"I have defied Gods and Demons..."
- First worn to OmniExpo 2014
- Price wise about $60
- Worked on this for a few weeks
- Awards won: Most Cutting Edge - OmniExpo 2014
Once again I decided to revisit this costume for an upcoming convention, OmniExpo. This was a first year con and they managed to get both Steve Downs and Jen Taylor, the voice of Master Chief and Cortana, as guests. I have never had the chance to meet Jen and I knew that I could not let this opportunity pass me by. I decided to fix up Cortana one last time and retire the costume in true fashion.
So, how do I top this costume for the third time? Since I finally managed to tackle the idea of the coding lines the next step was to make the costume light up. I had considered using EL wire for a long time, but I wanted to go with something a little bit easier. My friend Grace gave me the idea to use battery powered LED fairy lights and it was perfect! I purchased 5 packs of lights and used velcro to attach them to an elastic band that went around my waist. Then it was just a matter of wrapping them around my legs, arms and torso like a Christmas tree. The lights are on a thin wire so they kept the shape pretty well, I used medical tape to hold them down in certain areas. I ended up having to replace about 75% of the beads on the costume. Since they are glass bugle beads they had tarnished over time and turned dark. I put about 10+ hours into just replacing the beads O_O
Another little extra for this costume was the lighted pedestal that made. Since Cortana is a hologram she usually has her base that she projects from when she is on board a ship. I thought this would be a fun accessory to make. I purchased a blue kiddie pool and added a strip of foamie around it to give a raised edge. I then put a piece of felt on the top of the pool so that I could have something soft to stand on. Then all around that I put individual LED lights that had an on/off switch, these lights were small but super powerful. I had a small plastic storage tote that I velcroed to the inside of the pool, this way when I stood on top of it the pool didn't collapse. |
Meeting Master Chief and Cortana
This was definitely an achievement unlocked! I had the great pleasure of meeting Steve Downes about three times at different conventions. I always hoped one day I would be able to meet Jen and complete the dream. When I heard she was going to be at Omni I jumped at the chance and was super excited to meet both of them together. Oh man, she was super duper nice! It was surreal to finally meet her and it didn't really sink in until later that day. I had both of them sign my Acme Archives Direct print that I picked up at Comic Con back in 2008. And since I was retiring the costume I asked Jen if she would sign it. You can see in the video on the right just how much of a fan girl I was.
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