I want your body everybody wants your body so let's jack

TLDR: This is a very detailed description of my weight loss journey and how I lost 18 lbs. Still not at my goal but getting there. This is meant for motivation for other trying to lose weight.

Starting point at 146. 

Current: 124. 

I didn't take a before picture for comparison but I feel it shows in my neck and arms the most. 

My journey to acquire the "ideal" cosplay body (minus boobs because I am not genetically blessed in the chestical department.)

I have never been overweight. That being said, I have never had what I considered my "ideal" body. Now this is what I think is ideal for ME. This does not mean you have to have this kind of body. Some women look amazing as "curvy" individuals. I am just not one of those people. I do not carry weight in flattering locations. The only place that I have that is flattering is my ass.

I have been slowly putting on the pounds since college. Each year a few more pounds kept creeping up on me. Now that I have decided to try and make cosplay a serious hobby, I want to look the part and not hate all my cosplay photos because of a fat roll here or skin trying to escape out there. I also don't want to Photoshop my photos. If I don't actually look like that I don't want to pretend that I do.

I am officially starting this journey on 5/10/2016. I wear a Fitbit Charge HR and track my calories in MyFitnessPal. I am currently attending a 45 - 50 minute circuit training class 2 days a week. (I have already been going for 4 months without any weight loss although I am getting stronger.) The classes consist of 15 minutes of exercises on a treadmill, 15 minutes of strength training using body weight, TRX bands, medicine balls, free weights, benches, bosu balls, kettle bells, and any other weird workout contraption they can find, and 15 minutes on a rower with intervals of ab workouts, bosu balls, medicine balls, and kettle bells thrown in. It is meant to be a high intensity work out that keeps your heart rate in a certain zone in order to burn fat and boost your metabolism.I think it is really close to what Orange Theory does.

Here is where I currently stand:
Weight: 142
Workouts: 2 x a week for 45-50 minutes high intensity
Steps: 10,000 goal but don't always make it
Diet: none, I eat whatever the fuck I want. I mostly eat carbs, specifically pastas. I don't like vegetables and eat meat but still prefer pasta over anything else.

Now, I have proven to myself over the last 4 months that going to the gym twice a week just isn't enough when you regularly consume whole boxes of pasta for a meal. So here are my long and short term goals in order to achieve the cosplay body I want.

Long Term:

Weight: 120 (ish)
- Losing 20 lbs would probably make me look anorexic but I used to weigh 120 and still could have lost more or at least toned. I am very petite and only 5' 5" I carry my weight all over but heavily in the abdomen, arms, and thighs. I also have a double chin at most angles or if I am even remotely looking down.

Body type: Toned, fit, in shape, but not so skinny you can see my ribs/backbone.
- I want to wear a corset and not feel like a stuffed sausage or need to tighten it to the point of not being able to breathe just to look similar to the character.

Fitness Level: To run a 5k and not die. (3.1 miles) Also run 3-5 days a week. Do some kind of physical activity every day.

Diet: Eat more green food and like it. (doubtful but these are goals here)

Short Term: (How I am going to achieve my long term goals

Weight: 1 - 2 lbs a week
- Keep tabs by weighing myself everyday in the morning and night. I have an Aria scale so it will keep tabs on my weight loss for me. Don't look at the number until the next week. Your weight fluctuates so much in a day that it can be really discouraging to look at your weight each day. This will put my goal weight achieved in 25 weeks at most which would be 10/31/16 right in time for BlizzCon :D

Workouts: Minimum 3 days a week at the gym. 2 x a week interval classes and 1 day on my own. Probably Monday, Wednesday, Saturday. Obviously more days are better.

Steps: Achieve 10,000 steps a day minimum.
- This will help me maintain my fitness level. Take the dogs for walks if I don't reach my steps. In bad weather go to the gym and walk or walk around my house. Get up at work and walk around the office every 1-2 hours.

Diet: 1,200 calories a day or a few more if I work out extra hard.
- To reach my goal of 1 - 2 lbs a week I need to have a daily deficit of 500-1000 calories a day or 3,500 - 7,000 calories a week. If you fall off one day, make up for it the next. To make a 1,200 calorie a day diet work, need to focus on lessening the amount of carbs I am eating. Breakfast: Coffee without sweetener or tea. Fruit instead of bagels, muffins, bread. Lunch: portion control of a dish with protein, vegetable, and healthy starch. Dinner: same as lunch. Log all meals into MyFitnessPal.


