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aureus-ignis · 7 years

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When I was young, I fell in love with the Pokemon series. I loved the RBY and GSC games, I watched the anime on TV every weekend, bought the movies, played the TCG, and collected the PokeSpe manga zealously. But as the years went by, the newer Pokemon games failed to hold my interest, and I soon stopped following Pokemon entirely. Last year, the generation of Alola was announced, and after watching a few trailers, I found myself drawn to the music. The adorable Rowlet also caught my eye, and on top of that, it seemed like the story was going to be interesting. A conservation society full of nice people dressed in white that looked strangely sinister at times? Hell yesssss. So I decided to buy the game... and then I fell deeply in love. Once again I was in Pokemon heaven (or hell).

So when Mei asked me if there was any series we could cos together that'd be fun and simple to do, I suggested Gladion and Lillie, since their costumes are fairly simple (c o u g h). She agreed, and that was the beginning of it all.

I started working on stuff around mid-June this year. People who know me know that accuracy is pretty high on my list of priorities, and I was determined to get the not-very-logical hair of Lillie and Gladion as good as I possibly could. Lillie's problem, of course, was the thickness. She has two insanely fat braids that had to be made up of almost all the hair on a normal human head, yet somehow still has a thick wide mane of loose hair behind her. So I had to spend time wefting as many extra rows of fibre into the wig, and then crafting removable bases for the braids from batting and more wefts.

Testing!

Batting base WIP HAHAHA

And the final result was worth it <3 <3

Next was Gladion. When it comes to the subject of pulled back hair, I've gotten to the point where I can ONLY accept lacefront. Anything else is too fake for me. For me, cosplay has always been about portraying the characters as if they were real, no matter how zany and strange their designs may be. I wanted the hair to look almost as though it grew on me. I ripped out almost the whole front to get rid of the fringe, and sewed in longer wefts, adjusting the direction of the hair to the left so that they would comb back naturally. Then ventilating hell began

Darkness, my old friend, we meet again. ;___; My hooking skills have improved since I first started ventilating, but it's still a long, tedious process. School started before I could finish, and I had to work on everything else too...

The realization that his uncut wig looks like Mercy from Overwatch HAHAHA

But as with Lillie, the final result was worth it <3 <3 <3

With regards to his costume, I'd actually had the hoodie and pants tailored because I ran out of time. I'd wanted just the base made so I can do the rest of the details myself, but the tailor forgot and did everything for me... and ended up messing up the accuracy. It was a disappointment, so much so that after STGCC was over, and we planned to have a shoot at the end of the year... I decided to remake everything from scratch. I'm terrible at patterning, really, and Gladion's biggest problem was THE STUPID GRAVITY DEFYING HOOD. Ultimately I couldn't get it to look exactly like the original (because I didn't want extra seams and all, but it was close enough. And the second time round, all of the holes were in the correct areas HAHAHA.

I'd made his first waistpouch myself, but for some reason, despite my careful measurements, the size turned out far too large the first time. So I had to remake the whole thing a second time. The hardest part is sewing the damn thing together, because I'd had to put two layers of hard inferfacing for each piece and sometimes the needle just wouldn't. Go. Through. OTL In version 2, I had more time, so I paid more attention to getting the shape accurate. The stupid thing tapers towards the bottom and has a curved side. Even more stupid, the strap goes from FAT TO THIN TO FAT for some reason. But I succeeded!

New VS Old

Next was the Z-ring. Gladion's official art doesn't have one, but he obviously wears one in-game. I felt that it was important, because Nanu gave it to him. So I had to dig out references from the game screenshots 8D;;

This is how a lot of my prop drafts look like. ALGEBRA IS MY FRIEND.

Also crafted the Z-crystal thanks to Pythagoras' theorem 8D; I used liquid quartz to glue the clear acrylic sheet together without leaving traces.

Final result! I'm pretty happy with it =>

Before STGCC, there was one more segment that I worked really hard on. After we'd decided to do SuMo together, I thought of making a Nebby plushie for Mei to carry. Yes, Pokemon Center had already released their Nebby plush by then, but... For one, it's smaller than life-size. For another, the shape looks more like a sunflower than a starry cloud. I didn't want it to look like Lillie was just carrying a toy; I wanted to give the impression that Mei had an adorable, soft, beautiful real-life Cosmog. But how on earth would someone with very terrible patterning skills make a 3D cloud plushie that could be dyed for Nebby's distinctive gradient colouring, and still be nice and soft to hug?

The answer is, I struggled.

Set up a spraying booth to airbrush the gradient on. Due to a problem with shipping, I couldn't get my compressor in time, so I ended up having to splurge on compressed air cans, which were horrendously expensive oTL.

BUT LOOK AT THE FINAL RESULT. LOOK AT HIM. <3 <3 <3

Let it also be known that I tested to make sure he could fit inside Mei's bag the moment I finished the base HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-----

So that was part 1 of Project Alola! We went to STGCC together and met lots of Pokemon fans (quite a lot of people were very happy to see Nebby, in particular XD), and Laki offered to come shoot with us as Moon since she already had the costume. We then planned to have our shoot at the end of the year during my holidays.

