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Experimental Session #1: The Legend of Zelda... and Sophie

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Crazy to think we finally did a proper Make Them Awesome project after almost two and a half years. Once we got the ball rolling, you couldn’t tell we hadn’t worked together in that long.

Though we decided to start getting back to working together in a different way.

Experimental Sessions?

Once my life got to a point where we could consider doing projects again, we started talking about what exactly we should work on. We talked through what bits we had been able to do within the last 2.5 years, and how some things worked and some didn’t. As we discussed the projects that did work, there was something pointed out to WHY they worked so well: overall simplicity. There weren't super crazy lighting setups, set building, or really defined ideas for shots. We basically went in with a loose set of ideas, and explored to see what we would get.

So instead of trying to tackle anything off of our existing project list, it was suggested that we have some sessions that were along the same lines. Just go somewhere and do something with barely any structure and see what we get. Considering I hadn’t shot anything since July of last year I thought it was a great idea. I did need to get reacclimated to shooting after not being able to for so long. Going in and not expecting a particular result would certainly help with that.

Character Selection and Team Location Scouting

The overall idea was “cute springtime location pics”. Tacocat suggested we revisit Mckinney Falls for this since it did have a great mix of fields, forest areas, walking paths, and water features. Though she and I decided to go “rescout” the park together. Which worked out well since 1) we hadn’t been there since late 2018, and 2) Tacocat was able to call out spots and sight lines she thought would work well for the characters we planned to cover.

Photo by Tacocat

The initial characters we were going to shoot were Tacocat as Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle and Allybelle as Princess Zelda. Though Allybelle would actually have two versions of Zelda: one in Ally’s Zelda inspired wedding dress (that Tacocat made), and her ceremonial outfit from Breath of the Wild that she had purchased from Miccostumes. With the water features we thought we could possibly get some photos inspired by one particular cutscene in the game.

As Tacocat and I were scouting she said to me “Hey, why not have Ryan as Link?” Ryan is Ally’s husband, and since they had a Zelda themed wedding, he conveniently had a Link costume that would fit this idea. I was like “Hey, see if he can show up.” Thankfully he was able to.

Photo by Allybelle

Gear Choices

In keeping with the simplicity of the project idea I used only one light the whole day. Since it was potentially going to be sunny out I brought along the Godox AD600B. That way if I needed a lot of power for a possible shot I knew it could handle it.

For lens choices I used primarily the Fuji 50mm f/2 for the bulk of the session. Because a lot of the potential spots we would shoot at were so large I was actually able to back up far enough away for full length shots of anyone. Plus with that focal length we would be able to get some good background separation.

Photo by Tacocat

Texas Weather: More Unpredictable Than Usual

Let’s just say trying to plan around Texas weather is a balancing act. Though the day we chose to shoot was even more RNG than normal. When we set up the idea we chose to shoot Easter Sunday. At the time we did that it was going to be upper 70s and partly cloudy. Which would make for great shooting weather and provide for great light. Then as the day grew closer the forecast changed to lower 90s and mostly sunny. Then it went back to upper 70s. Then chances of rain. The day before, the possibility of precipitation went to 0%.

Turns out it DID rain early that morning. As long as it didn’t rain during the day we were fine. Though for the first part of the shoot it was really overcast. I'm not a fan of shooting in that situation, mostly just because it kills all the depth out of the background. And you can only do so much in the editing stage to try to bring it back and make it look normal.

Thankfully the sun did come out for a while and really helped add some dimension to the background. Then it became somewhat overcast again. Ergh.

Photo by Ryan Hallick

While we prepared to shoot Zelda’s ceremonial outfit I got a notification on my phone that a severe thunderstorm watch had just been issued for the central Texas area. When I saw that I was just like “Fuck, really?” Considering we were planning on doing water shots I was less than thrilled with the timing. We were glad that no storms appeared during this part of the session. In fact the storms never did show up and they ended up canceling the watch early.

Texas weather, please be less random next time.

