Avengers: Age of Ultron + A Call for Cosplayers!

ATTENTION: Important announcement for all my cosplaying followers!!!

I'm going to put together a blog post that will feature Avengers: Age of Ultron cosplays MADE/WORN BY YOU!

Send submissions to adventuresofanelvenprincess@gmail.com , including one picture of you/your group's cosplays, just to keep things simple (if you want to make a collage, that's totally cool!). Include whatever names you want to credit for le cosplayers and picture. If you want, and I totally encourage this, add a little paragraph with information on the costumes and experience! :)

Make sure you email your submission by Thursday, May 28th, as they will be posted midnight on Friday, May 29th.

I look forward to seeing and sharing your costumes!!! :)

Now, back to your regular programming. ;)

Today, it is time for my very last post concerning Age of Ultron. Basically, I had two last pictures I just had to share with you guys, and I figured I could share some of my fangirl-y thoughts on the movie to go with. ;D Oh, and also, this will be a no spoiler post, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, feel free to proceed. ;)

EXCITE

But before the photoshoot and the movie, I had to get ready... and I filmed the whole thing, sped it up and condensed it into 2.5 minutes, and now present to you a little behind-the-scenes look at what happened before I stepped in front of the camera. ;D

As for the movie experience, we went to the very first showing available at our favorite semi-local cinema: Thursday, April 30th, at 7:00pm in 2D, in case you wondered. ;) The whole theater was packed out, as you would expect, and it was such a great crowd. Everyone laughed so hard at the funny parts, there was definitely some audible sniffling at "THAT ONE PART," and almost everyone stayed for the mid-credits scene (literally only a family with kids left), and there were still quiet a few people who stayed with us for the non-existent post credits scene (hey, we had to make sure Joss Whedon wasn't lying! ;D)

And the movie... oh gosh I don't even know where to begin. The three new characters, Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff, Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff, and the Vision were all amazing, and I loved each one so much. There were so many absolutely hilarious lines and quips and antics, which were just perfect.

Okay basically Avengers: Age of Ultron (besides some choice language) is really, really awesome and I love it and it so totally lived up to the hype and it better make a ton of money or I will be upset because it deserves at least 1.5 billion. ^_^

Oh! And one final picture: us three with the paid cosplayers at the theater. That Iron Man was totally legit, and the guy dressed as Winter Soldier Captain America and I totally got a pic together (tho I'm not sure where that disappeared to.. :P). ;D

Okay okay, now, what did you guys think of the movie???????

Captain America Cosplay - The Photoshoot

I literally am completely blown away by you guys' reception of my fem Cap costume. Seriously!!! Like, what on earth y'all are amazing. I know I've said that way too much already. But it's the truth so it's worth saying a bunch of times. ;)

And now, I'm super excited to share with you a bunch more pictures from that photoshoot downtown, the afternoon before Avengers: Age of Ultron. And, ya know, if you want, feel free to pin, tweet, share, whatever. You would totally make my day. ^_^

Captain America Cosplay: Finished.

BONUS: Mah fellow cosplayers and I, Karis as Peggy Carter and Amber as Scarlet Witch. Oh! And you should definitely pop over to Karis' blog, where you can see the pictures of her cosplay from our shoot (pssst they're very cool).

First Full Look at My Fem Captain America Costume

Yesterday, it all went down at the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In a word, the whole experience was AMAZING. But there is tons more to say on that later, in another post, when I actually have some time to write coherently. ;) For now, I hope you enjoy finally seeing le finished costume... :D

Captain America Cosplay - The Night Before Ultron

Well, all my freaking out over this costume was definitely warranted. I'm literally still working on the final touches right now (8:30pm, on the 29th) -- finishing the shield harness, doing some extra work on the knee pads, altering the gloves I bought on Monday... oh and hemming the bodice (I'm dreading that, for some reason or other...) BUT, don't worry, because those are all that's left to do before I'm all set for a photo shoot and seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron tomorrow.

