regan scone you guys are one of my favorite subsets of the cosplay
community you are the family that cause plays together yes yes all right so tell
me about these amazing costumes clearly you've been doing this for a long time
and I want to get into that but let's start with the costumes so my costume is
an original design that I did as much to sewing because I that's my primary focus
so I have like little needles and beads and this is this is all hand done so
this was white and I painted it match it's so I mean it looks just like your
had a blast just I did I'm sieving it and putting it
together relaxing is when you hand so you can sit on the couch and put on
Netflix and then this bodice here is as a 3d printed or is it okay sure and I
see the needle themes and the buttons that would make sense and then you've
got your lace on here as well and then these sleeves tell me about this does
this is like the most complicated sleeve design I've ever seen this is a Canadian
smacking which is like an heirloom technique like most grandma let's know
how to do it they'll do it for like their little christening gowns and stuff
and then so I smocked all the fabric and then applied it to a sleeve pattern and
then hands did all the details on it the beads and the sequins so I've never
heard of smoking do you spend time like looking up esoteric sewing oh yeah my
favorite thing to do is to sit on YouTube and like look up like very and
it's always like an older lady and she's like filming it on a potato you know a
lot of times they're like English and she's just like here's how you do it you
barely see it cuz it's like hard darkroom well it's my gonna come back in
the community I've seen a lot of people do it you know getting smoked now it's
fun it's fun just a lot of cosplayers are looking for like old stuff yeah sort
of bringing it back into oh I'm making it popular again no but it's fun to look
back at what people have been doing absolutely think people want more detail
in their costumes yeah and so they're looking for that and like this is a
great way to add that kind of thing and so that's why I think we're seeing it
more and I remember I was researching aragorn's costume from Lord of the Rings
and in his jacket he's got this very specific type of attachment that's super
elaborate and really complicated and labor-intensive it the fans who've gone
and done it I mean it there's nothing that looks quite right except for that
oh the Daenerys dresses have a ton of smoky
oh really yeah yeah she's like the most popular it's a specific pattern called
dragon stills smocking and the fashion designer the lady who
did the costumes actually like put it all on her blog with like the exact
pattern oh my goodness how she did the like embroidery around the smocking
pattern so people will cheat sometimes but you can absolutely tell if somebody
actually did the smacking what's it's bad putting the instructions on like
that is like so nice because that's why you see it so much Yeah right
because if someone says well I love that but I don't know how to do it it's
really difficult but like that's that's a lot of what we really like as well and
what like a lot of the people we hang out with do is we trial and error we
fail a whole bunch and then when we figure out how to do it here's the
instructions so you two can put it into your cosplay that's amazing okay
Regan this gigantic construction you are wearing I can't believe it you can
support it all it's very balanced is it really very balanced see who you is some
of this being supported on your shoulder no no these are all just bustles oh so
like if you've ever seen a hoop skirt more like a Rococo gown where the the
bustle is more like a panttiere out to the side yeah same concept so it's just
boning and so it's very very lightweight these are actually probably lighter than
the helmet Wow okay whoa who is this costume so the
costume is from tree of Savior it's a Korean MMORPG and like we we cosplay
lots of different stuff like I cosplay characters I love will makeup designs
for characters we love but I'll also cosplay just costumes I love and I saw
this design and I said that one that crown is truly
mind-blowing oh yeah get on in there got in here I
can see appliqués I can see like you laser cut phone perhaps um so uh that is
like the one tool we don't have we don't have a laser cutter really yes yet we've
got a lot of other stuff but so this one actually we used a Cricut machine uh and
cut out foam vinyl that I then applied to thermoplastic it's beautiful and you
know the detail on these horns is also incredible they're super lightweight
they're all those ones are also foam those ones are foam the part of the
reason I also picked this outfit is because like we've been doing it for
we've been doing cosplay for like a pretty long time and one of the things
that makes it so fun for us is it's like all learning all the time right like
we've been doing it for like almost 20 years but every single costume I see
something and I'm like I want to do that I want to learn how to do that technique
