Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Wonderstruck cosplaying Wednesday

Today I´m giving props to all the wonderful people out there spending countless hours to make comic conventions that much more exciting by dressing up as their favorite comic / anime / video game character.


And let´s be honest - my favorite comic characters as well. Or why did you think I picked Power Girl cosplayer Yaya Han to open the post ?

Yup, any excuse to post more Power Girl, but she´s also one of the best - and most versatile - out there where accuracy with the costumes and sheer number of detail is concerned. So believe me that she will be popping up quite regulary in future posts about the topic of cosplay.


Which has become quite the thing in itself and was just called " dressing up funny " back in the day. And yes, I just said " future posts " - plural - because I have been busy the last few days going through my files of cosplay awesomeness. At first I was looking through the ones I already had but - as usual where my knack for perfection kicks in - I also found a ton of new stuff that I had to put in order. I´m still not finished but I wanted to do a new post before the big anniversary comes this month.

That´s right, it´s almost eight years since I started this little blog to vent my frustrations and - more important - bring a bit of comfort, joy and fun to all crazy comic freakis out there. I may not always been as successful in that as I wanted and I most definitely haven´t been posting as often as I would have liked to but somehow I managed to keep things going here. Through unemployment, depression, exile, illness and almost complete deletion of this blog - not counting going through three computers - I´m still blogging so that has to count for something. Back to cosplayers.

Unbelievable as it sounds I was inspired to this post by a YouTube video that my brother found. Usually his contribution to this blog consists in either keeping me from writing a new post or telling me what I should really write about ( mostly something to do with getting a reputation within the german comic scene or pimping indie comics ) or asking me how long I plan to continue wasting my time with this useless blog.


But he always shows me all the stuff he finds on the internet that he finds cool and there is the casual nugget I want to share with the world, or at least the part of the world that is the interwebs ( or reads this blog ).

Speaking of which : I want to thank all my readers out there for finally breaking the 1,000 clicks per day barrier. I don´t know what happened last Wednesday ( I like to think that it was the new post about the Hulk comics by Sal Buscema and Ernie Chan that went online on Tuesday ) but whatever it was that made the blog get 1,131 hits - let´s do it again. Well, it probably was fellow blogger Terry Hooper sharing the link on facebook since I always try to do that but mostly just eff it up. I´m so useless on facebook. So I probably owe Terry a big " Thank You " packet.

And speaking of thanking people and finally coming back to cosplayers - what a segueway - I wanted to spotlight some of the more unusual, weird or unexpected costumes out there. I know, usually I just post some hot cosplay massitas which is totally fine. But Today I want to give kudos to all the gals and boys, yes the dudes, who do all those costumes you thought you´d never see because you thought it shouldn´t be done, it wouldn´t be done or even couldn´t be done. Which brings us to this guy.


Yes, that´s Inspector Gadget with a giant propeller coming out of his back. Why ? Just because he can. Go Go Gadget Giant Propeller.

First of you got to have a really big set of cojones to even TRY to do Inspector Gadget but it´s doable. But then to say " I´m going all the way, babeee, where´s my giant propeller ? " that´s just totally Airwolf.

Of course there are also some costumes that simply blow your mind and leaves you speechless. Like the next picture of a Swamp Thing cosplayer that is sure to get this post mentioned on Mike Sterling´s PROGRESSIVE RUIN blog ( which is probably where I swiped the picture from anyway ).


Isn´t that one of the most amazing sights you´ve ever seen ? Imagine turning a corner at some comic convention like Erlangen ( which is coming up this June, hint, hint ) and finding yourself facing that.

Now I don´t know about you but this makes me want to try my hand at cosplaying myself. Although I´m not sure how many possible costumes there are for fat people. I know, I could go as fat Batman but I don´t think anybody wants to see that. Also, if I DO decide to go as a comic character I would want to keep it real as far as I would choose somebody who is fat to begin with like Batman´s Detective Harvey Bullock or someone like Naruto´s Choji ( or factoring in my age Choji´s Dad ).

Who knows ? Anything is possible - which brings us to our next picture.


Yes, that really is ONE PIECE´s Usopp ( or Lyssop how he is called in Germany ), the Prince of Lies a.k.a. Sogeking, the Hero of Sniper Island.

Whoever that guy is, that´s totally awesome especially the nose part. 

And speaking about awesome animated tv series : here´s our last male cosplayer for Today rocking it 80s style. By the power of Grayskull, vato !


Which brings us to the part everybody is waiting for : the girls, or better the women cosplayers. Hey, I don´t have any illusions whatsoever about my target audience or why people read this blog ( according to blogger statistics the most common searches that lead to this blog are Joyce Hyser followed by Jamie Lee Curtis, Markie Post and Heather Thomas ).

