Empowering Cosplayers to Transform

Studio Cosplay, a Washington DC area-based non-profit, is combining the world of cosplay and makerspaces. Cosplay is the art of making costumes combined with wearing and performing in costume. A makerspace is a community or shared workspace.

In 2015, Studio Cosplay will offer a new workshop by cosplayers for cosplayers.  Members can collaborate with people they can relate to in a space they may not have at home using tools and equipment they might not have access to.  Studio Cosplay will offer hands-on classes for cosplayers across all skill levels, ranging from sewing to photoshoots to working with thermoplastics. Photographers and cosplayers will have a spot at the studio where they can use a green screen and capture their finished creations. The group also plans to provide emergency repair support at fandom conventions nationwide where members can glue up, stitch up, finish up, and rest up before diving back into the crowd.

Our workshop will have multiple stations that are catered specifically to making and displaying costumes, fabricating armor, and creating props.  These stations will include sewing, painting, fabricating, wig styling, classes, 3D printing. We will also have a green screen for photographing your finished projects. We are still looking for the perfect space, which will ideally have DC metro access and be within driving distance of Baltimore.

Studio Cosplay’s mission is to promote community through the art of costuming by providing workspace, opportunity, and education.  The organization’s founders, Liz Gmaz, Stefanie Hackenberg, Sabrina “Katilist” Maizland and Daria Medved, are themselves cosplayers who saw a need in the cosplay community for a place where cosplayers can go to work on their projects, meet other cosplayers, learn how to make costumes and props, and expand their artistic expression. Founder Stefanie Hackenberg states, “There are so many creative people in the cosplay community but many don’t have the means or skill to transform into their favorite characters the way they envision.  The art of cosplay should only be limited by imagination; not by logistics or lack of knowledge.” 

The DC metro area is a great location to host this workshop, because there are so many people with interest in making costumes here. LARPers, professional costumers, theatre groups, artists, photographers, members of groups such as SCA and many others have enthusiastically expressed a desire for a one-stop-shop for creating, collaborating, and learning, unique to costume making. Many cosplayers wear costumes to fan conventions and some of the biggest fan conventions in the country are held here, including Katsucon, Otakon and AwesomeCon.

The studio will kick off a crowd-sourcing campaign in early 2015 to fund the workshop’s start-up expenses, offering multiple “cosmakerspace” membership tiers to meet the needs of interested cosplayers and to fund subsequent years.  For more information find Studio Cosplay at: www.studiocosplay.org

https://www.facebook.com/studiocosplay

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About The Author

Dean Rogers

Editor-in-Chief/Entertainment Reporter

I knew early on that I wanted to take my place among the stars. One day, my mother saw me reading The Washington Post at a very young age. Who would have known that it would be the building blocks of my journey? Since that day, I dedicated my life to learn all that is learnable. I read everything from encyclopedias, to books, to dictionaries, to magazines. I’m also an avid consumer of television, with my favorite genre being game shows. If you’ve seen me on Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Wheel of Fortune, then you know that this interest has served me well!

My unique style of reporting began back in junior high school, when I started to chronicle the events that shaped my life. Whether it was the annual family vacation or the local science fiction convention, I shot numerous pictures and recorded my thoughts so I could truly appreciate the history. During my senior year at Friendly High, I wrote what was to be my first masterpiece, “Advanced Space Academy – A One Week Journey.” I sent the eleven-page article back to the U.S. Space Camp staff. The article was highly praised for being “one of the best written articles in the history of U.S. Space Camp.” From then on, I knew what I wanted to do for rest of my life — to be a reporter.

Since then, I have trained in Broadcast Journalism at Bowie State University (2008) in Bowie, MD earning a B.S. in Communications. I gained experience in news production and editing through field experiences with Bowie Community Media Corporation, Prince George’s Community Television, and Bowie State University Television. I also wrote scripts for a variety of quiz shows for over five years.

As a lifelong movie buff, I now see close to 100 films every year. I took this love of movies to the next step when I became a co-host for Eclipse Magazine TV in the fall of 2005. While at EMTV, I interviewed celebrities, worked red carpets, and attended a wide variety of movie screenings. In January 2009, I took a leap of faith and started my own entertainment news magazine, The Rogers Revue. Shortly afterward, my life-long journey of studying the silver screen and writing about what I learned finally earned me a place in the Washington Area Film Critics Association.

All of this has led me here, giving you the latest entertainment news for the DMV and the entire nation, and I am truly excited for whatever will come next.

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