So as the years passed by, I’ve made a lot of different costumes some of them put together store-bought but later on I really wanted to expand that and making homemade costumes and so far I have two of them I’m really proud of one of them being Shacktron. 

After watching the show Gravity Falls and seeing the last few episodes, Shacktron stood out to me the most just because this giant mecha includes almost EVERYTHING that the show had in store. So the idea of coming up with making this real would be a dream come true. And I’m just happy I was capable of doing it to the best of my ability.

The costume itself is mostly made up of cardboard and a few other materials like ex.(PVC Pipe, Wooden Skewers, Craft Foam) and things like that. Now, actually making this come to life since I’ve only had a few reference pictures from the show was a challenge… There was no one else that I saw that did something similar like I did at the time I made this. But after figuring out how the joints on the legs would work and how the house would actually sit upon my body, things started to just piece together after that. Then I felt like I was on the home stretch.

I've actually have had quite a few funny experiences when cosplay as Shacktron, one of them was while I was attending Youmacon 2017 held in Detroit, MI which was the first year Shacktron was brought out for the public to see. What I can mostly remember from that experience was me trying to go into the vendor hall and it was like I took a few steps and I would have people surrounding me everywhere as the eye could see wanting to take pictures, and all I wanted to do in that time was to take a look at some of the amazing art pieces that the creators had made.

Photo pizzaweasel317

Later on it got to the point where it was getting so bad, that I had to off the costume if I wanted to go or do anything *laughs* but even so, I had an amazing time there and I definitely I'm planning to go back to Youma with Shacktron.

Great Lakes Comic-Con originally was a smaller convention but over the years it grew and grew surprisingly this year was my first year attending the convention itself. There's a lot a great people that attend this convention by what I can see so far, and I can see it growing even stronger in the near future. This year actually was the 10th anniversary of the convention so congrats to Great Lakes for making the big 10 cause they deserve it!

My favorite thing about the con is always meeting new faces and connecting with others I made quite a lot of new friends this week and I'm very happy about it. Another highlight about this convention was making it to 1st Place for the Costume Competition for "Best Craftsmanship" so a huge thank you to all of those people who made that possible!

Cosplay itself has opened up a door to many different possibilities and I’m very grateful for it. “Don’t be afraid to release your creativity to the world, because more than likely people are going to absolutely adore it!”

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