Blizzcon 2016!!

This past weekend I attended my first Blizzcon! I have only been to two other conventions so far so this was an entirely new experience for me. It was also the first time traveling to a convention with a huge costume. The costume that I have been working on with Adam was made just for this convention. It was so large it had to be shipped in two boxes and 3 checked bags. Needless to say it will not be going to anymore conventions other than local to where I live. 

I had so much fun at this convention! I really appreciated having badge pickup and store purchase pick up the day prior to the event. The line was an hour wait for store pickup but at least it wasn't wasting the time I wanted to spend at the actual convention. We decided to check out the Hilton that night and met  Frank Ippolito from Tested! We also met up with a few people from the Blizzcon 2016 Facebook group. Overall good first night. 

Meeting Frank Ippolito! Check out his work here!

Day 1: Dress up in the medic

Where does it hurt?

The plan on day 1 was just to walk around as the Medic. I had entered the costume contest but was about number 50 on the wait list. I checked in first thing and was told to come back. We walked around the convention floor for about 2 hours just to check everything out. It was incredibly overwhelming and I had no idea where to go. Being in such a large costume also made it very difficult to do much. I did meet Evil Ted though!! I couldn't get over how nice he was and complimented our costume build. He even put us up on his Facebook page! We did an interview together on Major League Gaming but I haven't found it yet. 

From Evil Ted's Facebook page. Click here!

So after a while we went back to see if I could get into the contest. We happened to get there at the right time because we somehow got in... I couldn't believe it. The only part that was a bit disappointing was that my judging time was right when the cosplay photo was at the fountain :(. I spent pretty much the rest of the afternoon in the cospitality suite because the costume was just so uncomfortable on my shoulders. I added padding underneath but apparently not enough. My shoulders are still bruised almost a week later. When it was finally time for the contest we sat backstage and I was almost last to go on. But it was just so worth it... 

Davann Srey Photography See his work here! from Gizmodo

From Wowhead.com

I could here everyone cheering and screaming MEDIC!!! I didn't care that I didn't win or place. I had so much fun making this costume and showing it off. It made the whole trip worth it. We were so tired that we had dinner and went straight to bed. 

Day 2:

Cosplay for the day Striker Li - Ming from HOTS

So day two was about actually seeing the convention and going to panels. We were able to see most of the convention but didn't want to wait in line for the freebies. I didn't get to play any of the exclusive content but we did watch some HOTS finals and Starcraft II finals. Much better to watch live than at home. We left for a few and came back just because we were both so tired. I also missed the memo where everyone comes back in the afternoon to cosplay out front. Note to self for next year. We saw Weird Al's closing concert and I actually really like Weird Al so I enjoyed it. We left before the end so we could get dinner and not be waiting 8 years. Over all I really enjoyed the convention and can't wait to come back next year. I just need to start planning the next build!

Basic B out!!

Harley's Hammer: How to make a huge hammer in less than half a day

Here is a how to guide on how I made this pretty awesome hammer. What it lacks in novice build work it makes up for in sheer size. It was incredibly light and easy to carry around the whole day at a con. I build this over 2 days but combined only took about 8 hours of actual build time to make. You could easily make this in a day if you had the whole day to do it. I finished it at 2:00am the day before I wanted to use it. Luckily the paint dried.

Materials:
The biggest wooden dowel rod I could find at Home Depot
The biggest concrete tube I could find at Home Depot
Floor Mat foam (L200) from amazon
Hot Glue (No like a whole bag of it)
Contact Adhesive DAP brand
A weird little plumbing piece to hold the dowel rod and concrete tube together
hole saw
drywall saw
wood burning kit
wood pattern printed from online
exact o knife
spray paint primer
brown spray paint in 2 shades
brown and black acrylic paint in 4 shades
paint brushes
foam brushes
craft foam
googly eyes
heat gun
zip ties
some belts to hold things together because I ran out of everything else

I don't have step by step pictures but some in progress pics.

