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a lot of people take up hobbies to reduce stress and clear their minds

then there are cosplayers

GUEST POST: 'Wonder Woman'—Armor vs. Underwear & Why It Matters - We So Nerdy

Costume designer and romance author Amanda Weaver shares her insights into the evolution of 'Wonder Woman' costuming and why intent matters.

I saw Lindy Hemming’s work in Wonder Woman and I almost cried. Scratch that, I did cry. Lindy Hemming didn’t use fetish lingerie as her starting point, she used armor. Actual armor. Roman armor, to be specific. Romans made armor out of overlapping bands of very heavy leather. Because it was organic material, very little of it survived, but here’s a fragment:

You can see this same technique clearly on Antiope in Wonder Woman:

And you can see it here on Diana:

It’s been highly stylized on Diana, but the inspiration, the intent, is there:

Remember when I said sometimes I can tell exactly what a designer was looking at when they designed something? This is a piece of Roman leather armor made out of a crocodile hide:

This is one of Hippolyta’s costumes. I almost squealed out loud in the theater when I saw it!

All the Amazons had fantastic, warrior-based details. The folklore about Amazons cutting off a breast so they were better able to fight? (which has no historical basis, btw) Lindy Hemming gave them a metal breast plate on one side:

And, as a side note, can we talk about the casting of the Amazons? All those gorgeous, strong, athletic women of all ages… swoon!

Yes, Diana’s costume has been stylized and they made her attractive, but that costume first and foremost is armor. It’s functional:

That skirt? The shape is Roman, cut high over the thighs so it doesn’t impede movement:

Those aren’t sexy thigh-high boots:

They’re Roman greaves, meant to protect, and they buckle on. Again, ARMOR!

With Wonder Woman, the starting point, the INTENT, is everything. The reason I literally cried watching the Amazons fight is that FINALLY, somebody started at the right place. That design showed respect. The intent, right from the start, was to portray those women as warriors, and that, at least for me, made all the difference.

Cosplay (and general sewing) life hack- easy pleats with a fork! For all those school girl uniform cosplays and more :) 

Cosplay 101: Adhesives

This is meant as a beginner primer for adhesives (that we use [enough to know a bit about {mostly}]). This is meant as an outline that covers the general details of each kind of adhesive. The links direct to the wikipedia page on the adhesive if you want to know more about the full details.

Cyanoacrylate: CA glue for shorthand, aka Superglue or krazyglue. However, if something is marketed as a super/krazyglue and doesn’t contain cyanoacrylate, it’s not a CA glue. This is our go-to glue. It’s strong, but a bit brittle and can melt the crap out of some materials.

Pros:

Strong

Widely available

Cleans up with acetone nicely

Can glue most things together (EVA foam, paper, styrene all work well)

Many consistencies available (thin, thick, gel)

Quick dry/cure time, can be quickened with CA accelerante

Can be mixed with baking soda for an effective gap filler (CA cement)

Safe to use on EVA foam

Readily available anywhere that sells adhesives

Cons:

Fumes/strong smell, ventilation and/or a respirator required if working with large amounts of CA glue

Brittle and non-flexible

Melts polystyrene (EPS/XPS foam aka Styrofoam)

Fumes can leave cloudy residue

Rapid exothermic reaction with leather, cotton, and wool that can cause burns and even fire

Shelf life of about a year unless kept somewhere dark and cool (like the fridge)

Polyvinyl Acetate: Also known as white glue or Elmer’s glue. Useful but a bit basic and requires open evaporation.

Pros:

Pretty safe, just don’t straight-up drink it or rub it into your eyes or nose

Great for paper and other open structure materials (fabric, some open-cell foams)

Widely available

Water-soluble

Inexpensive

Readily available anywhere that sells adhesives

Cons:

Relatively weak and brittle when cured

Needs open-air evaporation to dry

Water-soluble

Long dry/cure time

Gorilla Glue: We’ve used this one a few times and it seems to work fairly well

Pros:

Strong bond

Non-solvent, won’t melt things most of the time (stable with XPS foam)

Readily available anywhere that sells adhesives

Cons:

Needs clamping/pressure to cure properly

Long cure time

Expands during cure process, can squirt/drool out of joint (might be a good thing too, though)

E6000: A strong and flexible glue, great for fabrics or gluing things to fabrics.

