Andromeda: First Impressions

This long-awaited day has finally come: Mass Effect: Andromeda opened for 10-hour trial play.  This remains in anticipation of its full release next week on the 21st, when the story will finally make a full appearance.

If you thought a fangirl like me would wait to post until then, you were sadly mistaken.

It's here! I don't care how many days until I get the full game!

However, like so many other big-name releases in years past, Andromeda is not without its detractors, nor its issues.  There are bugs in animation, in gameplay, awkward menus, and talk of a day-one patch long before the trial ever opened to Origin Access subscribers.  This, for whatever reason, is sending the video game critics into a frantic tailspin.

I'm not totally sure why.  Maybe because it's been five years since ME3?  Maybe because EA marketed the shit outta this game online, so more people than ever are aware and pre-ordering and paying attention?  I'm not sure -- I joined the video game scene long after ME3 had come out and disappointed so many of its fans, and to this day, I'm one of the only people I know who worships the ending of ME3 (it's beautiful and tragic and I love it).  And when DAI came out, I was plugged in but not so heavily since I didn't enjoy DA2.

So I've never experienced anything like this.

Nevertheless, let me explain why it doesn't bother me:  Andromeda, from what I've seen so far, is good.

I admit, I haven't touched the single player campaign at all.  After reading some reviews and learning that it stops the campaign at a crucial moment -- right when it's about to get amazing, from what I understand -- I decided not to spoil it until I can play past it.  Good stories take time to get off the ground, something the gaming industry doesn't seem to understand, and I don't want to get bogged down in frustration waiting the extra days until I can continue it.

Plus, I took the 21st off from work specifically to play, so I'll have time.

The single player campaign is also the subject of much scrutiny and derision online.  No doubt if you follow pcgamer, IGN, and others, you'll have seen some of the headlines:  "Why I Hate ME: Andromeda's Planet Scanning System" comes to mind, as does "The Internet is Brutally Mocking ME: Andromeda's Animations" (these are direct quotes from PC Gamer - not exactly objective reviews).

Some authors seem like they have a bone to pick with the series.  The guy who hates the scanning system, for example, is irritated that you can't drive the Nomad up a vertical cliff without shifting into 6-wheel mode, something akin to 4 wheel drive in modern SUVs.  This seems a) realistic, to have to change modes for different terrain, and b) incredibly nitpicky.  When has the vehicle system in Mass Effect ever been good?  The characters even make fun of it in the ME3: Citadel DLC, it's so bad.  And really, you can't drive up a vertical cliff?  Maybe the game didn't mean for you to go that way.

But rants about video game critics aside (which is an essay unto itself), there do seem to be some actual issues with animation, including poorly animated faces and bugs with character movement.  They are things that might drive away critics, and perhaps even some incoming fans, but to me, it's not that bad.  No faces I've seen are missing half their skin a la Assassin's Creed Unity, nor so badly rendered that they are collapsing into piles of skin and clothing, or falling through the floors at random.

Instead, you get moments like this:

Frankly, this is hilarious.  I've been walking around my basement like this for two days, it amuses me so much.  So does this:

This is like they made a ballerina into a colonist! It's awesome!  I get that that's probably not what the programmers were going for, but I love it anyway.

Some errors I frankly wonder how people missed in previous games, like this one of poor Cora...

... which gets compared to a gorilla walking away.  Okay, yes, this is hilarious too.  But it's not new! The female Inquisitor in DAI walks just like that all the time, stomping all over Skyhold like a water buffalo.  I can't imagine being so annoyed over it that I wouldn't play, or that I'd cancel my pre-order, or anything else.

And Sara Ryder's giant toothy smile is just adorable, let's be honest.

I realize that I haven't played the campaign yet, so maybe this is more intrusive than I think.  But if there's a good story, and if the characters are as developed and interesting as always, and I can crush the ever-living shit out of whatever enemies stand in my way, I don't foresee any real issues.  I'm not playing for the animation, after all.

Once you get over the animation, the reports of cheesy dialogue are, frankly, a non-issue.  The Mass Effect stories have always been incredibly well-written: They are massive and far-reaching, have great continuity, and clearly the writers devote hours into putting all those puzzle pieces together.

But the dialogue has never been Shakespeare.

I spent hours in-game searching for great quotes from Shepard a few years back, when I got my Mass Effect tattoo.  I'm covered in quotes from books, movies, philosophers, etc, and I thought Shepard might have something profound to add to this.  Nope.  I ended up with an N7 tattoo I adore, and that fits the spirit of the series, far better than "I should go" ever could.

Nor, frankly, was the animation ever that amazing.  One walk into the battery to talk to Garrus, only to have him turn his head around Exorcist-style just to say "Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of the calibrations?" was enough to know that.

Don't believe me? Just watch Shepard dance:

So I'm not passing judgment based on some animation issues.  I want the GAME, not some critic's issues with it.

Nor have I maxed out my 10 hours on multiplayer, but I'm getting close.  And that... whew.  That might be worth the money in and of itself -- it's awe-inspiring. It's fast-paced and brutal, full of challenges and new enemies, and some stunning new combat effects that frankly, I am having a ton of fun playing.  Every time I jet-pack over some destructive enemy, only to drop a biotic punch on them that reverberates through the field, I absolutely adore it.

I've seen criticism here too, and again, I'm not sure what people were truly expecting.  It's often the same set-up as the ME3 multiplayer: cooperative teams fighting waves of enemies, each wave tougher than the last.  There are a mix of hacking, disruption, and survival goals, and as before, having a mix of races and classes offers you the best chance for success.

Bioware has also eliminated the part that made ME3's multiplayer so irritating: It is no longer mandatory, and instead a way to earn additional points, tech, and rewards should you be so inclined.

Then again, I don't play FPS online games like CoD or Battlefield or anything else.  FPSs make me motion sick, so there's that, but I also don't like the attitude of noobs vs. people with too much time on their hands vs. casual gamers; I prefer the cooperative aspect in ME where I don't have to be the best to enjoy myself.  This gives me the chance to play with others, to explore incredible combat styles, and still have fun.  To me, that's the best of all worlds.

Sure, there are opportunities for microtransactions, and the multiplayer menus aren't the easiest to navigate, and of course, playing the maps without knowing anything about the enemies you're fighting from in-game experience makes things difficult.  But no game, no matter the time investment  of the developers or its fans, is without flaws.  I don't expect it to be.

It helps that it's fabulously fun to play.  When I can do THIS...

... and take some enemy out, I don't really care if there are micro-transactions or difficulties muting other players.  I just wanna crush a bitch and get up for the next wave.

Get ready: Only 3 days until we hit Andromeda.

N7 Day

It's weird to be a Mass Effect fangirl and share my birthday with N7 Day.

I never even knew there WAS an N7 day until after I got my Mass Effect tattoo -- which of course features the N7 logo straight from my femShep's gear.  When I had it done and people questioned the wisdom of getting a video game tattoo, I just sort of shrugged and went, "Oh, if someday I hate the game, then the tat will just be for my birthday!"

It never occurred to me that Bioware had already appropriated that day for its own purposes.

Then November 2014 rolled around, and the Internet (or, at least the pages I was frequenting), blew up with N7 ads for merch, Gaming Heads statues, and so on.

I felt so lucky.  Now, I have yet another reason to love on Mass Effect.  I had lots -- I follow both Bioware and Mass Effect (and Dragon Age, as if anyone's surprised) on social media, for goodness' sake -- but now I had another! The sales! The promotions! The outpouring of love for my favorite game series!

Of course, I get weird looks when I'm more excited for N7 Day than I am for November 7th, my birthday, but I don't care.

I'm not one of those people who loves their birthday.  Sure, they were a blast when I was a kid, but once I started to grow up, I just didn't have that kind of life that fosters an obsession with the anniversary of the day I was born.  I've never cared that much -- I've spent too many birthdays stressed out over schedules of how many hours I'm spending with each parent so my time is divided equally, per the divorce 'rules,' to get overly excited.  Nor have I, as a blossoming adult, ever found good reason to get too excited when history says that I'm going to be tired, pressured into hanging out with people I don't want to see, and receiving domestic-style gifts (like the memorable instance when, on my 21st birthday, my mom gave me a brownie pan and a recipe book.  Fun.).

Bishop knows all this, and thankfully he's a strong advocate for the "do whatever the fuck you want for your birthday" school of thought.  If I'm stressing out, he cancels plans with my family.  If I'm up for it, he tags along to every single event.  I think that in part, he agreed to getting married in early November just to give me something more exciting to celebrate than my birthday.

If only we'd known that all he had to do was introduce me to Shepard and her story, and I'd have been all over November 7th.

Of course, now that I've discovered Mass Effect, Bishop has taken that love to heart on N7 day, and he spoils me rotten -- mostly by handing over his "Equinox's Birthday Present Budget" to me and letting me go nuts on the Bioware Store's enormous Mass Effect-themed sale.

