How’s everyone doing? I’m back with another awesome interview featuring @cocoasugarcosplay. She is a phenomenal cosplayer that creates some absolutely amazing cosplays. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Blerdcon 2019. She had just won the cosplay contest sporting her amazing green (Tiana) dress from Disney’s princess and the frog. Her cosplay was so amazing that it stuck in my mind for weeks and eventually led to me reaching out to her for an interview. She has several other cosplays on her IG so definitely check them out as well.
We begin the interview by discussing her Instagram name. She wanted it to be instantly recognizable by the POC community and decided to opt for the name of @cocoasugarcosplay. Like several POC cosplayers, she has experienced a bit of racism regarding her cosplays but nothing too serious. Regarding her cosplays, she has several striking and absolutely outstanding pieces of work. For this interview, we focus on how she created her award-winning Tiana cosplay from Disney’s princess and the frog. This dress varied from the film version as it was inspired by @hannahalexander.
@hannahalexander creates her own unique artwork based on several series and movies and this cosplay comes directly from her artwork. Her Tiana design was very challenging but it turned out extremely well. To create the colors for the dress, @cocoasugarcosplay states she had to actually buy white fabric and then dyed it the shade of green she wanted. Each of the rhinestones on the dress were added one by one until the final piece was created. This took about a month of continuous work to complete.
Her previous work with ballroom dance dress creation certainly helped with the dress’s intricate sewing and patterning. The dress was made from scratch using 4-way stretch fabric so she wouldn’t have to worry about the material stretching in only one direction. I personally did not know such material even existed so this was definitely enlightening. Aside from the green in the dress, she also had to match the stretch material to her skin. To do this, she used Rit Dye along with their color chart to create a tone that best resembled her skin.
To help with sizing, @cocoasugarcosplay invested in a dress form and uses the saranwrap method to get her dimensions just right. I have previously discussed this method with @myneverendingdreamz in another podcast episode so feel free to check out more about this method there. She also states that one of the most difficult aspects of creating this cosplay was the back. Since she did not want to have a zipper, she had to get very creative with the creation process. Feel free to check out more about this process in the podcast.
She also unveiled an amazing Venassa cosplay at Katsucon which was once again, completely created by hand. If you liked these images and her work feel free to contact her as she would be more than happy to assist in any way she can. She also has dealt with cosplay makeup and cosplay prosthetics which can be seen in her garnet cosplay. Cosplay makeup and prosthetics can be extremely difficult to master so definitely reach out.
I hope you enjoyed this interview and I would like to thank @cocoasugarcosplay again for taking the time to speak with us. She is a phenomenal cosplayer and overall great person that I hope I can interact with more at my next convention. For more awesome cosplay feel free to click HERE! I have interviewed some other awesome guests which gave some great information so give them a listen. Thanks again everyone for tuning in and until next time stay Boundless!!!