As mentioned, I'd already planned to remake my entire costume and waistpouch, but aside from that... I had the mad idea that I wanted to make a Silvally prop. It's something I'd considered for STGCC too, but I was really short on time then, and Mei told me to FINISH EVERYTHING ELSE FIRST THEN DO IT IF YOU HAVE TIME.

The problem is... Silvally's official size in the Pokedex is 2.4m. That's 80cm taller than myself. )o) Sure, I could scale him down, make a tiny lap plushie like all the other cosplayers, but what would be the point? Although I'd never cosplayed from the Pokemon series before, I'd always thought that if I were to do so, I'd want to make life-size Pokemon so that it'd look like I actually have a Pokemon partner, and not just a Pokemon toy. But I'd thought then that my projects would be starters like Pikachu or Charmander or Cyndaquil, or maybe one of the Eeveelutions. Not a giant horse-dog like Silvally ^^;;;

I had to consider the fact that my house isn't very big and I'd have barely any space to keep him. I had to consider how I'd be able to transport him, and how to construct him so that I could take him apart. I also had to consider the amount of money I'd be spending on him, because honestly, cosplay is not a cheap hobby. Materials in Singapore are especially expensive. As an unemployed student, I'd be splurging a lot if I decided to go ahead with this crazy project. When I told this to Mei during one of our dinners out, she suggested just making his head and taking halfbody shots so no one can tell that he has nobody. Like a hobby horse, except it's a hobby Silvally.

Good idea.

So when school finished, I started drafting him out, and the basic paper draft itself took like three giant sheets of patterning paper taped together HAHAHA.

The base

Honestly, even though I had an idea of how I'd make him, I wasn't completely sure if it would work. As I've said repeatedly I really, really suck at patterning. I can never seem to envision where to cut darts in a piece of EVA foam to get the shape I want, so half the time I was just taping drafting paper on and folding and taping excess parts off, then that that up for a trial-and-error pattern.

With paper mache and paper draft pattern for the mouth.

That's how large the whole thing is 8D'

Apart from the making of Silvally, I'd also spent time searching for reference pictures and sketching storyboard ideas for our shoot. I went to check out the our shoot location (Sentosa Island) a few weekends back, so that we could decide where exactly we wanted to shoot. In hindsight, there were a lot more shots I could have planned to bring out the personality of our characters more, but oh well ;w;

The shoot itself went pretty well, for the sun was quite kind to us, and hid under clouds for most of the day. Sei's working style is quite different from mine, but she was very gracious and did everything I asked of her. Sakami and Greg were wonderful helpers, and some of my best memories from the day include our hilarious videos, and the shenanigans with the Pokemon.

I've already thanked my wonderful team mates, helpers and photographer in another post, so I won't go into details here. But everyone was very kind and obliging, and listened to all my ambitious plans, allowing me to be a bossy director. I'm very, very grateful to all of them.

So now, a bit of reflection on Silvally, and the whole project.

The patterns for Silvally weren't perfect, and I messed up a lot. The final result was definitely far from what I had hoped for. Most noticeably, the top of the head is bumpy holey because I ran out of gesso to fill and sand. But the proportions also came out a bit off, and the neck piece patterning failed on the right side. But when I finished painting... I felt very, very happy. I'd gotten some small bouts of joy when I finished each stage of the crafting process, when I looked at what I'd done, but looking at the final product was just.... incredible. It wasn't as beautiful as it could have been, and I still regret all the imperfections that are so obvious to my eyes, but....I was so excited. I couldn't wait for the shoot.

Perhaps it was partly because I hadn't really been sure if I'd be able to make things work, so the success tastes that much sweeter. Some of my friends had told me I was crazy. I kept asking myself if I were crazy. All that money and time and pain sunk into a project that I'm not even getting paid for, with a success rate that seemed really low. My mom telling me straight out that I was 'too ambitious'. Was it worth it? Would it have been better to make a smaller, much more perfect prop, than an actual sized, flawed one, with half the effort and money? Cosplay is already an indulgence, but had I crossed the line into foolish waste zone?

When I looked at my completed Silvally, the answer didn't hit me like Mjolnir. I still don't know if it was the right thing to do, or if I was an irresponsible child wasting the money that could have gone into feeding me better food.

But it made me happy. So happy. I nearly cried as I stood there for a few minutes staring at him. He was truly a labour of love. I spent hours spraying gesso and paint because I love Silvally. I spent days sanding until my arms want to fall off and my eyes are dying from dust because I love Gladion. I spent hours cortorted in weird positions with a paintbrush trying desperately to stay within the pencil lines, sweat dripping into my eyes, because I love this art. Sure, the process itself was often painful; I suffered multiple burns from hot glue and a hot iron and cut my fingers open way too many times. I still hate hand-sanding with a burning passion because it's tiring as hell and I get blisters on my oversensitive skin. But the thought that all of the suffering helps to build the final piece of art that I envision makes me grit my teeth and soldier on.

Cosplay is my art, something that I would put 500% of me into. Whether the crafting of insanely large props, or the preparations for the shoot, or the styling of my entire team's wigs, or the endless sewing adventures on plushies.

Because I love it.

#pokemon #my journals

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