Come N7 Day 2016, I'll be decked out in ME shit and fit to party with the most hardcore of fans.

I love this day -- there are times when I feel isolated as a ME fan because too many of my fellow nerd friends hate ME3 and have thus abandoned the series.  I've been teased for my Spectre t-shirt in Kaiden Alenko blue and yellow, and despite how cool my to-scale Gaming Heads statue of Garrus is, non-nerds still give me funny looks and eye rolls over how much I was willing to spend to house a model of my favorite turian.

They'll laugh even harder when Tali arrives, I'm sure.

N7 Day gives me the chance to embrace my love of Mass Effect with fans all around the world, and I love it.  I can't wait for the saga to continue next year -- to Andromeda and beyond.

Covert Cosplay

I showed up to a conference this past weekend dressed as The Wizard Howl and no one noticed.  

It’s one of my favorite things to do: throw on a shirt, some jewelry, some little thing that alludes to something I love, and all of a sudden my day has a new twist of covert cosplay.  No one notices, and why should they?  Few of my colleagues are watching much Miyazaki in their free time.  Neither are they binge-watching Attack on Titan, nor trying to save the galaxy from Reapers, nor achievement hunting in Hitman: Absolution, nor fangirling out over the latest Cullen-mance development in the DAI: Trespasser DLC, or anything else that I tend to be doing. 

It doesn’t bother me; I have friends at work and I have friends outside work, and I don’t expect much overlap.  I’d be sorely disappointed if I did, let’s be honest. 

In my life, covert cosplay happens all the time:  I wear my “Paragon” ring, a throw to my morality track in Mass Effect, to school most days, and I’ve even worn it to job interviews.  It never gets a second look – it’s low-profile and simple, like my Shepard, and if an interviewer does notice it, he or she will undoubtedly think, “Hey, Paragon! That means ‘role model,’ right?”  And poof! I’ve just subliminally suggested that I’m an excellent person to hire. 

When a small bronze key rests around my neck, no one asks what it opens.  Keys are a pretty common jewelry choice for women, so I raise exactly zero eyebrows.  If it just happens to be the same key as the one Eren Jaeger wears, the one we are all waiting to find out the secret it unlocks, that’s my little secret. 

The earrings and necklace I made out of an Attack on Titan keychain are pretty obvious though, if someone is in the know.  Occasionally, I do get questions from students about what the shields are supposed to be, or why my earrings are different (the Stationary Guard and the Military Police grace my ears, while the Scouting Division is the pendant).  I never back down – I always feel like I’m a role model (a Paragon, if you will J) for other nerds, for students who love the things I do but keep them quiet for fear of being judged, and I’m open about what my jewelry means.

Some items are more subtle.  Galadriel’s flower ring and the matching necklace I found at a con look like pretty floral jewelry, and Thorin Oakenshield’s belt buckle makes a lovely pendant when I need something simple and elegant for an outfit.  Sure, if I wear the Ring of Barahuir to a concert or in place of my wedding ring, people notice the snakes and the stone, but most of my Lord of the Rings items pass easily under the non-nerd radar. 

Those days, my fellow nerds are likely to find me out, but Lord of the Rings is a love I am always happy to share. 

I also have a matching set of amber jewelry, earrings from the Smithsonian and a necklace I found online, that offer a subtle allusion to Jurassic Park – amber, after all, being an essential part of the Jurassic Park process.  I doubt anyone thinks twice about the teacher wearing amber jewelry those days, but I can smile to myself, knowing the reasons why I purchased them and why I wear them.  

Ed’s alchemy circle from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in an oft-worn pendant. 

A bracelet that reads “I am the Sword in the Darkness” floats around one wrist. 

And I’m sure there’s more, if only I dug through my jewelry box. 

my own private homage to Jurassic Park

Of all my covert cosplay though, Howl is my favorite.  I adore this movie – it combines all that beautiful fantasy artwork with such a gentle, poignant love story that I melt every time I watch it.  Thankfully, others share my love and Etsy is filled with jewelry options.  When I bought my Howl jewelry – the jade teardrop earrings and the heavy blue pendant – I spent hours online, exploring all my options before I made my choice.  Now, all I have to do is wear a white shirt and black slacks and the look is complete – and no one is ever the wiser. 

Regardless of their subtly or lack thereof, my tastes in jewelry have never been questioned.  I’ve never been stopped by my principals and asked what I’m wearing, and other than the occasional quick compliment, my friends never delve into their deeper meaning.  I’m not bothered; I don’t, after all, interrogate them about their jewelry choices.  Mine are just for me.