IT'S TOMORROW, GUYS. *FLAILS*

Okay, no joke, I've been getting that feeling of excitement in the pit of my stomach and chills running up my back all. stinking. day. It's kind of ridiculous. It happens whenever I imagine something cool, or think about the itinerary of the day, or during pretty much the entire time I was listening to the soundtrack for the movie. So weird, but I'm come to accept it as part of the fangirl life. ;D

So sorry for the mini fangirl sesh, but now it really is time to get into some hopefully quick and dirty progress reports, with tons of pics, on this ALMOST COMPLETED costume. :D

Pants:

In a moment of genius, the pants got upgraded. They now feature red stripes down the side of the thighs and knee pads with red accent stitching, to emulate a bit of the look of Cap's actual pants (while avoiding some of the, imho, frumpiness). The details really helped the look of the pants, so now they're not boring. ;)

(Sorry, no full picture of the pants to share... I can't give the whole costume away, right?? ;D)

Guantlets:

For all the leather parts of this costume, I overlaid upholstery leather (left over from my Tauriel costume) with the new apparel leather I bought for the costume (which is kind of gorgeous, really). Though this ended up looking quite nice, it was a complete pain in the neck to actually sew and deal with. Not only did it take forever to prepare all the pieces for sewing, the process of sewing itself also was crazy. Like I said in my previous post, my machine hated sewing so many layers of leather, and especially the delicate and slippery apparel leather. But no matter - with God's help, I got it done.

As for the actual guantlets, I just made up the design through a bit of trial and error, added a bit of decorative stitching, and used short lengths of elastic for the closures, with the first piece connected with velcro, so I can properly get my hand through. ;) I'll be wearing the gloves, that I'm currently altering to be fingerless and a darker color brown, underneath these.

Bodice:

Not too much different here, just finished the ab stripes, collar, and added the star and details surrounding.

I backed the star I made from a sheet of aluminum with craft foam, to make the back flat, so that I could then attach velcro triangles to each of the points for attaching the star to the bodice. I was originally going to sew it to the bodice, but I figured the velcro would work better and be faster to do -- and I was right. ;)

Belt and harness hardware:

This was the funnest and easiest part of making this costume: spray painting the belt buckle, and tri-glides + buckle thing for the harness. Hah! ;D No, but really -- I'd actually never used spray paint before in my life. Let me tell you, the stuff is magical. Totes my new BFF.

Before...

Not-so-secret weapon...

And after!!

It's actually not as big as it looks, but it really was almost perfect for the back harness buckle!

Belt:

Fairly simple build here: just drafted up a quick pattern, cut all the leather pieces out, sewing, then adding the buckle with extra leather strips. But, I am seriously SO bummed that I didn't have time to make the utility pouches to go with it!!! The belt still works without them, (and makes for a surprisingly nice, sleek look) but still... it would have been so good to have them. But, can't do everything, right? :P

And lastly, the shield harness:

This was a bit complicated, just figuring out the right shape and all, plus sewing all the pieces was crazy annoying... and it's not even finished yet. I'm taking a very extended break from finishing it to write this (I CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH AT ONCE. xD)... but only have to sew extra strips of leather with the tri-gliders to the base harness, so that should be pretty simple.

And that... is... a... WRAP on the creation of my Captain America cosplay! I hope you enjoyed watching the progress, and I am so excited to share with you pictures of the final product as my first post for May.

How are you guys' costumes for Age of Ultron (if you're wearing one!) coming along?? Who's seeing it this weekend??? AND WHO'S EXCITED????? :D :D

Life Currently: Finals and Cap Cosplay

Disjointed post today, just a bunch of stuff that's going on in my life as of right now. I should probably be doing other things than writing this post, but I got a semi-lot amount of work done on Cap today, so I'm disillusioning myself into thinking I deserve a break. ;D

My life currently:

...trying on the Captain America costume is becoming a daily occurrence now, as I near the beginning of the end... IT'S COMING TOGETHER SO WELL AND I MIGHT CRY CAUSE IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL. Oh, not bragging -- celebrating. Those the five hundred thousand hours I spent on this thing are actually paying off a bit.