Here is a time lapse of all my photos over the last 25 weeks. I tried to take 1 photo a day to show how much I change. (This quickly morphed into more like once a week) When you look at yourself everyday it is hard to see changes. This was a way to visualize my progress and keep myself motivated. Hopefully when this actually gets posted I will have achieved my goal and be happy with my body and my cosplays.


- Basic B


** Week 5 update. It has now officially been 4 weeks since I started really trying to lose weight and seriously attempt to diet. My current weight as of 6/8/16 at 6:00 am was 136.7 lbs. I am down 4.7 lbs (from heaviest weight I have ever been)! This is a bit deceptive. When you actually look at my data for the past 4 weeks. This is the difference of my highest weight in the last month to my lowest weight in the last month. When you break down the data I only actually lost 1.9 lbs according to the weekly updates. Something isn't quite adding up so I will be using this larger monthly graph data to track my weight loss over time. 

Here is my weekly weight loss graph as well as my last four FitBit updates! 

You can see here the trend is going downward slightly. This is good. Weight loss should be gradual in order to maintain it. Weight also wildly fluctuates on the day depending on your diet and activity level. I try not to let these little fluctuations get to me but instead look at the overall trend. Long way to go but it is a good start! Looking at data on a weekly and monthly basis is much better for me and my morale instead of focusing on the number every time I weigh myself. 

As you can see I did really well my first week and lost 1.1 lbs! It is always easy the first week or so for me. It's about weeks 3 and 4 of a diet that I start to fail. Which I did if you keep going. 

Another solid week with a loss of .9 lbs. Sitting at a total of 2 lbs lost in 2 weeks!

And here is where it starts to get bad again. Didn't have as good of control over my diet as I was traveling for work and eating everything under the sun. I did manage to lose weight this week but only .4 lbs. Total weight loss of 2.4 lbs in 3 weeks. 

And here we hit the wall. I actually gained .5 lbs this week. Current total weight loss at 1.9 lbs in 4 weeks. Incredibly disappointing and depressing. At this point it is very easy to get frustrated and give up. This is exactly what I won't do. I need to use this as motivation to say, if I eat garbage I am not going to reach my ideal cosplay body weight and fitness level. The positive I can take out of this is that I am maintaining my step goals! My average daily steps are over 10,000 a day. Hurray! 

If you are super curious about my diet over these past four weeks I do log all my food into myfitnesspal. I didn't want to clutter up this already lengthy posts with my diet but if you really want it I'll post it. I have tried to change my diet so I am now having roughly this diet every day.

Breakfast: Coffee with sugared creamer (Coffee Mate) 90 - 120 calories
2 small clementines (cutie's) 
1 medium Pink Lady variety Apple

Lunch: More fruit. Like 6 cups of fruit. Whole pineapples, 2 boxes of strawberries, etc  OR about 300 calories of whatever I find in the fridge. 

Dinner: Consume my remaining calories on whatever I have left. If I don't have many I eat green beans. If I have a little more I eat ramen. 


**Week 9 Updated

So, it has now been 2 months since I started this journey. Here is where I should be at: 

Weight: 133 lbs

Actual current weight: 135 :( (Yes I am only 2 lbs heavier that I should be at this point, however this is 2 weeks worth of work) 

So here is my current weight loss from start of program to date. I have lost 6 lbs and should have lost about 9 at this point. I will focus on the positives here in order to keep myself motivated and not fall off the wagon. A positive is that I am indeed losing weight and my trending is going down. Clearly there is still some more work to do here to bring me down to my goal weight loss each week. Let's look at each week's data and see what could have gone wrong. 

 So the first most obvious thing I notice is that my average steps per day has dropped to 8,700 :/ I am down in steps and calories burned. I clearly was not as active this week as I should have been. I still was able to drop down to 136.7 this week. Not a ton of fluctuation in weight either. I also did not eat very well this week, as I am up 2011 calories taken in. My deficit was barely a deficit.

So, steps here are good however I am just below my goal of 10,000 per day average. Not terrible. My calories burned is up from the week before and my weight is down from 140.7 to 136.6 this week. That is a huge fluctuation though and clearly shows I wasn't very disciplined the week prior. 