Sometimes I wonder if my colleagues are doing the same thing; if I see someone wearing all green stones one day, are they offering homage to the Matrix, or do they just like the color?  If their earrings don’t match, are they inviting me to ask and learn about some fantastic new show, or did they forget to check the mirror this morning?  

I don’t usually ask.  I’ll compliment if I catch the reference, or just in general sometimes, but I go back and forth about assuming on a deeper meaning.  After all, if I see someone wearing amber and I start talking about Jurassic Park, chances are pretty good they are going to back away slowly instead of joining my enthusiasm. 

That’s okay though. 

I love showing off all my interests, and if I’m the only one understands the reference, then I spend the day smiling to myself, enjoying the inside joke that no one else gets.  

ANDROMEDA!!!!!

I was watching this trailer for like the 1000th time this morning and realized I hadn't posted it. 

I don't even know where to begin!! A fresh galaxy -- the graphics -- IN ENGINE! -- the new Mako -- the N7 -- and the Johnny Cash SONG, the perfect choice for an exploration-style game!!!

GAAHHHHH I can't even convey how excited I am.

Fall 2016 is SO far away, what am I going to do until then??

*goes to rewatch the Andromeda trailer again.... many more times*

The End of Mass Effect (*Spoilers!*)

I'm about to finish my second play-through of Mass Effect 3, and I really, really don't want to do it.

I've done it before.  Most likely, I'll do it again eventually.  But the ending crushes me every time -- last time, the first time, I ended up sitting in bed, unable to sleep and occasionally crying, over the gut-wrenching agony of the end.  That probably won't happen this time; I'm better prepared, having done it before. Last time I knew what was going to happen though and I still lost it.

The ending is always catastrophic, no matter which end I choose or how my actions play out.
I know, I know, there was a big dispute between fans and Bioware over how the game ended vs. how Bioware said it might end with regards to personal input and all that. Some friends of mine won't even touch ME3, even if they loved ME2, because of that mess. I don't care -- I thought the ending as perfect.  The series has never pretended to be anything other than a tragedy: characters can and sometimes do die in every game. So the end was no surprise, even if that doesn't make it less painful.

The end never gets tough until I reach the Forward Operating Base, after Shepard has taken out the Hades cannon and they're getting ready for the final run to the Beam/Citadel.  All those goodbyes...

Shepard can call each of her (I play as a paragon FemShep, for the record) old squadmates from Mass Effect 2, like Samara and Jack, people she's encountered throughout ME3 but never joined her.  All those calls are short and to the point: no elaboration on events or stories, they're mostly just quick "good luck"s and then it's over.  But seeing some of my favorites -- Samara, for example -- again just for a quick moment brings home that this game is over, the trilogy is over, and who knows what's coming next.

Some of the longer conversations are even worse.  Some, like Tali's or Kaiden's, aren't that bad, even as much as I love Tali, and Liara's offer to blend minds one last time can be rough to watch: I teared up a little at that this time through.  Others, though, brought so much more up to the surface.

I didn't have the From Ashes DLC the first time I played, so I didn't have Javik and didn't know what to expect.  Javik made an interesting contribution to the crew in ME3; as the last Prothean, he can be kind of a douchebag with his focus on victory at any cost, but there's compassion mixed in there for him as well.  They're both warriors, but with a weird dynamic: Javik approaches everything ruthlessly whereas my Shepard has more of a heart. My Shepard and he are always getting into fights over the morality of her choices, and I had to break up more than few fights between him and others. By the end though, they respect each other. When he tells Shepard that she's standing for all people who have faced the Reapers, that all souls are watching her... I was destroyed.  The whole conversation was heartbreaking in its sincerity.  (Those writers/voice actors deserves some serious awards).

And EDI.  oh EDI... I know I'm going to kill her, I do every time because that's my final choice for the Reapers, the choice I think Shepard would really make, given the circumstances and the motives of the game: destruction.  And that kills EDI too, since she's an AI (artificial intelligence). When she talks Shepard for helping her feel alive... my heart breaks.  I miss her, every time, and the prospect of having to explain it all to Joker (assuming I live...)...

In a weird way, I am glad that so many of my favorite characters were already dead.  Mass Effect 3 is a tragedy, an intense, talented one that invests you deeply into the characters even when you know they are doomed, and I got sucked in completely.

