LadyMegatron
Active Member
Being new here, but not new at the costuming, I did want to show some photos of my past builds, but didn't want to post up a thread for each one, so I'm going to post my past finished builds in the Transformers genre. So here is the line-up, as I call out roll from my first build to the most current and tell a little about each as I go. If anyone wants WIP pics, details on the build or such, I can then separate it into it's own Build Thread if need be, or can answer some questions in here.
First on the roll, my first ever 'armor' style costume....
Prince Starscream
I've done plenty of what I call 'walkabout' or 'softie' costumes (which is basically anything that isn't full armor and is something that is similar or is actual clothing or made from only various cloth or material that is soft and your face and whole body is not covered completely. What I call Armor builds are like Starscream here, or like, for example, Master Chief, IronMan, Darth Vader etc, where most of your body is covered by 'armor' whether it be soft or actual armor in build. What I call Softies are like, a jedi, a pirate, an X-Men character, etc where your body is seen or just covered in clothing and accessories or weaponry.) but this was my first ever full armor build. My son asked one day almost 3 years ago, 'Hey Mommy, can I be a Transformer for Halloween?' and the rest they say, is history. He is a G1 fan like his Mom and chose this character himself, wanting one that would be recognized not only out and about, but at the Conventions we planned to go to. Starscream went out on Halloween weekend, unfinished, 2009, and won his first costume contest at AdventureCon in Pigeon Forge Tennessee. He cosplayed Starscream for 2 years total, so far, with three 'upgrades' to build up pieces to account for the fact he was growing up as we went, and was 'crowned' the Prince at BotCon 2010, by King Starscream and his 'fans' and friends, and the crown and cape become a permanent part of the ensemble at the request of the King from there forward. There are 6 jewels now in the crown- one for each contest he's won first place in as The Prince.
Here he is with the King:
And my absolute most favorite picture of them....the King and the Prince, walking away together, going shopping on the BotCon sales floor:
Starscream started it all for this part of our cosplay. I had NO idea what I was doing on him, and scrwed up...A LOT. But it all worked out in the end, and lead to me deciding to make my own.
I went a little bolder and made an original. I built my namesake....
Lady Megatron, aka Meg, Megara, Meggie to my friends and the cosplay group.
Meg made her debut at BotCon 2010, in the company of King Starscream (my amazing buddy Ken) and the Prince.
I still had little clue to what I was doing on armor costumes, but I made a real working cannon that shot confetti for her, and managed to get short little me up to 6 feet in the costume thanks to very tall boots that made her feet (the lower legs are built over it, so it just looks like I'm taller than I really am and not in 5 inch block heels). Only problem is, my feet hurt like heck after four hours in the thing! :wacko DUH. And I was still super short in comparison to the 15 foot tall King Starscream! (Then again, we ALL looked small compared to him! :lol )
I could move well and was uber proud of my Megatron helmet. I was hooked at this point. Only problem was Meg was heavy (about 50 pounds total) and was really hot. And in the Florida heat where we were at BotCon, her outer layer of glue that held the vinyl exterior on, was actually melting and making it fall apart, and I was having shoulder problems. So, after BotCon, I stripped off all the exterior material, and took it back down to bare framework, and used thin vinyl on her instead. It gave her a much better, shinier look and lightened up the costume to about 20-25 pounds instead of 50. I sported her new shiny look, along with a G1 style energon wrecking ball mace and new reflective optics (eyes) at Baltimore ComicCon, where she won her first contest (only time I entered her in one). Her eyes also flash red like Megatron's do in the G1 cartoons, and is set up on a hidden switch on my side, and her cannon now had a confetti six-shooter in it instead of a single shot.
Comparison from BotCon to BCC:
Lady Megatron and Lady Galvatron, the head G1 Ladies at BotCon 2010:
(This one shows how much taller the costume made me. I was actually shorter than the lady who did the girl Galvatron out of costume, and I am a lot taller than her in Meg)
Lady Meg and Prince Starscream, Mother and son duo, at BCC:
And a very bad picture, because you can see my mask sides, but still so cool at the same time! Lady Meg taking on the Lambo twins' Sunstreaker, as Sideswipe is coming to aide and Blaster is ready to pounce her too. Taking on three bots, all one handed, at NJCC!
