Gallery

Peggy Carter began as a found-item costume that Alena put together for a movie premiere. She decided to wear it again to a convention a few weeks later, and it was so well received that she kept weari…

Holly Short’s Section 8 uniform from the Artemis Fowl book series. Characters

Laura demonstrates a modified found object costume of Lucy from Assassin’s Creed. The shirt started as a turtleneck from Goodwill, and the cut-off sleeves became the signature design on the front and …

No, not those Avengers — the 1960s British spy team! Meet John Steed, Emma Peel, and Cathy Gale. Characters

Miria’s dress made by GoldenrodFairy. Characters

When we once again had the opportunity to sponsor one of our favorite films at The Historic Artcraft Theatre, we decided to go all-out and do a live stage pre-show. In costume. With chariots…

Our first set of Kuroshitsuji costumes was a deliberate found item challenge — we assembled Sebastian, Ciel and Grelle without making anything specifically for the set (all consisting of vintage and m…

“…And Sewing Is Half the Battle!” frequently sponsors films at The Historic Artcraft Theatre in Franklin, Indiana. The Court Jester is one of our all-time favorites, and when we sp…

A mix of handmade and found item costumes from Meitantei (Detective) Conan (a.k.a. Case Closed) and predecessor/spinoff series Magic Kaito. (Yeah, the continuity of that franchise is a bit confusing&#…

Dante, Lady and Trash I mean Trish. But seriously, these costumes really are made of literal trash. Actually pulled out of a trash can. Trish’s trademark lightning bolt bustier (totally secure without…

A perennial classic, FFVII was Alena’s first JRPG. It was probably Mark’s 945th (he played ALL the JRPGs), and Laura was mostly here for Advent Children, but at least everyone was happy to…

So what do you do when you run across a Japanese visual novel with mediocre artwork and ridiculous costumes that can’t possibly exist in real life? Why, cosplay it, of course! Alena’s Archangel Michae…

A collaborative group project with Mogchelle (Dark Knight Paine). Laura’s Full Throttle mech included puppetry finger-blades and a motorized rotating sword helicopter. Characters Awards

There are so many costumes in this category that it’s difficult to organize them, so the gallery is a bit large. Character photos are roughly grouped together. There is also a second gallery at …

Alena grew up in the 1980s. Alena likes the band Queen. Alena enjoys cheesy sci-fi adventure movies. So when Indy PopCon announced that they were bringing actor Sam Jones to town and sponsor…

This set was a huge benchmark for us, as it was our first set of costumes made entirely from scratch, as well as the first for which we received craftsmanship awards. It was also the first time we dra…

Gankutsuou, which translates roughly to “Lord of the Cavern,” was the Japanese title of a translation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel Le Comte de Monte Cristo. It is also the title of a 2004 anime whic…

From the Kevin Smith comic book series. (Alena and Mark have done another traditional 1940s Green Hornet set, but for some reason they have never gotten photos of it.) Characters

The manga Gensoumaden Saiyuuki (in the U.S. it’s commonly shortened to Saiyuki) is a very liberal retelling of the Xiyouji, or Journey To The West, legend. This series is currently in second place for…

Shin Kidousenki Gundam W (or Gundam Wing to U.S. audiences) is a 1995 giant robot space opera with a handful of really snappy military uniforms and a whole bunch of other… less-snappy costum…

So the conversation went something like this: “Hey, there’s a Harry Potter book release party at the store tonight. Want to go?” “Sure. It’d be fun to go in costume. Do we have any Harry Potter costum…

Alena has been a Methos fangirl since she watched Highlander as a teenager in the 1990s (which is 100% credited to the Queen theme music). Unfortunately, a character whose wardrobe consists …

Assembled from found items for the midnight premieres of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. With Stephanie as a grumpy dwarf. (Sort of.) Characters

We sponsored the 1966 Batman movie at the Historic Artcraft Theatre, and dressed up to do the pre-show. Alena’s entire Robin costume was made in just six hours! The pre-show included this, uh, h…

Alena’s Barbarianna costume incorporates many natural materials including leather, fur, a deer skull, goat jawbones, coyote bones, feathers, and deer antlers, as well as hand-sculpted horns and …

Note that the word Avatar is not in the title. That’s because these costumes are actual screen-used wardrobe from M. Night Shyamalan’s very bad ill-fated movie, which we lucked into for a …

Mark’s Link costume features decorative stitching, embossed leatherwork, vinyl-and-carved-foam sword, and a shield made of layered sheet and vacuformed styrene over foam. (Our first foray into v…

Robin was Alena’s second anime convention costume (waaay back in the day). It was long before any of us really learned how to sew, so the apron was constructed using a Days Inn button-repair kit, beca…

