SDCC 2010 Cosplay!

Jill Pantozzi | August 3rd, 2010

Last year being my first ever San Diego Comic-Con I didn’t want to go too crazy with cosplaying. I debuted my Red Lantern costume and was definitely busy enough with just that. This year, I’m not quite sure what I was thinking. I did not one, not two but THREE different costumes!

For the most part, two of them required very little work on my part but adding that on top of my third was still an undertaking. Like I said, last year I had a lot of fun cosplaying a Red Lantern. Being a huge Green Lantern fan I wanted to do something else GL related but wasn’t sure I was up for putting together another color Corps costume yet. So I thought outside of the box and came up with something that would be not only less costly but really fun and a lot more comfortable than a spandex body suit. Thus the “Classy Lanterns” were born.

All costume shots by the wonderful Chanh Tang.

Well I say more comfortable. More comfortable for me. I wasn’t walking around the entire day in heels (sorry ladies!). Though I hope the girls were comfortable in their dresses. Some of them were able to use one they already had in their closet, which was great, but the idea was simply to have each girl wear a dress in a solid color and pair it with a large costume jewelry ring to act as their “power ring.” But there was just one thing missing of course. How did we let people know we were Lanterns and not just a group of gals looking way too dressed up for Comic-Con?

We needed the Lantern Corps symbols of course. My idea, since we were all supposed to be dressed up anyway, was to have the symbols hang around our necks as necklaces. Easy enough idea but I certainly didn’t have the talent to do that. Thus my search began. I put out the word and was lucky enough to hear from a company more than happy to work with me to get them made. It helped that they were huge geeks themselves. They’re a media solutions company called SanBox Inc. and as you can see they did a phenomenal job with the pendants.

You can see I had them make all nine Lantern symbols, including the White and Black, but I wasn’t able to gather two other girls for the group. I’m sad we didn’t get to use them but I’m planning on getting the “Classy Lanterns” together again for the New York Comic Con so I’m looking forward to using the entire set there. We had a blast with the cosplay and people responded really well to it.

Saturday was another big day. I debuted my long-anticipated Ravager costume. My biggest surprise was how many people didn’t know who I was. A lot of people thought I was a “female Deathstroke.” Some people just knew me as Rose Wilson, which is fair considering others have used the name Ravager. Either way, I didn’t care. How awesome did it turn out??

My friend Beth was the one who actually constructed the body suit portion of the costume and boy did she have a job with this one. You can check out her work-in-progress at her website. I had a hell of a time finding the right materials for her to use. The blue and orange are regular spandex but the silver portion of Ravager’s costume is supposed to be scale mail. Not really something you sew together with spandex or that I wanted to wear at all. I know someone who’s done a Deathstroke costume but couldn’t find the same spandex he used to mimic the armor.

I decided sequins would make a good replacement and started the search for the right type of sequined fabric. I just about wanted to blow my brains out looking for the right one. I found a fabric with very large sequins but once I got a sample I realized they were too far apart from each other to work, most were too small or too shiny. Eventually I found the PERFECT fabric. But it was beige/gold. I spent an afternoon outside spraypainting it silver. Although it was a lot of work, it was totally worth it because the achieved look is exactly what I wanted.

I was very lucky to have it easy with the wig, eye patch and belt which I found all on Ebay. The two utility pouches on the belt I bought at Home Depot and sprayed orange which was not as simple as it sounds. I first painted them but the paint didn’t take on the material of the one pouch and I had to cover that up with the spray. I finished off the belt putting a small flashlight into the other pouch.

I ran into some trouble when it came to the swords. You obviously can’t have real weapons at a convention but I also didn’t want anything plastic or cheap looking. I settled on searching for something wood but then couldn’t decide what type of sword. Sometimes Ravager is pictured using katanas but other times she uses just regular broadswords. The pictures I liked best had her with the broadswords so that’s what I went with.

I found wooden practice swords online but I knew they would need to be painted and shortened so I could sit with them attached to my back. My uncle is great with woodwork so I handed them off to him. I already had the paint I planned on using so he said he’d do that for me as well. He wound up going the extra mile and adding a rubber gripping on the handle with a gold rope as accent. They were pretty much perfect. My only issue after that was finding a harness to keep them criss-crossed on my back. I couldn’t. I eventually used a nylon strap I had lying around which I had sewn into a figure eight shape with two loops at the shoulders.

I can’t thank Beth enough for her work on the suit for me. She really outdid herself. We literally did one fitting and that was before anything was sewn together at all. She did it all from the measurements we took and showed extreme talent in getting the spandex and the sequins to work together like they did. Everyone was floored by the costume, including me.

Sunday was another group cosplay and a really fun one at that. The best part about this one was I really didn’t have to do anything at all for it. My friend Ashley suggested we all get 1950s style dresses made from old character bed sheets. I didn’t really have to think twice about this one.

I was originally going to go for DC Comics sheet (big surprise) but I happened to stumble upon a fantastic Dick Tracy sheet from the 1990 film. How much more fitting can you get? As I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, I’m not a seamstress so the making of the dress was passed on to a friend of my mother’s. We didn’t have a pattern to go by so I just did some searches online to see what direction I wanted to go. We talked through it step-by-step from there adding the yellow (of course) belt and piping and she even made me a cute hair accessory to go along with it. I added the crinoline for some extra poof in the skirt.

I got my hair done professionally by Hydred Makabali and her assistant for this cosplay because it just screamed 50s up-do. We all found our material on Ebay but the funny part about walking the floor on Sunday was how many people who stopped to compliment us on the dresses said they had these sheets growing up. I know my family definitely had the Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi ones. And the best compliment to those who made the dresses for us is peopled kept asking where we bought them.

So there you have it, my SDCC 2010 cosplay. It sort of consumed me and my weekend but I enjoyed it nonetheless. All in all I’m not quite sure how much I spent on the costumes but it was quite a bit. Sometimes, with these things, it’s best to stop keeping track.

What do you think? Which is your favorite?