Ahoy!

We’re only a few weeks away from Talk Like a Pirate Day, on September 19th, and that means you don’t have much time to learn how to…well, talk like a pirate.

These two videos will help you master pirate lingo in a jiffy so you don’t embarrass yourself needlessly in the face of a world wide cultural phenomenon. No pressure there.

The first video was, in fact, made by the founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day so you know you can trust them. The second video is a little iffy. I mean, the guy looks too clean cut to be teachin’ ye how to talk all pirate-ty.

Either way, these short tutorials will help you pass as pirate material so ye aren’t forced to take a walk off the auld plank! (I watched both videos and I’m talkin’ like a pirate already. You can’t place enough value on a YouTube education!)

Check back soon for more information on Talk Like a Pirate Day, including my own pirate costume and prop photos.

Looks like another great year for Dragon*Con attendees. The 2008 convention in Atlanta, GA ended yesterday and tons of photos are appearing online.

You can browse Dragon*Con photo galleries Here, Here, Here, Here, Here and Here.

I imagine most people have come home exhausted and are still trying to organize their photos. We’ll post more about Dragon*Con soon!

The popular online dating service eHarmony.com has published a troubling article about “Photos that Make you Look Undateable.” [link]

Their advice? If you want to find love:

1. Don’t post a picture of yourself in a bar.
2. Don’t post a picture with your Ex obviously cut out.
3. Don’t stand next to a celebrity or something expensive.
4. Don’t wear a costume.

Huh?

We get that some people really like to dress up in costumes even when it isn’t Halloween. However, while your friends may understand your penchant for dressing like the original Superman at Comic-Con, most people perusing your profile won’t.

Since when does a little cosplay interfere with finding love? And if someone is turned off by your cosplay, why would you want to date them anyway? Is the goal to get as many dates as possible, or to find someone compatible? I think we have a Quality vs. Quantity issue going on here.

eHarmony says, “When you’re putting yourself out there, it’s best to save the fun photos for later on down the road.”

So… the key to getting dates is to be fake and boring. Nice.

Cosplaying is interesting. It’s one thing to dress up as a character you like, but cosplaying generally involves having to act like the character as well. Cosplayers pride themselves on having the most accurate, authentic costume possible, and when cosplayers start making up their own characters, things start getting a little crazy.

One interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed is something I’m going to call crossover cosplaying (this is not to be confused with crossplaying, which is crossdressing cosplaying). It’s when a cosplayer, usually for a humorous effect, combines two characters from two different canons. Sometimes a character from one canon is simply placed into a different canon, without being combined with another character.

A fairly famous example of this is the Hello Kitty Darth Vader.
 

Perhaps an even stranger Star Wars crossover cosplay is the Elvis Trooper.
 

I like the Sailor Blueberry Muffin, a Sailor Moon and Strawberry Shortcake
crossover, which I found on cosplay.com. It’s delicious!

Obviously, this type of cosplaying veers away from the canon image that is so highly respected in cosplaying, which is why this is done more for fun and laughs. It also requires more creativity in designing the costume than normal cosplay, because the cosplayer first must decide which characters to combine, and then figure out how to make a costume which represents both of these characters in the way the cosplayer desires.

This isn’t a very popular trend yet—in fact, crossover cosplayers are kind of considered the oddballs of the groups! Some cosplayers feel that crossover cosplayers are just mocking the cosplaying phenomenon, but I think they’re just trying to have fun with costume design and characters they love.

Let us know about some crazy crossover cosplays you’ve seen!

Just when you think you’ve seen it all…

Zombie Haiku? Why not? It’s actually quite popular these days. All you need to know is that a Haiku is made up of 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7, and the third line has 5.

I’m inspired to try it myself:

I want to eat you
bite into your tasty flesh
just doing my job

If you’re feeling deadly poetic today, why not post your own Zombie Haiku in the comments below?

We’re continuing with our Star Wars theme this week. I thought it would be fun to show some Youtube clips of great costumes and creativity.

Star Wars (Sweded): A Cardboard Hope
We’ve talked about Sweding before. This video was made for the popular BeKindReWind’s sweding competition, and it’s very well done.

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Next we have a fine procession of costumers at the 2008 Motor City Con in Novi, MI. Darth Vader looks terrific, but what really impresses me is the costume of General Grievous.