My steps are back up over 10,00 a day! Yay! I also either did really well this week or didn't log all my food but the weight lost shows that I did well this week. Down to 134.4 lbs. Way to kick the last 2 weeks butt!

So steps are down but still over 10,000 per day average! Way to maintain that goal. My calorie deficit is not quite what it should have been and that shows as me weight actually has gone up to 135.2. I put on almost a pound since my lightest weight last week. 

Now that I have analysed that data I feel a bit better about not loosing as much weight over the past 4 weeks as the previous month, however I can see where I am struggling. I am mainly still struggling with my eating habits. My workout habits got sloppy for a week as well and I paid for it. Again I will take this information and use it to continue to fuel this lifestyle change. Dieting isn't a crash course or easy. It takes hard work and dedication to reach a goal. I really want to be able to show you a fantastic before and after over the next 3 months. I still have time to make this a reality. 

My diet is fairly consistent for breakfast:

Coffee with sweetner (100 calories)

Apple/clementines/fruit

Lunch: I have been eating out more than I should. I also have been eating cottage cheese and egg whites which are not filing and causing me to binge at dinner. 

Dinner: Eat the remaining calories for the day and it is usually carbs :/

Weekends are also really bad. I pretty much just split my 1200 calories and eat 2 600 calorie meals of carbs. 

I still have a long way to go but I am moving in the right direction. It feels good to at least still be trending in the right direction even if it isn't as fast as I would like. This isn't a sprint but a marathon and changing your eating habits and lifestyle when it comes to diet and exercise is very very difficult. Don't get frustrated you can do it! 

** Week 13 Update

So I feel pretty positive right now. I just finished compiling and reviewing my data and my graph shows I lost 10 lbs since I started this journey 3 months ago. I also just earned by 15 lb badge from FitBit. (I used to weight 147 at one point 0_0 ) 

This makes me feel really good and motivated that what I am doing is really working. It hasn't been easy and I know I am not being as strict as I should with my diet but I have made a significant improvement over my past eating habits. The only negative I see is that I really haven't changed my diet that much, I just eat less. I still have my morning coffee with sweetened flavored creamer, eat roughly 300 calorie lunches of whatever and eat about 700 calories for dinner. Weekends are still 2 meals dividing my calories in half of what I want to eat. The only thing I have been doing is eating apples. I eat an apple almost everyday which is one healthy thing I have consistently done. I am also eating about a 1500 calorie a day diet instead of the 1200 like I planned. It is really, really difficult to stick to 1200 calories. Most days I earn more calories by working out. By staying active I don't have to keep to such a strict diet. For instance yesterday I ate deep fried mac and cheese bites and had nacho chips and salsa today. Granted, I did not eat dinner last night and chips and salsa aren't that terrible surprisingly, but this is not a good habit to make. Making healthier eating choices would enable me to eat throughout the day and I might not be starving by the time I get home from work everyday. This is when binge eating gets the best of me. It is very difficult to not eat everything in the house. I have noticed I am not as hungry anymore and I get fuller much faster than I used to. I also avoid overeating because it makes me feel really sick. Having large meals or drinking a large volume of liquid really affects me much more than it used to. 

As far as my workouts go, I am still doing my 2 x a week 45 minute cardio/high intensity classes. I have been slowly moving up weights, running more/faster, and not being as winded as easily. I still only burn about 500 calories per class. It is much easier for men to burn calories than women, unfortunately for me. :/ 

So time for the weekly breakdowns. 

Steps are down here under my 10,00 step goal and my weight really didn't change from the week before even though this claims I lost 1.8 lbs. My deficit is also barely at the 3500 needed. 

This week was fantastic! 12,450 step average per day! I can't quite remember why it was so high this week. I don't remember doing anything extra strenuous. My deficit was a bit better and my weight prior was 135 and this week is just under so not a huge change. 

Steps are down from last week but still over 10,00 so still a solid week. Deficit is good as well and weight dropped down to 132!! :D

Steps are back up in the 12,400 average a day range and the calorie deficit is really good this week. I am down to 132.9 which is officially the least I have weighed yet!! 

Again, I am definitely not perfect on this diet but what I make sure I focus on are my steps for the day being over 10,000 and keeping my calories eaten under what I've burned. I have days where I eat more than I burn but not very often. Those days for me are usually Friday - Sunday. I am pretty diligent about keeping my calories at about 1200 to 1500 during the week because being at a desk all day and only bringing enough food for one day really helps force me to stick to it. They're also aren't a ton of food options in walking distance of my work which helps. I have a pretty easy time right now maintaining my steps because I walk around the office every hour, walk on my lunch, and walk my dogs when I get home if I don't go to the gym. The weather is nice right now though because it is summer. Maintaining my walks in the winter may be more difficult. For now I am going to celebrate my halfway mark and that I have lost 10 lbs. I feel better and my clothes fit better. I will be at Wizard World in a week so I am happy to have the confidence boost before a con. Till next time!! 

** Week 17 update 

I have just officially surpassed my halfway point. I am 4 months in to a 6 month journey. Only 2 more months until Blizzcon and I am FREAKING OUT. Not so much about my weight but completing my costume. Time for a workout update though to try and keep myself grounded and focused. One step at a time. 

So I only lost about 1.3 lbs from my last update. 1.3 lbs in 4 weeks. Not so good. I can pretty much tell you why though because the last two weeks I have not been nearly as active as I was. I also and still struggling with my diet and trying to chance to force healthier eating. I still can't get over vegetables and salads. I really do hate them. I haven't even been eating much fruit lately either. So let's look at the weekly data and see exactly what I'm talking about. 

So this week is down a bit from last week but still over the 10,000 steps a day average. Calories in vs out are just barely at the deficit required to lose one lb. Still a solid week. 

Again another solid week. Average steps were 14,212! Wow. I have no idea why they were so high. I do take walks on my lunch break at work but damn. I didn't go to the gym extra either. Calorie deficit was great this week almost at the -5000 for 2 lbs lost. 

And then I follow it up with this week. Average steps per day just plummet to 9,000. That being said, I did keep my calorie deficit pretty good this week and still managed to lose a pound. Although I wasn't nearly as active, I made sure to keep my eating in line with my activity level. 

And yet again an even less active week. 8,500 step average and my calories were barely at a deficit. I ended up gaining a pound. I worked from home and traveled for audits the last two weeks. I am always less active when I am not in the office which seems counter intuitive but I force myself to walk at work. When I am at home I think I am more active than I actually am.

So this is how I ended up only losing a grand total of 1.4 lbs in a 4 week period. So instead of continuing to backslide, I have committed to going to the gym 3 times this week and already completed yesterday at over 15,000 steps. I did unfortunately eat a whole box of mac and cheese though.... I really need to focus my efforts on my eating habits and just staying active when I am not at work. I still have a full 9 weeks to turn this around and continue to lose weight. The overall trend is still what I want I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I also need to remember this has to be a lifestyle change or it will never stick. I am trying very hard to be positive but it is raining and gloomy outside which seems to fit my mood at the current moment. I hope to be in better spirits for the next update. 

** Week 21 Update **

Ok so I officially have 4.5 weeks left until Blizzcon 0_0 I think I may have to succumb to actually eating vegetables... I did go on vacation during this past month although I did really well and tried to keep my calories in vs. out even so I didn't gain weight. What surprised me is how much I walked. I walked so much on vacation it somewhat made up for eating all those extra calories and all that beer... So let's look at the data and see how I did... 

So I somehow still managed to lose 2.4 lbs over the last four weeks even though I went on vacation and ate a shitload of food. I also officially am under 130 now!! :D It really helps me to look back over a four week period and see my progress. When you focus on the week to week you kind of lose sight of the trending of your weight. I really like using fitbit.com to help me track my weight and activity. It also helps motivate me to keep moving! I am still attending bi-weekly classes for workouts but am not going any other days. I think over the next month I will put that into overdrive to make sure that I am staying active and fit which will be difficult because I will be traveling most of next month for work. :/ Good thing hotels have gyms!! 

So this week went well and I met all my goals. I am having a hard time recalling any specific details about the end of August at this point. 

So it looks like my steps are down and I didn't lose any weight. I also ate more than I should have which would explain why I didn't lose any weight :/

So this week my steps are even less than last week and my eating wasn't fantastic but I somehow managed to lose weight. Not really sure how I managed that. This was the first week I dipped below 130!! I haven't seen a 2 in my weight in YEARS. Probably about 7 years... I took a little time to celebrate this huge achievement. 

