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Completed August 2010 – featured in Cosmode Japan #036; Cosmode Japan Anniversary Issue #040; Kotaku

Inspiration
A close friend commanded that I cosplay Jack. Strangely, a few other friends independently suggested I cosplay her, too. I shaved my head many years ago for fun, so I suspect whenever my friends see a bald chick costume they automatically think of me. I don’t think I particularly resemble Jack. That was the biggest challenge for me with this cosplay. I don’t fancy myself a model or actress. This cosplay required a lot of attitude to bring the character out. It’s nice to know that even cosplaying as long as I have, I can still feel nervous about cosplay…

Construction
The bodysuit is is sewn of matte spandex and painted with Jacquard Fabric Paint.  The boot covers have a base of wonderflex covered in stretch pleather. I sewed the straps, adding the white contrast stitching like the pants. I bought door clasps at Home Depot for the closures. The boot “buckles” are a bit of a trompe l’oeil. I didn’t have time to make proper clasps, or even think about how to engineer that in my limited time frame.  They look okay, but they bother me and I’d like to redo them. But I probably won’t.

I didn’t have time to make an awesome gun. But Jack doesn’t need material weapons to kick booty! I bought some clear plastic rings with blue LED lights in them. I wore them backwards, which created an awesome lighting effect when used with non-flash photography. I also used some small LED lights to backlight the foam ear piece that I made for her.

Photos
These were taken at two locations. The daytime ones were taken at Hoover Dam. The nighttime ones were taken around City Center in Las Vegas. We took the bulk of the photos around midnight on a Saturday night, which meant lots of drunken frat boys interrupting us. It was amusing. A lot of them thought I was actually topless, which either means a) I did a good job or, more likely, b) they were really drunk.

Photos by Kyle Johnsen