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Star Wars: Attack of the Lightsaber Clone
And finally, the good people of Backyard FX, the masters of DIY filmmaking, put together a funny lightsaber video along with a tutorial for making your own weapon. Great stuff!

You know, George Lucas invented the lightsaber over 30 years ago. It’s rather hard to believe that our top scientists haven’t been able to make one for real. What’s up with that?

Because there’s no such thing as too much Star Wars…

Are you ready for more Star Wars? With the new animated Clone Wars hitting theaters this Friday, the Star Wars fans are out in full Force. I thought it would be fun to show some fantastic costumes from Comic-Con.

The Official Star Wars Blog has a great article about the best Star Wars costumes in their Comic-Con photo gallery.

So many great costumes! It’s fun to see the traditional Star Wars characters as well as the creative variations such as the pink Darth Vader and Legos characters. And of course, no Star Wars photo gallery is complete without Leia in her metal bikini….

CLICK HERE for the entire photo gallery.

And remember, The Clone Wars opens in theaters this Friday. See you there!
 

Previously we posted about Flight of the Conchords and the zany costumes they come up with for their music videos. But they’re not the only band that dresses up for fun!

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with wizard rock. It’s a genre that promotes literacy and fighting evil by rocking out to Harry Potter-based music. There’s much more to wizard rock that I can really cover in a pithy sentence, but what I’m really here to talk about, of course, is the costuming. Part of what makes it so awesome is that everyone can dress up. The bands dress as characters from the books, the fans dress up as witches and wizards, and even the instruments get costumes!

Music, Harry Potter, and costumes—all in one! It’s too good to be true!

Brothers Joe and Paul DeGeorge wear Harry Potter costumes for their band, Harry and the Potters. The two of them created their band, and wizard rock, in 2002.

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This is just too cool. Stephen Colbert dons a Neil Young costume and redefines the meaning of cosplay.

 
Crosby, Stills & Nash on the Colbert Report:

I really wasn’t planning on yet another blog about Dr. Horrible, but the lastest development in the Dr. Horrible costume world is too good of a story to pass up.

With the release of Dr. Horrible on the Internet, fans immediately began looking for ways to make a Dr. Horrible Costume. A key ingredient? The Goggles. It turns out they are standard welding goggles available at many safety supply companies.

A company called PendergastSafety.com advertised a pair of silver welding goggles that looked EXACTLY like the kind worn by Dr. Horrible.

So hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fans descended upon PendergastSafety and ordered these goggles. But instead of taking advantage of the surge in business, Pendergast told them angrily, “We’re a safety supply company, not a costume company. One girl literally received an email that said, “Just go away. Thank you.”

Unbelievable!

To make matters worse, Pendergast had the wrong photo on their website (this has now been corrected). The goggles are actually green, not silver.

Naturally, the many fans who did manage to receive these goggles were very disappointed in the misrepresentation of the product. Costumers are picky: If Dr. Horrible wears silver goggles, then green ones just won’t do.

When the customers demanded their money back, Pendergast told them to get lost, saying, “The picture is not the description. The fact that is does not match your costume is not our responsibility.”

A virtual war erupted on the Internet. Many keyboards were damaged in the furious typing that ensued.

And the really weird thing? Pendergast had previously posted on the official Dr. Horrible fan site, inviting them to purchase these goggles. It makes no sense to me that they would change their mind.

“We did not want these small orders and were shipping them because many of you have called and begged for them. Again please spread the word that we are not interested in selling these as a costume.”

This is blatent costumism. I thought our country had moved passed this kind of discrimination.

I guess Pendergast normally sells in bulk and just couldn’t handle all the individual orders. But is that any justification for being rude to their customers?

Wow, talk about Horrible service.

An estimated 10,000 people wore costumes at Comic-Con last weekend. Lots of great photos are showing up online. Cinemablend.com just published a gallery with dozens of excellent photos.

Wow, everybody looks great! Be sure to visit Cinemablend.com to view the entire gallery.

We’ve been blogging quite a bit about Dr. Horrible, the supervillain musical that’s taken the Internet by storm.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at making a Dr. Horrible costume.

Lab Coat

Dr. Horrible wears a white lab coat. You can find a basic lab coat at any costume shop, but if you want to be picky you’ll need a coat that buttons on the side, not down in front. Look for the “Howie” style coat.