so I want to learn how to make on a technique and then you find it yeah yes
so this is what I tell people you've got to find something that you must have
that requires that technique yes so I'll be like oh these prosthetics looks so
cool I want to learn how to make a prosthetic chest out of silicon I want
to learn how to do 3d printing for the first time I want to learn how to do
resin casting I want to learn how to do foam work and so like this costume in
particular I got to combine a lot a lot a lot of those techniques and learn new
ones and like I think sometimes you see a design that it's like really hard to
imagine how that would come into reality because it just looks so weird yeah and
I think combining different techniques is part of what can like really help you
do that especially with really weird kind of things like this but I also love
this process when you start it when you look at something that on first glance
like a picture of this we'd be like I have no idea where you begin yeah and
then you start you make your lists so it like break it down to give me parts and
pieces and then there's a certain point at which the costume just enters your
head and like you've got it in there now and even though you stuff to solve all
these problems I that moment when the whole thing sort of coalesce is at least
know what materials you need the best part a point like this
tell me about these shoulders those are really a minute just in terms of having
to do a different material to get it to look correct right this one drove me
nuts and by nuts I mean I loved it because
like this shape I was like well I can't make that with my hands I need to 3d
print that right but this thing is clear I need to resin cast this but these
things are kind of very organic that needs to be thermoplastic and so when
you want to get your fingers into all of these different techniques as a
cosplayer like cosplay is anything and can be anything so you can combine all
that stuff you're not like shoehorned into one but you end up with that really
tricky business I'm trying to make the same color on multiple different
materials that's why each material is a different color can you tell me about
your guys early early cosplay like what cut you into it in the beginning I got
her into it yeah you were the gateway drug
I was the gateway drug well I was my gateway drug was I think my first
convention was 1998 Wow so I was like 16 and we had to drive
eight hours because that was the closest con back then and me and my friend said
well we're gonna go big or go home we should cosplay and like newbs
we picked the hardest cosplay it was a beautiful art book rendition of a
character called Umi from magic knight rayearth which is an old manga I already
gave the 1998 so it's fine and so we said let's do that even though we had no
business doing it none of us knew how to make anything even though we were kind
of artsy but we made it together we enlisted the help of a friend of ours
who he didn't make costumes or anything but he knew how to use chicken wire and
he had like good ideas for using paper mache and my mom had a friend who knew
how to sew and we figured out where to buy the wigs from and to be honest it's
pretty good you're proud of the work looks pretty darn good
especially for 1998 and I think it's because I got everyone to help me which
is kind of still our shtick which is like I love this hobby because of making
things but I also love this hobby because of the community it takes a
village and then I made my own costume the next year now I think there's this
funny thing that happens like when you make a first foray into a thing and you
look at it a couple years later it's terrible but then many years later you
look and you see no it's actually really no no that's still the case this one
just happens to be weirdly good that's awesome
do you don't pick you you document every costume I do um I think I have one photo
somewhere yes just go and tell me about your first
cosplay Oh God so I was always like one of those
Halloween was like hardcore Halloween yeah yeah yeah so she was like well
we're doing this convention in Baltimore so come and you can wear a costume and I
was like a costume I'm sold no um so she wanted me to be a character in this
other klump manga that hadn't actually shown up in the manga yet so she was
like I'll just draw you a picture of what I think it's going to look like
seeds of this nonsense and so I went to Walmart and got dollar yard fabric yeah
and then a pattern that was a men's pattern that was for like a 44 inch size
man oh yeah large made it work somehow on my stepmother sewing machine and she
was just like at some point walked by and looked at it and there's gonna be
too much to get involved um no wig no contacts sneakers it was 2004 it was
fine how did it feel to put on the coat was great it was so much fun it was like
I showed up and I was like I don't know what I'm doing and everybody was like
yay we can all wear costumes all the time if there's a moment after you when
you throw a party and you say to everyone show up at 8:00 and like 8:30
and no one's shown up yet and you're like there's a moment after I put on a
costume before I've hit the floor I'm like maybe this is crazy and then you
hit the floor and people you get that response it's always it's nice it's
always amazing it's feel very weird going to a convention not
cosplay like I I did it once and I was just like this is we are never again and
I've never done it every Wow cuz you I can't even I mean Sunday maybe
maybe as like a the last day end of the Concord usually it's a casual thing
obviously okay so we've covered a huge number of parts of this but I'm curious
about this this is also a foam work yes so the so the I love details and I love
textures so any way I can like worm or that nonsense in there yeah so these are
basically hollow foam shapes patterned it out with probably newspaper and tape
um to get the shape that I wanted and then I cut them apart so that I had a
foam hollow pattern for this is six pieces
mm-hmm assembled that and then I dug the the lower level in here with a with a
hot knife okay yeah so that you get some of the grooves and then the upper level
this is foam clay actually which if you have not played with foam like amazing I
have not yet played how's gonna play with it it is so much fun I do love it
it's my new favorite either awesome oh yeah yeah you can squeeze a little it is
very hollow so so you get the upper additional texture with that and then
this is actually duct tape ah I thought like that looks pretty darn Ono masking
tape is Matthew I thought this looked pretty good so I slapped it on a painted
it totally right you're totally right and now like I'm looking at details like
this down here with the color variants this is all done by you right yes so
this is this is a technique called tambour embroidery these are all just
like different individual beads and you string them on in a chain stitch oh my
gosh and that's how you can get like the nice looking back to it as well just
because this unfortunately we know it's transparent and so that's kind of the
advantage is this another one of like binging Netflix while you're sitting
there slowly your work is weirdly fun it's very
weirdly fun wouldn't think it no no I look TV I'm all about the tedium I
remember once coming upon a room full of old women all doing a lace workshop like
making lace so bad it was over somebody to tea if
anybody out there wants to teach me how to make lace it was intoxicating to see
a room of 25 old women all like hand making lace in this well this is an
example she's gonna find an outfit I put that I didn't you already find an outfit
to put the lace on I'm probably gonna make lace for more yeah yeah what kind
of workshop do you guys have in the house so actually it's funny we bought a
house a couple years ago and the realtor was like what do you want you know what
a big kitchen righteous I don't care about like at the location that much but
we really need like a big space that's separate from the living space so we can
have a craft room and he was like okay he was a good sport about it so we
bought our condo because it has a big bright room that we painted into the
craft room amazing on the back of the crown I see this lovely compass detail
with jewels and yeah it actually does a thing oh my gosh I can't believe I just
stumbled upon this great I would have forgotten Wow so you've got a motor
driving night yes Iowa I was lazy I really didn't want to
put a servo in there so I just put a gear motor okay I just hook up to some
batteries that are tucked into the Bolero and it actually has lights as
well but we thought it might interfere with the lighting in here it is gorgeous
how did you build that is that also phone um sounds 3d printed yeah I really
like to use I love to use the different materials depending on what it looks
like so like organic stuff I really still want to use my hands and do foam
and worbla but something very geometric like the arrow like that is perfect for
3d printing in my opinion yeah so those guys are 3d printed the gems are
actually like a clear type of thermoplastic mm-hmm and then the gear
motor is just kind of attached to the very back oh yeah also the gems are like
a friendly plastic yes yeah it's like a clear friendly plastic oh I didn't know
they were making it in jewel colors called worbla we colored that
yeah the world looks sharpy there's no shame in it
no no when I'm when I there there's a costume I finished early finished it
like three weeks before the con and it was really it's the alien space sort of
super old and weathered so I come in every morning before work with a cup of
coffee and I just like throw a little coffee oven doesn't go to work and
slowly beat it up oh my god you guys are so inspiring I love the fact that you've
also are playing with a gamut from original to Canon with the different
materials and you're clearly super obsessed and you feed each other's
obsessions yeah this is this is a dangerous combination you are playing at
such a high level and it is super inspiring absolutely I can't wait to see
what you do next year I we already have plans so