Thor cosplay: End result

Note: links to the post for individual parts are at the end of the post.

     I started costuming in 1996, my senior year of high school, when I learned there was a ren faire opening nearby and they wanted workers/ actors. We weren't wealthy, so when I was hired and took a look at buying an outfit (for a part-time job, mind you), I balked at the prices, thinking "I can probably make that on my own!" The first year's outfit wasn't anything fancy, but it worked and I was encouraged to keep going, trying for something better the next year. 

     I stopped working ren faires in 2006, but still made clothes and occasional costumes for fun. In 2017, I decided to take it up a notch and try my hand at thermoplastics, adding armor to my costumes. It took 2 years (while working on my Master's degree and other things), over 176 hours, and... well we won't talk about the cost... but I finally finished my first thermoplasic cosplay and debuted it at Baltimore Comic Con. I did not enter the costume contest due to scheduling conflicts, but if the number of times I (and my friend who came with) were stopped and asked for pictures is any measure of success, I'd say I made it. 

Drafts - Work training

     As the year/ decade gets closer to the end, a lot of people are doing a 10 year look-back, mostly on Facebook and with pictures, comparing where they are now to where they were in 2010. While I'm not particularly interested in how I've physically changed, I decided to look back through old drafts that I started but never posted. Here's one from when I started my current job, in 2014 (updated to current time).

     Let me preface this with the insight that I had a LOT of jobs when I was teens/20s. I worked various roles at a couple Renaissance Faires, did temping/ office work in a wide variety of fields and locations, drove a range of trucks from pickups to 18 wheelers, food service, IT, customer service... basically I wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do, so I just tried everything. Most of those jobs were entry level/ low skill, so training was on-the-job if at all. Every single job, barring trucking, went like this at the beginning:

Thor cosplay: Helmet

     The final piece for the Thor cosplay, once I made sure everything else worked well, was the helmet. I have always had difficulties finding hats and headbands, because my head is larger than "one size fits all," and it turns out that cosplay helmet patterns have the same limitations. I started with a motorcycle style helmet pattern, but both it and the material I started with (1/4" thick foam covered in Worbla) just didn't work well. It was huge, hard to fit, and heavy, which is a shame because it took many hours getting to that realization point:

Fun with leatherworking: lightsaber holder

     Had some free time today and decided to try making a lightsaber holder for the Jedi outfit. I ran out of time on the original outfit and just braided twine together, made a slipknot, and hung it off my belt that way, but it wasn't really solid and looked kind of silly up close.

     Since I've gotten some experience in leatherworking with the Thor costume, I figured I could at least make an attempt at a nicer holder. I'll skip the obvious fails - where I learned what thickness leather to use, why fabric snaps don't work on thick leather, and that metal snaps scratch up a metal lightsaber handle - and stick to the winning learning process. Started out with a paper pattern, made sure it was long enough to loop over the thicker-than-average Jedi belt, then added arms to wrap around the thinner areas:

Geeky proposal

     Set this up back in March: my proposal to the gentleman.






Started on the whiteboard in the kitchen, one of the first places we both go when we wake up.

Workplace noise

     Long ago, I heard the phrase "high-scan vs low-scan" for people who cannot ignore noise vs people who can. I haven't been able to find evidence of that as a thing since then, but it stuck in my head, because I am high-scan: small noises that other people tend to overlook are difficult for me to ignore when I'm trying to focus or relax. A month or two ago, a squeaking noise start up in the ceiling at work, and of course, no one else paid attention to it until I pointed it out (although to be fair, all of my coworkers either have or have had small children, so I guess ignoring noise is a skill you pick up at that stage in life). Naturally, it was situated directly over my desk, so no one else thought it was loud enough to do anything about until I complained.... a lot... This is the result:

Thor cosplay: Leathercrafting

All Thor posts can be found here.

     When I started working at my current job, the entire department was a mess. Things were tucked into random hiding places, nobody knew exactly what we had for office supplies, and there was tons of stuff laying around unused. Being the minimalist organizer that I am, I set about inventorying and cleaning up, and discovered a huge (3' tall, 7" in diameter) roll of thick brown paper that no one knew the purpose of. I didn't want to get rid of it, in case it turned out to be useful later, but I did cut off about 50' and take it home for crafting purposes, and it has been absolutely indispensable.

     One of the occasions for its use was the belt for Thor. The character has a wide belt that is clearly shaped to fit closely at the top and the bottom; a belt made from a straight piece of leather will not do that on a curved body. Since my hips are 14" larger than my waist, I've generally just not worn belts in the past, but this outfit required it, so... break out the brown paper! I tried several curves and front shapes until I found one that looked and fit well, and then had to decide what to make the belt out of.

     Many of the cosplays I've seen have made the belt out of pleather or stiffened fabric, and to my eye, it detracts from the overall look. I have never worked with leather before, but, I figured, how hard can it be? Don't get me wrong, the super fancy, fitted, articulated, tooled stuff must take a heck of a lot of time, but one belt? Can't be too bad. And for once, I was right.

Thor cosplay: Fabric parts

All Thor posts can be found here.

     I started the idea of the Thor cosplay back in 2017, while I was still working on my Master's degree. The first piece (bracer) took about 4 months, and the hammer wasn't finished until the end of 2018, mostly due to time and prioritizing other hobbies. While several of the pieces overlapped at the end of 2018, it wasn't until early 2019 when I realized I wanted to actually get serious and finish the cosplay in time for this year's Baltimore ComicCon.