I mean, I´m happy that anybody at all is reading this. So I don´t care how you found the blog as long as you are reading it. And it was my decision to post about movie cult sirens like the ones mentioned above so there is really no one else I could blame IF I wanted to. But let´s get back to girl cosplay : instead of the usual hot babe I want to start of with a costume that´s just unbelievable. At first I thought it was an action figure and not a real person because it looks just too perfect. I mean, no one would be crazy enough to put in all the work necessary for all this detail, right ?


You just have to respect that. I have no idea from where that is or even if it´s this woman´s own creation but holy s - word, that´s some loco skillz.

To tell you the truth : with half the guys or gals I haven´t got the faintest idea who they are supposed to be. Because I don´t know all the tv shows, video games, animes or movies out there. Heck, I could do at least ten posts with cosplayers where I don´t know who they are cosplaying at. But that would be boring, although I might do a post with female cosplayers called TOP TEN COSPLAYERS I DON`T KNOW BUT WHO I DEFINITELY WOULD DATE. I mean THE TOP TEN SEXY COSPLAYERS WHERE I DON´T KNOW WHO THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BUT WHO I MOST DEFINITELY WOULD DATE is probably more accurate but way to long for a post title.

I mean, I don´t know any of these cosplayers so most of them would fall in the category of cosplayers I don´t know but would date. Okay, I know the names of some of them - at least when I can find them and remember to bookmark certain webpages - but I don´t really KNOW know them. It´s not like we bumped into one other at a comic convention or drank a beer somewhere. Sorry, totally going off on a needless tangent that´s way too personal here, where was I ? Oh yes, with a lot of the females cosplayers I have no idea who they are supposed to be and there are probably a dozen different costumes that fall into the " dark elf " category. Or that´s the same elf done by different cosplayers and as usual I don´t have a clue.

In any case, there will be no additional dark elves in this post but there will be definitely more in the future that will also include one more appearance by Yaya Han. Now the next costume I want to post falls into what I like to call " The giant prop department " for obvious reasons.


Okay, I don´t want to ignore all the hard work that must have gone into making the costume proper but that´s one MF - er of a weapon.

I don´t even know where you can get something like this. Can you get something like this at a shop called " Giant props r us " or what ? Do you have to build it yourself because you can´t get it in a shop ? And how do you assemble it and do you have to transport it fully assembled ? I know that you will get problems if you try to board the Neckarweihinger bus.

And speaking about having problems : after just plain awesome costumes and costumes with giant props there are also the costumes that I should not post because they are most likely to get me into serious trouble.


Which never stopped me before. To be honest, in some cases I´m not sure if it´s real cosplay but all is fair when it´s about posting hot girls.

And this brings us to our next category called LADY LOOKS LIKE A DUDE coined by yours truly after that famous Aerosmith song. It´s all about women dressing up as male characters to sometimes astonishing results.


Man, Mario never looked this good on my Nintendo. Super, Mario !

So I started the post with Yaya Han and I also want to end it that way. One of the reasons is that even if I do various posts just about her I won´t be able to fit all of the costumes she does into them. Another reason is that a lot of her costumes are totally dope, like the one that started the whole avalanche of cosplay pics I had to wade through the last days and which derailed me from posting earlier. Which might have been a good thing since nobody would have taken my post on April Fool´s Day seriously.


Okay, it wasn´t really the picture above that got my attention ( it´s just the one where you can see the entire costume ) but rather this one.


Now all my hormonal urges aside ( I´m just a sucker for ample chested women in revealing windowed wardrobe ) it´s still a great costume.


According to my internet research - which means I found this post on her website - it´s the famous Litchi Faye Ling from a game called BlazBlue or something. You can read all about how she made the costume and you can see all the pictures of it, which you can also find on this post from TWICE AS WORSE. And if you don´t want to wait around until I find the time to post more pictures of Yaya Han you can find some pictures of her as sexy Chun Li here ( ay, ay, ay, caliente massitaa ) and a whole bunch on Flickr .

So this was my deep bow to all the hard working cosplay boys and girls out there on conventions : keep on making those great outfits, you rock !


Okay, I have mentioned it at the beginning of the post and about now you´re probably wondering what this ominous video is ( or you are rather yelling at your computer at the top of your lungs at this point : " What about that eff - ing video ? " ) that was the inspiration for this post.

You might recognize the song although it has different lyrics. It´s a lot of cosplayers just having fun which is what it´s all about : being happy.

By the way, to Andres : that´s totally a Hydra goon Deadpool is hanging out with and not Kickass. Kickass has yellow stripes on his costume and can be seen breakdancing later on in the video. But now, enjoy !



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