I started by deciding how big I wanted the hammer to be. I cut the cement tube exactly in half with a drywall saw. This stuff was surprisingly hard to cut and needed a serrated blade. I then used a hole saw the same size as my dowel rod and cut 2 holes directly in the middle of the cement tube. I made sure the one on top was larger to accommodate the plumbing part I used to hold the dowel rod to the cement tube. The fit wasn't perfect so I used a shit ton of hot glue to make up the difference. I also hot glued the plumbing part to the tube, and the wood dowel rod to the bottom portion. This makes my hammer one piece that won't be able to disassemble. That is as far as I got on day 1. Here is the picture of it at this point. This only took about an hour and a half.

The next part was to attach the L200 floor mat foam to the cement tube. I had to use a bunch of sheets because I bought floor tiles because they were cheap. They are 1/2" thickness. I measured out what I needed and glued them all together in one big sheet. I also cut circles for the ends I made sure to cut my holes for the dowel rod to fit through. Next step I used a wood burner to burn a wood grain pattern into the foam. I thought my pattern turned out awesome for never having done it before. This is one aspect of the hammer I was really happy with. 

Now I needed to glue these sheets to the actual hammer. I used a ton of contact cement. I ended up buying it in a pint sized can and using a disposable paint brush to apply it. It just took way too long to use the little bottles they sell at most hardware stores. I did get overzealous and apply it way too thick because it took forever to dry and because I was in a rush I applied it to the cement tube too soon. I used stretchy belts and zip ties to hold it all together for about 2 hours to dry. I did all this in my garage and make sure you have adequate ventilation. Contact cement stinks. This is an aspect of the project I feel could have gone better. I wasn't happy with my seams. If I do this again, I will buy a large sheet of foam to minimize the seam lines. 


After it dried I had to use some hot glue to keep it from moving. I made a hot glue ring around the outsides of the circles to make sure they were adequately attached. The whole hammer is hollow so I was afraid of it being delicate. I added craft foam to make the bands around the hammer. The googly eyes are the rivets on the bands. After you paint you would never know what they are. 

Now was time to prime and paint! I painted every 20 - 30 minutes to keep the process moving. I started painting by about 9 pm. I applied 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of brown, and a 3rd coat of a different brown in a splotchy pattern. I wanted it to look like real wood so I switched to acrylic paint after this and applied 4 different browns and black in alternating patterns mimicking the organic lines of the woodgrain. I just kind of had at it. I threw paint all over the thing. I am surprised how good it looks and accurate to real wood. I am not a painter by any means so I have no techniques to give you advice on this part. I then used black to paint the bands and dry brushed black along the bands to make the wood look worn in those areas. This took until about 2 am. I let it dry over night and it was dry by 9 am the next day. It still stunk like paint but otherwise looked great. 

Here is the finished piece with my costume!

For my first prop I made with foam I am pretty happy with it. Again, always room for improvement but not bad for a first attempt. The things I liked the most were the wood grain and paint. The things I like the least are how bad my seams are in areas. This was a really light prop and really stood out at the con because of it's size. Overall I give myself an 8/10. Let me know your thoughts! I will answer any questions you have relating to this build to the best of my abilities. 

- Basic B

The B behind the cosplay

7/18/16

WTF kind of rabbit hole did you go down to end up here?

Hi Friends! (scroll to bottom for TLDR)

My name is Erin, the creative personality behind Basic B Cosplay. I am brand spanking new to the cosplay scene. I have always enjoyed making costumes and becoming my favorite characters from pop culture, movies, video games, and comics. I just recently discovered the amazing world of cosplay when I attended C2E2 in Chicago, IL this past March (2016). I debuted my very first cosplay of NoFlutter's Steampunk Harley Quinn. Although I feel like I could have done some things differently, and probably will update this costume to wear again, I really enjoyed the entire con experience. Using this new found momentum and passion I decided to take on a massive costume build for BlizzCon 2016 in November. I am working in collaboration with another creative individual to bring this character to life. In the mean time I plan to film, blog, and possibly live stream my journey from the creation of this first cosplay to jumping in head first to a massive full foam build. While this character is not going to be released until after BlizzCon, I want to update the rest of my cosplay portfolio. As of right now, I do not feel like I have any costumes that are worthy of professional photos with the exception of Harley Quinn. I plan to make a full appearance in 2017 with a full arsenal of cosplays and travel to about 8 different cons in the US. I am looking forward to joining this amazing community of creative and supportive individuals. See you all in the fall!

