TwiliteSea (New Jersey)
TwiliteSea (New Jersey)Harley Quinn
I actually made this on a whim, and it seems I do my best work on whims! The costume is constructed out of 4-way stretch lycra, which really is the best stuff to use for form-fitting bodysuits, and super-hero costumes in general. It also came in super handy for this costume because of the hood/mask thingy; just slips right over my head with ease! I don’t use official patterns so everything I did as I went along and with some trial and error. The gloves I made my own pattern for so I can nail the pointy-fingers that all of Bruce Timm’s women seem to have. Same goes for the shoes. The diamonds were first painted on, but I hand-sewed red diamonds on because the paint didn’t look very nice.
The hardest part of this costume was getting the back of the costume to line up, while having a zipper thrown in there. The mallet, one of the few props I’ve made, is made entirely out of the cardboard box the fabric came in! It’s a lotta fun to bonk people on the head 
I’m STUNNED the costume came out as well as it did, especially the hood. Easily my favorite costume.
Oh I freak people out all the time when I do Harley’s voice. If you knew me, you’d know I LOVE doing voice mimicry and when I wear this costume, her voice just comes out naturally! People always ask me, “Where’s Mistah J?” and I respond (in character), “Oh Mistah J’s on vacay!”. Commence the fanboy/girl squeals. But I love it. It just means they love this character as much as I do!
I always loved dressing up as characters and acting stuff out on my own, so I was gonna end up in all this eventually haha. My first “costume” was awful and sadly, there is evidence of it, haha. My first “big” con was Otakon 2004 and from then on, I was hooked on the hobby. My first few costumes were all handsewn – learned from my grandma – and the first time I sewed something via machine was for Katsucon 2005.
What does cosplay mean to me…(geeze why do I feel like this is a pagent question?) Cosplay to me, plain and simple, is just a dorky little hobby where people play dress up. Whether they choose to do it for fun or to be famous is totally their choice, but for me, I do it for fun. I could really care less about the “proper” construction of my costume or whatever; so long as I’m having a good time and I’m not having wardrobe malfunctions, I’m hap-pay. 
I still feel like a 4-year old wrapping rainbow construction-paper strips around my limbs and thinking I’m Sillywhim!
Ali, Becki, Clayce (Texas)
Ali, Becki, Clayce (Plano, TX)Silent Hill Nurses
Becki :
I got interested in cosplaying when I went to my very first convention: Anime Fest 2004. I had no idea what cosplaying was until I went, and it really excited me to see people dressed up as their favorite characters, and I knew I wanted to do that at some point as well. I’m still a cosplay n00b, though..The nurse costume was only my 2nd cosplay, but now that I have the money and determination..I’ll be cosplaying more often.
The outfit my friends and I decided to pick out are “nurse monsters” from the Konami video game “Silent Hill”. I grew up on this game because my dad was an avid player. Many years later, I started becoming interested in it again. So, I introduced it to some of my friends. Our obsession grew, we recruited a few other friends, and spent an ENTIRE summer working on these costumes. We chose the nurses mainly because they’re one of our favorite SH monsters.
All I can say is I’m so glad my friends and I didn’t procrastinate like we usually do. We started the summer before A-Fest…and it took us ALL summer. Everything (except for the shoes and weapons-which we simply altered) was made from scratch. The girls and I (there were originally 5 of us, only 3 of us got to go to A-Fest) decided to have a series of sleep-overs where all we did was work on those costumes! We started with the masks-which we did out of paper mache-then we commissioned one of my other friends to sew our nurse-frocks. We bought a couple of weapons for each of us to carry around as well-but we got them from Party City so they were pretty cheap and sad looking. SO, I sanded them down and painted them to look a little more realistic. We then made the nurse hats, bloodied everything up, and that was it! Doesn’t sound like a lot…but the process took forever!
