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Transcript
00:00Hey, my name is Loi and today we sit down with Cosplay Sensation Psychedelo to try and get a better grasp of the wonderful world of Cosplay.
00:15Growing up we always looked at movie characters or game characters that we liked and we said, wow, I wish I was that person.
00:20With Cosplay, in a way, you can become that person.
00:24What's the feeling when you're in your cosplay? Do you feel like a different person or do you still feel like the same person and you've just got makeup and everything on?
00:39It's such a weird thing being in cosplay because you really do feel invincible. Like you said, armour, it literally feels like armour.
00:47The best way I can describe it is you're yourself, but just amplified. I used to be super, super shy. I couldn't look anyone in the eye. I couldn't talk to anyone I didn't know.
00:56If I'm in costume, no one knows who I am, so I don't have to act a certain way. I don't have to look a certain way. No one will judge me because they don't know who I am.
01:05I can use that to try and make myself more confident and more social if I just dress up.
01:10I started off as Korra from Avatar and I got a really positive response to that. People really loved the character. People loved it.
01:23I was like, cool, this is actually something that I really enjoy because I can be creative. I can be myself. I don't have to worry about people knowing who I am.
01:31I started getting more confident from that.
01:35I think the best part is kind of seeing the characters that you know and love on a screen and actually being able to bring those characters to life.
01:46At conventions, I do try to embody the character as best as I can, but I do break character quite a bit.
01:52But with stuff like little kids, when I'm in Wonder Woman, I will never break character for them because to them, I exist as that character.
02:00I'm the physical embodiment of the character they see on the screen.
02:03In a way, it's like being a character at Disneyland. You don't want to disappoint the kids.
02:08I try to embody the characteristics of the character that I'm cosplaying as, but I don't usually stick to it that well.
02:18I always say cosplay is mostly winging it and it is mostly winging it.
02:23Yeah, just finding solutions that work and moving forward with it.
02:26Have you had pieces not work out for you? So you started something and you just weren't able to complete it?
02:31Plenty of times. I actually don't have it hanging around here.
02:34But with my Eivor cosplay, I had braces that I made and it was so difficult to figure things out because the actual official reference material hadn't been released yet.
02:44So I was going off little tiny screenshots of YouTube that I could get and I remember making entire braces and going,
02:52cool, this is it. And then putting them on, seeing and being like, no, this isn't it at all. Doesn't work.
03:00And I started from scratch again. I've started so many pieces from scratch again.
03:05Or in some cases, like my Wonder Woman, I'll build the costume and I'll be happy with it.
03:10And then I'll come back to it like a year later and then rebuild the entire thing from scratch.
03:14Because in my mind, it isn't accurate enough.
03:16Or I know that with the skills that I've gotten over the past year, I can make it better.
03:20You can improve. Yeah. Yeah.
03:22Speaking of Wonder Woman, you kind of cosplayed her for a very long time.
03:28What's the appeal between you and that character?
03:30Because I feel like there is some sort of connection between you and Wonder Woman.
03:34The Wonder Woman movie came out and I was really, really connected to the character and the strength and the motivations behind her.
03:41I've always loved Wonder Woman as a character from the comics, but the live action adaptation of that was like super special to me.
03:47And around about that time, I went through a very tough moment in my life.
03:51I lost someone very, very close to me and I experienced like a ton of trauma.
03:54And that was as I'd started building the Wonder Woman.
03:58So for me, Wonder Woman became a symbol of strength and perseverance.
04:01And so I used that to continue building the costume.
04:05And it all just became a very symbolic thing that helped me get through healing.
04:10And ever since then, she's just been like a go-to character for me.
04:17I'm probably the worst cosplayer in terms of planning because it all is pretty much done up in my head.
04:22But I think I'll start off the cosplay process by looking at every single possible image of that character.
04:29Whether that's fan art, whether that's concept sketches, whether that's actual photos.
04:35For me, I tend to start my cosplays before certain games have been released.
04:41So I barely have reference material and that drives me insane.
04:44Because I will sit and I will study the character in depth.
04:47And then I should be doing it on paper, but in my brain I'll start to break down.
04:51Let's say it's a breastplate.
04:53Okay, cool. The breastplate is made of leather, it's made of metal, it's made of this, it's made of this.
04:57And then I'll start breaking down individual pieces, trying to figure out how it all fits within one another.
05:02And then from there, I'll start to draw things out to kind of pattern how it should sit.
05:08And then from there, it's just a process of making mock versions of whatever you're making.
05:16Seeing how that fits, altering it until you build it up to get a final product.
05:20How was it making the Lady Liberty cosplay?
05:25And how do you feel about the character and just the results?
05:30Because I saw how well it did. People were invested. People liked that cosplay quite a lot.
05:36Lady Liberty was a lot of fun to make. I'm really, really grateful that Netflix reached out to me to do it.
05:42I was very fortunate to be able to watch the show ahead of time in order to make the costume.
05:48And I got so attached to Lady Liberty or Grace Sampson.
05:51I tend to cosplay as strong female characters, and she just fit the bill perfectly.
05:58I was given free reign to pick whoever I wanted to cosplay as, and she was my instant thought.
06:04It was a very challenging cosplay to make. Extremely, extremely challenging.
06:08Because not only did I lack reference material for it, but I also had a very short time period to make it in.
06:14Extremely short. It was probably the quickest cosplay I've made.
06:17Wow.
06:18Yeah. I think 13 days.
06:20Jesus.
06:21Yeah.
06:24I think what a lot of people don't realize is there's so many different parts that make up this costume.
06:29So many different seams. Everything is geometric and everything has a reason for it being there.
06:35So it was very interesting for me to make because I usually stick to foam and armor, and that was purely sewing.
06:43So it was very personally difficult for me to make, but it was very rewarding.
06:47And getting the photos back afterwards was amazing.
06:52Assassin's Creed is high up on my list.
06:55I started playing when I was, I think, 12 years old. 11, 12, depending.
07:00And it's been one of my most favorite franchises.
07:04What is it about Assassin's Creed that sticks?
07:07Because like you said, I see you in the Ivo cosplay, I see you in Cassandra cosplay.
07:13What is it about that series that really got you invested?
07:16For me, it's probably the historical setting and everything like that.
07:21I love history so, so much. I'm a big history nerd.
07:25And being able to play as characters in different time periods, and not only that, but you're a really cool assassin that does parkour.
07:32To me, it was the most mind-blowing thing. I was like, this is an amazing game.
07:37It's so expansive, the characters are so well made.
07:41It just really sucked me in the first time I played it, and I'm still playing it over 10 years later.
07:48I actually do have some pretty exciting projects coming up, or some collaborations,
07:54that benefit both our local community and also the international scale,
08:00just putting South Africa on a more international note.
08:03But yeah, I'd love to continue working with brands.
08:06Love to kind of take what I can do, and see how I can push it to the limit.
08:10Bigger, better.
08:12And that is a wrap on our interview. Thank you so much.