Malta Comics Expo 2014

Yeah, I'm a week late with this con report. It was a 3 day long convention, starting 31st October and ending 2nd November. I didn't get much sleep, was rushed off my feet while simultaneously waiting ages for things to happen. I'm not going to do a detailed summary of the Expo. I recommend reading this blog: the guy writes it better than I can: http://ryanattard.com/ 

I will say that the pre-party was quite fun, but it took a while for me to start chatting because I didn't know many people there. On the other hand, by the end of the evening my friend and I managed to teach some of the Sailor Moon voice actors Maltese swear words :) The crowning achievement of my life, ladies and gentlemen.

 For the first day I wore my new Sailor Mars costume: totally redone. It looks great except for the skirt, which needed a good ironing. The gloves were also a bit fiddly because I had to take them off if I wanted to read.
I got to Valletta very early in the day in order to find parking. So I was there at 7am and was very lucky to find parking near the MCC. I killed time by walking around Valletta and read my Animal Ethics book (this is one of my favourite subjects - it's so interesting).

Then I had a mad rush to get my table set up. They put all the cosplay related tables together, so I had an amazing makeup artist on one side and a fantastic prop maker on the other. These guys are incredibly talented (the makeup artist took first place in the group cosplay contest, and it was a well deserved victory).

One thing the Expo needs to work on is organisation and allocation of tasks, because I get the impression that everything was in the hands of a few people, so things were a bit chaotic. On the first day there were no printed schedules so no one knew what time or where things were happening. Some panels were cancelled, or very few people turned up to the existing panels because the PA system didn't extend down to the artist alley. I was moderating the Sailor Moon panel on both Friday and Sunday, and the audience on both days was tiny - and I don't think it's because people aren't interested in Sailor Moon.

Having said that, I had a real blast at the Sailor Moon panels. The cast members were all so funny and interesting to listen to, and have a great group dynamic. They really didn't need me moderating - they would have been fine on their own. It was really interesting to hear them talk about their work. There are a lot of great clips from the panel on Youtube, which I'll link below

It was also a really good day in terms of sales. I sold all my Adventure Time hats! Score for me! I actually did quite well that weekend. I sold some flower crowns too, but only one steampunk necklace. I made enough that I could go for sushi on Friday night.

For the second day I wore Bombshell Harley Quinn and Rat Queen.

Harley was a popular costume that day: there were about 4 Harleys in total, and all different variations. There was me, this pirate Harley, Arkham City Harley, and classic Harley. There were a lot of great cosplayers: I saw an amazing Elizabeth Comstock, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Jack Sparrow, Umbridge (A Very Potter Sequel), Korra, Assassin's Creed and more. The turnout for my panel was low: only 4 people, and my slide show didn't work, so I just showed them my laptop screen.

Interestingly, only two people knew the Rat Queen, and neither of them were Maltese. One of them was Arkham City Harley (you looked so amazing as Harley!). I had to keep explaining Rat Queen and Emilie Autumn, which can be quite tricky: I mean, where do you begin? 

Off topic, but I had an amazing vegetarian burger on Saturday, made from mushrooms. SO GOOD.

The third day was an exclusive Rat Queen day. I was originally going to wear Vastra, but I just didn't have the energy. I felt pretty tired that day, and wearing the corset didn't help. The choker also felt tight, even though I could fit two fingers between it and my neck quite comfortably. I think the corset was on a little tight. I got a lot of compliments on this costume, even from guests. Thanks so much to Jennifer Cihi, the Sailor Moon voice cast, and others who were so nice about my cosplay.

I entered the cosplay contest, but didn't win. The winner made this amazing Diablo costume with Worbla armour. I think she definitely deserved to win, because the armour looked fantastic.

Before I wrap up, I'd just like to thank all my friends who helped to look after my table, and the organisers who managed to organise such a huge event. There were issues which do need to be sorted out, but I think it was quite a successful first con, and hopefully these issues can be smoothed out in the future. 
Much thanks also to Capture Me Photography for these incredible photos. Check out their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CaturemePhotography?pnref=lhc 

Rat Queen completed

The costume is mostly finished; I just need to finish a few accessories (tights and gloves). 

Let's go through it piece by piece:

The Corset

This corset is made from pillowcase material and cotton sateen. It is definitely not designed for tight lacing. I used katafalk's tutorial to draft the pattern. This is the first time I've used a busk in a corset. Busks are a bit tricky to insert, but make it a lot easier to put the corset on. I used Bishonenrancher's video tutorials as a guide, and ended up with a piece like this:

I then sewed the fashion layer and strength layer. Note that I flatlined the grey cloth to a stiffer cloth before I started sewing all the pieces together.

Here's the corset with all the pieces sewn together. I think if I make this corset again I'll make the back lower.

The corset on my dress form. You can see here that I sewed in the boning channels, adding the plastic bones, then sewed on bias tape to finish the raw edges. Once that was done I added grommets to the back.