Thane's death is expected, though the short prayer he gives for Shepard made me weep.  And Mordin... I don't think I would have been so upset to see Mordin go if he hadn't started singing on the way up to the top of the Shroud.  Legion's death for his people provides an honorable way for Tali to come to terms with the geth, and I appreciated that element of her story.

I hate that I can't save during this whole process -- it means I can't go back and re-live Shepard and Garrus's goodbye without playing through the first part of Priority: Earth again (which takes a while).  Their goodbye is one of my favorite moments in the game; I cry every single time. The Shepard-Garrus romance feels so real, so tension-filled and desperate as they fight the end of their worlds.  Garrus is written as a deep, complex character throughout the whole series: Shepard is constantly helping him through moral crises, romanced or not, and each one adds layers to his complicated character.  In that way, he feels real to me.  I've always been drawn to people who have a past, who don't just coast through life without getting deeply, intimately involved in something along the way.  Garrus is like that: he's invested in his life, in his world, and I love that about his character.  Throughout their romance, he and Shepard are trying to find a lighter side, trying to enjoy each other in the face of death and destruction.  Their Citadel date about halfway through ME3 highlights that, especially their shooting contest on the top of the Presidium.
So when they have to say goodbye... I love it, even as I'm crying over how desperate those last few exchanges are, how much they are still trying to stay positive and together.

The last moments of the game.  Shepard looks so pissed, so ready to be over and done with the Reapers, so determined to take them down.  I love it.  

The end of Mass Effect 3 depresses me, and not just because the game's over and I have to say goodbye.  It's just that nothing I do will be ever be on that scale -- no matter what I do with my life, I will never save the galaxy.  I will never be the one to make those kinds of sacrifices.  I can choose to make small ones, if I want to, but the world isn't tailored for me to be Shepard.

I knew this before Mass Effect.  I read a lot, and I play enough games, and so many stories hinge on heroes.  Stories with this kind of scope happen a lot in fiction, and let-downs when they're over happen a lot too.
But something about Mass Effect feels different to me.  Maybe I just love Shepard and her world so much -- maybe I see how my life could be, given that several fundamental things about the world/universe were a little different... I believe I could have her kind of courage and determination, if faced with that situation. If saving the world really did come down to me, I think I could do it.

I love this game.  I don't care what other people think about the ending(s), nor do I waste time analyzing all the tiny flaws that no doubt exist.  That doesn't matter to me.

I will always do all the extra work so Shepard can breathe one last time, in the last moment before the credits role.  I don't want her story to end, in the game or otherwise.

Obviously, no one is forcing me to make that final run.  Only the fate of the galaxy is at stake, after all.  And it's time to take back Earth.

Cosplay: Six Days to Go!

So all of a sudden, after months of work, the con is in six days and I have SO much left to do to finish my Tali costume!  I've been working almost non-stop for the last week, and I've made a ton of progress, there's just so much left to do!!

The jumpsuit has been my biggest point of progress.  It's totally finished -- painted, lined, and completely ready to go. In this pic, it still needs its outlining around the diamonds, but it's almost done. That process alone took 3-4 days.  

The shawl is so close to being done I can taste it. The hood is finished and attached, and the leg wraps are just perfect.  It still needs its final edging to match Tali's, but the designs are done and it's almost ready to go! 

Despite all the progress -- the belt is complete, the gun is painted and glazed, the shoes are sprayed and ready to wear -- so, so many things have gone wrong.  Like the faceplate.  It's supposed to be this beautiful, dark purple that obscures the face but remains transparent.  As you can imagine, this isn't easy to achieve; I tried four different methods before I finally got one to work.  

This is the mask I'm using.  Shape and flexibility-wise, it's perfect; I cut a notch out of the underside with a dremel and used a heat gun to bend it into the right shape.  In no time at all, that part, at least, was finished.  But the coloring was the bitch.  

First: I coated the plastic with headlight vinyl, a method I'd read about online that seemed to meet with great success.  The results, while a pale purple, looked so poor I didn't even bother to take a picture.  Second I tried coloring the plastic by hand with a purple Sharpie, another method people had tried online.  That worked, definitely, but I was left with a mask marred by horizontal lines every 4 millimeters down the whole length. Not exactly attractive -- again, not worth a photo.  

Then, getting desperate, I figured out that you could effectively dye plastic using RIT fabric dye and really hot water.  A lot of people online have boasted of their success with this method, so I gave it a shot.  It worked really well with an old pair of safety glasses I had around the house, so I set up shop in my kitchen and gave it a whirl with the faceplate.  

