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Dragon*Con costumes and more
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- Posted August 27, 2012 by
- azoreanjeff Follow
Location
Asheville 28803, North Carolina
Asheville 28803, North Carolina
Assignment
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"How will you move in that?"
My name is Jeff Rickert, and I am a restaurant host at an English-style tavern. My coworkers know that I am a geek, and that I do costuming, but none of them would believe it if they saw the kinds of things I make for Dragon*Con.
When it comes to costuming skills, I lucked out with the perfect mentors. My mother is a creative artist with a talent for sewing, quilting and painting. I like to think I have inherited her eye for aesthetics and some of her creativity! My father is the consummate handyman, with the right tool for every job, and has been teaching me how to use them all since I could walk.
In previous years I have done original costumes in the Steampunk genre and cosplayed characters inspired by the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40k. I find Warhammer to be a fun genre to base costumes on, because everything is big and over the top. When my girlfriend and I walk around at Dragon*Con, having our pictures taken in costume is one of our favorite parts, even if it sometimes means taking three times as long to get across a room! This year marks my fourth trip to Dragon*Con, and so I have decided to do something even bigger and more ambitious than any of my costumes to date!
My costume this year, which I have spent most of my free time working on since the beginning of March, is a suit of Terminator Power Armor from Warhammer 40k. The kind of character I am depicting, a Chaos Lord, is a vile warrior that towers over humans in his bulky armor. This is a bit of a challenge, even though I am already six feet tall! To make this costume, I have had to construct a giant frame around my torso and make everything match that scale. I have outdone my previous costumes this year with lights and sound, from glowing-eyed demon faces stretched across the armor, to built-in speakers to blast forth the sounds of Chaos! Every time I show friends the pictures of my progress, they ask, "Isn't it heavy?", "How will you move in that," or "Won't it be hot?" For me, costuming is a labor of love, and no amount of temporary discomfort will get between me and creating a spectacular and memorable costume.
When it comes to costuming skills, I lucked out with the perfect mentors. My mother is a creative artist with a talent for sewing, quilting and painting. I like to think I have inherited her eye for aesthetics and some of her creativity! My father is the consummate handyman, with the right tool for every job, and has been teaching me how to use them all since I could walk.
In previous years I have done original costumes in the Steampunk genre and cosplayed characters inspired by the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40k. I find Warhammer to be a fun genre to base costumes on, because everything is big and over the top. When my girlfriend and I walk around at Dragon*Con, having our pictures taken in costume is one of our favorite parts, even if it sometimes means taking three times as long to get across a room! This year marks my fourth trip to Dragon*Con, and so I have decided to do something even bigger and more ambitious than any of my costumes to date!
My costume this year, which I have spent most of my free time working on since the beginning of March, is a suit of Terminator Power Armor from Warhammer 40k. The kind of character I am depicting, a Chaos Lord, is a vile warrior that towers over humans in his bulky armor. This is a bit of a challenge, even though I am already six feet tall! To make this costume, I have had to construct a giant frame around my torso and make everything match that scale. I have outdone my previous costumes this year with lights and sound, from glowing-eyed demon faces stretched across the armor, to built-in speakers to blast forth the sounds of Chaos! Every time I show friends the pictures of my progress, they ask, "Isn't it heavy?", "How will you move in that," or "Won't it be hot?" For me, costuming is a labor of love, and no amount of temporary discomfort will get between me and creating a spectacular and memorable costume.
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