This is the basic corset finished: the front

the side

and the back. I added a modesty panel to hide the gap.

The next step was to decorate the corset. Emilie's corset is covered with rhinestones, chains, beads, sequins, and charms. I bought a bunch of these from ebay and glued them on with E6000. I began by sticking on the larger gems in a regular pattern, and using the smaller gems to fill in the gaps. Once that was done I sewed on the chains with embroidery thread, and added the key charm to the chains with jump rings.

Here's the finished corset, with the modesty panel attached. I think adding the embellishments was my favourite part of making this corset.

I still have a ton of gems left over, so I'll probably make some gem encrusted accessories to sell in my etsy shop and at Malta Expo.

The Wig
I didn't end up dying a wig after all. My friend wants me to play Fionna (Adventure Time) in a skit, and I need a long blonde wig (we're doing Good Little Girl/Bad Little Boy). I bought a wig from cosertstudio on ebay.uk

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/70CM-Long-Wavy-Dark-Red-Men-Women-Anime-Fashion-Halloween-Cosplay-Hair-Full-Wig-/111192550820?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:3160

Coserstudio is a really nice seller. They asked me whether my item had arrived on time, and were generally very helpful and polite. The wig did arrive a little bit late, but only by a few days. I always order wigs in advance so that I don't have a panic before the convention.
The wig is a little bit shiny, but it fits well, and the colour is perfect. I might curl the ends slightly, but overall the wig is just right for this costume.

Bra

I bought this bra from ebay. It's exactly what I need, and has great details like the stitch lines and the black lace. I sewed in some padding in the cups for modesty, and glued on the gems with E6000 glue. And that's how you make a sparkly bra.

Rat Queen Progress

Finally, exams and assignments are more or less over, and I can work on some costume projects. Currently I am trying to use up my stash, so I decided to begin my Emilie Autumn 'Rat Queen' inspired costume. I know Emilie Autumn gets very mixed press, what with accusations of her glorifying mental illness (don't think I know enough about this subject to comment) or having over priced tickets/merchandise (shipping to Malta is always expensive, so I've never actually bought anything from her, though the Asylum book looks interesting), but I love the costumes she creates, as well as her music (especially the Enchant era, but a lot of the FLAG songs are good too)

The Rat Queen is probably as detailed as a Sakizou inspired costume, though much more ragged. I've always wanted to try my hand at something Sakizou-like, so this is an ideal project. I found fantastic cloth for the corset: pillowcases on sale for 1 Euro each. I also got a lot of scraps of cloth to turn into the bustle, and those cloth strips she had round her calves, and to make the rat tail. 

Jewellery

The first thing that I made for this costume was the choker. The 'cameo' in the centre started as a pair of earrings, glued together to create this piece. I then glued some gems on top, added a key charm, and sewed it to a strip of cloth. Everything is glued on with E6000 or fabric glue.

Also made some matching earrings.

Ears

The ears began as craft foam pieces, with a dart in the middle to make them more three dimensional. 

See how much nicer they look than flat semi circles would look?

I applied several coats of PVA glue to stop the craft foam from being damaged.

Once the paint dried, I painted the ears grey.

I added embellishments using beads and gems. This photo doesn't show the extra beads that I added for more texture. The ears are now encrusted with silver beads.

Tail

The tail was made by sewing lots of scraps together to make a big rectangle. The tail pattern is a long thin isosceles triangle, folded in half and stuffed. Stuffing the tail was difficult, because you can't really poke the stuffing to the end of the tail. I ended up hand-sewing the tail shut for 10cm, then adding stuffing, then sewing, then adding more stuffing, until the whole thing was stuffed. I didn't have Dacron or similar, so used scraps of satin and some wig fibres that I had (I massacred a blonde wig, and there were lumpy unusable wefts everywhere). Using watered down grey acrylic paint, I painted the tail light grey, then used a thicker paint mix to paint on the darker stripes. Lastly I added a ribbon to tie around my waist.

Bloomers

 The bloomers are made from a single pillowcase, using this tutorial by Yiji on Deviantart. I didn't even make a pattern; I just traced around a pair of wide loose trousers to get the shape right. The stripes are pieces of lace, and I added some bows for decoration.

 Everything is elasticated for comfort. Personally, I think these are really cute.

Corset

I can't work on this properly until I buy a busk. I don't know what length to buy, because one website suggested getting a busk 1 inch shorter than the length of the centre front. I asked Lucy Corsetry on tumblr, so I'll wait for a reply and see. I think I will use plastic bones to cut down on costs; I don't intend to use this for waist training, so I think plastic bones (zip ties) will do. The pattern is based on Katafalk's under bust corset drafting tutorial  

Wig

This will be something of an experiment. I want to try dying a wig red for this costume. I have 2 wigs that might work; one is thin and a bit nasty, and the other is thicker. I will probably use the latter for the final wig, and the former for practise.