TAZ Cosplay: Raiding My Closet

In an effort not to break the bank, I rummaged through my closet before designing Aubrey's costume, and I found lots of good things to use! When possible, look for premade clothes that you can use or modify in your cosplay: it saves a lot of time! Thrift stores are a great place to find garments that you won't mind cutting up for parts, as are friends and family members who want to do some spring cleaning. I looked through my closet and found this lovely outfit:

So far, so good! The black jeans came pre-ripped (not a style that I'm usually into, but they fit too well to pass up), and the jacket is from my collection of black, jazz-concert attire. I plan to sew some patches onto it, but those can be removed pretty easily when I want to wear it out again. The shirt's just a regular old tee that I wanted for the splash of color. Finally, I dug up my favorite snow boots:

All I need are replacement laces in a brighter color! This would be a pretty fun outfit by itself, but we'll promote it to full-blown cosplay soon enough with some custom accessories. Stay tuned!

TAZ Cosplay: Design

All right, here I am again! I took some time to doodle and sketch outfits, and I've settled on a design that I like. If there are no photo references for your character, sketching the design yourself is a must. Even if you can get photos, it's still a good exercise to draw it yourself: you'll be able to find all those little details you want to include in the final project. You don't have to be a fantastic artist, either: as long as you can "read" your own sketch, it's fine. Usually I just sketch on a piece of notebook paper, but I drew it up digitally for here:

Pretty cool, right? The design might lean a little into edgy middle school OC territory, what with all the red and black, but I'm okay with that. Aubrey seems like just enough of a dork to think that's cool. Let's go over all of the elements of the costume:

• Black jacket
• Red t-shirt
• Black ripped jeans
• Boots with red laces
• Black half-gloves 
• Lacey choker necklace
• Belt with chain design
• Embroidered flame and wing decals (on jacket)
• Embroidered assorted patches (on lapel)
• Fake facial piercings

That's a pretty substantial list of things to find/make! I'm going for low budget here, so I won't be buying a ton of new supplies: instead I'll try and find useful stuff that I already own, and make the rest. My goal is to buy less than $20 of new materials for this project: let's see if it works!

Oh, and the rabbit over there is Dr. Harris Bonkers. He's Aubrey's pet, and I couldn't resist drawing him in too! Maybe if there's a little left over in the budget, I'll get a stuffed animal to play the part!

Never Too Early for Halloween Planning

If you're a crafter and a nerd, at some point you end up thinking about cosplay. I get way too invested in my favorite fictional characters, and I often find myself doodling their costumes in my notebooks. But being the scatterbrain that I am, I've only managed to complete a cosplay once (Lalli Hotakainen from the wonderful webcomic Stand Still Stay Silent). It's really fun, but planning and executing a cosplay is also a lot of work.

That being said, I've recently taken to listening to the podcast called the Adventure Zone, and I love it. The humor is silly and immature at times (I'll confess to laughing anyway), but overall the story is heartfelt and satisfying, and the characters are absolutely the best. Their most recent arc at the time of writing is called Amnesty, and I can't wait to see how it goes! I love the protagonist trio: Duck, Ned, and especially Aubrey. She's a stage magician turned actual magic user with an affinity for pyrotechnics, and from her introduction, I've loved her style. My friend wants to cosplay Duck at some point, so I thought "why not make it a group thing?" and got to work!

If you're looking to try your hand at cosplay (or just want a sweet Halloween costume), non-visual media like books and podcasts are a great place to start. You'll have a lot more leeway with the character design when there aren't any official pictures to work with. For Aubrey Little (aka the Lady Flame), we get some physical description. She's a young woman who does magic tricks that center around fire, with a punk-goth style. She has facial piercings and an undercut. I know she wears gloves that create sparks to do her tricks, too. This is plenty of description for the purpose of the podcast, and it gives me freedom to create a look based on my own resources.

For a first cosplay, go with something on the simpler side. Fully human characters who wear more-or-less modern clothing will be easy to get supplies for, while nonhuman characters who wear elaborate armor or full Victorian dresses will require quite a lot of skill and time to produce! Don't feel too limited by your own appearance: while it's certainly easier to cosplay a character you resemble, it's much more fun to dress as someone who you have an emotional connection to. You can always tweak details or make an AU design in order to make things easier on yourself.

Since I've got plenty of freedom with Aubrey, I'm going to make a design based on how I look: skin, hair, eyes, and body type. These particular features were never stated in the podcast, so I get to decide for my own cosplay. I'm also going to raid my closet for clothes that fit her style: gotta use those resources where I can find them! I'll be back in a bit with a plan and a design for you all to see.

Hello and Welcome!

Hello! Welcome to Late Crafternoon, my silly little art blog. It's a bit empty here at the moment, but this is the first post, so I'll be sure to fix that soon.

A little bit about me first. I've always loved to make art and music. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was about 12, and I haven't stopped since! In fact, I've seen fit to add more and more crafts to my repertoire: sewing, tatting, weaving, papercutting, even the occasional piece of digital art. If I had my way, I'd learn every craft this world has to offer! I'm also a huge nerd, so expect to see references to fantasy, sci-fi, and real science alike in the future.

If you're in the mood to see the random craft projects I take on, then stick around. I've got a lot planned, and with so many techniques to choose from, it never gets boring! I'll also be sure to post some instructions, in case you want to try for yourself, and some reviews of patterns if you're looking for a new project.

I find creative endeavors to be incredibly important. We, as humans, are hardwired to make, and indeed we can make some pretty incredible things. To you, the reader, I'll say this: feed that instinct. Be it art, music, writing, or anything else, feed your creative spirit, and I'll feed mine here!

Stay crafty,
Elena