by Michael Sacco

This year marked Cryptozoic's first Darkmoon Faire Costume Contest, and a number of skilled costumers stopped by to show off their impressive World of Warcraft and other Blizzard-related costumes. Competition was fierce – so fierce, in fact, that the judges were forced to call a tie! The joint winners were Maryssa for her Alexstrasza costume and Cynthia Hall for Syreian the Bonecarver. After the contest, I spoke with the winners about their costumes.

Michael: What made you want to make a costume of this particular character?

Maryssa: I really like Alexstrasza from the lore; I think she's a really neat character, and she looks great in-game and in official art. Plus, I think it's pretty cool that the overseer of all life on Azeroth is a girl, even if she is a big dragon!

Cynthia: When I started playing Wrath of the Lich King, I thought the vrykul were really sweet, especially the women. My first memory of Wrath is cresting over one of the hills and seeing the vrykul fighting the tuskarr. When I saw the art, I thought she looked really cool, and it was great to find out that she was a rare spawn in the game too, not just a hero in the TCG!

Michael: What materials was your costume made out of?

Maryssa: Most of the costume made out of craft foam, but some bigger pieces are made out of wonderflex, which is a foam-like material that becomes malleable when you heat it up.

Cynthia: It's mostly made out leather and some sheepskin. Leather is awesome, because it's easy to work with and can imitate a variety of materials, making it look authentic. Plus you smell like cows all day.

Michael: What was the process for making your costume?

Maryssa:  I spent a lot of time looking at her in-game, looking at her from all angles to see how everything fell and was shaped. I made the costume out of card stock first to see how stuff fit together and then made everything out of craftfoam once I decided it was working. I use Krazy Glue to hold everything together, because it has this weird chemical reaction with craft foam. It even starts heating up! It basically permanently bonds the two pieces together. They'll just break if you try to pull them apart. Once everything was bonded, I covered the foam in Elmer's glue to give the spraypaint something to attach to, which keeps it looking much shinier and more glossy. In the game, it's hard to tell what material the shoulders are made out of! I had to ask the guy who originally made her new design. I ended up using cloth and leather to make mine, but he says that it's real armor. Sometimes it's hard to tell with World of Warcraft armor.

Cynthia: I started with just paper and cloth patterns. I used the Model Viewer to help me check on how the pieces were made, because the TCG version of Syreian only has art facing the front. I made the patterns out of paper and cloth to get them out of my head, if the patterns fit then I directly cut them out of leather. Other than that, it was just a lot of time! But it's nice wearing sheepskin, it's very soft.

Michael: Do you have any upcoming costume projects planned?

Maryssa: Should I say? Trade secrets! *laughs* For BlizzCon, I have something big planned. A bunch of us want to be sexy burlesque versions of the Dragon Aspects. It should be a lot of fun!

Cynthia: For my next project, I'm thinking about making Ysera ... not for BlizzCon, just to have. I'm sure I'll figure something out for next year's BlizzCon, but I worked so hard for this year's costume that I kind of don't want to think about it for a while! *laughs*

Michael: What was your favorite costume in the contest, besides yours?

Marissa: I loved the baby turtle mount! How can you argue with that? It's adorable.

Cynthia: Pumpkinz the warlock was amazing! It took so much work. She had to spend so much time aging the fabric and she didn't even have that much time to work on it.

Michael: Do you play the TCG?

Maryssa: I've played a little when it first came out, but I don't have a lot of friends that play this kind of game. I used to work at Neopets and we had a TCG for that game, so I had to learn how to play. This one is fun, really easy to pick up, and I love looking at all the artwork. Christina (Estrada, the bounty player for DMF LA) said she'd teach me to play more, so she had better!

Cynthia: I got into the TCG because of the World of Warcraft MMO! I wanted to play for the longest time but my local friends had stopped playing, so I never had time to learn until just this past year. I've had a lot of opportunity to play at various hobby shops and the conventions I go to, and even helping Cryptozoic demo the game at shows and conventions.