cosmicworkshop

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Cosmic Kink

A while ago now….okay, years ago actually! Many people I knew suggested we try out some leather work for the more kinky at heart…my own parents kept saying it was a natural business progression so it’s been in our thoughts for around 10 years.

Well the timing and cosmos aligned and this year we finally took the plunge properly!

So here we go! Leatherwork for the fetish community!

We…

[cosmicworkshop]

The Watch TV Series

I’m sorry but the costume department can kiss my chubby white arse… What the actual fuck have you done to Cheery and Angua… I’ve actually cried. You had such a HUGE opportunity with Cheery and you forgot she’s a FUCKING DWARF and clearly didn’t read a single description of either character,  or worse, you did and decided you knew better than Sir Terry. You’ve destroyed any faith I had in how…

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Sephiroth build

We’ve a bloody fantastic repeat customer who comes back year after year with a new challenge for our skills in the workshop and this year was no different!

Sephiroth – Final Fantasy VII remake

So to start with there is only this image with any detail good enough to go off, there is a collectable figure, but those are not as detailed by any stretch.

First things first, we sent him on his merry way…

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Xibalba Build

I’m kicking off November on here with my next big cosplay build I am planning for 2020!

Guillermo del Toro’s amazing animation character Xibalba!

I’m not going for total full screen accuracy, mainly because I want to be able to wear him without an army of handlers surrounding me!

But it still will be as visually arresting as the original character.

There are so many different textures and…

[cosmicworkshop]

Enterprise Vision Awards 2019

IT’S TIME FOR THE PUBLIC VOTING!

One single vote from one single person just once is needed.

The vote results are used in case of a tie break on the judges results so PLEASE vote for your super creative leather fairy godmother and share this post around!

Here is your link: https://evasvoting.co.uk/

#leathercraft #leather #cosplay #costume #cosmicworkshop #armour #creative #EVAS2019

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Enterprise Vision Awards Finalists!

Finally I can reveal the exciting news we received on Monday!

Jules and Cosmic Workshop are a finalist in the Enterprise Vision Awards!

I have to do a presentation on the 30th July in front of 3 judges, then get grilled about how awesome we are.. then there is a voting portion, which I assure you, will be well advertised on here if it’s a public thing lol!

Fingers crossed!

#awards #cosplay…

[cosmicworkshop]

Splurge?

I’ve just read an interesting article in the news about people’s spending habits, and how a lot of people this year are not “splurge” spending as much (buying things they want rather than need).

It got me thinking about another prior conversation where someone berated me about the amount of money I had put into my cosplay and makes me ask the question:

Is cosplay for you a splurge, or do you…

[cosmicworkshop]

Brought these Bombshell wonder woman bracers to life over the weekend with a lovely silver finish!

Hand tooled leather.

Need something that's not on our shop listings? Just drop us a message!

#leathercraft #leather #cosplay #costume #cosmicworkshop #armour #bombshell #wonderwoman #dc #superhero #custom #bespoke #bracers #vambrace

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Alexios - Assassin's Creed Odysey

Alexios – Assassin’s Creed Odysey

When Ubisoft announced the release date of October 2018 along with a rather helpful cosplay guide for enthusiasts to help them build their very own Alexios or Kassandra armour, we decided to bump this design to the top of our showcase list!

It started out amazingly! Everything was flowing exactly to plan, the material loved us, every experiment in technique went perfectly…we didn’t get very far…

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Ko-fi for Coffee, it's punny!

Ko-fi for Coffee, it’s punny!

So since all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I would look into this Ko-fi malarky!

Looks good, most people do not realise how many brews and bags of pickled onion space raiders it takes to get me through a working week!

So if you are so inclined, you can help fund my very British tea, coffee and crisps addiction 😀

Hit the link!

http://ko-fi.com/cosmicworkshop

Jules xxx

[cosmicworkshop]

I’m trying to juggle some spare time to spend perusing through some of the “Art Of…” books we own in the workshop because a) unless we have a custom order on specific to one of them I never get the opportunity to read them and enjoy the details in them as much as I want and b) Looking at amazing work by other people really gets my own creativity flowing!

It made me think though about what my influences have been over the years and what I take inspiration from and to be honest all I can come up with as an answer is “No single thing – it is a vast, complex thing to be inspired by something”..