Pros:

Very flexible, can hold up to a little stretching even

Strong bond with a bit of surface sanding

Can glue many kinds of things together (EVA foam, fabric, styrene, paper, leather all work well)

Dries clear (though air bubbles and edges can be visible)

Readily available anywhere that sells adhesives

Cons:

Solvent-based, will eat through polystyrene, pretty pungent smell

Long cure time

Can smear easily during curing

May ooze out of the tube and glue the cap to itself (plies might be required to unscrew the cap if this happens)

JB Weld: An incredibly strong 2-part epoxy. I use this a lot to strengthen a mechanical joint.

Pros:

Incredibly strong, can be used to join engine parts together

Fairly shock resistant

Works great on most surfaces

You can drill, tap, sand and carve it once fully cured

Cons:

Very long cure time, about 24 hours

Not flexible at all

Requires a very good joint and a lot of surface prep

Can be brittle under torsion

Needs more cleanup than single-part adhesives

2-part Epoxy: This is a massive group of adhesives so I’m only going to mark the basics

Pros/Cons:

Strong

Cure time can vary from a few minutes to days

Needs more cleanup than single-part adhesives

Ranges from glass-hard to pretty flexible after it cures

Hot-melt adhesive (aka Hot glue): A craft standard and fairly material-safe way to adhere things together.

Pros:

Works on everything that doesn’t melt or [easily] catch fire

Fairly strong with a good joint surface

Pretty safe if you don’t touch the nozzle or glue while it’s hot

Safe to use on polystyrene

Great for EVA foam armor/props

Inexpensive

Glue itself can be versatile and used for filling molds.

Glue sticks can come in a variety of colors

Cons:

Can be a bit messy, nozzle keeps leaking sometimes and leaves threads of hot glue everywhere

May be visible under thinner materials if the glue isn’t smoothed out

Can straight-up melt or ignite some materials (spot test or look up the melting point of the material)

May be only semi-permanent in some cases, depending on the surfaces

Can melt when exposed to heat (don’t leave pieces glued together with hot glue in a hot car)

Contact cement: An adhesive that is applied to both surfaces, allowed to dry, then pressed together.  Barge and Weldwood (US) are brands commonly used in cosplay. Rubber cement is not a contact cement.

Pros:

Very strong, practically permanent once bonded together

Great for EVA foam armor/props (the main go-to for a lot of foamsmiths)

Cons:

Fumes require ventilation and/or a respirator

Requires a ready supply of brushes for application

Shelf life up three months to a year depending on storing conditions. Throw away if the cement begins to set up in the container

Melts polystyrene

Cures in 5-10 minutes, but EVA foam may require a second coat due to its tendency to absorb materials

hello!! id really like to cosplay pink diamond from steven universe. the design is relatively simple but im completely stumped on how to go about the wig. i want it to be as voluminous as i can but im not sure how to execute jt. do you have any suggestions? ty in advance!!

Have you seen yarn tails? You use yarn to make a tail and brush it out with a cat brush to get the fibers to look like hair. The result is usually quite thick and fluffy. I think if you combined this method with a yarn wig, I think you could get that extreme volume/floof without the weight of a bunch of wefts. 

I thought about an afro wig but I think it would give you the shape and volume but not the wispyness of the bangs and sides. Hmmm. Maybe you could look into the beehive hairstyle and create a similar base using foam inserts and teasing. Then style the hair around your base to get the nice floof. Or you could completely construct a base out of foam and add wefts over top, to give the illusion of floof!

Hope this gives you some inspiration!

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Houseki no Kuni Wig with TranspArt Tutorial

I just got back from Cosplay America in Raleigh, NC and I’m really excited to share how my Amethyst wig turned out!  I watched Houseki no Kuni after seeing a bunch of lovely pictures of people cosplaying from it, and once I finished the show I started kicking around a few ideas of how I could make a wig that had a glass-like finish like the way the 3D models are rendered.

For a walk-through on how I made this wig, please read below the cut!  (Header photo taken by Coffee_cat_cat on IG.)

This tutorial, as well as future tutorials, will be cross-posted to my Patreon account! It will be 100% free always, but is another way you can keep an eye on my cosplay tutorials and write-ups.

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