Cosplay and Props — Mythical Reality Co.

COSPLAY + PROPS

Costume Designers Guild Hall Costume Winner / CHAPMAN MAKE-A-THON GRAND PRIZE WINNER

I’ve loved bringing characters to life for years; you can read more about my cosplay journey here.

PARROT PUPPETS (2023)

I was commissioned in 2023 to create four parrot puppets for a pirate-themed musical at Chapman University. I set forth on a journey that would take over a month of designing, prototyping, fine-tuning, decorating, and finally debuting on stage.

The puppets’ beaks open and the wings flap with the pull of a lever on the handle inside, and the heads can swivel.

I designed the parrots in Blender and 3D printed the skeletons. They work with a spring & fishing line system that attaches to two finger “hooks” on the main shaft inside the parrot, allowing the actors to turn the head and control the beak & wings with one hand.

It’s projects like these that leave me working into the morning light, but I always enjoy the challenge! I had never made a puppet before this project, and it was an incredible experience to learn from.

Later in the year, my work was recognized by Chapman University as the grand prize winner of the Make-A-Thon.

VIDA (2024)

In late 2023 I was approached by a team of Chapman students preparing to create their senior thesis film. The film was centered around a humanoid robot that learns to process and feel human emotions. The challenge presented to me was they only had a few months and they didn’t have the budget required to create or rent an actual robot.

They hired me to design and create the robot suit. I was asked to make it a wearable costume for an actor to wear and to give it the ability to show emotions that can be controlled off-screen

What resulted was a couple months of designing followed by a hectic week of fabrication. The suit was mostly created out of EVA foam parts that were designed in Illustrator and cut on a laser cutter. The helmet and chest pieces were 3D printed and designed in Blender and Autodesk Fusion 360 respectively, both give them a robust structure and fitted slots to place the electronics into.

The internal electronics were all sourced from Adafruit Industries. The main code was run on an Adafruit Metro 328 (essentially an off-brand Arduino Uno) with a Bluetooth shield attached to give it app-control. The eyes were 8 x 8 Neopixel matrices, the eyebrows were controlled by servos, and the chest contained an RGB LCD backlight positive display.

Someone off-screen could type commands into an app to update the eyes, eyebrows, or LCD screen. I wrote in presets for various emotions and LCD displays, but if the user chose not to use the presets they could also use the command line to display whatever they wanted on the screen instead.