An Elaborate Excuse

Parzival

The first year, I cosplayed as Parzival from Ready Player One.

If you’re unfamiliar, Ready Player One is an Ernest Cline novel adapted into a 2018 film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Wade Watts is struggling to live in a dystopian United States, and he escapes into a virtual-reality world called the OASIS. Its creator has died but left behind a treasure hunt.

Whoever solves it will inherit his fortune and control of the OASIS.

The OASIS has so much influence in that world that it’s what’d happen if you mashed Facebook, Google, and Amazon into one company, then added actually-functional virtual reality.

Ironically, I’ve never watched the film!

I’ve only read the book and watched more video analysis and commentary about the film than the film itself. I don’t know why I watch more video essays than television.

Perhaps I find cultural criticism more interesting than visual narratives. Who knows? Who cares?

Parzival is Wade Watts’s OASIS alter ego. Everyone uses avatars. Parzival looks like Wade with his perceived flaws scrubbed away: perhaps no acne and more muscle, in true geeky-boy fashion.

Much of the film takes place inside the OASIS, so we see the characters’ motion-captured avatars. The film’s Parzival has chalk-white skin, blue markings, and white hair that fades into blue. No idea why. I should research that, but when I saw the design I thought, that’s cool.

The other reason I wanted to make the costume was the vest. Parzival (named after a knight from Arthurian legend) wears a sleeveless denim vest with a golden sword design on the back.

It looked as though it might’ve been applied with fabric paint.

One time, I bought what I thought were fabric markers, only to discover they had to be mixed with fabric medium first. I drew a geometric design on a T-shirt, put it through the wash, and watched all the colors bleed. What came out was a tie-dyed approximation of what I had drawn!

This time, I wanted something more durable.

I’d find a denim vest and sew on a piece of golden fabric. How I would make my body blue, I had no idea. I wanted the vest, and the costume was a good-enough excuse to make it.

This all happened in Spain. (A group of expats I knew hosted Halloween parties.)

My Spanish wasn’t (and still isn’t) great.

Through sheer luck, I found the only second-hand shop within walking distance.

There, I found jeans that fit me! Parzival wears jeans and a T-shirt underneath the sleeveless vest, because he has to show off those blue markings somehow. There was no way I was wearing skinny jeans, so I found wide-legged ones. I wore them for another few years, which was great.

I’m a strong proponent of making cosplay items you can wear separately.

If you’re going to the effort, why not use the bits and pieces in everyday life? I see the amazing things people make, but I still wonder: if you won’t wear it day to day, what’s the point? Even if it’s only the bandanna or the jacket, surely something can have a second life.

I’ve become too much of a minimalist for things to have only one use!

I found a strange denim jacket with sleeves that look full length but only reach above your elbows. They’re held up by fake sleeve tabs, and you couldn’t unfold them. I cut off the sleeves, and reinforced the raw edges. My aim with my clothes is when I’m finished with them, they’re still usable for something: even if only rags. I don’t want things to fall apart.

I would’ve preferred second-hand fabric for the sword, but I couldn’t find it.

To make it, I took scrap paper and sketched an approximation. I would’ve drawn the sword freehand when someone had the bright idea of drawing half, folding the paper, and cutting it out.

I simplified the design because my torso is shorter than Parzival’s. I didn’t want the sword to come right up to my collar, because the pommel would disappear.

I cut the golden fabric with a seam allowance (remembering one!) Overkill, perhaps, but I sewed around the sword so the raw edges were tucked inside before attaching it to the jacket.

Whoever owns it now, I hope they’re enjoying it. I stopped liking the way it fit. It was too tight in the shoulders. I didn’t know how to alter it, so I donated it.

Before that, though, I wore the vest every day I could!

Parzival also has a belt. While buying the ‘sword’ fabric, I found something like vinyl and thought, This’ll be fine. I almost punctured my fingers trying to hand-sew it into a belt. If you’re sewing thick material, get thicker or at least stronger needles, and be careful with your hands!

The OASIS treasure hunt involves three keys to unlock three gates, with a final puzzle leading to the ultimate prize. Parzival finds the first, wearing it on his belt, perhaps because it looks cool. I found a Ferrero Rocher box (gold on one side) cut a key shape from it, and attached it to the belt.

Parzival’s belt also had pockets, so I made some from cardboard and sewed them on. It wasn’t functional! I don’t remember how I fastened it around my waist. Perhaps I sticky-taped it at the back and relied on the jacket to hide the join? The leg holster was sticky-taped on too.

If I made the costume again, I’d build a functional belt somebody could use. I’d also improve the buckle. Parzival’s had a metal lion’s head, whereas I cut mine from the side of the chocolate box.

Then there was the hair!

Mine was dark-brown, and it’s somehow become darker as I’ve aged. Parzival’s is white, and I don’t want to bleach mine until it goes grey. Hair without color is easier to dye!

At one of Spain’s ubiquitous discount bazaars, I found a thick blue marker and a white bobbed wig. Parzival’s hair is closer to a mullet, so I put the wig on my head and cut it into my best approximation of one. I used a tube bandanna as a wig cap. It had Indigenous art on it, which was beautiful, but some of the orange design showed through the wig.

(This version of Parzival was apparently wearing a tiny orange bandanna beneath his hairline!)

Once I’d finished cutting, I took the wig off and drew in the blue sections at the back and sides. I’m not sure what I wore underneath the vest (probably one of my T-shirts.) I wore T-shirts then, although these days I prefer button-ups. They look nicer when I remember to iron them!

Jack Frost

My other cosplay was for another Halloween with the same people, the following year.

I’ve always had a deep love for Rise of the Guardians and its protagonist, Jack Frost. I liked both the character and the way Chris Pine voiced him.

Spoilers for the film: Jack was once a mortal boy.

When his little sister ventured onto dangerous ice, he coaxed her to safety but fell through himself. He drowned, and the Man in the Moon transformed him into the immortal spirit Jack Frost. His hair turned white, in case the name wasn’t obvious.

I thought he looked cool, and his costume was simpler than Parzival’s.

Once again, it involved clothing I could wear: brown trousers with tattered cuffs and bindings around the lower legs, plus a blue hoodie decorated with white frost and snowflakes.

Perhaps the cosplay was an excuse to own that hoodie!

Jack carries a staff shaped a little like a shepherd’s crook, which he uses to direct his ice.

At the same discount shop I mentioned earlier, I bought a broom handle, rolls of sticky tape, and some brown house paint. You make do with what you have.

I wrapped the handle in four rolls of sticky tape to give it a knobbly, wood-like shape. I should’ve used scrap cardboard and newspaper, then taped over that. I didn’t know what I was doing!

For the crook, I used sticks I found, cardboard toilet-paper tubes, and the tube from a roll of paper towel that someone gave me. I fashioned them into an approximation of the hook and attached it with yet more sticky tape. Most people make these staffs from PVC pipe, and I understand why. Mine was flimsy! I know for next time.

I needed new trousers anyway, so I found some brownish ones.

They weren’t as loose as I would’ve liked, but they did the job. I borrowed old shoelaces from someone and tied them around my lower legs to create the bindings.

I also needed a warmer hoodie because it was getting cold and I mostly owned summer clothes. At the time, I preferred zip-up hoodies.

These days I favor the kind you pull over your head, because zips never seem reliable.

I was taking painting classes then, so I asked my teacher whether she knew where I could find white fabric paint. She happened to have some she wanted to get rid of and taught me how to apply it properly. I used it to paint frost patterns onto the hoodie.

Not long afterwards, I finished the last of my vertical growing, so the hoodie didn’t fit for as long as I would have liked. Wow, I loved that thing!

Afterwards

Those are the only two costumes I’ve ever made, but you should try everything once.

I’ve also been to a Comic-Con, simply because I happened to be in Adelaide the week it was on. I only found out when I passed the showgrounds on route to the supermarket!

I managed to buy a ticket at the door. Had I known, I would’ve planned more, but I move through life without deciding too far in advance where I’ll physically be. That leaves room for serendipity.

If I ever go to another Comic-Con, I’ll dress up.

It was lovely to revisit these memories! If you want to dress up, please do. It’s fun.

Bonus points if you create a piece of clothing you’ve always wanted to wear, because that’s the best part of cosplay: making something that wouldn’t otherwise exist.