Here are some places that sell this type of lab coat:

http://www.dmdevice.com/A001.html
http://www.bocsafetyproducts.co.uk
http://www.jamstore.co.uk

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Logo on Pocket

The Dr. Horrible logo is a caduceus, which is a winged herald’s staff entwined by two serpents in the form of a double helix.

The serpents are green and the staff is red.

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Goggles

The evil doctor wears a pair of welding goggles. The style is VG800H5 made by Fibre-Metal, available at the following stores:

http://www.discountsafetygear.com
http://www.mortonsafety.com
http://www.toolking.com
http://store.weldingdepot.com
http://www.amazon.com

EDIT: Word on the street is that these goggles actually are green in color. Apparently, the manufacturer picture is wrong and they are NOT silver as shown.

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White Gloves

Dr. Horrible wears a pair of white work gloves. Some people have found that fencing gloves work, too. You can try these stores:

http://store.weldersource.com
http://www.tcafencing.com

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White Boots

Complete your outfit with a pair of white boots, and you’re all set. They can be found at the following stores:

http://www.mortonsafety.com
http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com

 

This recent Comic-Con attendee came pretty close:

 

I hope we see a bunch of Dr. Horrible costumes this Halloween. Be sure to practice your evil laugh!

If you haven’t seen Dr. Horrible yet, head on over to drhorrible.com or purchase the show directly from iTunes.

It’s that joyous time of year again — Comic-Con! And thousands of people in costumes flock to the big event in San Diego. All the great costumes… it’s brings a tear to my eye.

Wired.com has a good article and photo slideshow of this year’s costumes. Looks like so much fun!

Well I hope everyone has a fun and safe Comic-Con. I know it’s sold out, and I’m so jealous for the people who get to go.

To view all of these great photos, head on over to Wired.com’s entire photo gallery.

Have you heard of the Wolfpack Elite? When it comes to costumes, conventions and cosplay, these guys are the best of the best. When they say Elite, they aren’t joking.

They are well known for throwing big costume parties at every major comic/sci fi convention in America, “because there’s nothing like throwing back a few shots with Batman on one side and a storm trooper on the other.”

Heh, I like the sound of that!

You can literally spend countless hours on their website, browsing through the photo gallery and forum. The forum is especially helpful for sharing ideas and costume-making tips, and just talking about costumes in general.

The members of Wolfpack Elite seem to be a very fun, welcoming group of people. If you love costumes, you should head on over there and say hello: www.wolfpackelite.com.

 

Here we have Naija from the popular game Aquaria. She’s even got her song wheel.

Very beautiful, I especially like her flipper feet. This gal (who’s name is Aleze) is a master of cosplay, and it turns out we’ve posted about her before.

Last year, she got famous posing as Midna from the Zelda series.

Great work!

For anyone interested, here’s a closer look at the game Aquaria.

Remember these guys from Sesame Street? Yip yip yip yip…

Well, thanks to Instructables.com, you can learn how to make your own Yip Yip alien costume! They offer a step by step guide using fleece, sponges and mesh. Looks great!

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Now here’s a look you don’t see everyday…probably because we don’t live in Tokyo.

These fascinating young ladies are followers of a fashion called Yamanba, a derivative of Ganguru fashion which rose to popularity in the 1990’s, mostly among teenage girls and women in their early 20’s, generally confined to Tokyo’s trendy shopping districts.

Ganguro fashion is characterized by tanned skin combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blonde, or a silver gray known as high bleached. Black ink is used as eyeliner and white concealer is used as lipstick and eye shadow. Features are often further embellished by false eyelashes, plastic facial gems, and pearl powder.

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Do you want an original costume that can’t be purchased, but you don’t know how to sew? Or perhaps you need a crazy prop for your costume and you just can’t find anything like it in stores. I went to CONduit in Salt Lake City on Saturday, and there I attended a panel that was all about turning ordinary, random things into costume items, to create items that no one else has!

There are two basic tricks to making a costume item out of something else:

The first is to break down the idea of your finished product into components. You won’t be able to find the exact thing you need, but you will be able to find various things that you can put together to make what you need. Your costume is a puzzle, and you’re looking for the pieces.

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Todd, the blue alien

I had a great time last weekend at CONduit, the annual sci fi/fantasy convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. The event, which ran from May 23-25, is a great way for fans of the genre to come together to discuss and share ideas about all things sci fi/fantasy.

CONduit features professional authors, artists, actors, game designers, singers…and of course, COSTUMES!

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