If you want to know more about me keep reading. If not that's cool too, I wouldn't want to read about me either.

I grew up playing video games and have always enjoyed the "nerdier" side of life. My first console was the Super Nintendo followed by the Sega Genesis. My favorite games on those consoles are obviously Mario, and Sonic. I also really enjoyed playing tabletop PacMan with my dad. It is one of my favorite things to do with him still. A few years later, I got a PlayStation and became obsessed with Crash Bandicoot. I also enjoyed casual PC games like the Sims. I had more fun building houses with the rosebud cheat and killing my characters than actually letting them live out their lives. I also only played SimCity so I could send the monster though the city. I have a thing for explosion, death, and destruction. There is just something so satisfying about destroying an 8-bit city.

Then there was Pokemon. I became OBSESSED with Pokemon. I had to watch the cartoon every Saturday, collect all the cards, play all the gameboy games, I had to collect them ALL. I was fortunate to have  pen pal from Japan that would send me all kinds of awesome Pokemon loot. We would trade all the time through mail. I can sing the Jigglypuff song haha. I don't like to break that out unless I've been drinking. I remember begging my mom to go to Burger King so I could get the gold plated cards that came in the pokeballs. The Pokemon movie was the first time I cried seeing a film. I still love Pokemon and they have some of the cutest new Pokemon like Dedenne and Cinccino. My favorite will probably still be Oddish. I have no idea why I love that Pokemon so much but I just do. Pikachu is also a favorite but it is so popular I like to have other favorites.

Fast forward to high school were I was first introduced to Blizzard games through Diablo II. I spent an entire summer playing that game. My favorite class was the druid because manimal man. I love animals so any character that has pets, animal companions, or is an animal I am going to pick them.

College was my first introduction to FPS games which I am absolutely horrible at. COD and Halo were pretty much what all of my guy friends played so that is what I played. It wasn't until I discovered Castle Crashers that I really became enamored with games again. I played that game from start to finish at least 3 times. Red knight was boss but pink knight is still my favorite. I like the game so much I made the red and pink knight. After that game I purchased an Xbox 360 and played a few different games, mostly from the arcade because I wasn't about to pay $60 for every new game on the market. I really enjoyed Bastion. I have downloaded Transistor but haven't had the chance to play it. Big name games I really enjoyed were Skyrim, GTA 5, pretty much any adventure game.

I have since journeyed into PC gaming. I customized my Dell XPS 8500 by gutting everything but the MOBO and processor. I play Heroes of the Storm regularly. I also have Steam and play most of my games on there now just because I can get them so much cheaper than console games and my computer renders them amazingly. I would like to try LOL just because of how popular it has become but it seems really similar to HOTS.

Which brings me to present day! I have almost no free time except on weekends which is when I do 99% of my cosplay builds and play games. I work a full time job and commute to and from the city everyday as well as travel. I also try to stay in shape because if I am going to do cosplay I don't want to be uncomfortable with my costumes because of how they fit me. I think this meme describes me perfectly.

That being said you can see my transformation from what I was when I started this journey to where I am now. I do not plan to try and make cosplay my career but a very intense hobby. I really have no other hobbies than hanging out with my dogs and playing video games. I like to have a creative outlet and the opportunity to travel and meet fun and exciting people who share the same interests as me!!

Other nerd things I like, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Sherlock, Marvel movies, (never really got into comics :/) , esports.

Now, why the name Basic B? Well, because I am basic as fuck. If you looked at me from off the street I am an undercover nerd. I wear typical corporate attire to and from work. I wear my subtle nerd attire on casual Fridays and occasionally rock my converse at work. I spend my whole train ride playing mobile games and searching new cosplays on my tablet. I also am a white, blonde, Starbucks loving basic bitch. I could keep that place in business on my own. Instead of fighting the stereotype I find myself in, I decided to embrace it and make it part of who I am. Why is it not ok to be "basic" and also a nerd? I don't see why I can't be labeled as both or not labeled at all. I am a bit rebellious and break the mold of what a woman should be. I can be sugar and spice and everything nice but I can also be the baddest bitch of them all.

TLDR: Hi, I'm Erin, a basic bitch gamer and cosplayer! I like Pokemon and Blizzard Games. Follow me on Facebook at Basic B Cosplay!

- Basic B