So this is the week I spent in Germany at Oktoberfest!!! As you can see I walked a shitload. I always walk a ton on vacation because you have to rely on taxis and public transit. This is the most I have walked in about 2-3 months. I also ate more than I normally would but the walking somewhat accounted for that. Even though I wasn't eating "diet" food, I just simply ate a little less of it than I wanted to eat. I was still able to enjoy the food, culture, and beer without sacrificing my whole diet. Avoiding overeating is really hard on vacation and I am really proud I was able to no only stick to my calorie goals but also lost weight this week, granted I think it was before my trip not after... I am definitely paying for it this week so I have a feeling my first week next month will not be that fantastic... 

Looking at my data overall, I feel much better. I was worried I had fallen into a rut and wasn't actually losing weight anymore. Now that I looked at the data I know that isn't true. Taking the time to look back is really helping me stick to my dieting and exercise goals and helping me stay motivated. I have lost 13 lbs since March... That doesn't seem like much but when you don't have that much to lose it really has made a difference. People are starting to notice and have complimented me on my appearance. My jeans are also lose which sucks because they are all pretty much new but that is what belts are for!! Little signs like that help me keep going. This next month is going to be a big push though to try to shave off as many lbs as possible before Blizzcon. I would really like to reach my goal by then but I want to make sure I do it safely and am able to maintain my weight loss after the convention. If I don't hit my goal by then I am still very happy that I am losing weight, looking and feeling better everyday. I know it's hard but you are not alone!! Anyone can start losing weight and getting healthy by having a positive mindset and just STICK TO IT!!! Don't be hard on yourself but also be realistic. You may not reach you goal by your time frame but that doesn't mean you won't get there at your own pace. This is the most positive I have felt about myself in a long time and it just feels so good to be confident again. :D :D :D See you in a month AT BLIZZCON!!!! <3 <3 <3

Week 25**

HOLY SHIT ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT :'D I am writing this exactly one week before I leave for Blizzcon. I'll have one more update next week when I post this with before and after pics. So here we go!

So since my last update I've only lost one pound. I have to look at the bright side that I am still losing but I am not at all where I wanted to be. I currently weight 128. I am 8 lbs shy of my goal with only one week to go. Needless to say I won't reach my goal in my time frame but I am not going to give up. I have lost 14.7 lbs in 24 weeks which is completely normal, healthy, and maintainable. I did not crash diet I just watched my calories in vs calories out. I still eat junk which I am sure I would lose the weight easier and faster if I ate more vegetables but I still hate them. So let's break it down week by week. 

So I think my biggest issue is just that my activity is down. This is when I started traveling for work. I pretty much traveled the whole month of October. I had every intention of utilizing the fitness centers at the hotel but I only did a few times. With my fitness being down it was harder for me to keep to my calorie goals. 

Here this week my activity is even lower, but I was a bit better about sticking to my calories. My weight hardly fluctuated this week so that is a positive. 

Another week of low activity. I wasn't quite as good about eating but somehow dropped a pound. 

This week almost makes up for the other weeks. I was home this week for the first time in 3 weeks so I really took advantage of the gym. I went 3 days and made sure I took walks. I ensured that I was getting my 10,000 steps a day or more. I wasn't as good about eating though so I had a huge fluctuation in weight. 

Needless to say, staying active really makes a difference. I also noticed it really affected my mood when I wasn't as active. I felt lethargic and down on myself. I am going to continue this next week and add my before and after posts!! I will continue to try and lose weight but I won't be blogging it in this kind of detail. I will post when I reach my goal! :D Until next week....

*** Week 29 ***

Ok so I had every intention of posting this BEFORE blizzcon but I got so caught up on getting my costume ready that I'm posting this afterwards. Let's look at where we are....

So after Blizzcon I kind of fell off the wagon... I had been working so hard I started letting myself have more treats than I should have. I somehow still lost weight and i've reached my lowest weight to date which was 124.5 so I was really excited about that. I haven't weighed under 125 in over 5 years. 

My activity is down but I did pretty well for activity. Ate more than I probably should have but I was stress eating from Blizzcon haha. 

This week doesn't really count because I was at Blizzcon. I did walk a lot though so that countered all the bad eating... I actually did better this week than last week. 

