Cosplay is becoming more and more popular around the world and at conventions. I’ve personally found a lot of joy and personal confidence doing cosplay at conventions, and the number one reason I started was as an activity with my son. After seeing a great panel about Cosplay Families at Rose City Comic Con, I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk to parents and families who cosplay and spotlight them here on GeekDad!
Cosplay Family Spotlight is a new recurring segment where I interview and spotlight a cosplay family. This week, I interview Nerdy at Home Dad.
Interested in participating? Leave a comment here or reach out to me on twitter @billythebrick.
- GeekDad:
- How many members of your family are involved in cosplay?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- Just my son and me. I make the cosplays, and he wears them. My wife helps us every now and then, especially when there’s something I just can’t figure out.
- GeekDad:
- How did you and your family get into cosplay and prop/armor making? Did one particular member start it or did you all jump in together? What was your first cosplay?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
It all started with Rocket Raccoon. J had watched an episode of Ultimate Spider-Man that featured Rocket, and he really wanted a Rocket costume. Sadly, this was before the movie came out so there was nothing in stores just yet, so I had to make one. I looked for an outfit that would look the easiest, so we went for the classic blue guardians uniform. After that, we made some friends who helped us get to where we are now.- GeekDad:
- Do you have a favorite cosplay of yours? A favorite group cosplay you’ve done as a family?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
My favorite that I’ve made has to be his Cassian Andor and his Ezra Bridger cosplays. J was excited about those from concept to completion. His would be Luke Skywalker because Luke is his favorite Star Wars character.- GeekDad:
- Speaking of group cosplay, do you always try to cosplay together? Or do you all do your own thing?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- So far we haven’t done a group cosplay. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a K2SO cosplay to go along with his Cassian.
- GeekDad:
- Do you have a favorite piece that challenged you?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
His Rocket undershirt has to have been the most challenging. Sewing faux fur onto a long sleeve undershirt while having zero sewing skills was something I never thought I would do or complete.- GeekDad:
- What’s your favorite “medium” to work in (sewing, EVA foam, resin casting, etc.)?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- I’ve grown to love sewing. To me, it is a big stress reliever, and I always get excited when a new cosplay has a lot of sewing involved. I also love painting NERF blasters.
- GeekDad:
- It’s been awhile, but I used to do quite a bit of scale model building and I see a lot of similarities in techniques between small-scale building and prop and armor building. Have you ever done any scale modeling or smaller scale builds?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- I haven’t done small scale. I probably should. It would probably make crafting a lot easier.
- GeekDad:
- Most of our readers are parents and, like me, want to share their geeky interests with their kids. I’ve been doing father and son cosplay with my son since he was born. Do you have any suggestions on how parents can get their kids interested and involved with cosplay and fabrication?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- It’s all about making them cosplays that they want to wear. Yes, kids make a great canvas, but if they don’t like the costume they won’t want to wear it all day at a convention. J chooses every character that he cosplays, and it makes con life that much easier.
- GeekDad:
- Something along the lines of “Being a geek isn’t about what you love but how you love it,” is sort of the new geek mantra. Do you have anything, besides cosplay, that you consider yourself a geek about?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- We both are huge Star Wars and Marvel geeks. We also geek out pretty hard over Disney.
- GeekDad:
- What upcoming conventions do you have on your schedule that people could see you at?
- Nerdy at Home Dad:
- We will be at Star Wars Celebration 2017 (it started yesterday) in Orlando and at Salt Lake Comic Con in September.
