Stephanie Rohweder
San Diego, California
Criminal Justice Major
Creativity Track

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Pyrrha Nikos Cosplay

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            My project was to cosplay as Pyrrha Nikos from the online show RWBY.  Cosplay comes from the words costume play and is essentially homemade Halloween.  People wear costumes like this to conventions and have become a very large community.  For most of us, it’s more of a hobby and an escape from our everyday lives.  At a convention, we show who we really are in costume form and connect with thousands of people that share a common interest.  Costume makers wear anything from pop culture including movies, comics, anime, television, video games, and any other popular media that is out there. 

 

            When it comes to choosing a costume, one must consider the materials and the connection to the character.  For me, I personally connect with Pyrrha because she is an outsider, although for different reasons, and a natural fighter.  I made every piece of armor, weapon piece, hand painted every little detail and used as little base material as I could, which includes the corset, the skirt, the socks, gloves, and boots.  Everything else has been crafted by my hand.

 

The inspiration for my project came from my love of this character.  I’m such a huge fan of RWBY, so much, that I cosplayed as another RWBY character, Yang Xiao Long, for the San Diego Comic Con last summer.  As I have already made other costumes, I felt it was time to branch out and use different materials for this costume compared to the others I have done.  My past costumes were more fabric based and didn’t have the comic con image I wanted so badly.

With this costume, I was using materials that I had never used before, such as metal and a thermal plastic called worbla.  My shield is actually made out of a metal trash can lid and my dad and I had to use car buffers to smooth the edges.  We used a substance called Bondo that is usually used to fill in car dents and JB Weld to attach the former rim of the trash can as the support.  I also used metal primer spray paint, which tends to stain everything and stick to skin.  Bondo is awful to work with because it stinks strongly of chemicals and dries very quickly.

The worbla was a different monster.  I had to make a pattern of my armor using craft foam and masking tape, which took a few tries to get right because I only have two hands and lost my tape.  When it finally came to forming the armor, I burned my hands a few times with my heat gun and I was also fighting the Utah wind, which kept blowing my materials away.  The first few times trying to get the worbla to stick to the foam didn’t work well, as I had to press and massage the stuff while it was hot.  I was worried that I didn’t have enough worbla and I was forced to melt scrap together to form my calf armor.  When I tried on my costume for the last time before my final photographs, I had to ask friends to take my picture, which fell through a few times.  I also did not account for the size of my head with my headdress compared to the size of my headdress with my wig.  I had to cut it in half and pin it to my wig, something I will have to fix at a later date.  On top of all of that, worbla is very expensive and hard to find.

This project actually was pretty impactful to everyone around me.  My family was on a steep learning curve when I explained my vision and I had to force my dad to think outside the box when it came to crafting my shield.  He had no idea that Bondo or JB Weld could be used the way I wanted nor did he know that worbla existed.  I also inspired my friend to expand on her own cosplay adventure and expand on her materials with more props.  As for campus, I love showing off my work to people and I think I inspired people to try to make their own costumes or expand their horizons when it comes to media.

 This project benefitted me both as a nerd and a human.  I raised my skill level as a cosplayer and expanded my expertise in what I can and can’t do with costumes.  It also helps to iron out any bugs that I have with my costuming.  I admire a lot of cosplayers at comic con and I wanted to be like them so badly that I pushed myself to make the most complicated costume I have ever attempted.  As a human, I appreciate the work that goes into these things and I strive to have that level of inspiration with everything I do.  Beautiful works can come from a place of passion and love.