Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Photoshop

TadA!  My cosplay is complete (although you guys may have seen it ages ago on the blog from the SakuraCon post back in April,) but here's my final post about making this cosplay.  Actually it's the post processing of this photo to make it internet worthy.

As you can see here below here is the original photo I took.  I used a timer and had to run back and forth trying many different poses and whatnot.  I probably took 40 pictures and only ended up with a handful I liked.  So how did I turn the bottom photo into the top photo?

• Layer 1, the original photo. 
• I didn't actually do any manipulation here

• Layer 2, the border
• Found a border on the DeviantArt stock images (credit  http://karma-manipulation.deviantart.com/art/Grunge-Border-156054027)
• From the stock images I inverted the colors and softy erased out the center white area.  I let the middle fade out as to not create any solid lines
  
• Layer 3 Logo
• I took the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Icon from online, removed the excess background
  
• Layer 4, the color
• I overlayed a pink color with a 20% transparency

Avalyn's PAX Recap

PAX was fabulous this year. We really enjoyed ourselves. Here are some photos I took! 

SmallRiniLady and Avalyn lunch at Gordon Biersch on Friday while dressed as Serah from Final Fantasy and Riven from League of Legends.

New this year, Riot had the League of Legends NA Regionals up on the sixth floor of the convention center. They should host that at PAX every year! It drew a huge crowd, all day long, all three days.

Found a Dragon Age 2 cosplay group! Excellent workmanship on those costumes.

On Saturday we went to the Make a Strip panel by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade. We always try to make that panel every year, it's a hoot. I still remember the first time I saw this panel at the Meydenbauer Center and I discovered the magic that is the Hotdog Fairy.

There was an insane amount of League of Legends cosplay at PAX. Riot had a cosplay showcase every day at 2PM so I signed up on Friday. Got my photo with Riot Nikasaur on KOMO News here!

Here's me with a couple of my favorite LoL champions!

my favorite support, Soraka (with me as Riven)

the lovely Ashe... and Riven (me again)

I also found a lot of Rivens! What do you call that, a pack? A horde? A roost of Rivens? Anyway, here are some of them!

WOW big sword!

Her sword lights up!

Her armor and sword were made with expanding foam - durable and rubbery/squishy!

Got a wee potato! You never know what kind of swag you'll get but PAX never disappoints. (I always come home with at least one free T-shirt.)

Went to the Magic the Gathering party on Saturday with my husband. They had mushroom appetizers on trees! How cool is that?

Made another  friend! Actually, first I made this little hat out of pipe cleaners while waiting in line for Wil Wheaton's awesome hour.

Wil Wheaton did not disappoint. Just wish I could have sat a little closer. They didn't have video on the screens while he was talking and the sound was very quiet so it was hard to hear him about 10% of the time.

Wow, check out these wings! They are motorized and can fold down and collapse!

I dressed as Riven on Friday and Sunday. Unfortunately my Warcraft costume just did not look like it would survive the day so I didn't wear it. It may need to be retired. I really enjoyed wearing the Riven costume though! Full album with more photos: http://photobucket.com/PAX2012avalyn

2012 Pax - Day One

Serah from Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Riven from League of Legends.  We found a great backdrop and the crowds were missing so we took advantage of getting of a few good shots.

League of Legends tournaments were a big deal at PAX this year.  The grand prize is $150,000.  That's a lot.  They had live commentators, and crowds so big they were sitting on the floor.  It was like the superbowl!

The set up at the different game company booths were quite different but very flashy.

Cosplay is a growing thing at PAX and some people were very creative with their characters.

Moogle and Chocobo from Final Fantasy

 

Can you see who is on their head?

Sacred 3 had a cool setup, so I decided to take a little creepy photo with the throne.

The Storm Troopers are getting down with Dance Central 3 before it is released.

Found a random tatoo on a guy that was just pretty cool

The Pokemon tournament is a cool idea, where 8 Pokemon Gym Leaders are walking around the con, and you can challenge them at any time with a White/Black Pokemon game.   You can spot them with their green scarves.

Even some of the local eateries were using gaming topics to encourage people to come by

Waiting for PAX 2012

Mog the Moogle is excited for Penny Arcade Expo, it will be his first time going.  He'll be hanging out with Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah and Leauge of Legends Riven for the civilian version of E3.  For those in the Seattle area, hope to see you there.

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Bag 0.4

As you can see Serah Farron comes with this handy dandy bag that hangs off her waist.  Does that mean it's a duffle bag?  And I played the game through, she doesn't use the thing once! so what the heck is it for?

I didn't wnat to work with the bag panel by panel, so I made the front/bottom/top/back all out of one strip.  I put a band across it with some grey silk like fabric on to of white canvas.

Folding it into the odd shape I cut out more white canvas to match

Whoops I guess my grey panels didn't align properly.  Oh well.

Now for the waist band.  I'm using this shiny vinyl material which will also be used for the skirt.

Sewing two strips together for strength.

Drawing the cirlces and cutting them out after the sides have been sew together.  This will make it an accurate match.

Using the Piping concept.  To give texture to the edge of the waist band, I'm filling and sewing in a pipe (some extra satin cord I had laying around).

For the button I cut out a circle from the left over vinyl, and glued on a pink bead I made from air dry clay.   There's a lot of gold trim around the bag that I will create using long strips of the vinyl. 

I do admit that the gold vinyl for the bag trim doesn't look as refined as if i used real piping, or just put more TLC into it.  But I'm taking a lot of time to finish this Serah outfit, so any short cuts will make an over all difference. 

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Boots 0.3

I was going to go to the clearance store and try to get a flip flop shoe with the extra thick sole, but found this ugly rubber shoe instead.  It's PERFECT

I cut out fabric pieces from felt to cover the shoe to make it more of a boot style with it's straps.

I glued the laces into the inside of the flap.

Ok I lost the front strap in the process because got glue doesn't stick to rubber, so I had to with Industrial super glue.  But now I have the perfect Serah shoes

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Gloves 0.2

[observations]  Let's see what we see.  For Serah's Gloves, they are Grey, have bands of black and chunks of Yellow, and little past the cuff.  Serah also seems to be wearing a pink sleeve (same color as her dress) under her gloves.

Easy to start when you get a $3 pair of Leather Gardening Gloves at the local hardware store.  They aren't quite the right size for me, but $3s is cheaper and more accurate than making my own.  It's cosplay, just go with it. 

As for the Black and Yellow pieces, I could go and get dyed leather or other fabrics, but let's make this easy.  It just needs to look good in photos and not fall apart as i run around playing.  Craft Foam we use!  Cut out the shapes and glue them onto the leather gloves with hot glue, oh yes we will not be able to salvage this glove to it's original state (but who cares it was just $3).  Ok I also made a mistake and my yellow/black pieces ended up being too large to correctly match the character's design, but I didn't realize until after I glued it to the glove.  Once again, it's just cosplay, go with it.

So I made cuffs, aka arm warmers, aka sleeves, using extra material from my dress.  It's basically a tube that is slightly smaller than my wrist.  Since it's stretchy fabric, it conforms pretty comfortably. 

Finished product.  it's not accurate, but if people notice and judge, than they know the character a little toooooooo well.


Aww I forgot, I want to also make the extra black lines by going over those existing orange lines with a sharpie.