Nun Pod With Left Grief

This week’s cover art is drawn from a photoshoot Han did with partner Hannah in 2023. Hannah created the prayer beads and heavily modified the corset; Han created the blouse and belt. Photo editing in consultation with Claire.

Han’s Cosplay Corner

Claire has bullied me into highlighting my cosplay so here’s a rundown of my major builds.

The first TLT cosplay I did was Harrow. I spent about two weeks handsewing basically all waking hours, and I created a lovely cotton lawn blouse that I’ve since used for Harrow, put on my wife for Harrow (see this week’s cover art), and put on my son for Ortus. This is just my stock Ninth Shirt (except Gideon, my Gideon is all tank tops all the time). The pattern and gathering technique draw from Bernadette Banner’s 18th century shirt video, though she did drop shoulders and a folded collar, and I did a gathered front and a band collar. I’m very pleased with the shape overall. Voluminous, lightweight, big puffy sleeves with just a little oomph at the shoulder, extremely comfortable and cool for cosplay. Cotton lawn is an excellent cosplay material (note: it is often sheer, particularly in white).

The thing about me is, I’m insane. I started off at Claire’s invitation to cosplay for the first time, and was like “well I have all this black cotton lawn anyway, and I’ve been meaning to make a new shirt anyway…” And then if I was going to make a new shirt, it might as well have some interesting drape and gathers, because otherwise I could just buy a new shirt. And textually, textually, Gideon references buttoning all Harrow’s buttons up the wrong way, so there ought to be buttons. And if there’s buttons I may as well make them myself. And while technically I only need about six buttons to make the shirt functional, I should really do nine. You know, thematically. And if I do nine then shouldn’t they be embroidered with little skulls? And if they’re embroidered with little skulls, shouldn’t they be house specific? And if they’re going to be house specific there should be gold work detailing.

And of course the sleeves will need button closures as well.

Each button is 1cm tall. May I draw your attention, please, to the gold-worked rose on the eye of the seventh house button. Is it legible? No, of course not, it is three millimeters across.

And like, fine. That’s fine. The skull motif was obviously not going to translate on a cell phone screen but art isn’t about being practical anyway. But here’s the thing.

I style it like this.

Anyway, that was my first cosplay project.

Claire and I also did a bunch of closet cosplay together on that trip (we live in different countries). Our Mercy and Jod were almost entirely closet, though I made Claire’s crown (it remains unfinished, RIP).

Our Magnus and Abigail were also drawn from stuff we had on hand, although I happen to have (hand-)stitched my skirt (gathering was kind of a theme for me during early COVID idk) and Claire’s (green) shirt.

My next big build was another John crown, which I made out of stained glass, copper wire, raccoon finger bones, and garnets.

The Harrow rib cage I had put together out of whatever random scraps Claire had lying around had started to show some wear so I wanted to try making a new one out of leather. I had done some boiled leather in the past and thought it would be a good balance of flexibility and sculptability. Unfortunately the leather I got was mislabeled and the way it was tanned was incompatible with this technique, so I spent a ton of time soaking it and baking every piece for no reason.

Ultimately I like this more as an art object than as a costume piece. The spine is made of gold hinges and chain.

The scapula is carved with “one flesh one end.”

One of the ribs is broken and badly repaired in tribute to my actual body.

The mask is glorious but also now exists only as an art object because Alecto [cat] peed on it. This is 100% a salvage piece, incorporating scrap cotton, a bit of an antique tablecloth, leftover raccoon flanges from the crown project, pearls, carved-bone roses, and little gold tone spacer beads I had around. I love how it turned out and I’m sad that it’s too delicate to clean the cat pee out of.

My next full build was Coronabeth, who got a new shirt, a reversible waist cincher, trousers, robes, and shoes. I love the Third palate. Strong purples, purply-blues, golds, absolutely sign me up.

This is the full ensemble (minus shoe customization). I shot this on my birthday that year!

The shirt is similar in construction to Harrow’s shirt but it has longer cuffs, a shorter collar, less gathering, and is made of a stiffer fabric. This was stash fabric and I don’t totally know what it is, but some kind of cotton-linen blend probably. I think I used two different fabrics, one for most of it and one for the cuffs and the front panel, which are just a little stiffer. Corona’s blouse features an asymmetrical cross-over design referencing fencing jackets. When I designed this I planned to use it for both Corona and Kiriona, with Corona having it styled open and Kiriona styling it more buttoned up.

The front buttons down with skulls with an amethyst after every nine skulls (also stash items), and the sleeves close with three amethysts. The closures are fake. Coronabeth holds it together with the waist cincher and Kiriona holds it together with pins or just by tucking it in.

The trousers are mostly just trousers, but they’re only the second pair of working trousers I’ve ever made, so I’m proud of them. They’re made of polyester suiting that was like $3 a yard, and they’re Fine.

The waist cincher is silly. One side is a polyester satin-finish brocade that wants to fray in every direction, and the other side is polyester satin overlaid with lace. Also I made a frustrating construction error so right when I thought I was done, I wasn’t.

Did you like the beading? No? You didn’t see the beading because the beading is invisible?? On the left side of this photo is before beading and on the right is after.

I wasn’t sure what to do about the invisible beading issue so I added more invisible beads. We die like men.

I took a bunch of photos of the robes as I was constructing them and then deleted them because who wants to see construction photos of my house robes. The robes are also heavily beaded and have satin ribbon details. The gold embroidery is how the fabric came but all the pink, blue, and purple notes I added. I did also add some gold and translucent-opal beads but of course they are invisible.

The boots are a lovely pearlescent PVC with pinky-purply-blue straps, and I painted the hardware gold and added gold doodles that I thought Corona would like. Also when I wear them at conventions I am 6’3″ and that’s, that’s gender, babes.

I also cosplay Gideon, but my Gideon relies very little on custom goods, as I tend to put her in black tank tops. But sometimes it’s fun to play with questions like, what happens to grease paint when you get, like, a lot of blood in it?

My current, ongoing, not really moving right now build is Kiriona.

As I mentioned in the show, my sternum does not behave as expected, and that gives me space for heart crimes. My chest prosthetic is one of my favorite ever art pieces. It is embroidered and beaded.

She’s glorious.

Ultimately I would like my Kiriona to look like this:

This requires me to make a suit, which I don’t know how to do, and a waistcoat that will naturally be almost entirely covered up by that suit and will only serve to make me more uncomfortably warm at cons. But in my defense.

What if I did.