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The fully loaded clothes rack is the sign of the devoted costumer.
Prairie Rose Clayton filled this rack for Anime Central with a mixture
of old and new costumes for the April event. At a Friday panel, Clayton
talked about what she had created. The first creation was the costume she
wore of Arale from Dr. Slump, made out of a couple of T-shirts, a custom-sewn
cap and a piece of cloth shaped in Arale's signature "A." |
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The elaborate-looking outfits on the left of the rack are new creations
from Sakura Taisen, made new for Anime Central. They're sewn to an off-the
-shelf kimono pattern, authentic except for the obi waist wrap which is
created with metal snaps instead of an intricately wound length of cloth.
On the right is a two-part Magic Knight Rayearth outfit. The jacket, skirt
and school uniform are made of custom-sewn parts mixed with conventional
clothes. The knight uniform on the far right was made from scratch. |
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Jeff "Rich Lather" Tatarek wears an Anime Weekend Atlanta T-shirt,
honoring the Southern convention where he has unveiled his remarkable mecha
costumes. The Ingram from Patlabor was made from sections of plastic foam
sheet, cut and colored to match the anime design. There's a lot more to
the Ingram, but Tatarek brought only the head and shoulders because that's
all he could fit into his luggage for the trip north. Part of the challenge
of making a mecha costume is to make sure you can get it from your home
to the convention, he said. |
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This was the key section of one of Tatarek's most imposing mecha costumes,
made from a helmet and some sections of foam sheet - and the all-important
flowing cape. Mecha costumes create a major challenge for their builders:
how do you see out? Some costumers create view holes, and some just admit
they can't see well enough to move. either they depend on helpers to get
them on and off a cosplay stage, so they set up two-way radio links with
spotters who tell them where to step in the mecha costume. |
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