WuKo at Gallery Nucleus

Justin and I just recently went to the Avatar Tribute Exhibition at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra. If you haven’t been before, check out their website or give them a visit because they have new exhibitions all the time!

Prior to the exhibit, we’ve been wanting to do a cosplay together and this event (and Wondercon a few weeks later) provided the perfect opportunity to do that! We’ve watched Korra together and since the introduction of Prince Wu to the cast, a couple of friends joked with the idea that I should cosplay as him. So with that, I took that offer up and decided to make a Wu cosplay for me and a Mako one for Justin! Justin’s outfit was mostly made out of cotton and mine was made of crepe-backed satin. Maybe I’ll make a build log of our outfits if I ever get the time.

Fast-forward to the day of the event… just walking up to the gallery before it even opened was pretty fun. As soon as we crossed the street, people were asking for photos because it was probably the first time they saw a WuKo pair together. Tons of pictures were taken and people shouted out things like “hold hands,” or “carry him!” There’s a post on tumblr that went kinda viral with our pictures.

The art at the show was amazing and I got to spot Bryke wandering around a few times too!

Thanks to Joits Photography for this awesome pic of us! It really captures the personality of both characters!

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My first 3D prop model!

Pretty much finished my Arcade Miss Fortune gun model! All done in sketchup. Going to be making two of these for my genderbend cosplay!

Next cosplay prop, work in progress 😀 Arcade Miss Fortune here we goooooo!

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Order of the White Lotus Pai Sho Tile

Going to be giving these out at the next convention I go to as Sokka! #sokka #avatar #tla #cosplay #whitelotus #atla

A photo posted by Patrick Tomas (@patricktomas) on

When I created my Sokka “Day of Black Sun” Wolf Armor cosplay, I wanted to create a fun experience for the people that wanted to take a picture with/of me, or for the people in the Avatar community that I met and wanted to keep in touch with. It’s always fun to give stuff away, especially when it has something to do with the fandom that you’re portraying. It was also used as a pseudo-business card as I printed out a QR code on transparent film and stuck it on the back, which linked to my DeviantArt page.

Something I could give out as Sokka (but was kind of a strech) were White Lotus Pai Sho tiles. In the show, after completing his training with Master Piandao in the Fire Nation, Sokka received a White Lotus tile from the master. I thought it’d be fun to pass it on to the fans at conventions.

I first brought these tiles to Anime Expo but I was extremely conservative in giving them out because I didn’t make very many and I was pretty shy as well.

Come San Diego Comic-Con 2014 and I was even more prepared with small drawstring bag attached to my belt that I stuffed with these White Lotus tiles as well as tiles with the Water Nation symbol on it.

I was much more open with giving these tiles away this time! Later that con, my friends and I managed to get a Legend of Korra party where the show creators and team were. Throughout the party, I had people coming up to me asking for one of the tiles! I happily gave them one until I was down to my last two or three.

Overall, it was fun making these simple tiles. They were cheap and easy to make and were definitely a big hit with everyone I’ve met.

It was even featured on the official Legend of Korra show blog!

KORRA NATION Live from Activision’s LoK video game party at...

Pokemon Messenger Bag!

Super quick and easy messenger bag mod that I’ll be carrying during SDCC and probably future cons. Made it in a few minutes with Adobe Illustrator and used my vinyl cutter and Oracal vinyl to bring it to life. I wanted a bag to hold circular Pokeball QR code wooden tokens I’m going to give away when people take a picture of me or I take one of them!

Found the perfect bag at IKEA and I wanna say thank you to Justin for coming along with me to find it! We found the last one in the store!

Customized this bag for the upcoming weekend! 😬 #SDCC here I come!

A photo posted by Patrick Tomas (@patricktomas) on

Poké (My) Balls

I was talking my coworker, Chris, one morning and I asked him what I should cosplay as for an upcoming convention. His response to me was “a Chansey and you should have Pokeballs that light up and play the Poke Center theme.” I took that and made it happen:

Built with an Arduino Uno, 6 red LEDs, a momentary pushbutton, a piezo buzzer, clear acrylic balls, spray paint, vinyl, and lots of jumper wires.

Here’s a photo of me and my group:

Gaymer X Pokemon!

(Forgot where I got this image but if you know, please tell me so I can give credit )

Two down and 23 to go!

My first Etsy sale!

 

I had a random thought one night to create some Pokeball decals.

After I finished cutting them, layering, and finishing them – I posted my success on reddit and then oddly some people wanted them! So to please the internet I made an Etsy store to sell my decals!

pokeballs

A couple days later I checked my email and lo and behold… a sale! I was pretty surprised when I got my first read that email from Etsy. I totally did not expect it to even happen but I guess people are always looking for Pokemon things?

My first sale made me happy enough that I even included a thank you card and an extra decal on top of the two she ordered!