...during this time of finals and leading up to Age of Ultron, eating and sleeping are optional as I make the most of the 24 hours in a day. School, sadly, is not optional, so I've worked out a system: homeschool in the morning, costume in the afternoon and early evening, and whatever is left is devoted to homework for the dual-enrolled English class I'm taking. So far, the system is working, so that's a plus. I'm slightly suspicious that God is multiplying my time... ya know, like He multiplied the 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread to feed 5,000+ people? Yeah. Definitely wouldn't put it past him. ;D

...becoming a pro at hand stitching (through a lot of layers of) faux leather, because my sad sewing machine pouts when I try to make it do the work for me. Pouts, as in, does weird things with the thread that makes a total mess and tons of seam ripping. It ain't cool. But, a little bit of sewing done by hand never hurt anyone, right? Just makes me appreciate more the times my machine does work. xD

...spending the least amount of time on the internet as my poor addicted self can handle, because every minute counts during the next FIVE DAYS. Yes, my peeps. Five days until Age of Ultron will be revealed in all it's glory to the general public. #so #not #emotionally #prepared

...my dad totally made this awesome little Avengers symbols out of foam for the shoulders of Cap. They turned out so nice, plus saved me the time/work of doing them myself. He also got me a buckle/hardware thing that will work perfectly for the shield holster (which is currently not in existence. yet.). Yeah, my dad is pretty cool. Same guy who dressed up as Gandalf to go to Battle of the Five Armies with me and my friends. :D

...a random awesome thing that kind of made my day, yesterday: on my blog's FB page, I got asked about costume commissions for the very first time in my cosplay career (or hobby, rather). Whether the inquiry amounts to anything doesn't matter much; just the fact that someone thought my work was good enough to ask if I would work for them makes me so pleased. ;D

Well, now that I've given you guys a little (long?) update, imma go feed my starving self -- currently living off ground turkey, frozen blueberries, and that sparkling water stuff. My Paleo equivalent of junk food, basically -- which isn't actually junk food, but... yeah. Plus anything my fam will cook for me. Hashtag "life of a cosplayer," because... ain't nobody got time fo cooking.

You can "look forward" to one last post devoted to Cap costume build before the 30th... might I remind you: FIVE. STINKING. DAYS. :D

Captain America Cosplay - Guantlets, Back, Sleeves

Seeing as how we've got EIGHT DAYS until Age of Ultron, it's crunch time for my Cap costume. If you've followed me on Twitter, or liked meh blog on Facebook, you'll have already seen my freakout over my humongous to-do list for the costume...

Well, thank the Lord, I was able to get a ton finished today. And I'm back to thinking the costume looks pretty good. (Man, this is the most bipolar costume build I've done yet -- one day I'm loving it, next day it's a complete and utter failure... xD).

Because I'm need to be writing an essay instead of writing this right now, I'll just leave you with photos here on out. Enjoyyyy

Okay, I lied. Need a little explanation here. ;) New leather (malore faux leather from Fabric.com), for the guantlets, maybe gloves if I can actually make them, belt, and harness for the shield:

Gauntlets in progress (don't worry; they look weird now, but I've got a plan for them ;))

Then more progress on the bodice... zipper and part of the turtle neck, sewn to the new-and-improved back:

Worked on the sleeves for quite a while before deciding on adding red stripes around the shoulders, a la Cap's actual costume, and decided to forego the white stripes around the biceps all together, just because they make my skinny arms looks skinnier. And not in a good way: skinny as in non-muscular. It's just the feminine side of the costume coming through, I suppose... ;)

This mess is the sleeves in progress:

And what we're looking at now (except as of right now the sleeves are hemmed, shoulder stripes are sewed, and the ab stripes are sewn down as well):

Wheeeee much excite! Like I said: this thing is actually coming together. Run down of the current status: Bodice is ACTUALLY almost complete (the neckline just needs finishing), pants base is complete (now needs red accents down the side of the thigh and knee pads, both of which are already cut and ready to be sewn), guantlets need competing (leather sewn down, extra joining piece sewn and added), and harness, belt, and utility pouches are not currently a thing and still need to be created. Oh! And the "A" symbols on the shoulders need to be created (bought red + white foam for this today). Luckily, my dad has offered his help for anything he can do to get this costume finished, so that's awesome. The plan is to put him to work on the pouches and "A" emblems tomorrow. YAY for free labor! ;)