This is my kitchen, the faceplate happily simmering away on the stove like some sort of demented stew and old operating room towels (my mom got them from the hospital where she works) on everything to prevent my countertops from taking on the same purple hue as the mask.  

I'm not saying that method worked really well -- much of my stove was purple by the time I was done, and I had to hang a towel from the vent to make sure I didn't also stain my walls that color.  But hey, with some Comet and a lot of scrubbing, it came off. Oh well! 

If only my results with the mask had been as beautiful as the mess I made in the kitchen.  

After more than 5 hours bubbling away on the stove, this pale, sad result was what I got.  

 I'm not even sure you can call that purple -- more like "vaguely pink."  And even worse, when I went to Windex it to get my fingerprints off, most of the color wiped right off too.  So much for the fabric dye method!

Finally, four days ago, I had given up. Tali was going to have a clear faceplate and that was that; there was nothing else I could do.  Then my husband happened to look at my office, strewn with fabric and elastic bands and paint, and said, "Why don't you just use purple fabric?"

And it worked perfectly.  A simple, sheer fabric from Joann's and the mask was done.  Here, the edges aren't trimmed yet, but it's all glued and ready to go.  And all it took was an easy week of my life spent fighting with that stupid plastic.  

Now, there are mostly just details left.  The list above isn't totally updated: the arm plating is finished as of this morning, and the shoulder armor is pinned and waiting to be sewn.  I'm only typing here as a short break before I head back to gluing on the faceplate; the patterns for the pieces are upstairs and clipped to the mask, just waiting for me to finish it.  

It's progress.  Last week, I'd have said I wasn't sure if I could get it done in time. Today, I'm feeling like I'm almost there.  

Six days! 

Baby's First Cosplay

My very first cosplay happens in just a few weeks.  One of my friends, the illustrious artist Bone (look him up on deviantart, he's pretty cool), goes to Anthrocon every year in Pittsburgh, and despite not being members of the subculture, my husband and I sometimes attend with him.  It's more a chance to have fun and explore nerd culture for an extended weekend than anything else, and I always enjoyed it.

The first time we went, I was in awe of the fursuiters.  Not because I felt that I too needed a fursuit, but because of the freedom they had.  No one knew who they were; with the giant mascot heads on, sure, people were looking at them, but no one had an identity, and what's more, no one cared.  They got to run around, do what they wanted, photobomb people, all that fun stuff that gets tempered by the fact that I embarrass easily.  Maybe I never grew out of that feeling that everyone is always looking at me, but I always feel self-conscious when I do silly things in public.  I was so jealous of the fursuiters!

So back in March, when Bone invited Bishop (my husband) and I to attend Anthrocon with him again, I decided I wanted to cosplay.  And since around then I was embarking on the love affair I call Mass Effect, I knew I had to go as Tali'Zorah.

Here is Tali, in all her quarian glory. 

I've never cosplayed before, never even made a costume. As Bone said when I told him, "Tali. That's ambitious."   But I'm a pretty determined person, and it's slowly taking shape as time goes on.
I have transformed my office, where formerly I graded papers and constructed lesson plans, into a full-on studio, complete with a sewing machine and modeling clay galore as I attempt this project.  The "To Become Tali" list has slowly dwindled as the school year ended and my summer began, and now I'm starting to feel like I'm almost done. Almost.

This is my original "To Become Tali" list, complete with all the things I had to learn to do in order to do this right.  There are some truly amazing Tali cosplayers out there, and there are some that turn out less than stellar; I'm determined that mine, at least, will be in the middle, if not closer to amazing.  Here're some progress shots thus far:

The buttons and clasps for her various belts and the back harness. 

The careful construction of the jumpsuit pattern. This alone probably took 1-2 hours. 

Slow progress on the M-4 Shuriken from Mass Effect 2 & 3. It's been finished and glazed since this picture, and the holster is done too. 

A shrug pattern on Amazon saved my butt on this one -- it was easy to make and didn't require insane sewing skills that I don't possess.  It's not done yet; it still needs edging and a lot of armor attached, but it's progress.  

Everything is slowly coming together.  A bunch of smaller items, like her gold collar and belt and the start of the harness are already finished.  I have the boots and just need to shape them properly, and the leg wraps are cut and pinned and ready to be sewn.  I have no idea how many hours I've spent working on this project; a lot, I imagine, and it's been totally worth it.  The to-do list is much shorter than it was, and I'm so excited for Anthrocon! 

More progress to come in future weeks.