Dolorosario Cosplay

Hello, everyone!

As promised I am here to deliver an update on our housing situation. For those of you new and unaware of what happened read this post to catch up.

And while this post is mostly good news I am needing help once again. This time with even more options to support us!

Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Rhaz, I’m a queer, disabled, 29 year old, living in Tennessee. Last year we had a scare where we would be homeless if things weren’t able to be resolved with our bank. While we were able to get an extension we didn’t get a break after that.

Between my brother @vaporwavewrites having to move out of state for better opportunities due to his previous job discriminating against him for his disabilities (Seizures), medical emergencies, and family drama. We have been hit pretty hard emotionally and financially. We have all been working as hard as possible to claw our way out of this, but everything has come to a boiling point.

Cosplay Repair : @CosplayRepairMedic // Photo : Unlimited Crossroads

How did I become a cosplay medic? I find we get this question a lot and it surprises people how far back this goes for me. When I was in high school I was a techie and stagehand, and after a particularly rough startup to my freshman year musical, I decided to put together a small Tupperware container of fix-it stuff. My friends and I started referring to it as the “Techie-Emergency Kit: Everything You Need When An Actor Messes Up”. I had one every year and even found the kit when I went back to see a performance for which my sister was the student tech director.

It wouldn’t be long then that I was in college and my friends got me to go and cosplay at the local con in Pittsburgh called Tekko. From then on I had my little container in my backpack marked “Cosplay Emergency Kit” and even began integrating it into the cosplays as I got better. In 2015 I entered a cosplay competition as Astrid from How to Train your Dragon 2 and for the small hip pouch she has I made a roll up repair kit. While waiting back stage to do walk one for the masquerade I see a girl talking to one of the judges and he points to me, turns out her armor broke and the judge remembered my kit. Right before walk-on started, I was able to fix the armor piece that held the weight of the cape and she rocked it across the stage. Honestly, it was like a light came on and it hit me, that is what I want to do!

From that point on I started piecing and gathering the things I thought I would need. Starting with a backpack, to a hikers frame, to my current molle vest; changing out supplies based on before and after con stock, current trends in cosplay, and upgrading to the more efficient gear I do my best to be the most prepared I can. Now I can walk the con helping people with by just having supplies, or trouble shooting the problem whether it’s a safety pin or a soldering iron.

What is in my kit? “Everything but a sewing machine” is when my husband often joked when I’m asked. Honestly, there is a ton in my kit, I have your basics like safety pins and needles with thread, but I also have a soldering kit, USB glue gun, a full med kit, and wig styling gear. One of my favorite things tucked into my kit is my tape pocket, it has duct tape kept in convenient strips on wax paper as well as double sided carpet tape that I use for just about everything.

I know there can be toxic parts of the community but ever since joining the conventions scene, I have met such a wonderful group of friends from all over the world. Not only that but since starting medic I have been able to meet so many more people and go to more conventions all over. This year I even joined up with a bunch of fellow cosplay repair medics at DragonCon and we have started a guild of sorts at the con to better help people.

Todoroki from My Hero Academia // Cosplayer : https://www.instagram.com/businessland.ig/ // Photo : https://www.instagram.com/mf_shune/

I’d been cosplaying for a couple of years when I did my first “joke” cosplay, which was Pokémon Go themed, and was floored by how many people wanted to hang out with me and get my picture. I’d never gotten so much attention or had so much fun at a con before, and I quickly decided that funny cosplays should be my new default. Cosplay, to me, is all about having fun and making friends, so embracing humor cosplay has really helped me with that. With the new season of My Hero Academia then-upcoming, I decided to do something from that show, and I was surprised to see that nobody had turned Bakugo’s nickname for Todoroki “Icy Hot” into a cosplay. I decided to become the change I wanted to see.

My friends roped me into my first con back in 2012. I thought the only big cons were the huge, corporate ones like SDCC, so seeing one just a 15-minute drive from my school was surreal. The sight of all these people dressed as their favorite characters, expressing their fandom shamelessly, really got to me. I’d never been so surrounded by people who like the same things I do, as much as I do. It was the most I’ve ever felt accepted in my life. My advice for new cosplayers is to just have fun. Don’t worry about having the best costume. Just pick something that you’ll enjoy showing off, and go make some friends!

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ATTENTION COSPLAYERS:

I would like to make the paint brand “Angelus” known. It is a special paint that is for leather, faux leather, rubber, and similar surfaces.

This is literally the best paint you can buy if you love a pair of shoes, but they aren’t in the right color for your character.

This stuff coats VERY well AND the coats of paint bend with your shoes. This means no cracking!!

In the photos above I took black rain boots and painted them with Angelus Turquoise. As you can see, they don’t look black any more! It’s so good!

I managed to paint two boots with a little one ounce bottle of the paint, and I still have a third of the bottle left over!

The paint dries very fast, so you can put layer on top of layer on top of layer without it streaking.

You can get the paint on Amazon and it comes in every color!

I can finnally post this project I worked on! I’m so excited to show it to you guys!

Mysterious signets with lyrium crystals emerging from raw chunks of metal embossed with the Templar sigil. Who could they belong to? :>

(Or just quartz crystals in polymer clay. Shhhh… XD)

I love how they turned out :D. I actually wanted to make red lyrium ring for templars and blue for mages but I read that for mages touching raw lyrium could be deadly :O. I guess I will come up with something else for mage rights supporters, maybe a pendant :>. What do you think? :D