At the Halloween party, most people were surprised I brought such a large costume to a small venue but we're very happy with the results. The host was in quite a surprise cuz that was one of their favorite games. With that, I actually won the contest that year and I was very happy that everyone enjoyed the costume. At AMKE 2019 everyone was pushing the character cards and they were so surprised I had a soundboard that said: "select your heroes" "select your assist type" and more which just surprised everyone. Probably the funniest though was people singing along with the menu music. I'm honestly surprised I'm not tired of hearing "I wanna take you for a ride" over and over.
It was kind of a joke at first. Me and my friend were in my car just saying "what's the craziest cosplay idea we could come up with". We said characters like Unicron, The Magic School Bus, the devil Gundam, and a few others but when I mentioned the Marvel versus Capcom 2 character select screen I started to think about it and realize it was actually possible. Always wanting to be creative I kept it on the back burner until it all fell into place when I went grocery shopping and found a children's toy balloon ball that was the perfect size for what I wanted to accomplish.
The toughest part was finding the sphere to make it work. After looking at the design the sphere is transparent which meant I would have to get a plastic-like sheathing which I thought was nearly impossible to do from an engineering and skill level standpoint great. However I realized that zorbing balls should I wear a possibility but financially still very difficult.
However once I found a cheap children's toy everything just fell into place. The sphere round up sitting in the garage for a while having no real event I wanted to use it for. Then Halloween rolled around I was going to attempt a full armor costume but my time management was mishandled and I wanted to still have something for the holiday. I looked in my garage and remembered the sphere and what I could do with it. I then started looking for materials at various craft stores and I made the first version of the Marvel versus Capcom 2 character select screen.
Primarily it was made of duct tape and paper with printed characters for the main menu however because of the paper the first version didn't last long in addition I found some more appropriate cheap to use for the costume ones that were more reflective then the previous metallic tape. Of course with this costume I had to have the music to go with it although my phone speaker is fairly powerful it still wouldn't be enough to have the sound carry so instead I grabbed a speaker from a discount store and decided to go the extra mile and search for the announcers Vocal Track to put on a soundboard. With all that together I was finally able to bring it to Anime Milwaukee 2019 after a friend had invited me somewhat last minute.
With my deadlines set I thought up how I can improve the costume from Halloween. First I printed the characters on cardstock then laminated them for Extra Protection and stability, I also redesigned the shape of each individual character so that it would geometrically fits around the ball unlike the individual squares I had tried during Halloween, I gathered a whole bunch of duct tape because the sphere is also a floating grid so I was going to need to cover most of it around its widest sides, then I needed an translucent umbrella to float the select your Heroes Halo from the game which I then added translucent stickers with the words printed out onto the edges of the umbrella.
Cosplays was originally a means of feeling empowered by the character I played each time. Now I've kind of let it become my tool of creativity. Maybe there's a unique design or something challenging to cosplay and that's what I live for is a challenge. It's helped me make friends and inspired me to do more. I hope people will enjoy my next cosplay.
--- Carey "Xypher" Anderson
Top Photo: The Quarter Guy
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