Charizard Cosplay: Full Costume Reveal!

Salt Lake Comic Con starts on Thursday and we are just about ready!!!

I've had a bunch of people asking me to take pictures of me wearing the full costume, so here it is! I'm still fine tuning a couple of details, but this gives you a pretty good idea of what the final product is going to look like...

I'm almost done with the Alpha Geek's Pokemon Trainer Red costume too - the Pokeballs are for his costume ;) I'm looking forward to seeing fellow cosplayers at the con so feel free to say hi!

Charizard Cosplay: It's the details that make the difference

SLC Comic Con is next week! Fortunately, I'm almost done with my Charizard gijinka cosplay so I had some time this weekend to work on the details:

Shoes - After looking at the whole thing together I decided I didn't like the blue on the shoes so I decided to use basic acrylic paint in Antique Gold to make the shoes match the feel of the rest of the costume.

Taking it to the next level - I got some air dry clay, sculpted claws, sanded them with a nail file, and painted them with a 1:1 mixture of white acrylic paint and modge podge. I glued them to the shoes with super glue and you can kind of see that I went up the side of the claws a little bit to secure them more and to look like cuticles. 

Scale Test - I wanted to treat the pants so they weren't so plain. Even though this is a anthropomorphized Charizard, I want to make sure every element of the costume looks intentional. I'm not just wearing an orange outfit - Every piece is influenced by the dragon subject.  I'm going to do this scale effect on the thighs and calfs so it has a slimming effect as well  as adding cool texture.

Stay tuned for the makeup/hair test and full costume reveal!

Flame on! Charizard Cosplay Progress: Tail

Almost done! Last night I edged my fabric and bustled this sucker up by hand. I'm so glad I took the time to make that duct tape dress form because that made the process sooooo much easier! I just pinned the fabric to the bodice, pinned up where I wanted to bustle it, and sewed a couple of stitches at each pin up. I gathered the tip of the tail and just secured it with a rubber band for now:

Next, I grabbed the EL Wire I got from the SLC Comic Con Cosplay class and threaded it through the bustling of the tail so it came out the tip. I coiled it around the tip of the tail and secured again with rubber bands. I wrapped some sparkly red, yellow, and orange tulle and wrapped it haphazardly around the wire. I secured again with rubber bands so I could check the effect of the lighting before I secure everything. You can't really tell in the picture because There is too much light coming in my window, but the tip of the tail is actually in shadow and the orange glow coming from the center of the "flame" actually looks really cool! 

Tonight I'll attach the tail to the bodice and secure the tip. I still have a couple of details I want to touch up, but as soonas the tail is attached to the bodice I will actually have the whole costume in a wearable state to try on! Yay! 

It's go time! Charizard Cosplay Progress

I realized this week that there are just 3 weeks left until SLC Comic Con! It is still a work in progress, but this week I got the teal added to the wings, made a frame for them out of metal rods, and mounted them to a cardboard base. The cardboard will ultimately be attached to a sweet orange backpack, but the metal rods go around all of the edges so it is sturdy enough to support itself. I also decided this week to make the yellow part of Charizard's tummy a corset/wide belt and braided teal ribbon to use as the ties - I thought the teal would accent the wings nicely. I re-styled the wig a bit so the tips of the horns flare out and look more flame like and I bought orange hair ties so they would blend in better. I left a bunch of hair out in the front because I am still deciding if I want to braid it back or trim bangs... I figure I can decide that once I do my hair/makeup test. I bought some orange eye-shadow and lipstick this week so I hope to do my makeup test this weekend.

Up Next: 
- Attach wing frame to backpack & cover ugly cardboard w/orange fabric.
- Clean up and seal fabric edges of wings.
- Add copper scale detailing to pants.
- Sew tail, attach to corset, and set up light effects for flame.
- Hair/makeup test.
- If time - sculpt claws & attach to shoes
- Sew vest for Pokemon Trainer
- Paint pokeballs & attach to belt for Pokemon Trainer

Holy crap! She’s too fat to wear that!

Yeah, I said it. A lot of you probably agree with me too, but you won’t say it. It is time to get real here - let's talk about fat-shaming in the world of Cosplay.

We all like to say we are open-minded, but deep down we all know that we would rather see a skinny Wonder Woman than a fat one. I mean, come on, why can't the fat girl just have the willpower and lose some weight? Doesn't she know she looks pathetic? At conventions we take pictures with the skinny Wonder Woman and not the fat one. The fat Wonder Woman may have actually paid more attention to detail in her costume, but her body type doesn't match the character so who cares?

I do - because I am too afraid to be that fat Wonder Woman. I studied costume design for 4 years in college, but I don’t feel like I can fully utilize my talents to portray the characters I’d like to because I am afraid of being made fun of. I decided to cosplay as Charizard for Salt Lake Comic Con because I am too afraid to dress up as a sexy female character like Wonder Woman. Heaven forbid I post pictures of my fat Wonder Woman on the internet - the trolls will destroy me! I am genuinely excited about my Charizard cosplay because I know I can be the most kick-ass fat orange dragon at the convention, but it saddens me that I am too uncomfortable to play Wonder Woman. Sure, no one will likely insult me to my face if I were to dress up as Wonder Woman, but I would know that I will always be second to the skinny Wonder Woman.

Ok, I didn't put a ton of effort into this outfit, but I actually felt sexy when my sister took this picture. Then again, how can I compare to this: 

No contest!

Maybe I’m coming off and whiny here, but I don’t think I am the only one who feels this way. Fat cosplays are met with ridicule as a general rule - as is evidenced by the fact that when I typed “fat cosplay” into my Google Chrome search bar some of the options included “fat cosplayers are gross” and “fat cosplay fail.” There is even a website dedicated to “cosplay train wrecks” with a section called “Too Fat to Wear That”. With all of this fat shaming it is little wonder that some of us experience severe anxiety over choosing an “acceptable” cosplay.

For FanEx in April I cosplayed as Kaylee from Firefly because, although I am heavier than the character, at least she just wears a jumpsuit so I won’t offend anyone with my extra curves. I recently discovered geekxgirls.com and I was so excited to submit a couple of pictures, but when I looked at their gallery and saw all of the beautiful geek girls I was ashamed of my pictures. Apparently a real “Geek Girl” is skinny with big breasts so she can live up to the sexy female characters so prevalent in comics.

Seriously, I didn't even post this picture to Facebook because I was too self conscious about my arms and hips.

The interesting thing is that I am generally comfortable with my body - my husband compliments me and makes me feel sexy - but there is something about the world of cosplay that is still so intimidating. Why is that? Why do I still hear people snicker at the fat Princess Zelda? Shouldn’t geek-dom be a safe space for everyone?

Sorry, I don't know where this picture came from. Comment if it is yours and I'll give you credit :)

*** Do you agree that fat-shaming is still an issue in cosplay, or do you think that it isn't an issue and I'm just too self-conscious? ***

Edit: After I published this post I went to view it to make sure everything looked good and guess what ad Google decided to show? Yeah, liposuction. Thanks a lot!