is it more fun to make your awesome costumes or to wear them
and then there's this other question okay there's two questions aaron jolly mirror says
is it more fun to make your awesome costumes or to wear them and tableau
wants to know how what do you enjoy more the finished product or the process of making it
it is all of a piece it is all of a piece the making of it is part of the exploration
the wearing of it is another part of the exploration the going somewhere to wear it
is another really important part of the equation and then the documentation of that wearing is
a whole other thing each of these are narratives each of these are fulfillments of the original
of the original task so i get interested in a narrative and i want to make a piece from that
narrative and i want an experience from that narrative that feels authentic and genuine
so i start putting together objects and i start to put together a costume
and then once i start to put together that costume and i start to see how it gels and
how it gels on me and i start to have a real point of view about that now that
point of view is something i start pointing out words and i wonder how to give others
an experience of this costume that is my goal that it has that it lands with the audience
because just building it here is not finishing the project the costume isn't
finished until it's fulfilled its purpose out in the world and it's transformed me
yeah that's the that's that's the best way to put it then one doesn't one doesn't negate the
other it's not a zero-sum game both are completely completely important to the process so like i said
i've got all these costumes here i'm all dressed up and don't yet have some place to go with them
but this you know this next 18 months will be the fulfillment of a lot of pieces that
i've been building here in the cave over time um let me take one more one from the session here
um oh luna replicas it's a home run with a great final question and i love this
for people who are a different size than the original character
should accurate cosplay be about correct measurements or correct proportions
it's a great question and
i i i recognize that i am lucky to possess a fairly average
body right i'm uh what do you call it i'm a 95 percentile male uh within the proportions
of me i'm like a standard medium in almost everything and that that makes cosplaying
that gives me a lot of options but humans are ludicrously variegated in their in their uh
externalizations and we all have different body shapes so cosplaying in different body
shapes it is it should definitely not be about accurate measurements it is about
it's more proportions than measurements but what it's really about is does pudding on this costume
give you the experience you were looking for it's that simple i mean for some people it might be
measurements for others it might be proportion for still others might be something totally different
i i don't think that body type should inhibit anybody from exploring any costume that they want
that's the like that's the top line of my answer to this question um max uh kaiserman at lunar
replicants has asked us and he's a friend uh and makes wonderful products you should
go to their website um they make space replicas really really good ones um and i think that max
is teeing me up here in the best way because nobody's body type or physical limitations
should be a real limitation on them exploring whatever character they want to uh explore
yeah so you know it may be that your body type is so far off the character that you want to
replicate that proportion and measurements are totally out the window so then what is it
well i would submit that let's say you wanted to be uh one of the thermians from galaxy quest uh
actually it's a great one to choose because the thermians are all over the place
and body types but the question isn't are my proportions correct or my measurements correct
the question is do i feel the way i wanted to feel when i'm wearing this and if not what is
keeping me from feeling that way do i need bigger armor because i'm bigger do i need
a different type of i need an extra button in the torso because i'm really long and tall in my torso
these are completely real and valid things that i would consider totally valid to change
the canon correct measurements to fit your form if that's what gets you across the line
some of my favorite favorite favorite actually
most of my favorite cosplays are people who are cosplaying and they don't look exactly like
the character but you can see that they have put themselves totally into the character that is like
there's a purity to that that i aspire to because they have looked at themselves in this and thought
how do i get myself to that experience that i'm looking for how do i externalize this to achieve
this thing that i want and like i said i i'm lucky that it's relatively easy for me to fit
a lot of different costumes um but that also means that sometimes i could take shortcuts that others
aren't don't have the luxury of taking uh and that means that i feel like their their success is
harder one and and and to be celebrated right oh the first piece of cosplay that ever blew my mind
with what cosplay could be was the hello kitty darth vader where the physical form of the guy
dresses darth vader was not a perfect darth vader at all and making it pink was perfectly obscene
in the best way and it was a commentary on mashing up and a commentary on letting your own freak flag
fly that it was like oh it parted the clouds to me about what was possible um thank you max for
that great last question i think starting i think finishing on inclusivity is exactly the kind of
tone i like to strike thank you guys so much for joining me for this one day build thank you for
continuing to join me on my ecto-1 excursions um we will continue to do these live streams
and we'll let you know when they're happening until then stay safe i can't wait until you
are all vaccinated i will see you at a con maybe this year even all right love you guys peace out