Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron, Base of the Dress 0.1

I've always had problems with zippers, and being a self taught sewer, how else can I get a form fitting outfit without being resourceful.  Use DanceWear fabric.  It's stretchy and thick (less of that see through crap). 

Making a double layer tub top is done in less than 20 minutes.  As for the Pink dress, I'm going to leave it separate from the tube top and have it held up with pant elastics which I will dye the crimson colour. 

It's not very clear in the design of how the pink works into the bottom of the dress but I chose to make it one piece instead of two hanging segments.  This way I am sure that when the fabric shifts due to movement it doesn't start flapping around and will always stay centered.

I know this picture looks a little weird, but dont all projects at the beginning?

Cosplay Progress - Final Fantasy XIII-2 Serah Farron Research 0.0

I saw this at PAX and couldn't move.  Serah's one of the primary characters of Final Fantasy XIII-2.  I've done Lighting from both XIII and XIII-2, and I've done Serah from XIII, so it's only fitting that I rought it off by doing her from XIII-2.  And her cross bow it AWESOME.

At this moment I dont know if I can do her crossbow, it might to a little too far advanced for me.  Also watching the PAX Prime trailer and apparently the Moogle turns into a crossbow.  I have plans on making a Moogle (but i can't give away all my secret plans yet), so if I fail at making the crossbow or just dont have the time for it than the Moogle will be fine.  Besides wouldn't the Moogle just not make sense if I am also carrying the cross bow?

Convention Report: Pax Prime 2011

No longer called just Pax, but Pax Prime to separate that it is the origins of Pax and not to be mistaken with the east coast version called Pax East.  Pax in the Penny Arcade Expo which is all about video games. 

Jerry and Mike, the Penny Arcade authors in their Making the Strip Comic panel.  It's a Q&A panel while the audience gets to watch their process of making the next comic strip that is released.  It gets quite humours.

Once Mike is done with his Comic strip but the panel isn't over he goes on to amuzing the audience with some very   . . . unusual drawings.  I wont post any more cause it gets to a naughty level.

How could me and Ava be at a convention without of course.  COSPLAY!  I'm cowarding here because my little wand can't compare to her giant staff.

Welcome to the Exhibition Hall of PAX, where game publishers show off their lastest work, most of them yet to be released.  It is a gamers paradise

Game Companies try to get to you to come to their station using the WOW factor.  cause we all want to touch the shiney mechas.

Outside of exhibition hall sits a display to the FireFall game.  But it's better than what you see, it moves! and mists! 

Me and Ava aren't the only cosplayers there.  I caught a Yoshi playing the FireFall game.  Awwww, he should eat the monitor

FireFly even had advertisments in the bathroom, that while you are washing your hands you can see what you would look like if you had the body of one of the main characters.   .. . . I had a hard time with this one becuase I was too short.

So all the fun isn't just inside.  Recognize these guys?  From Plants VS Zombies game.  They were outside for 10 minutes getting their groove on dancing to that funky music of the 70s.

At the Castle Crashers booth they had the Japanese Gashapon Capsule Machinese that sold little Castle Crasher toys.  But had to buy the three tokens (for $5) to use the machines.  When I got the tokens I realized . . . they gave me three Japanese Yen.  They sold me money????

We bumped into a Swag Monster.  Basically he wants your swag, if you have something you dont mind giving away you can pin another free t-shirt to him, he had at least 15 covering his body.  He walked around like the swamp monster

Back to the show floor.  http://www.gog.com/ is a site that sells retro games, and their booth babes were 3 old grannies baking cookies and knitting.  It was so out of place but it brought in the curious crowds.

I can't believe I figured this out because I recognized it to be Steve from Blues Clues.

So is this

1) cool, dont have to be a video to cosplay to video game convention

or

2) Everything has a video game now (even counting the LeapFrog devices) . . . . why isn't there Leap Frog representated at Pax?

Video games aren't just about the games, but can also be about the machines that play the games.  This is the most rad PC ever!

This was by far the best cosplay I saw the entire day.  The plastic parts also made him walk like Buzz!

Halo Fest.  A floor dedicated to Halo, it was basically a giant museum.  Me and Ava needed another funny picture to match up to our D&D picture of last year. 

Halo Fest also had a charity auction to support the non profit organization Child's Play

Being PAX let's end our time looking at the Deck Building Penny Arcade game.  So colourful, both the art and the characters.

[Staff of Infinite Mysteries] Part 2: let there be LIGHT

After I built the staff I needed to make it awesome.

So I bought a lightsaber and took it apart.

There went $35!

I haven't messed with wires and batteries since the third grade, so I enlisted my husband's help. He's a smart dude. He let me do the shopping part. I bought some wire, a soldering iron and flux and electrical tape. Then we proceeded to take out the sound effect piece (don't need my magical staff sounding like a lightsaber!) and moved parts around so that I would be able to shove the thing into my staff.

Ignore the Costco cutlery, that was left on the counter from a BBQ the weekend before.

All of those pieces went inside of the tube except for the switches and battery wires.

Everything got secured with black electrical tape.

After getting all of the components secured inside the butt of the staff, I had two long wires that needed to be hooked up to batteries. We determined the best way to do this and allow for changing batteries in the middle of the day would be if we used the battery pack from the lightsaber and just strap it onto the side of the bottom of the staff (remember that handy metal pipe I had down there? Perfect place to strap a battery back to).

So the next step was to Dremel off the excess bits on the battery pack so it looks less like a lightsaber, then spray paint it black. I made sure to put tape over the connections so those wouldn't get sprayed.

The lightsaber only lit the bottom half, so for the top half I used EL wire.

I think this might be the coolest thing I have made yet. I remember farming Karazhan for this staff night after night on my poor little level 70 undead priest.

<< GO BACK TO PART 1 on CONSTRUCTING THE STAFF