Fabric Selection or my time at the Anime Convention

During a recent excursion to the university student center I was bombarded with the site of many female teens in short skirts, hair color not found in nature and more pokemon then I can shake a pokeball at. The convention was in town and we were overrun by a brand of dork I was just not used to. I can handle most awkward situations and consider myself a dork. Look I took the name of a faerie to write under. I am a dork, but I have not felt that uncomfortable in front of a large group of crossdressing males since I went to a three story gay club in New York that played porn at the coat check. I think the main issue I had was the sheer amount of polyester and bad costuming. There were visible facial twitches. I can handle lots of women in short skirt, I am male and I have seen anime before but.....damn. There are special places in hell where they hide bad polyester anime costumes.


Now for the reason I am writing about this. The biggest thing that each costume had wrong besides the obvious hot glue usage was the fabric selection. Let us take a fairly simple example. In the video game The Legend of Zelda there is a character named Link. He wears a green tunic. The tunic is a flat green only because it is a cartoon. It is ANIMATED. This is REAL LIFE. Now those are capitalized to show a very important point in the translation process. Just finding green material is not a very good option if you are trying to bring something from animation to real life. Doing some research before a project is constructed will help you sooooo much. This will bring the character to real life more then anything else. The tunic he is wearing is based on tunics from medieval England which looking on wikipedia shows that tunics wear made from wool or linen. Linen is a great material that hangs beautifully and gives a very period look. Wool will be too heavy and does not fit the images that a quick yahoo search can give. So Linen is the fabric choice for this costume. Look at Kingdom of Heaven, linen tunics look great over chainmail.

Here are some other basic do's and don'ts for a good anime cosplay:
1.If you do not want to be considered a joke, painted card board is not a good substitute for metal.
    Metal Substitutes:

• Cardboard covered in woodfiller from homedepot and then sanded to a smooth finish.
• Armor sculpted in clay and then cast in resin
• Vacuformed plastics
• Papermache covered in woodfiller and then sanded and painted
• Hammered brass kickplates
• Car parts

2. Do not buy a short skirted maid's outfit and add ears and call it an anime character. No fun notes to help this one. In a costume competition it is just sad. I saw it this weekend. It was sad and hurt my costuming soul.

3. Do not try a bodysuit unless you can make it out of something other then stretched lycra in primary colors. It looks like the old Power Ranger costumes. And you need to have the body as well. Sadly not everyone looks good in a unitard. I know I do not.
          Alternatives:

• Build a unitard.There are patterns out there for one. A quick yahoo search will show many pages of notes and patterns. Some are even free.  Try and find a stretch fabric with some texture. Solid primary colors looks like the already mentioned Power Rangers. Kwiksew # 3052 is just one example.
• Leather. Think about how cool the jumpsuits looked in X-Men 1.
• Latex. Yes just lik the fetish models. It works and looks amazing. Elastica Engineering is a great place with very helpful people and great service.

          Elastica Engineering

4. Plan ahead. Do your research and do not settle for the cheap way out. Cheaper is hardly ever better. Costuming is expensive and polyester is cheap. There is a reason it is cheap. Costuming also takes a fair amount of time and many great ideas have fallen prey to the fabric gremlin. The little creature that screws you over when you are in a hurry and need every seam to be done right. He will laugh his ass off when you are seamripping.

Damn that fabric gremlin.
I need to draw a picture of him someday. I think he will be a very snazy dresser.

A Good First Start and alittle about myself

Welcome to my very first Blog post of the new site. My name is Figment and I know that is not my real name, but give me a break. This is my place to show and teach, but I know some who would not agree with my position on the Internet or my place teaching for free. The name does kind of show, to me atleast, a bit of a whimsical Romanticism. I like to believe that knowledge should be free for everyone and I have been working in the special effect and theatrical field for many years now and information is hard to find for those who are deeply interested in the field. When I was young, I studied a few books that gave a very brief general over view of special effects. Television helped alot and this was during a time when DVD special features did not exist.

When I was nine I decided I would study and be a special effect engineer and wished to work in animatronic puppetry and make-up prosthetics. Rick Baker and Stan Winston were common names in my vocabulary. Jumped to college life and I began my study in theatre and mechanical engineering. During my third year I was sitting in the middle of a math exam and I realized a few important things. One thing I realized is that my field is dying quickly. Movie animatronics and make-up was becoming less and less needed with the advent of CGI. CGI is cheaper and can give the needed effects faster. The need will always be there for costumes but this was not my interest at the time, this was purely puppetry. I also realized how much I enjoyed theatre and this came from one teacher I had who showed me about artistic integrity and producing something that can move and teach the audience. Theatre has the ability to give the audience a katharsis the likes a movie could never give. Because of him I want to teach and still do to this day, but after years in different theatres I began looking at the world through commercialism.  No person gets into theatre to make money, this is almost always a fact. So, why produce a show with the only intention of making money. I could make a show that makes money. Just add lots of bright colors, dancing, large beautiful sets, singing and great publicity. That could make money but would the audience talk about how the show made them feel? Would they leave feeling great about life or would they feel they need to change their path? I want to make artwork and I want to feel like I created something magical. Alot of shows recently while working on it all I feel is relieved the show is over. I don't want that to be my only reason for finishing a production.

During my time in college I moved into costuming and costume crafts because the fine details worked well with my mindset and that part of my brain that is still an engineer. My major at this point became Theatre with an Art minor. Costuming is like building a living sculpture. It is like a 3D painting. I can create an historical work of art or something wholely new. I discovered recently though is that I have a very specific style and when someone contacts me for a production it is because they want something unique and not "normal." No one will contact me to do a production of Annie. I had classes in scultpure, metalsmithing, painting, drawing, and fabric design. I work more in latex and leather then I do in fabric. I study the costumes of the fetish lifestyle and my designs work well for people who wish to dress as faeries. I work in motors and servos while others at my work place work in fabric and thread. They are great at what they do, but I do not feel apart of them. My book shelf is filled with books on casting and metalsmithing and theirs are filled with books on Dior and other fashion designers I do not know. It is just a different mindset I guess.

This blog was created as a way to teach and continue to experiment. Experimenting has given me the means to create works of art and fill that part of myself that making costumes for productions I do not agree with can never fill. I design puppets and wings, corsets constructed of cast  silicon rubbers, walls that bleed thanks to motors and barrells. I know halloween effects and I know latex to the point it does not affect me. That is bad actually. I need this place as my outlet to design and build freely. I created Voodoo Mambo Designs with the pure intentions of experimenting and building with the idea of furthering the craft and to create wearable or workable works of arts.