..seriously, I’ve been inspired by something as small as a pattern on a shell to a giant piece of sculpture to the feel of grass under my feet…I wish I had kept more of my past sketchbooks, in hindsight they are more of a diary of my youth than any photograph.

I did my first degree in Fine Art Sculpture at Bretton Hall, the now closed university situated perfectly on the Yorkshire Sculpture Park grounds.  It was here I was surrounded by the stunning biomorphic works of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore and the industrial works of Anthony Caro amongst many more pieces in the open air exhibition space.

The Family of Man by Barbara Hepworth situated at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire Photo credit belongs to the YSP website

I remember my sketchbooks filling, over the three years I was in attendance, with curves and angles and forms that I would love to look through again!  Another visit is surely overdue, I just realised it has been about 20 years!

Anthony Caro – Dream City situated at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Photo credit YSP website

Henry Moore – Reclining Figure Hand, situated in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Photo credit YSP website

I see the beauty in everything.  Shapes, colours, textures; and finding ways to incorporate them into my work is a challenge that I can really get my teeth into.

One of the single most influential things on my creativity has to be other people’s crafts.  I adore seeing what other people are making, what materials, processes and techniques they are experimenting with and love seeing a project come together after following a build for so long!.. perhaps a little of it is me living my “missing” creativity vicariously through others who have more time than me though!

I think that this is the slightly annoying thing about being so inspired all the time is that I run a business that takes up so much of my time, that I don’t get the chance very often to act on my own projects.  I’m hoping that some of the time management processes that have been put into place recently change this however!

Leather as a material I find very inspiring because it is available in so many textures and colours and thicknesses and finishes.  I have a whole section in the workshop where I have been squirrelling away off cuts and hides of beautiful leather for “a project at some point” that I really need to dig about in and start using, because if I don’t use it, no one but me will ever get to appreciate it, and that would be a damned shame.

BUT..the first thing I want to do is start sketching again…I have had a psychological knock to my confidence and stopped feeling joy in sketching ideas out, no idea why, but it is something I used to really enjoy doing.   So next week I need to find the perfect sketchbook, whatever that is (suggestions in the comments please) and break out my beautiful Blackwing pencil that Wood and Graphite gave me a couple of years back and get to sketching!

Things that I’m looking at a lot recently are leaves and shrubbery (NI!) because they are so varied and their shapes, colours and patterns are beautiful…

..last month is was looking at historical costumes and their shapes and layers…

..tomorrow, who knows!

– Jules x

  Influences & Infuriating Inspiration I'm trying to juggle some spare time to spend perusing through some of the "Art Of..." books we own in the workshop because a) unless we have a custom order on specific to one of them I never get the opportunity to read them and enjoy the details in them as much as I want and b) Looking at amazing work by other people really gets my own creativity flowing!

[cosmicworkshop]

[cosmicworkshop]

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[cosmicworkshop]

Well this is new…why?

Over the last 6 years we have encountered so many amazing cosplayers, we thought it would be a great idea to showcase some of their efforts on our blog!

Inspiration can appear from anywhere for us, but one of the most influential ones is looking at what others are creating, what materials they are using, methods and mistakes they make..we love WIP progress here at CW and it can give us a real mental boost to see cosplayers achievements in costume building, especially when we have a project on that is going wrong!

The most obvious choice of who to showcase first is the pair who introduced me to the wide world of cosplay in the first place.

I’d seen comic cons happen and knew people who did cosplay as a hobby, but never been directly involved before.  Our leather work businesses at the time were focused on Letters of Marque (the historical side of things) and Cosmic Workshop was focused on LARP and odd bits for big theatres.

Then Chris and Stephanie decided I needed to experience going to comic con…and that I totally should dress up and I loved it, fell in love with cosplay and as far as my side of the business went..here we are!

Introducing TEAM STONE COSPLAY!

Chris and Stephanie Stone as DC’s Joker and Harley Quinn

Chris and Steph Stone are a killer cosplay duo who’s costumes are quite frankly mind blowing quality.

Nearly everything is hand crafted, mainly by Steph who has a skill level in sewing and prop building that I swear is sorcery!

The most remarkable thing about them though, in my humble opinion,  is how the hell they even have time to actually GO to comic cons, let alone produce such high quality gear to wear!  Their day job as film makers means free time (and sleep) is for the weak!

On a side note, if you are an actor or actress, they specialise in producing show reels and if you have not investigated and invested in Chris Stone Films, then you have not got the very best on board with your career #justsaying

Stephanie Stone as Holtzman from the Paul Feig Ghostbusters movie. She made this costume from scratch, including a proton pack with full sound, light and smoke effects!

Chris Stone as Dr Strange from the 2016 DC movie. Costume magic by Steph of course 😉

You can bump into Team Stone Cosplay at events throughout the UK each year and you can follow them on Instagram and Facebook .

    To top it all off, they are really awesome people too ❤

Thanks for all the fun so far, here’s to many more years of last minute creative stress, headaches, triumphs and shenanigans!

– Jules xx

Cosplayer Showcase – Team Stone Cosplay Well this is new...why? Over the last 6 years we have encountered so many amazing cosplayers, we thought it would be a great idea to showcase some of their efforts on our blog!

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The Cosplay Journal - a review!

The Cosplay Journal – a review!

First impression on opening my much anticipated delivery was pleasant surprise. It feels like a quality piece of print, an unusual sized book, but the perfect size for curling up on the sofa and browsing through with a good cup of tea (it IS the first British publication for cosplay after all!) and also has that lovely tactile, slightly rubbery finish to the cover that feels so soft to the touch.…

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End of our 7th Year!

End of our 7th Year!

Negativity reined…

The end of May is always a stressful one, this year far more than previous for a variety of reasons.

It marks the end of our financial year as well as the biggest comic convention date of the year which means tight deadlines and a bucket load of pressure.

This year I nearly had a total mental meltdown but the after shocks of its ending has given me such a wonderful sense of…

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A couple of days ago I did a bit of a spontanious “day in the life” thread over on our Facebook page and it was very random and a mixed bag of what I was up to from school runs to leather creations!  I am after all, a wife, mum and daughter as well as a business owner with plans for world domination!

Anyway, I think it is something I will repeat soon, but focus JUST on the work going on, so if this is of interest to you, pop over there and ‘like’ and ‘follow’ to get updates and see our regular shenanigans!  I’ll copy it all into an instagram flow too as I know a lot of our fans follow us there instead.

The best thing about doing the day in the life thread was the great interaction it encouraged, I love chit chatting on the page and it doesn’t happen a lot.

******

I’m currently in the literal busiest time scale in our working year, the run up to the annual summer London MCM event.  It’s the deadline for usually the most complex and time intensive custom orders we have on, of which I am usually the responsible party!

This year is no exception, we are currently in the middle of the Wonder Woman corset re-build that I have let drag out over a year before having the balls to get her done…I had a bloody awful mental block because of it not fitting the customer perfectly first go.  This doesn’t happen very often at all and it really threw me mentally about re-making it better!  What if it goes wrong again?! What if I can’t do this (even though I actually already did this skill) and why am I no good at this work *insert a couple of stress sobs*…

It’s been horrible, but instead of spurring me into getting it re-done quickly to get rid of the feeling, I stuck my head in the sand and no once again, although I have time to do it, I have time stress on top of self doubt stress and fear of the customer stress (which is total bollocks I know as the customer is possibly the most lovely and friendly lady ever) on top of everything else I have on stress!

Writing this has helped, as has my wonderful Pod micro managing me into just starting it the other day and now it is flowing well and looking good and I feel like I can tackle it once again!  I’m human, stuff happens, I get over it and create leather creations that make people happy 🙂

Wet forming process of making the corset chest area for our Wonder Woman corset over customer body form.

The other huge custom order currently under way is a detailed and fiddly design, but gorgeous!

Balthier from Final Fantasy is not a character I had ever come across due to not being a gamer myself, but hey! that has never stopped me making their costumes!

So if you want to see the progress photo’s I’ve been taking, I’ll be posting an album up probably next week when I get some time over on Facebook.

On top of these, we have the usual range of Star Wars  belts and random website items being make and dispatched each day just to keep us on our toes!

So that’s about it for today, I’m back to my motivated and determined self, orders are going really well, family is good, life feels positive *content sighhh* and I have a cup of tea ❤ ttfn!

DON’T FORGET…

Day in the life…& mental shenanigans! A couple of days ago I did a bit of a spontanious "day in the life" thread over on our…