This was the first week after and I did ok. Activity is down and my deficit is not quite where I want it to be. 

This week I was more active but ate more so kind of negated that. I somehow dropped to 124.5 this week though. I currently am at about 126 right now a week later but I'll keep trucking and try to keep a better handle on my eating. I don't want to slip back just because the event I wanted to lose weight for is over. :/ I will continue to post updates but like I said, not quite this detailed. This was more for myself to keep me motivated. If you like it let me know and I'll keep going!

- Basic B

Castle Crashers! I loved it so much I made It Twice!

My first round of castle crashers knights had me as the red knight. At the time the pink knight wasn't out and it was my favorite. I love this game so much and the characters were pretty basic. The hardest part was the helmet. They were made by scoring a piece of poster board and creating a cylinder out of it. The rest is covered in poster paper of different colors. The faces were drawn on by a very artistic friend. The helmets stayed on our heads from an inner piece of poster board with a hole cut out for just the top of the head to poke through. Real high tech stuff right here! I also made giraffey from a styrofoam ball covered in fabric. Here is the group from the first outing. I am the red Knight.

I remade the costumes 4 years later for an event called Chiditarod. Click here if you want to know more. It's a costumed bar crawl/race to raise food and money for the Chicago Food Depository. They were made the same way as before but we put hard hats on the inside to make them more stable. We also decorated a shopping cart to look like the first boss. The cart is covered in a layer of cardboard. Cement tubes make up the cannons and the ram head is made out of a box with stuffed pantyhose horns.

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!!

The Rachet Peacock: How I made a feathered headdress from a golf visor

This is a post I updated and moved from an old blog I had. It had a decent amount of views so I updated it with more details as well as photos from when I actually wore it plus some new cosplay photos I took in it.  The headdress is really hard to store and some of the feathers got damaged. Otherwise this was really hardy. Super glue really does the job. I made this for the electric run not a con but I still liked the end result. It was actually comfortable to jog in.

I wanted to share how I made my awesome peacock feather headdress out of a visor. It was actually really easy and only took me about 30 minutes to put together. It cost me about $100 all together. Which sounds like a lot but it has 100 feathers on it, lights, and some gems. I could have probably gotten the gems cheaper on line but I was in a crunch so got them from the craft store. Here is what I used.

white golf visor
40 10-12" peacock feathers
10 6-8" white Ostrich Feathers
50 20" peacock feathers (pointy kind)
hot glue
30 ct mini lights battery powered
blue ribbon
blue rhinestones
5 pre-made headband feather attachments (to cover the front)

So I started by laying out all my feathers to see what it could look like. Here is what I got.

Don't mind the dirty table haha. 

So I started with the ostrich feathers and glued them on the bottom of the visor. 

I used hot glue in a line and pressed the stems of the feathers onto the hat. I burned myself many times. 

The next step was to glue the shorter peacock feathers on. I started in the middle and worked my way out. I had 50 feathers to use but only used 40. 

Next I added the long peacock feathers. I had to cut them down a few inches each because they were just too long. I started on one end and actually put a few too many on the ends and not as many on the top but I think it still looked ok. 

So the back looks horrific ....

Next I glued the premade feather things on the front. 2 pink, 2 blue, and 1 white with a little gem. 

I thought it looked plain with the white band so I went back to the craft store to get blue ombre ribbon and some blue rhinestones. I had to glue 2 strips of ribbon and about 20 gems. 

Next I just laced the lights inbetween the feathers gently. The battery back is duct taped to the back of the hat by the base of the feathers. 

And it's all done!!

Good luck and don't burn yourself on the glue!! The best place to get supplies is ebay or online. I got all the feathers for about 20 to 30 dollars where at the craft store they want a dollar a feather or even more. It's ridiculous. 

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

Going to a Comic Convention Alone:JFDI (Just F**king do it)

So this past week I had the opportunity to go to Wizard World Comic Con  Chicago. A friend had planned to go with me but at the last minute had to work. I was pretty bummed out as this would be my 2nd convention ever. I was incredibly  nervous to go alone but decided why the hell not. I planned to dress as Dreamfinder and wouldn't really be recognizable anyway. So I decided to write a quick reflection piece on my experience of going to a convention alone as a noob.