     Most of the things I've made start out with a base pattern and get modded along the way. I'd done a sketch of the Thor skirt and... tabard? Skirt tabard? Frontispiece? Whatever it was called, I wanted it to be on the same waistband as the skirt, because I hate layering things. I started with Simplicty pattern 8719, made a mock-up for the draping back, cut it down, made another for the front drape, cut THAT down, and then laid all three of the pieces out to make the final.

Thor cosplay: Breastplate (part 2)

The link to part 1 is here, and ended with the second version of the breastplate formed and ready to be decorated:

     Since I'm not very good at freehand painting designs, particularly on a curved, irregular surface, I decided the best way to add a design to the bottom edge would be to cut it out of something and stick it on so it wouldn't move around. Initially I thought craft foam would be best, but I tried a section and it was weird having squishy designs on a "metal" breastplate, so I ended up using a single sheet of Worbla. That actually turned out to be easier, as I could just lay the pieces in place and heat them up to get sticky, rather than faffing about with adhesives.

     As per usual, however, while I was prepping to do that, the gorget (neck armor) started bothering me. In the comics, the gorget is two pieces, and I'd thought I would just add a line in the middle of it to resemble two pieces, but the more I looked at it, the less I liked having a huge, fixed gorget. I set aside the designs for a moment and went back to making paper drafts of an articulated gorget and broaches to cover the ends. Eventually ended up with a decent pattern, and was ready to move on:

Thor Cosplay: Sabatons

     Sabaton being just a fancy word for foot armor, and Thor definitely needs foot armor. I had a pair of black boots with about a 1" heel that I figured would work well as a base, and downloaded this pattern to get a general idea of how sabatons work. Obviously, I couldn't follow it perfectly, since it's made for a non-heeled shoe, but it made a good first attempt. Several tweaks later, I felt I had something good enough to cut out of foam:

     A functional difficulty for shoe armor is that it has to flex with your foot. A breastplate or bracer doesn't need to move, but if you make fixed joints on a shoe, you're not going to go far. I used random bits of wire to test the pattern pieces out, but that wasn't strong or pretty enough for a final go. After some hunting, I found screw rivets (aka Chicago screws), primarily made for binding books, but conveniently the right size for, say, sabaton joints. With the screw side on the interior, it looks a lot like rivets you'd see on actual armor. I covered all the pieces with Worbla, poked (a lot of) holes in them at what felt like the right points, and had a pretty decent, functional piece of armor.

Baking again

     I don't tend to bake much over the holidays, since everyone else is baking, there is no shortage of sweets, and it's generally a chaotic time of the year anyway. The past couple years, I've found it's much easier to wait until February or so, and do baking then - people are usually in the winter blahs and quite thrilled to get some sweetness and excitement of new things to try. This year was no exception, and I got to try some interesting new recipes.

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies (Vegan)

Mash together:

   2 ripe bananas

   1/2 cup shredded carrots

   1/2 cup applesauce

   2 tsp vanilla

Add:

   2 cups oats (I prefer old-fashioned, you could probably use instant)

   1/2 cup dried pineapple, torn to smallish bits

   1/2 cup raisins

   1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

   1/2 tsp salt

It will make a very wet, non-cookie-dough-like mass in the bowl. I doubt myself every time I make it, but trust that it will work out. Drop onto a greased pan, bake for 12-15 minutes at 350° until solid but not dry. Let cool, store in the fridge. 

Chocolate Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream:

   1 cup butter (real butter, no skimping and using lard or margarine)

   5/8 cup or scant 3/4 cup sugar

   5/8 cup or scant 3/4 cup brown sugar

   4 eggs

   1/2 cup cocoa powder (dark is best, milk will do)

Add:

   3 1/2 cups flour (start with 3, then add as needed to get sticky dough)

   1 tsp salt

   2 tsp baking powder

   1/4 tsp espresso powder

Stir in:

   1 cup chocolate chips

   generous 1/2 cup dried cherries

Dough should be sticky, not easily rolled into balls. Drop onto pan, bake 10-12 minutes at 350° until firm but not dry.    

I did not get any photos, and they were all gone by the time I thought to do so. I will definitely be making both again, however, so I will come back and update if I remember next time. 

Impostor syndrome... or maybe not

     I've been reading a book titled Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini lately, about various methods by which people - typically unscrupulous ones - get us to agree to do or buy something we didn't initially want to do or buy. I wouldn't classify myself as a pushover, per se, but I do have a tendency to give people too many chances to make my life difficult and I figured this would hep me to at least be aware of when I fall for fallacious entreaties.

     While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.

Thor cosplay: Breastplate (part 1)

     I'm pretty sure I warned you that there would be a lot of thermoplastics/ cosplay posts coming up, as it's what I've been occupying my time with a fair bit lately. I started work on the breastplate for the Thor outfit back in August, as something to turn to when Mjolnir hit setbacks. The first step, obviously, was to find a pattern. I found a decent base pattern on the website of a cosplayer in Ukraine, bought it for $4, and started (of course) tweaking it. It was one of the few I'd found that wasn't the stereotypical "boob cup" armor, so I figured it'd be a good starting base.

     That doesn't mean it was perfect, however. For starters, it was obviously drawn for someone roughly fitting the word "waif," so there was a fair bit of enlargement required. Secondly, it was clearly built for said waif to have huge tracts of land, to quote Monty Python, apparently filled with helium, as there were no shoulder straps and the top was cut inward at an angle that would break your clavicle if you tripped and fell. So, major tweaks aside, after a couple tries, I had a decent pattern... on paper.

From this:

To this: