LoverlyLibrarianCosplay

My name is Luv, and this is my official cosplay blog. I cosplay what I want and what my friends want. I do group projects sometimes, and I have a lot of fun doing it. Most of what I make is handmade. I also hand-make pieces for my friends on occasion. I...

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It's time!! Don't forget to check out our video! http://youtu.be/nj_K2GMSxdk

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It’s the moment we have been waiting for.

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A bunch of my really good friends all got together a few weeks ago in MArio Kart costumes at ERacers in Butler, PA for Real Life Mario Kart! I swear, this was the best day of my life! We had so many wonderful people and the staff at ERacers was great. They put up with all of our crazy shenanigans. 

I am so lucky to have all of these wonderful friends who allow me to have these wonderful opportunities. And there may be a video coming soon.....

Cosplayers:

Mario: Logan

Peach: https://facebook.com/AsumaJon?hc_location=ufi

Blue Shell: https://www.facebook.com/CrystalFantasyCosplay?hc_location=ufi

Rosalina: https://www.facebook.com/GingerTonuki

Fem Mario: https://www.facebook.com/pages/LalaBee-Cosplay

Link: Joan

Donkey Kong:  Instagram: Aaron_WI

Bullet Bill: Grant

Luigi: Tyler

Fem Bowser: https://facebook.com/emmalucosplay

Toadette: https://www.facebook.com/ElyRenae?

Toad: https://m.facebook.com/pikamarklecosplay

Daisy: https://facebook.com/loverlylibrarian

Shy Guy: https://www.facebook.com/shadowfoxcosplay

Banana:  Instagram: melcobar

Photographer: Dark Geek Lord of Cosplay Kitchen  https://www.facebook.com/CosplayKitchen

(All photos belong to Cosplay Kitchen. If you share them, please appropriately credit the artists and photographer.)

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Olivier Armstrong by RoseShock

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I think this is the best Oliveir I have ever seen! <3

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I NEVER POSTED THIS OH MY GOD!

So my friend Emily gave us a small (free cause she’s da best) shoot at tekko forever ago. This was the only photo she got around to editing cause her life is super crazy. She just graduated, and moved and she also is a cosplayer and she has payed shoots and stuff. BUT GUYS. I have to share it everywhere. 

Go check out her photography and cosplay!

https://www.facebook.com/emilysmithphoto

https://www.facebook.com/emmalucosplay

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Here are some photos from mine and Jazzy Cosplay’s Macross Frontier photoshoot from Colossalcon. This was so much fun! We had a really great shoot with Rudi B. Photography and we really had a blast. You can check my facebook for some more photos of us in these outfits

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Walpurgisnacht from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. More from Katsucon! So got this photo from Dosik Lens and oh er ma gosh! I love it so much! He took the photo and did all of the editing himself.   We had a really great shoot together. 10/10 would do again. We took a lot of photos so hopefully I can upload some more for you all in the future. 

Check out the photographer here! http://www.dosiklens.com/

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Here’s one of my shots of disgust from katsucon!

I really love this cosplay because I designed the fabric myself on my computer and had is custom printed. You can actually buy it online!

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/3702552

(please forgive my shameless self promotion)

This photo was taken by savage photography.

I hope to post some more shots from this photoshoot soon. Especially some with my lovely sadness!!

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How about some walpurgisnacht?

Costume entirely made by me.

Photograph was taken by Josh Savage Photography.

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Today I spent like 3 hours looking for the perfect wig for one of my Colossalcon cosplays.

I assumed it would be hard to find and so I over complicated it and couldn't find anything that was reasonably priced.

Then, on a whim I decided to look for a pre-styled one and I immediately found the perfect wig for $20. I need to start thinking more simply.

But I got my wigs! Yay!! Fabric next!

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Here we come to save the day!

This is a really great hall shot taken by Anthony Paray at Tekko 2015.

I really wanted to share this with you guys to show you that even though I have been MIA I have been working on things.

Grad school in combination with work and cosplay and trying to maintain a social life is kicking my butt. I have some photos from Katsucon that I still have to share with you as well, and I’m still waiting on photos from then too. So I guess I’m not the only one who’s super behind!

Thanks for sticking with me!

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Personal Post!

Hi guys! So, I'm a little excited and I just want to share with you all! I just graduated from college this past December. My Graduation party is this weekend and Next week I'm starting grad school!

I'm so very excited and I just wanted to share with anyone who will listen!

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Gear tutorial part 3

Covering your gear with foam!

