Bad Boi Cosplay

 It all started with a lighthouse.  I was much younger at the time and after purchasing my own state-of-the-art PC running a Windows 95 OS and Pentium 1 chip, I was ready to take on the world of PC gaming.  One of the first games I had purchased was brand new, called "Lighthouse: The Dark Being".  In the game, your character goes to the neighbor made scientist who lives in the Lighthouse, on the island, and in clear view of your living room window.  Upon entry you find a dark being taking the baby child of the scientist and then jumping into a portal.  Your job is to find out how to open a portal using the scientist's machines, to enter this other world, save the baby, save the scientist, trap the dark being and get back to your world. As cliche as that sounds, it is well known now in the world of gaming, that lighthouses are seen as locations that hide or show hidden passages or portals to other worlds.  In the game "Myst", the lighthouse is where the...

My kids love to cosplay and what it appears that they love just as much, is to use cosplay weapons outside when they play.  It is great to give them something that I only wished I had when I was a kid.  I know that when I was their age, I used an old black hoodie and took some cardboard triangles, folded them in the center, along a line with the point, and then taped them onto the top of my hood.  I then had an old fabric mask, like the one the Lone Ranger has, and put that on.  While it may not have been right on, I can remember now, still, the image I saw when I looked at my reflection in the neighbor's glass sliding door.  I looked like Batman.  For a kid, at least for me, I felt like Batman, I felt indestructible.  I remembered how I jumped up on our playhouse and swingset and imagined that I was climbing to the bad guy or jumping down to the next fight and how fearsome I must have looked.  Was I cosplaying or just pretending or are they...

  The Chainsword of Warhammer 40K is a weapon in which they marry a chainsaw and a sword, making for a really powerful weapon.  The weapon can cut through armor and vehicles with ease and looks cool as well.  In 2018, I had an idea of making a human sized chainsword and started sketching and coming up with a foam weapon idea of a 2 food long chainsword.    My original idea, as seen on the left, had some extra designs and they were ideas I had previously, but then I decided to stick with something simple, to match my experience.  I started with a wooden dowel and then used that as the internal structure of this sword.  I used EVA floor tiles and started to cut the main shape out, with 2 sides.  I glued the two sides together and made sure to put the dowel on the inside.   This chainsword idea was quick to make and required very little close work.  I cut triangle pieces out of foam and glued each one into the spo...

If you had seen and read through the thorough description of the making process of my Grey Knight Paladin armor, then you would have seen how I needed to make a giant backpack for my character.  The backpack is where the power generator and life support system is kept, on Space Marines, in the Warhammer 40k game world.  While working on the backpack for my Grey Knight Paladin, my wife was selected to come and do a panel at a con in Jefferson city called Cosplacon .  This was our first con where my wife was asked and invited to come, as an expert, and we got baby sitting and made our cosplays.  I wanted to do something that was portable but practical.  So, I started by using the same template, of which I had already done for my other backpack.  This time adding flair to the sides and changing it.  I decided to go with an army that has pink and black as their color scheme.  How fun would it be, walking around with my wife at a con, with pink...

In 2018, I watched my family and friends all compete at our local con.  Their cosplays were great and I loved seeing people making their own cosplay from cardboard and duct tape to advanced materials such as Worbla or foam.  I met and started friendships with some great cosplayers and find that it is always inclusive and always prideful (in a good way) with cosplayers.  I would look at these makers and see everything from a Dwemer armor set, from Skyrim, made entirely from cardboard and duct tape and think of how amazing it is.  That cosplayer knows that it may not be the best compared to other armor builds, but they also know of how much passion and work went into it.  That is how mine was and even how I felt. At Archon, in October of 2018, I met Evil Ted Smith.  Evil Ted, is the name of a foam smith and prop maker who had grown up in the STL area and then went West to make it big in the movie industry.  He did so making models and miniatures ...