I did it! I picked a character to cosplay! Thank you to all the readers and tweeters who suggested characters for me in my previous article of this series.
The inspiration for my costume came from the new Hawkeye trade, Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life is a Weapon. Many friends of mine would tell me that I needed to read this comic, and I am happy they bugged me about it so much, because when I did I couldn’t put it down. It is fantastic! I love the characters, especially Kate Bishop, the female version of Hawkeye. She is young, cocky and sassy, everything I love in a woman. And this, my beautiful readers, is who I am going to cosplay as at Fan Expo.
Once I made my decision on who I was going to be, I then had to figure out how. I started by staring at the above picture. I looked very closely at the details, broke the outfit down and focused on what I think would be the hardest pieces to get.
After searching around on the internet I realized that it wasn’t the accessories that are going to be hard to get, but the base costume itself. I had grand plans for going to the fabric store, or buying an outfit and cutting it into what I need it to be, but after work, physical activities and my social life, I have very little time to get this done. This is where Suckers Apparel comes in…
I tried to get the pieces I could to keep the cost down at regular stores, but the top of this costume is more detailed than buying a shirt off a rack in the right colour. I had recently commissioned Suckers (see website & twitter) to create an amazing comic themed bathing suit for me, so now that time is starting to run out and I don’t see an opening in my schedule in the future I ran to Suckers to help me out.
That was when I realized cosplay is a serious hobby! I know that the amount of time and effort that very good cosplayers put into their costumes was a lot, but even to get away with a decent passable costume is more than I expected. Now I have a new-found respect for every cosplayer, not just the amazing ones!
The internet has been amazing for trying to get this costume together, especially eBay and YouTube. There are costume tutorials, and tips and tricks all over the internet, so if you are even considering cosplaying I would check some out before starting to collect pieces for an outfit. Why pay for a gun when you can make it out of toilet roll tubes and spray paint or armor out of floor puzzle piece pads!
I will be wearing my costume one day of Fan Expo, and am very excited to share my experience of my first time cosplaying! So, if you are going and see Kate Bishop walking around make sure you come up and say hi!
Kate Bishop is a great character, and Matt Fraction is doing an amazing job pairing up Clint Barton and Kate. The dynamic between the two characters is (in my opinion) the best team up in comics right now, and Hawkeye is my favourite book every month.
There is a lot of work to come up with a costume. I can’t wait to see you at Fan Expo in Hawkeye attire.
Only wearing the costume for one day at Fan Expo?
I am planning the one day, if it goes well maybe I will do two!
Oh man, wearing a costume multiple days is a ton of work! Getting jostled around and worrying about having your hard work ruined is enough to only want to wear it one day!