The Shoot

Photo by Luis Guevara

Let’s just say you couldn’t tell it had been so long since we had worked together. It was our usual free exchange of shot/pose ideas, wig moming, and trolling. Lots of trolling. I mean Luis is part of the team after all. Though none of us realized the power of Ryan and Luis team trolling until that day. Mistakes may have been made in that regard.

The overall simplicity of the session idea really helped us just flow creatively. And we were able to get some good pics because of that.

There is an amusing bit that I don’t think many cosplayers or photographers can say they’ve experienced: getting nibbled on by fish. While we were shooting ceremonial Zelda at the upper falls while I was in the water shooting Ally on the rocks on the opposite shore I kept thinking something was brushing up against my legs. But when I’d go to look I’d see nothing. After Ally got in the water and was there for a while she said, “The fish are biting at my legs and it’s annoying me.” Tacocat mentioned she felt the same thing.

Apparently MTA has a flavor.

Photo by Ryan Hallick

Photo by Ryan Hallick

Final Thoughts

It was great for us just to get back together again and do SOMETHING. While not all of MTA was there (Mermaid Child couldn’t make this session) it was certainly 100% us.

We do have plans for two more experimental sessions: one in the studio and one outdoors. The characters and overall ideas have been determined. But we're going to approach them with the same frame of mind as we did this session.

What will those specific sessions involve? You’ll just have to wait and see. 

Back In The Saddle Again

Man, our first in studio photo session in over a year and a half. And it actually wasn’t even one of our own projects!

How We Got Here

A while back Tacocat learned of the existence of the Universal Online Cosplay Contest. With cons not being a thing during 2020 a bunch of well known and talented cosplayers decided to put together their own online contest. Which really they threw together in a few weeks. Because it was so quickly built and the short submission window they figured they’d get something like 30 entries. They ended up with 200+ entries from 20+ countries. Talk about mind blowing. And honestly the level of craftsmanship for that contest was nuts. All the entries that were in the Intermediate category could have easily been Masters at a local con.

For the 2021 contest they did change the category structure to more of a method based structure (Needlework and Armor) along with a general Beginners category and one called Out Of This World for the really insane builds. That along with the longer submission window brought in more than 250 contestants from over 30 countries. The Needlework category had quite a bit of Texas rep, so we were happy to see that.

UOCC also started a Discord server. Tacocat and I both joined it. It’s been a really good community with a lot of info sharing. And there’s quite a few Texas peeps in there. Some we knew or knew of along with a few new ones. One we didn’t know was a cosplayer who goes by the name ATXSpider. He was one of the Finalists in the Needlework category with a really good Spiderman costume. Because we were local he hit me up about possibly doing a studio photoshoot with one of his Spiderman costumes (let’s just say he has a few). We were like “Hey, why not?”

The Prep

Initially the studio space we were gonna use was Soundcheck, mostly because the size of the rooms we’ve used in the past were so large. But we found out not only had Soundcheck moved from its previous location they were still working on building their rehearsal rooms. So we fell back to another well known location: Waveform Austin. All of the gear they have would help make our lives easier.

My big focus point for this project was around lighting. I really wanted to try to capture some dramatic lighting so I certainly had in mind some ideas of what modifiers to use and how to place them. But while I was looking for gear to use on another upcoming project I somehow randomly found these interestingly shaped reflectors from Godox. I saw the possibilities with them and they were really inexpensive. So I grabbed two of them.

Outside of that there wasn’t a ton of prep. Given that the subject was Spiderman we all had a really good idea for poses and such. The only thing that was considered from the start was to use a Halloween webbing prop I found years ago to do some type of web shooting. Though the day before the shoot I asked in our team chat “Hey, should I bring the ground fog machine?” Tacocat was all for the idea, so it came with as well.

The Photo Session

Since both Tacocat and I had only talked to ATXSpider online we genuinely had no clue how he might be in person. He was super cool and really fell into our working vibe pretty well. So as far as that goes it was pretty smooth sailing.

