Kitsune Preview!

SoonerCon is at the end of this month, and I've been working since February to get this costume together from thrifted and crafted pieces.  This is the first time I've created a character and costume from scratch from a crazy idea that I wanted to make a realistic fox tail out of yarn.

Yep, I'm a masochist.

I think it's turned out beautifully.  I will definitely participate in the costume contest, but I don't think it's worthy of winning any awards. I've never participated in the Masquerade at any con I've been to and I'm not quite sure what to expect.  It should be an adventure and getting me out of my comfort zone is always a good thing.  I'm not sure if I'll have to have a performance or not, so I'm preparing one just in case.

"That's going on Facebook."

The trouble with living in a tiny, dark apartment is that I don't have a whole lot of places that are nice and private to do photo shoots of me in weird getups.  I went to a local nature preserve to get some good shots of this costume.

A dear friend of mine, Debi, stopped by to hang out and I roped her into doing the photography for this.  She's an amateur filmmaker, so I was really happy that she said yes.  We headed to a local nature preserve and I played the World's Worst Model.  This being a beautiful (hot) Sunday afternoon in Texas, the park was pretty crowded and I was getting a lot of stares.  I'm not very comfortable with people staring at me, so I was really nervous to be in such an attention-getting costume.  

Maybe one day I'll be able to just look at one of the folks staring, flash my handmade fangs and say, "What?" in the most innocent voice possible, but not today.  I'm grateful to Deb for being moral support when I'm doing something strange.  She's good at that sort of thing.

I made the hat, ears, fangs, necklace, belt, bracelet, and tail.  I thrifted the shirt, skirts, and shoes and modified the top skirt and the shoes.  The parasol I bought from Scarborough Faire this year.  I've decided at the last minute I need to be armed and am working on a dollar store pirate pistol to get shoved in a belt for a little bit more detail.

This hobby could be dangerous

I have really enjoyed making a costume from my own original idea.  I've never had much of an excuse to use my various skills that I've acquired over the years, and hone some new ones... like my nemesis, garment making.  

I don't know how many character ones I'll do at this point because I do not want to wear skimpy or revealing clothing, which a lot of female characters in the sci-fi/fantasy genre tend to wear.  I do have a couple in mind, though, Arturia Pendragon from the Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night anime series, and I may do Oddbit from Elfquest.  I'd like to do Leetah from Elfquest, but I look nothing like her and I'm not sure if I can pull it off.

For the time being, though, I think I'll take a break from all of this and concentrate on learning another new task or two before coming back around to this.  I have a few projects that I want to do that are non-cosplay related while I decide if I want to dip my toes into making a media character or doing another original character.