The South Downs cottage cosplay (with a garden)
On a random October evening, I decided it could be a fun idea to cosplay the South Downs cottage at The Ineffable Con. So I built one. Out of cardboard, popsicle sticks, acrylic paint, and an embarrassing amount of glue.
This project took me more than half a year and became a journey through visual storytelling, mixed media crafting, fun art techniques, and various engineering challenges. Such as - how do you actually wear a cottage? Or transport it by plane to England?
I needed the cottage not only to be wearable but also collapsible and transportable. Which is why every part – including the cottage itself – uses a system of Velcro strips, neodymium magnets, and metal tape to hold everything together (more on that in a separate post with a ridiculously long video of me assembling the cottage while my friend laughs at me).
Designing this system was challenging but extremely rewarding because now the cottage can travel. Which means I was able to take it to the South Downs, where it belongs. And bring the ineffable husbands home.
The walls are painted with acrylics (because of my trial-and-error painting technique, they now have more layers than a Shakespeare character, but at least the cottage is insulated for winter). The roof, windows, and door are all made from popsicle sticks.
The pictures in the windows are real British cottage interiors that I edited to create scenes from Aziraphale and Crowley’s domestic life. If you look closely, you’ll find quite a few easter eggs hidden within them. (I’ll be sharing the photos in a separate post so you can explore them in detail.)
The miniatures (also coming in a separate post soon) are mostly handmade using various materials. From the St James's Park bench to Aziraphale's spectacles to Crowley's smartphone, they aim to tell the story of two ineffable beings finally coming home to each other.
From the very beginning, the idea was to create a forever home for Aziraphale and Crowley. But beyond that, I also wanted to incorporate fandom references into its very walls - to make the cottage a blend of the fictional world and the real one. Because Good Omens has always been more than an isolated work of fiction. It is also the people who surround it - their ideas, creations, and the love they carry for the ineffable story.
And so, the South Downs cottage is my tribute not only to Aziraphale and Crowley’s happy ending, but also to the creators of Good Omens, and to the fandom that has made this world feel like home.
This is the cutest thing I've seen all year!
