Cosplay Feature of the Week: Sara Sundae

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Welcome back to another weekly cosplay feature! This week’s cosplayer hails from my home state of Arizona. She is a seamstress, a fabricator and one incredible crafts-woman. Please welcome Sara Sundae!

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Here’s the down low on Sara…

  • She’s from Tucson, Arizona.
  • Cosplay is her hobby.
  • She likes to play video games.
  • She is a professional care giver.

Welcome Sara! Please tell us how the cosplay community captured you in its web…

I initially was asked to sew up some costumes for a couple friends and then I was encouraged to join in. I loved playing dress up when I was little, so I thought, why not?

img_9901Sweet, simple and absolutely agreeable. That “why not” has certainly encouraged many a future cosplayer but it always ends up being worth the effort. So what inspires your cosplays and how long have you been a cosplayer?

I made my first Cosplay in 2014. I did Snow White because I was told I looked like her at the time. Any little thing can trigger inspiration. A dress pattern I could see a character wearing for instance. And I love using a historical or artistic theme to put a twist on a character.

What do you expect from cosplay? Do you think it will make an impact on your future?

I just expect Cosplay to be fun and challenge me artistically. Expecting more then that (like becoming famous) could ruin it for me and I think that happens too often. Then you start comparing yourself to someone and you can become negative and forget why you started to begin with: to have fun with your friends and see the joy on the faces of other people when they recognize the character and its one they like a lot. Especially with kids too, its the cutest thing when they recognize your character! It’s one of the reasons I joined Heroes United. I get opportunities to share my cosplay with others while helping out at community events for charitable causes; they are not a genre based group, so I can be a princess or a super hero or a Jedi. As for my future, I’ll just keep making costumes and taking photos and having fun!

I like your attitude! I’ve seen many of the Heroes United crew put a smile on a kids face. It’s nice to see cosplay being used in such a positive method. Have you met or seen any cosplayers that are now your favorites?

I have so many! But PrincessJazz Cosplay and I have become good friends over the last couple months. She runs an Instagram based page to highlight female Star Trek cosplayers. Hopefully someday we’ll get to meet, she lives in Australia. But that’s also a great thing about cosplay, you get to know people from places you may never get to visit.

That is so cool! I LOVE Star Trek. Thanks for sharing her information with us. Now a little more about you: What is your FAVORITE cosplay and how did you construct it?

sara-sundae-as-animated-series-harley-quinn-20160903-200151-000011I don’t have a favorite. While I do love some of the ones that took the most work to make- they ended up not being fun to wear. My latest costume is Classic Harley Quinn and I do love wearing it. I was nervous to do it because at this point it is considered a cliche by some people to make a Harley costume. But then I thought, “she was always my favorite character and I’ve wanted that suit since 2001! I’m just going to do it, this is supposed to be fun for ME.”

So its pretty simple: I bought the suit and cap from Discount Dance Supply. I love dance unitards. I had to do a lot of re-shaping to the cap’s tails because it wasn’t sewn to really look like Harley’s cap once its stuffed. I added the diamonds to the suit myself. I got the boots at a thrift store (both black) and painted one with red leather paint (which is cheap and can be ordered online, but does not come in black). I made my collar and cuffs myself and will someday re-make the collar, I’m not happy with it. I also got a blonde pig-tales wig from DressLily and I prefer it to the cap. The cap slides around a lot and I need to come up with a solution to that. Also I just don’t feel like I have the right face shape for it. My mask is from LME Masks on Etsy. So really the costume was mostly purchased with some light sewing and painting.

I have a friend who cosplays with me and she is the thrift store queen. She can take just about any item from a second hand store and re-shape/tailor it to become something entirely new. I think that, at times, using bought items and altering them is far more satisfying than worrying about how you’re going to customize a pattern or even draft one from scratch. That being said, do you have a favorite cosplay material and/or medium you prefer to work with/in?

I think my favorite medium is fabric, followed by acrylic paint and EVA foam. Sewing and painting are my two strongest skills and I was doing both long before I started Cosplaying. I buy and make. I have 100% hand crafted costumes with fabric and EVA foam and have created my own patterns for things like my Renaissance Snow White and my Destiny Warlock and sewn it all up myself. I’ve even made chain mail. But that is often more expensive and time consuming then buying things. I have no problem buying something if its within my budget and will look nicer than what I could make. I also have two custom sub-dye suits (for Rogue from X-Men) and those are a collaborations with Jordan of IdiotEngine. He did graphics and printing for me. I could never do that myself and muscle shading looks really nice for certain characters.

I have never heard of IdiotEngine before so thank you very much for bringing that company to my attention. We are coming close to the end of our time together. Before I share some of your lovely work with the world what advice would you like to offer other cosplayers?

I think I am too new to this to give out advice. What do people need advice on? Anyone can always ask me questions!

Thank you for offering that Sara! If you want to ask Sara questions or you would like to see more of her work she can be found on…

Here are a few of Sara’s lovely cosplays…

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