Now I had kinda gotten the feel of this armor costume stuff...sort of. Matt decided to do a mini-con this time, and have a second suit to take to BotCon 2010. He chose to be FRENZY, because he'd be close to correct size, and we'd not seen anyone do a Frenzy yet. So I set to work on the next one, using my light frame and vinyl method that I used on Meg's re-work, and here's what we come up with:
Frenzy I have to say, has been the best costume I've made in this line up as far as wear and tear and taking abuse, because this kid of mine as beat the crap out of the costume and it's not fallen apart yet! I have had to glue back his guns a few times, and we added the Frenzy hand drills from the All Hail Megatron comics line, and I've had to fix the mask once, but other than that, we've not had any problems. Frenzy debuted on the second day of BotCon 2010, and has been driving me crazy ever since! :lol My son REALLY gets into character with this one, he can climb, run, breakdance on the floor, sit, monkey around, get into shenanigans and torment Autobot cosplayers in Frenzy. Our group was leaving the costume panel (where I was a speaker and Matt was in the crowd in Frenzy jumping around... LOL!) and next thing we knew, he was RUNNING full blast down the hall, arms waving like a lunatic (mimicking a scene in G1). :lol
Frenzy as he walked around somewhat calm on the sales floor at BotCon, boppin' around to music coming from his small Soundwave tape deck prop.
And here's Mom and son as Lady Meg and Frenzy, at New Jersey Collector's Con-
For BotCon 2011, our friends that were the makers of the King, decided to make a huge Grimlock, and Devastator. They live the closest to us of any of our group (we in TN and they in VA) and BotCon was going to literally be all the way across the country in California for us, so we had to come up with something MUCH lighter, and would fit in a suitcase, and wouldn't break if squished.
My son decided if Grimlock was going to be there, he couldn't be without his little buddy, WHEELIE. So I set to work on turning my son into the minibot buddy of Grimlock. I was working on a very tight budget and under certain specs for getting it in a suitcase and on the plane. I found orange sheets in a pack at a second hand store for $4, and a huge roll of foam for $10, and Wheelie was under way! He wound up being pretty much a giant plushie, with flexible plastic framing for the parts that needed to stay in form, and foam everywhere else, all covered in the material. The helmet had the attached face mask, and left it open on the face for him to be able to move and actually talk with just facepaint on, since Matt can mimic Wheelie's voice almost perfectly, and was able to walk around BotCon actually talking in rhymes as the character, complete with working slingshot that actually shot glowing purple 'energon rocks'.
Here he is walking around at BotCon-
And here he met Gregg Berger, the voice of Grimlock, with our buddy's giant Grimlock cosplay, and Matt was actually exchanging movie lines with Mr Berger in his Grimlock voice and he was talking to him as Wheelie.
Here, Wheelie, the littlest of the minibots, takes on big old bad Devastator with his slingshot, and I got this awesome shot of it! The guy in Devvy is actually our close friend who did King Starscream, and let Wheelie shoot him with the slingshot. :lol
And now this brings me up to date to our current ones!
(Posting them in another entry so this one isn't any longer than it already is.)
First on the roll, my first ever 'armor' style costume....
Prince Starscream
I've done plenty of what I call 'walkabout' or 'softie' costumes (which is basically anything that isn't full armor and is something that is similar or is actual clothing or made from only various cloth or material that is soft and your face and whole body is not covered completely. What I call Armor builds are like Starscream here, or like, for example, Master Chief, IronMan, Darth Vader etc, where most of your body is covered by 'armor' whether it be soft or actual armor in build. What I call Softies are like, a jedi, a pirate, an X-Men character, etc where your body is seen or just covered in clothing and accessories or weaponry.) but this was my first ever full armor build. My son asked one day almost 3 years ago, 'Hey Mommy, can I be a Transformer for Halloween?' and the rest they say, is history. He is a G1 fan like his Mom and chose this character himself, wanting one that would be recognized not only out and about, but at the Conventions we planned to go to. Starscream went out on Halloween weekend, unfinished, 2009, and won his first costume contest at AdventureCon in Pigeon Forge Tennessee. He cosplayed Starscream for 2 years total, so far, with three 'upgrades' to build up pieces to account for the fact he was growing up as we went, and was 'crowned' the Prince at BotCon 2010, by King Starscream and his 'fans' and friends, and the crown and cape become a permanent part of the ensemble at the request of the King from there forward. There are 6 jewels now in the crown- one for each contest he's won first place in as The Prince.
Here he is with the King:
And my absolute most favorite picture of them....the King and the Prince, walking away together, going shopping on the BotCon sales floor:
Starscream started it all for this part of our cosplay. I had NO idea what I was doing on him, and scrwed up...A LOT. But it all worked out in the end, and lead to me deciding to make my own.
I went a little bolder and made an original. I built my namesake....
Lady Megatron, aka Meg, Megara, Meggie to my friends and the cosplay group.
Meg made her debut at BotCon 2010, in the company of King Starscream (my amazing buddy Ken) and the Prince.
