its been a hot minute WOW something like 5 or 6 months

this time i have an explanation normally the free time i normally dedicate to blogging i used to make a cosplay.

i was bit by the cosplay bug in early january very suddenly. THAT SAME DAY i went thrifting for some bed sheets to cut up and sew into a final fantasy black mage cosplay. i wasnt any black mage in particular. my reasoning is that i could do whatever the hell i want with the design and still be recognizably a black mage. the other reason is the only way i'd ever be comfortable cosplaying is by wearing big drappy clothing that covers me up entirely.

anyways here's the finished cosplay.

all the fabric was cotton, and a synthetic interface was used to stiffen the brim of the hat. i used a pattern for the tunic and cape, and drafted everything else. i wish i had more material for a more complete cape, but i made it work. the more open front is true to the style of black mage designs anyways. the bag and shoes were thrifted and are mostly leather.

the hat was the most miserable thing to put together. its pretty janky on the inside, but no one has to know lmao honestly the hat is like my favourite part now. the pattern at the top i cannibalized from a table cloth. I'm not going to claim the gloves were easy however i did have the advantage of only needing to make one good right-hand glove. The other side only needed some vague sock and it would do the job lmao

the staff had a lot of mistakes - the biggest is that the staff turned out to be pretty flexible, but this isnt an issue in pictures so long as i support it. the staff is a 1" thick rope with a narrow wooden dowel running the length of the rope. i used wood glue to stiffen, and then used glue and paper mache to smooth out the surface. additional twine was used for shape. the surface was finished with acrylic paint and varnish. scrap fabric and beads were hot glued on.

the overall cosplay cost only about 200CAD in supplies :3

and hundreds of hours of miserable labour

the project was a pretty huge success for my scrappy skill set. I even carried around some ff trading cards of black mages to hand out to anyone who wanted them. (some people even asked me to sign the cards which confused me but i humoured them) yoooo i understand why fanny packs were so popular. having a bag on your waist that you can just access is so nice.

one of the cosplay contest winners complimented my cosplay and honestly its been a month and im STILL riding that high

uhhhhh i got about 7 reviews on the backlog and probably more if i can remember what the hell i even played over the course of that time AAAHAHA orz