I went on Friday so I figured it wouldn't be quite as busy and I hopefully wouldn't feel quite as alienated and well, alone. I dressed in as little of my costume as possible since I would be driving myself there. I have driven in full costumes before... not fun. I arrived at the convention parking lot and preceded to get dressed in the parking garage. I got at least 4 different people to stop and stare at me for a few seconds because I am standing in a garage with no shoes on and putting on quite an elaborate costume. My car is not large enough to even try to have gotten dressed in my car. It felt a bit awkward but I didn't really have access to a bathroom nearby that would have been convenient for changing. 

I got all ready and started working my way to the convention. The garage had a nice walkway to the convention center so I didn't have to go outside and walk by a bunch of people who weren't part of the convention. At first glance I felt that almost no one else had dressed up. I felt slightly uncomfortable but decided I needed to just get over it. As I got the the main hall after what seemed like a mile walk I started to see much more cosplay and felt a little better. I got my ticket and started by going into one of the two vendor areas. I wasn't quite sure what to do and the panels I wanted to attend weren't until a few hours later. This is probably when I felt the most alienated and began to question why I even went in the first place. I didn't have anyone to talk to and wasn't meeting up with anyone. I decided to just start walking around and looking at vendors. I had no intention of buying anything because I was a bit strapped for cash that day. I started in the artist alley and just slowly started weaving my way from aisle to aisle. I tried to focus on looking at art and other people's works and creations to get my mind off of going to the convention alone. 

This was pretty successful. I started to dive more into taking in the event its self as opposed to being so concerned with interacting with people. Very slowly people started to ask me about my costume. Most people had no idea who I was and I did my best to explain I was Dreamfinder from Disney's Epcot resort. Figment was my pal. It was a very old and obscure Disney character that had recently been made into a Marvel Comic. Some people would remember and others just appreciated the detail and work I put into the costume. 

My day really started to turn around. I found someone dressed in an official Pikachu mascot costume and I remembered that I have a camera on my phone... Duh. I am really bad at taking pictures when I am doing things so I decided to start taking pictures with other cosplayers. 

Now that my mood had brightened I was able to walk around with more confidence. I really think it showed because more and more people would stop to talk to me, ask me about my character, and ask to take pictures. I really feel confidence is key to portraying your character. It may have taken me a few hours to feel comfortable but once I just let go I started having as much fun as I did at the last convention I went to. 

My convention highlight was being asked by Terry and Oliver Holler of ToTheFuture.org to take pictures with their recreated movie accurate DeLorean from Back to the Future. They really appreciated my costume and wanted to feature me on their website to promote the Fox Foundation which they were collecting donations for. The pictures turned out absolutely amazing and I really enjoyed meeting them. I didn't remember until after I was home that they were also featured in the documentary I had watched titled "Back in Time" I felt like a moron for not remembering that. 

After walking the whole convention floor, I decided to go to a few panels. I really wanted to learn about thermoplastics so I sat in on a thermoplastics panel with Mogchelle. I actually ended up winning a piece of worbla for knowing that EVA stood for ethylene vinyl acetate... Yea go 3 years of chemistry in college FTW. Glad it was good for something. I also sat in on a photography panel because I am starting to get to a point that I want to start having professional photos taken to feature on this blog as well as potentially building a portfolio of prints to sell in the future. I am not looking to make cosplay my day job but being able to recoup some of the cost associated with this very expensive hobby would be nice. 

Other than walking the floor and attending panels I also sat and talked at length with a few people. It felt really good to be able to go to an event alone and still end up making friends with common interests and viewpoints. I was really refreshed and rejuvenated after this convention. I started off the day feeling pessimistic and anxious but ended the day with a post con euphoria. I stayed until almost 9 pm well after the floor had closed. I was very pleased to have closed my 2nd convention on such a high note. 

My experience may not be typical but I highly recommend attending conventions even if you are alone. You may feel uneasy at first but if you open yourself up and put yourself out there you could have a really great time and meet some cool people. I will probably attend quite a few more cons alone until I start making more friends that travel to cons as I would like to. 

**Also side note: If you are driving yourself always bring sweats and comfy shoes to change into before you go home. Nothing feels worse then having to drive home in a corset and stiletto shoes after walking in them 8 hours. 

Hope you enjoyed this insight into my experiences at this con!!

- Basic B