I still had little clue to what I was doing on armor costumes, but I made a real working cannon that shot confetti for her, and managed to get short little me up to 6 feet in the costume thanks to very tall boots that made her feet (the lower legs are built over it, so it just looks like I'm taller than I really am and not in 5 inch block heels). Only problem is, my feet hurt like heck after four hours in the thing! :wacko DUH. And I was still super short in comparison to the 15 foot tall King Starscream! (Then again, we ALL looked small compared to him! :lol )
I could move well and was uber proud of my Megatron helmet. I was hooked at this point. Only problem was Meg was heavy (about 50 pounds total) and was really hot. And in the Florida heat where we were at BotCon, her outer layer of glue that held the vinyl exterior on, was actually melting and making it fall apart, and I was having shoulder problems. So, after BotCon, I stripped off all the exterior material, and took it back down to bare framework, and used thin vinyl on her instead. It gave her a much better, shinier look and lightened up the costume to about 20-25 pounds instead of 50. I sported her new shiny look, along with a G1 style energon wrecking ball mace and new reflective optics (eyes) at Baltimore ComicCon, where she won her first contest (only time I entered her in one). Her eyes also flash red like Megatron's do in the G1 cartoons, and is set up on a hidden switch on my side, and her cannon now had a confetti six-shooter in it instead of a single shot.
Comparison from BotCon to BCC:
Lady Megatron and Lady Galvatron, the head G1 Ladies at BotCon 2010:
(This one shows how much taller the costume made me. I was actually shorter than the lady who did the girl Galvatron out of costume, and I am a lot taller than her in Meg)
Lady Meg and Prince Starscream, Mother and son duo, at BCC:
And a very bad picture, because you can see my mask sides, but still so cool at the same time! Lady Meg taking on the Lambo twins' Sunstreaker, as Sideswipe is coming to aide and Blaster is ready to pounce her too. Taking on three bots, all one handed, at NJCC!
Now I had kinda gotten the feel of this armor costume stuff...sort of. Matt decided to do a mini-con this time, and have a second suit to take to BotCon 2010. He chose to be FRENZY, because he'd be close to correct size, and we'd not seen anyone do a Frenzy yet. So I set to work on the next one, using my light frame and vinyl method that I used on Meg's re-work, and here's what we come up with:
Frenzy I have to say, has been the best costume I've made in this line up as far as wear and tear and taking abuse, because this kid of mine as beat the crap out of the costume and it's not fallen apart yet! I have had to glue back his guns a few times, and we added the Frenzy hand drills from the All Hail Megatron comics line, and I've had to fix the mask once, but other than that, we've not had any problems. Frenzy debuted on the second day of BotCon 2010, and has been driving me crazy ever since! :lol My son REALLY gets into character with this one, he can climb, run, breakdance on the floor, sit, monkey around, get into shenanigans and torment Autobot cosplayers in Frenzy. Our group was leaving the costume panel (where I was a speaker and Matt was in the crowd in Frenzy jumping around... LOL!) and next thing we knew, he was RUNNING full blast down the hall, arms waving like a lunatic (mimicking a scene in G1). :lol
Frenzy as he walked around somewhat calm on the sales floor at BotCon, boppin' around to music coming from his small Soundwave tape deck prop.
And here's Mom and son as Lady Meg and Frenzy, at New Jersey Collector's Con-
For BotCon 2011, our friends that were the makers of the King, decided to make a huge Grimlock, and Devastator. They live the closest to us of any of our group (we in TN and they in VA) and BotCon was going to literally be all the way across the country in California for us, so we had to come up with something MUCH lighter, and would fit in a suitcase, and wouldn't break if squished.
My son decided if Grimlock was going to be there, he couldn't be without his little buddy, WHEELIE. So I set to work on turning my son into the minibot buddy of Grimlock. I was working on a very tight budget and under certain specs for getting it in a suitcase and on the plane. I found orange sheets in a pack at a second hand store for $4, and a huge roll of foam for $10, and Wheelie was under way! He wound up being pretty much a giant plushie, with flexible plastic framing for the parts that needed to stay in form, and foam everywhere else, all covered in the material. The helmet had the attached face mask, and left it open on the face for him to be able to move and actually talk with just facepaint on, since Matt can mimic Wheelie's voice almost perfectly, and was able to walk around BotCon actually talking in rhymes as the character, complete with working slingshot that actually shot glowing purple 'energon rocks'.
Here he is walking around at BotCon-
And here he met Gregg Berger, the voice of Grimlock, with our buddy's giant Grimlock cosplay, and Matt was actually exchanging movie lines with Mr Berger in his Grimlock voice and he was talking to him as Wheelie.
Here, Wheelie, the littlest of the minibots, takes on big old bad Devastator with his slingshot, and I got this awesome shot of it! The guy in Devvy is actually our close friend who did King Starscream, and let Wheelie shoot him with the slingshot. :lol
And now this brings me up to date to our current ones!
(Posting them in another entry so this one isn't any longer than it already is.)