RUNNELS VISION – By Jacob Runnels
Shedding the costume
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A week or so ago, I came home to a repairman fixing my sink. After the normal chit-chat about the job, he asked me why in the world there was a giant anchor in the middle of my living room, next to a diving suit.
I told him they were cosplay props, including the opera ...
Shedding the costume
––––
A week or so ago, I came home to a repairman fixing my sink. After the normal chit-chat about the job, he asked me why in the world there was a giant anchor in the middle of my living room, next to a diving suit.
I told him they were cosplay props, including the opera mask, battleaxe, rifle, monstrous “wooden jaw” and bionic eye hanging on my wall — as well as the chainsaw spear, wild west-inspired rifle and spiked “do no enter” sign shield in the corner. He was curious as to how I made all of them, to which I responded a majority of them were made of yoga mats that were cut up, shaped with heat, stuck together with contact cement glue and painted. The conversation ended there, where he mumbled “that’s cool” and “gotta go,” but I’m used to those kinds of reactions to my work.
In case you were wondering, cosplay is a hobby where people dress up with other people as their favorite characters from pop culture while attending some sort of event, like a convention. It can be as simple as portraying someone with easy-enough clothing choices or complex like building suits of armor and weapons. I fall into the latter.
Anyway, when I was crafting my diving suit in the front yard of my apartment, it was a public attraction to nearly all of my neighbors in my row. They were amazed by the suit of armor I was fervently adding foam to as I moved along with the project, where a popular reaction included I was making a “Luke Skywalker suit” (which the person kept making the mistake of meaning to say “Darth Vader”).
My other neighbors would gawk as they would say offer supportive words but ultimately, they’d start tuning out once I got into the specifics of my projects. To be honest, I don’t really mind it all that much. I’ve grown very accustomed to minding my own business, toiling away for weeks on end in solitude while the world moved on around me and unknowing of what kind of creations I was crafting.
The most open I’ve been about my cosplay exploits involved a story I wrote for my college’s magazine nearly a couple of years ago, where I highlighted some local cosplayers and wrote a little bit about myself. I get photos of myself taken almost all the time while in costume, but something made me a bit nervous posing for a photo that would be published in a magazine all around campus.
I’ve been a social recluse about my hobby, which I picked up in 2013. I’m still keeping my interest strong, though. Again, I don’t mind getting the bystander effect when people check out my props. I like going for flashy stuff that guarantees jaws to drop, from the painting to the special effects.
It sounds condescending, but you’d have to experience what I go through at conventions in order to understand. Whenever I’m staring from inside a suit or through a mask, besides my obscured line of vision for movement, I’m treated to an audience of likeminded people who do indeed stop to take my picture or take selfies with me.
I’m no cosplay celebrity (I know some of the local ones, though), and I’d consider myself an uninteresting person to talk to, so it’s no surprise how cosplayers, with pieces of art that range from mediocre to stunning, don’t follow up with conversation from me. The thought of being showcased for my talents is contrasted by the fact people who do admire what I do generally don’t want to talk about it.
And you know what? That’s fine by me. I’ve been doing this long enough to recognize when I want to indulge people in my hobby or not. If there’s anyone in this world who will indulge me on conversations about painting styles or types of foam to use, it’d be my talented cosplaying girlfriend. Maybe that’s why I haven’t spilled the beans about my hobby at work until now.
In between, I can rely on posting my cosplay pictures on social media, where sometimes I can get into a good conversation about the tools of the trade or sculpting techniques. It’s an art that has quite a niche audience when it comes to discussing the equally alienating and specific information about how the hobby works.
Though this is a topic that is seen as “weird” or obscure, it’s coming along to becoming a bit more normalized in our culture. As an initiative to get myself to open up more about this, I implore anyone reading this to email me if they want to talk about my techniques to crafting armor or painting it. I’ll even share some of my pictures with you if requested, and do let me know if this kind of stuff interests you, either through email at jrunnels@marysvillejt.com or by phone.
-Jacob Runnels is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune