old butch zoro

q: is this an nsfw blog?

a: not really, but there is an awful lot of tiddy on this thing. there will continue to be tiddy. it’s more than a bit risqué sometimes, so I marked it accordingly.

(that was the really important one. more about me and shit under the cut.)

the only cosplay I did during the pandemic: dark aqua

I’ve spent some time lately asking myself: why did I make this blog anyway? Except to claim the username oldbutchzoro, of course. What the heck am I using this thing for?

Cosplay blog. Duh.

But what else, really? I had an instagram account up until the pandemic that I was sporadically active on, but otherwise all I’ve ever really done is… well, cosplay. Never really got into hall contest, never really got into meetups. Just created the thing and showed up to take some photos. I think I maybe had 75 followers. Then the pandemic almost killed cosplaying as a hobby for me; so many people were producing cosplays so quickly with no conventions in sight, while I was working in the medical industry and just trying to survive unfortunately. I couldn’t keep up and definitely couldn’t create enough content to stay relevant in any way while doing it. The algorithm killed my account and I started talking into the void, then got rid of them all during The Incident.

But cosplaying has always been important to me, so much so that I included it in my artist talk for my senior exit show in college. Cosplaying is a way to express myself, boost my confidence, show my skills, and have a good time while doing it.

I’ve found myself missing the community I fell into back when I was a newly minted teenager too. Back in the days before big name wig stores that shipped domestic, fabric retailers that sold anything but quilting cotton, and Amazon overnight premade cosplays. Not that there’s anything wrong with the community now, but I’m a jaded 30 year old and it was a simpler time - one where we cared less about canon accuracy and more about showcasing our craftsmanship and the creative fixes we had to come up with along the way.

Free tutorials were aplenty back then. Cosplay.com had it all, DeviantArt held single-page project creation guides, and everyone was willing to share their newfound knowledge. Now, it’s seems the internet is a lot different; a majority of tutorials are paywalled or hidden in books you have to purchase, and even then they tend to approach it from a master standpoint, making it intimidating for a beginner crafter. I can remember finding pages of tutorials on forum posts and DeviantArt pages back in the day, and now it feels like I have to dig to find even a thread talking about what I’m looking for. Maybe it’s because Google sucks, maybe it’s something else, idk.

So that leads me back around to: what the fuck am I doing here?

Creating a tutorial archive. That’s what. And archive of all my shit.

I had the realization the other day that I’ve been doing this for something like seventeen years. Even on my off years during college I still slapped together cosplays and went to conventions on and off. I also have a fine art degree, a lifetime of experience in crafts, and a ton of time on my hands right now.

So since I’ve been doing this so long, I’m going to share my knowledge and help some other cosplayers out. I’m going to share some free tutorials in the coming weeks, covering how I made certain things I am taking to Tekko this year. Once I get back from Tekko, I plan to make some posts and maybe even some videos about that, document the shit out of the cosplays I did (like I used to way back when) and share it for your viewing pleasure. Yes, there will probably be Old Butch Tiddy involved. Then I’ll continue on making tutorials, and make even more for the cosplays I will be working on after Tekko.

So I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you in the near future! Whether or not people really utilize my tutorials, it’s important for me to document how I’m making these things for when I inevitably make them again in the future - because art school taught me that you need to make it or alter it a couple of times before you can really call it done. The first wear is rarely the final.

anyway I’m thinking about replacing the docs I use for Zoro with one of these knee high Milwaukees, thoughts appreciated (other than “damn those are perfect”)

second iteration(s) of my Zoro cosplay

this is the year I decided to get more tiddy on. this was also the year I realized “hey, I really like cosplaying this idiot actually.”

and also the year I ran full throttle through the convention center, high as a kite, because my wife left a $300 bag of Lolita shit outside by the club. I dropped cosplay shit though the convention center while running too.

see updated blog info - this is now an nsfw-ish blog

old zenkaikon photo before I got brave enough for more side boob

story time:

it’s tekko 2025. I’m cosplaying Zoro. I have been cosplaying Zoro all weekend. vendors are starting to recognize me. I am a very distinct Zoro.

my wife and I are circling a stand in the dealers hall with blind boxes. person in front of us gets the last one piece one. we go “oh bummer, no blind box for us” but the guy behind the stand goes “hold on I’ll make another one”.

i watched him grab a figure and went “oh no he did not.” then he went over to his friend, showed him what he grabbed, pointed at me, and started laughing.

transaction complete. my wife looks at me and goes, “I wonder what we got!”

I respond, “I think I know.”

exit the dealers hall. open the bag. it’s the newest god damn mihawk figure.