When The Historic Artcraft Theatre showed the classic holiday musical White Christmas, Alena (a lifelong Danny Kaye fan) and Ivorivet enthusiastically replicated the dresses from the fa…

Needing an outfit for a formal event, Alena designed a subtle (MCU) Loki-inspired gown with a (Marvel Comics) Lady Loki-inspired fur wrap and optional face plate. The dress is green satin, with metall…

Clint Barton in tactical gear from The Avengers. (Due to convention security restrictions, Clint’s sidearm and knife are not present in all pictures.) Characters

Shortly after The Avengers came out, we made two screen-accurate Loki costumes. Their only real convention outing was at the Anime Central 2013 masquerade, which Laura and Alena MC’d as matching…

Alena’s Endor Leia costume was hastily created for an interactive event at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Laura’s Mara Jade was made because Mara Jade is just awesome (and to…

The great thing about Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE by CLAMP is that one could cosplay a different costume every time and almost never run out of canon! The characters constantly travel from …

Alena is a big fan of Marvel Comics’ Hawkeye, particularly the Matt Fraction series. She put together a casual Kate (based on the cover of Hawkeye #9) to wear to events like Free Comic Book Day …

An entirely found-item costume, though most pieces were significantly modified. The vest is an authentic Tropical Combat Uniform from the Vietnam War. (The pills are all legal, and the booze is watere…

Alena is a rabid Scarlet Pimpernel fangirl. By rabid, I mean she has read all 17 of the Scarlet Pimpernel books written by Baroness Orczy (and amassed quite a respectable collection of early editions …

When Laura and Alena were young, they watched a French/Japanese television program that aired in America in the very early 1980s. It went off the air by around 1984, and for years afterward, there was…

Ivorivet invited us to join her “Amok Time” group for Gen Con, so we made a set of baked potato outfitsStar Trek replica costumes. It was both Gen Con’s 50th anniversary and the 50th…

For a Universal Monsters film festival at the Historic Artcraft Theatre, we dressed as Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, and the Invisible Man. With LVA as The Mummy. Characters

Our original Speed Racer costume set was made for the midnight premiere of the 2008 film, but the costumes were later revamped (or entirely remade, in the case of Racer X) and worn to other events. Ch…

Possibly the most obscure source we have ever cosplayed. Enjoy our renditions of sartorial genius O. Rick (the assassin coordinator), Hoshi no Mayeri (the brave reluctant assassin working to…

Slayers holds a special place of honor in this group, as Lina Inverse and Xelloss were Alena and Mark’s very first cosplay costumes ever. Of course, the first versions were… unpolished (we…

We had previously done an extensive set of character photos for Patrick Rothfuss’s novel, so when Pat ran a photo contest on his blog and called for pictures featuring the new paperback release,…

No, that’s neither a typo nor a keyboard smash! It’s the abbreviation of Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja-Educational Super Elementary Fortress 555, the best Saturday morning cartoon you n…

When the, uh, “classic” film hit theatres again, we decided to have some fun — so we painted up our paper plate flying saucer, put together some terrible costumes, gave Mark an angor…

We saw RotG at the late show on opening night, and (possibly due to the fact that it was a 10PM showing the night before Thanksgiving) we had the entire theatre to ourselves… which meant that about 10…

A last-minute change in plans two weeks before Gen Con prompted us to scrap our intended competition set. Good Omens had just been released, so we decided to jump on the bandwagon! Though the costumes…

A vampire-inspired photoshoot at a privately-owned castle.

Over the years we’ve done several costumes inspired by this series, ranging from our “Sailor Social Media” parody to the detailed villains group in which we MC’d the Anime Cent…

Rurouni Kenshin is one of the classic anime/manga titles of the 1990s. We wanted to do the set justice by producing costumes that were as historically accurate as possible, so we researched Bakumatsu-…

A fantasy series with costumes inspired by — but not accurate to — historical Chinese court costumes, Saiunkoku Monogatari presented an interesting series of challenges. We researched auth…

This set of entirely found-item costumes provided ample excuses for road trips and location photoshoots, including a private ranch, a treehouse, a suspension bridge, a replica of Stonehenge, and actua…

Our first terra cotta infantryman was commissioned by the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis for the National Geographic Treasures of the Earth exhibit, a permanent wing which includes replicas and int…

A comfortable costume that uses my own hair, and action-packed photoshoots involving mountains, bridges and authentic ruins? YES, PLEASE. Characters

This set of costumes hails from season 2 of DGHDA, which takes place partly in a fantasy world inspired by children’s stories. Here be scissors cowboys, evil queens, knights with silly helmets, …