#I may have sewn this cosplay over 4 years ago

[luchiaketchum]

may I interest you in the Popol saga?

Lunalu cosplay at dokomi day 2 ✒️

[cosplayinamerica]

Specifically for that shot where I am pinned by a bunch of hammers, I was standing with a group of Captain Americas (maybe that should be a salute of Captain Americas) and I vaguely remember one of them mentioning putting a hammer on my chest, which then escalated to every hammer available to 'pin' me down.  As for cosplaying Loki as a character it was suggested to me many years ago and while I agreed at the time it would be a good choice, I hadn't at the time felt capable of making the costume.  The version of Loki that I am portraying is that from the first Avengers movie.  This is my favorite version of the costume and I rarely saw it being done.

I originally made the bulk of the costume for DragonCon 2016 and have been tweaking it ever since, and it is currently at about version 1.5, with some parts of it already having gone through several iterations.  It is made from predominantly green flannel and black garment leather, with vegetable tanned leather used for the armor pieces.

The original costume was the first costume I had ever sewn myself, with some fitting and patterning assistance from my then girlfriend (now fiance).  The only store bought pieces are the pants and boot bases, with everything else being custom sewn.

Working from the bottom up, the boots were originally black ladies boots with boot covers floating over the top.  The boot covers are vegetable tanned leather dyed and topped with black garment leather, with a patterned leather inset at the front. The pants were slightly modified by trimming down the calf to enable them to easily fit into the boots.  The tunic and selves and are made of a combination of green flannel with black garment leather.

One of my proudest accomplishments on the costume was the creation of the v shaped leather panels on the front.  I was able to construct and attach them in such a way that no seam lines are visible.  The tunic zips up at the back and is then Velcroed.  The gold armor rectangles on the right abdomen are vegetable tanned leather attached using leather glue.  The chest armor has gone through 3 or 4 versions to get to where we are now, and will be updated again to reduce its weight, and improve general fit of the costume.  Currently it is 2 layers of vegetable tanned leather with a cutout in the top layer. black garment leather was then glued to the front, and finally the gold embellishment (another piece of vegetable tanned leather) was glued into the receptacle created by the cutout.   The outer sleeveless jacket is constructed of garment and patterned leather and then lined with the same green flannel used throughout the costume.  The gold stripes 80% of the way down the coat flaps are a chain mesh fabric which was then weathered to achieve the correct color.  The front 2 coat flaps are fronted with patterned leather, where as the rest are the same garment leather.

   The outer collar (attached to the jacket) is another piece of the costume that has gone through several iterations as i have yet to be able to get it to properly stand up.  This is in part due to the weight of the zipper toppers used to trim the entire edge of the jacket, and some of the tunic.  Each of the ~1800 zipper toppers was individually attached to the costume using pliers to crimp them in place.

On both shoulders, there are matching black flaps (they might be considered pauldrons), which are on their 4th incarnation.  They are attached on top of the shoulders using snaps and Velcroed at the tips.  Currently, they are a layer of vegetable tanned leather wet molded to shape, covered with patterned leather and then trimmed with garment leather.  On the right shoulder is an embellished armor piece again made from vegetable tanned leather.  It serves as a hold point for the cross strap.  It is held in place using Velcro and snaps at my left hip.

On the costume, there are currently 2 different types of patterned leather.  The constructions of the costume used a triangle cut pastern that while it gave the general feel, didn't match what was used on screen.  The second type is laser etched garment leather using the same pattern as on screen.  The laser cutter i use has a 4' * 3' cutting area, with each piece taking about 4 hours to complete.  Finally, the hair is a custom wig created by Hero Hair, a custom wig fabricator which uses film industry experience to create screen accurate wigs.

The first year I carried a large plush porpoise on my shoulder, which confuted allot of congoers, which gave me the opportunity to exclaim "I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious 'Porpoise'".  Running into other Loki's is always entertaining, as each brings some different aspect of the character to life.  I will often kneel to children dressed as Thor or Loki, the joy this give them is evident on their faces.  After the release of The Avenger: Endgame I walked around a con with just the Tesseract, which brought smiles to those who had seen Lokis escape in the movie. 

Cosplay has become a central part of my life and without it I wouldn't have met my fiance (@the_critterbug), or any of my friends in the United States.  I started cosplaying in 2012 in an attempt to meet like-minded individuals (AKA Geeks).  Cosplay has also given me the opportunity to witness some incredibly talented people make some incredible costumes.  Cosplay and specifically Loki has allowed me to create in a way that before I never would have thought I could have.  Further, it has taught me that despite what you may have been told you cannot do, that anything is achievable given the patience and perseverance to see it through.

--- Variable Cosplay

Photo : https://www.instagram.com/skynocerous/