and skirt were sewn from scratch and the holster was made with laminated brown vinyl and a jewel I cast from UV resin. The belt, badge, boots and stirrups I purchased online and the hat was a vintage one I'd had for a while that I flipped the brim up on and added the leather cord to. The scarf was hand painted with angeluspaintsau using a template I created and traced with the correct pattern sourced online.

Hero photo by the talented Matt Hudson Portraiture
taken at Oz Comic-Con

So after a bit of a lull on the costume-making front the last couple of years, I've finally got back into the swing of things. This year's first cosplay-off-the-rank is Army Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger. She wears two army uniforms in this film, but I was more drawn to the one with the short jacket and A-line skirt (mostly because I look better in an A-Line than a pencil skirt 😉).

My first step was to find an authentic WWII army jacket that I could modify. It took a bit of searching on Etsy, but I eventually found one that was the right size and colour. I had to modify quite a few things. I removed the pockets (leaving the flaps), shortened it and added some extra to the waistband closure, took in and shortened the sleeves and, being a men's jacket, it buttoned up on the wrong side, but I fixed this by adding new buttonholes and gold vintage buttons I also found online.

The final touch was the replica lapel pins that I got from China (that took about 7 weeks to arrive - thanks Covid!).

The skirt fabric was probably the hardest to source. Trying to find a brown/khaki wool fabric in Sydney in Summer was nigh on impossible, so I ended up finding some from The historical fabric store in Sweden! The colour was not as brown as I would have liked, but I was happy with the contrast to the jacket and it definitely looks and feels more authentic than a brushed cotton would have. I used the same 70's vintage skirt pattern I have used over 10 times now and am very proud that I didn't skimp and made a proper lining for it.

The shoes were a plain black pair of Hush Puppies I bought on eBay and painted with Angelus Paints. I also gave a brown vintage handbag I had a refresh with the same matching paint. The shirt and tie were bought on eBay also.

The gun prop was a cheap, plastic and very brightly coloured kid's toy that I cut the end off and repainted.

Overall it was a great project to ease me back into the sewing vibe and I definitely enjoyed using my new garage workshop for all the painting and messy stuff. Also got to test out my new photo studio in there too. She's warm (whhhyyyyy do I always make such warm cosplays?!), but very comfy.

Next up is another Peggy - Agent Carter's blue suit.

2 years since I was at Galaxy's Edge in Orlando! (How time flies when you're living through a pandemic). Can't wait until we can travel safely again, as I am definitely going back there.

Here's a photo of me taken at a Con, comped onto one of the photos I took there of the inside of the Millennium Falcon ride!

Had an awesome day at Oz Comic Con Sydney today as Tiabeanie from Disenchantment!
Bean's adventure was drunken and disorderly to say the least - but hey, what can you do when you have a demon constantly whispering in your ear?

Just a quick closet cosplay for my work’s Friday night Pixar themed trivia drinks.

Loving this photo by Steamkittens of and myself at Supanova last weekend.
Has a great propaganda poster feel to it.

"JOIN THE REBEL ALLIANCE!"

Awesome weekend at Supanova Sydney, despite the crappy weather.

So good to see all the amazing Cosplays and to geek out and buy all the things!

The highlight of any Con for me has got to be getting photographed by the extremely talented Steamkittens

I just frickin love his shots soooo much! 😍

Some shots from the exhibition hall floor at Melbourne Supanova last Saturday. Had such a blast wandering around and meeting everyone and getting photos. Can’t wait for Sydnova in June!

How exciting is this?!
The talented team at Weta Workshop have created a mini me!
Already got my pre-order in! 😍

www.wetanz.com/shop/figures/seladon-the-gelfling

Had a fantastic day in the studio yesterday being photographed by my very talented brother. So happy to get some shots of my now completed Seladon from Dark Crystal Age of Resistance.

I started this project at the beginning of last year, aiming for the deadline of Sydney Supanova in June, however after lockdown started I instead rushed to get the main part of the costume finished so I could enter her in last year's The Great Con-Junction virtual cosplay competition, where I was a runner up.

The last 6 months has then given me the time to really think about (and boy was it a head-scratcher) how to construct and attach the wings and back piece, and I'm so glad I finally completed that challenge as I think it really makes the whole costume.

Hopefully, if all things go well, I'm planning on taking her to Sydney Supanova this year!

Photos: Peter Dickison
Ears: Madhouse FX Studio
Wig: RockStar Wigs
Foam and cosplay supplies: Lumin's Workshop - Cosplay and Fabrication Supplies
Fabric and embellishments: Spotlight

And it’s done! Finally finished the back piece which means Seladon is now 100% complete! Woohoo!

I can’t wait to get some new photos of the whole outfit and especially can’t wait to take her out to a Con!

Progress report on my Seladon cosplay...

Slowly chipping away at the back piece and spent today sculpting some foam clay ‘claws’ onto a piece that sits just above the wings. It’s been so hard to find motivation to finish this costume, especially as I have been working on it for over a year now, but I’m now setting myself the deadline of Sydney Supernova in June where I hope to enter it into my first ‘real world’ cosplay comp.

Also this is the state of my dining room table at the moment. 😬 I’m so jealous of cosplayers that have whole rooms dedicated to crafting!

EVA foam, contact cement and Foam Clay all from (actually I buy all my cosplay supplies from them!)

Here's another one for ya.
Would still love to get this to 501st approvable level (namely a commissioned jacket), but damn that won't be cheap!

Jumping on the bandwagon with my Dolores cosplay.
Can’t wait to take her out to a Con again soon...

So I just realised I forgot to post this little side-project I did.

As part of my beau’s Christmas present, I made this replica of the World Stare-Out Championship Trophy (see ref), from a recurring animated skit in the British Monty Python-esque TV series Big Train. This is a show that we both watched together and laughed our arses off to, so I though he would appreciate this (and he did). If you haven’t already seen it, and you love crazy, English humour, then I highly recommend.



Trophy was made with a polystyrene ball, wire, a skewer, Eva foam and foam clay (purchased from ).