After you have your gear all carved you'll want to move on to covering it with foam to make it look nice and smooth. I bought big rolls of foam from the craft store that were 36"x60" and needed two rolls to cover both gears.

First, you'll want to measure the height of your gears to determine how tall of a strip of foam you'll need. I cut strips that were 6.5"x60" and used 2 strips for each gear. You'll want to make the foam strip a little taller than your gear so that you've got some wiggle room. better to trip excess than have a gap to fill.

Leaving some excess at the beginning as well, you'll want to hot glue the foam all alone each edge of the front of the gear, weaving along with the grooves. You'll also want to get your corners as tight as possible. The foam will stretch a little bit, so use that to your advantage. When you reach the end of a strip of foam, you'll want to trim it so that it ends on an inside corner of the gear. That way, you can make it less visible. When you've covered the whole thing you can trim all of your edges to make the foam flush with your base.

For the foam covering the top of the gear, I simply laid the base cardboard-side down and traced the outline. I then cut it out (don't forget to leave a little excess!) and hot glued it right onto the cardboard. You'll want to make sure that you glue along the whole edge, and also glue adequately on the inside and back edge so that the foam doesn't gap or lift. Once that is glued down, you can trim the rest of your edges to smooth it out and Voila!! You're done with that step!

In the next tutorial, we'll talk about painting. For this project, we need to do some antiquing to make it look old and worn.

Stay tuned!

Liz

<3

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Started putting foam on one of the gears. This is going to take a while. I'm probably going to finish this one to get a good technique down, and then make the tutorial for the second gear.

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Gear Tutorial Part 2

So Now that I have all of the lovely foam cured and hardened, it's time to get carving. This is why you want to have a cardboard or foamboard base when making something with this method. I will use my knife to carve around the cardboard. Basically it is a stencil for your final product. For this project, I'm also using the cardboard side at the top, so that I can have one smooth side to start with. This is just because it works out to be easier this way. You don't have to do it like that.

First, I cut the general shape out, and then I will worry about details. In the second image you can see how much I cut away, leaving only what is behind the cardboard, and what is in those notches. I wanted to take my time on each notch, which is why I didn't just cut it all off at once.

In the next photo you can see how I was cutting each one out. I cut straight down on either side of the notch first. (Being very careful to keep the cut straight. You can use a marker and ruler to draw on the foam if you don't trust yourself to cut it straight free-hand) Next, I slowly worked away at the back edge. My knife was a little bit too short, so I had to do one initial cut, and then pull the scrap away before cutting farther down. As you can see from my scrap pile, they will come out in nice rectangles if you don't break them off. If it's easier for you to break them as you go, that's fine too.

After each of the notched had been cut out, I lifted the gear and decided it was still a bit heavier than I would have preferred, so I decided to go on the underside of the gear, and cut away more of the foam that would otherwise not be visible anyway. As you can see, I cut it away at an angle to reserve the bottom of the shape. I cut out a lot of foam and therefore made it significantly lighter.

Once that is done, the foam carving step is over. Congratulations! You just made part of a foam gear. For me, the carving step only took about 2 hours.

The next step of the tutorial will be using craft foam to cover all of the rough and bumpy foam. But before I make that tutorial I will be making another gear, so stay tuned.

-Liz

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I know I've been fairly inactive on my tumblr, but I'd like to take this opportunity to post a little bit of a WIP tutorial.

What I'm working on right now is making the gears for my Walpurgisnacht cosplay. In order to keep it as light as possible, I have opted for making the structure out of expanding foam.

My goal is to carve the base out of the expanding foam and then cover the foam with craft foam to achieve a smooth finish before painting.

In photos 1-2, I'm simply making a paper pattern. I like to save these in case I mess something up and need to start over. 

Photos 3-5 show my tracing and making a cardboard structure. The expanding foam will be applied directly onto this cardboard piece. It will act as a cutting/carving guide.

For this project, it was so large that I used 3 whole cans of expanding foam. Photos 6-8 show the size and height that I needed to achieve. This is of course, somewhat of a draft, and if i decide I'd like more height after I carve, I can add more foam, which is one of the great things about working with expanding foam. Cut a huge chunk off by accident? Just add more foam! it fuses together no problem. My next step is the carving process. I needed to allow at least 10 hours for the foam to completely cure so hopefully tonight, I can make a dent in the carving step. I'll keep you all updated!

XOXO

Liz

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Etsy Shop!

My best friend and I just updated our etsy page! Come check it out!