Our ideas for the dramatic lighting really went well for this character. Our main lights were pretty much the same we used on Dark Elegance: an Interfit 36” octobox on one side, and a Paul C. Buff 32” x 40” softbox with grid on the other. These modifiers allowed us to make sure a good amount of light was on Spidey while keeping them off of the background. For the background lighting we started off using Paul C. Buff 10” x 36” strip boxes with grids. Those would eventually be changed out for the Godox reflectors with Rosco colored gels.

The standing, crouching, and “perching on an apple box” shots went smoothly enough. What was really interesting was figuring out all the action shots. In a way it was something I was considering though the approach wasn’t something I had fully fleshed out during the prep stage. Thankfully Tacocat was already one step ahead of me thinking through ideas for that. It did take a little work to get those shots in terms of the action itself, framing, using the fog machine, etc. It was worth it though. And ATXSpider is certainly more agile than the rest of us.

The Edit, or Technology Is Insane

I knew that most of the still shots would be easy to edit. But I wasn’t entirely sure about the action shots. Not so much around say color or contrast editing. More around framing and cropping. Since the seamless paper we were using was nine feet wide and there was the movement that had to be considered during shooting this was something I’d really have to think about in editing.

I knew that Adobe had been doing a lot of work with advances for their Sensei AI for editing. For things like Spot Heals and Patching it tended to work well. Content Aware Fill could sometimes work. Though at other times it produced weird or sometimes downright hilarious results.

To provide context that was with the 2019 version of Photoshop. So what about the 2021 version?

It’s downright batshit insane. In a good way.

Given the seamless paper size, the action involved, and how I attempted to capture there was a lot of space beyond the paper that was in the shot. I could have just cropped everything out and called it a day. But I kinda felt like that was the lame way out.

Since I was on the most recent version of Photoshop… why not see what it could do today?

Holy shit, it’s certainly a lot better.

Like as I was doing my first pass of edits for that sort of thing I was sending screenshots to the team being all “FUCK ME RUNNING LOOK WHAT THIS CAN DO NOW!” For some shots it actually even depicted the fog correctly. I did not expect that. Is it 100% perfect? No. I mean it does have to consider a lot of things in the frame. But going off of using it for this set I’ll have to remember it’s certainly a lot more usable than in the past.

There was one other thing I realized about this project. Spiderman is really symmetrical. Not only in terms of costume design but also how he’s shown to be ambidextrous. For some shots (mostly the action ones) they really were all taken from the same angle of sorts. But doing something like flipping an image horizontally would still certainly make sense. Pretty much most of the characters we’ve covered don’t offer that same flexibility. So it was interesting to pick up on that with this set.

Final Thoughts

ATXSpider was a joy to work with. As mentioned earlier he really gelled with us and certainly brought no obstacles to the way we work. We’d gladly work with him again.

As for me specifically I was happy to be in a studio setting again. Having so many aspects under my control allows me to explore things creatively and just lets me see what I can do. If you’ve followed us we’ve made a couple of attempts at outdoor sets. One was “okay”... and another was an outright fail. We’ll talk about that last one at some point.

With regards to the team and us working together in a studio setting… damn, I don’t think you could tell there was a 1.5+ year gap with us doing studio work again. All the thinking through shots, creative input, and giving each other shit felt like no time had passed. And when you fold in working with someone new and how we rolled with it effortlessly I was glad we could so easily get back in the groove.

Hopefully that can continue.

Postscript

Originally I had finished this article the day before this was published. But then we learned some backstory about the suit itself. And how this project had a positive impact on someone else.

ATXSpider actually received the suit from a friend of his who had the work commissioned from Alessio Lucchesi. They had owned it for a few years before they sent it along to ATXSpider to fix up and wear. When ATXSpider sent the original owner the photos…

spidey suit story.jpg

None of us on the team expected THAT.

With the work we do we hope we’re providing inspiration to people in the community, whether it be through the costume creation process or the photography. And going by the comments from the first owner of the suit we’re heading in a positive direction.