EVE Information Portal

Woooo! :D

Oh, and cosbros: let's chat and trade some thoughts so that we have our ideas written down. I figure in six months once Affinity and Falcon are giving this a thought again, we'll have forgotten everything, otherwise. :/

Also also, Seagull totally agreed to be a guest judge for the next competition at the Party at the Top of the World.

Nice costumes, although need more monocles!

good work all round

I take my figurative hat off to those who made such an effort this year. It really adds to the uniqueness of the whole spectacle (where you can walk down a street in Reykjavik and hear people talking about gatecamps as if it were just regular conversation).

*bonus points (if there is such a thing) for those awesome Pax Amaria books!

Some of these clothes are so awesome, they could be recreated in game and they would make better clothes than we have now. Like this jacket. I like this pattern more than current Amarr "Curate" coat.

Right on!

I had some great fun this year, and it was a pleasure to see and meet so many people willing to step it up a nodge.
I'm with Makoto on getting a community together, and I hope we can all make an effort to make this even greater next year.
I'd also very much like for us all to be able to exchange ideas and experiences on how to put together costumes and character ideas and backstories.

I've actually written down a ton of notes and feedback gathered from most, if not all, of you, which I'll make sure gets saved and opened up for further discussion. I'd love to get a dialogue going on what we as players can do to make this event an even bigger success for the coming years.

For now, I have created a facebook group for those interested in building a community.
I have also gotten a twitter account you can contact me on, for those of you not into the entire facebook deal.

Furthermore, I've used the hashtag #EVECosplay to make it easier to communicate.

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EveInCharacter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StrangerEVE

These were so cool to see at Fanfest! \o7

I'd very much like to have a read more on the winners about what made them do a cosplay, why they choose the character they chose and what effort (how long it took / research / special skill sets / etc) it look them to come up with the final product.




ps. FIrst time I realised that Guard has set the height of his avatar just about right...

OMFG, these costumes (all except 1 amarrian) are so freaking ugly.

Argos; the issue with any cosplay is that, in trying to replicate a given look, you'll end up with design elements that look costume-y instead of fashionable. Indeed, even with professional costumers, the result may look a bit silly out of context, without high-grade photography and image adjustment after the fact.

Tasman; can't speak on the others, but I'd actually had the idea rolling around since 2013, as I'd been playing in-game with an Ishukone-related group. I'd been planning to do FF14, but ended up planning a different vacation instead. In any case, after watching the FF14 feed and regretting my decision, I grabbed a FF15 ticket straight away, and made plans.

Some admissions: in the first place, while I can sew, I'm sort of terrible at it. Being part of a very crafty community though (the same one Max Singularity is, in fact), I know a ton of folk with a lot of talent, and we often help each other with projects. My friend Rebecca and I have known each other for about six years now; I'd modeled for her back in the day, we'd gone on long camping trips to this thing in the desert, volunteered together at camps, so on. Just so happens that she has an embroidery machine! In any case, fast forwarding, joint project. ;)

The part that was mine alone, and rather unique: buttons. "You... made the buttons?" "Yeah!" "That's all?" "Um. Trust me. Bronze is a pain in the ass."

A number of people told me at FF that they'd thought about doing Ishukone shirts in the past, but the trick is that the shirt's buttons for epaulet, collar stay, and cuff, are a truncated hexagonal pyramid. They'd given up after being unable to find the buttons. Needless to say, this is because the buttons don't exist in real life. Trust me. I've looked, and looked, and looked. Fortunately, I have access to a kiln and metal clay.

Buttons at various stages!

So. First, I tried to sculpt a form free-hand; that was a terrible idea. Never do it that way.

Second, I got sculpy, an oven-firing clay of a sort. When frozen, it holds a very crisp edge when cut. I rolled out a sheet to the approximate thickness of the button, froze it for a half hour, and then trimmed it to the approximate shape of the gray button form on the right. Needless to say, I ended up with about three of these of various qualities after eight attempts, and this was the best. After firing, the process was repeated for the mold: roll out a sheet, freeze it, oil the form, and press the form. At that point, I refroze the sheet, and carefully pried out the form before firing the mold.

Voila! I now had a button mold. Active time to this point: five hours? And a couple hours of firing, a couple of hours of freezing, etc.

Please note: if you know someone with a 3d printer, making a form or mold would be easy. What's more, some 3d printers can evidently do sintered metal, though I hear those are even more expensive. If you have access to those, this would be ridiculously easy.

Third step; after rolling out the metal clay, I compressed it into the mold using the form to create a hollow shape. After allowing it some time to dry and set, I then removed the form and the casting. A bronze hook was cut and twisted out of dead bronze wire, and affixed to the back with additional metal clay slurry.

Active time: four hours, about? Mostly for the wire. An hour or two of drying time.

Fourth step; firing. Using a jewelry kiln (which is tiny, but gets up to 1800 F or so), the buttons were fired. Only two buttons would fit in the firing vessel at a time, and each set of buttons needed about seven, eight hours in the kiln. It took a few days of constant firing to get through everything.

Active time: not really that much; maybe an hour, swapping firing vessels, setting up and tearing down equipment, etc. Firing time: 32 hours.

Fifth step; filing and polishing. This part was a royal pain. You see, metal clay is essentially an organic suspension with metal particles. When firing, you are burning away the organic material and sintering the metal powder. Shrinkage results. In the case of a geometric shape, the shrinkage will vary from part to part based on its construction, which meant that each button had to be filed back into a planed shape.

Active time: eight hours? Ten? Bronze is hard.

So! In the above picture, the second from the right are the buttons pre-firing. The next, dull bronze is a fired button that's been hit with a wire brush to remove carbon from the surface. The shiny one to the left of that is one that's been filed into shape, a process that took about an hour per button. Be warned: tiny buttons mean you'll be filing your fingers, and friction heating may or may not cause blisters. Have I mentioned that bronze is evil? In any case, once the filing is complete, polishing is achieved by a set of sandpaper, from fine to ultrafine, finished with a polishing cloth. The final buttons are the left-most pair.

Pile of finished buttons!

So. I made some buttons, and worked with a friend to do the sewing/embroidery. The buttons had an active work time of perhaps twenty hours, give or take, and a firing/curing time of about forty hours.

Jesus, but the buttons.

Let me never do that again.