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SugarxSpice is our August CosVisionary

Tell us a little about your cosplay life, and what it means to you?

Though we consider cosplay to be just one of our many hobbies, it actually does end up taking up a good part of our lives simply because it's so expensive and time consuming! For us, cosplay is more about the creation of pretty costumes and taking pretty pictures than going to conventions. We usually only attend one or two conventions a year, and the rest of the time we do "internet" cosplay by posting photos of our various completed projects.

Meghann (Sugar)'s favorite aspect of cosplay is the challenge of making costumes. She likes choosing fabrics and trims, figuring out patterns and watching a costume come together. Wigs are also a lot of fun to play with.

Our current cosplay obsession is Takarazuka, an all-female Japanese theater troupe where women play both the male and female roles. Takarazuka's over-the-top, glittery costumes and recognizable characters are perfect for cosplay, and our to-do list includes at least four different Takarazuka character sets.

Queen Marie Antoinette from Takarazuka's Rose of Versailles Musical:
Costume Info:
This has been our most difficult and expensive costume so far, involving hundreds of hours of hand embroidery and yards and yards of fabric, hoop steel, corset boning, embroidery floss and lace. However, it's also hands-down our favorite project. We wanted to do this costume the moment we first saw pictures of it, before we'd even seen the musical! It took nearly a year to complete, but it was completely worth it. It's gigantic, it's sparkly, and it's so much fun to prance around in.

Favorite Aspects:
The GIGANTIC hoopskirt, and the way the embroidery turned out. Thanks to the magic of an embroidery hoop (and hours and hours of work) we were able to recreate the appliques on the original dress almost exactly.

Princess Kakyuu from Sailor Moon Sailor Stars Musicals (Sera Myu):
Costume Info:
Princess Kakyuu's character in the Stars Musicals is a lovely opera singer. The first time Sugar heard her signature aria she fell in love with this character (and it didn't hurt that her costume was so sparkly and detailed!) This was a very difficult costume to do, mostly due to the tightly fitted bodice with its odd-fitting off-the-shoulder neckline and the petaled skirt that took WAY too much time. The wig was also quite a challenge, as Kakyuu's distinctive loopy hairstyle is not easy to achieve when there are things like GRAVITY to consider.

Favorite Aspects:
The shimmery sleeves, petaled skirt and gold flower accents. Also the lovely red color.

Cosmic Fantasy Uranus and Neptune from Original Design by Mara Lune (http://www.mara-lune.com), based on characters from the anime/manga Sailor Moon:
Costume Info:
Our friend Mara had designed these gorgeous Cosmic Fantasy senshi fukus, and graciously allowed us to create Uranus and Neptune. She was wonderfully helpful, too, even providing fabric samples and specific sewing directions! Uranus has always been Sugar's favorite Sailor Moon character, so she was very excited to have the chance to cosplay such a beautiful version of her fuku.

Favorite Aspects:
The jewel accents everywhere: waistband, shoes, gloves, brooch, tiara, earrings... they're all sparkly! Also the three-layer, three-toned skirts with their gold banding and the long gloves. These are just beautiful designs and we love them.

Misha from Pitaten Manga:
Costume Info:
Though we haven't seen much of the Pitaten anime, the lolita-ish manga illustrations caught our eye. Sugar really liked Misha's oriental-style apron dress, and the wig was a big challenge (and a lot of fun to wear!) All of the silver detailing on this costume was done with a paint pen and a stencil.

Favorite Aspects:
The little bunny head on the wig. It's so cute!

Lady Oscar de Jarjayes from Takarazuka Rose of Versailles musicals:
Costume Info:
Rose of Versailles is one of Takarazuka's most famous shows, and Minoru Ko, who plays Oscar in our favorite version of the musical, is our favorite actress. Her white and silver uniform is her most spectacular costume from the show, and so Sugar decided to make this one in order to complement Spice's Marie. Though this costume didn't take nearly as long to complete as Marie, it still involved an obscene amount of time beading the silver lace and hand-ventilating a lace front onto the wig.

Favorite Aspects:
The gorgeous gold, curly wig, and my manly sword. *coughs*.

French Aristocrat Utena and Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena Manga:
Costume Info:
We LOVE the artbook image of Utena, Anthy and Juri in these costumes, and Sugar really wanted to try her hand at making a floofy dress. We took a few artistic liberties with the design, like using silver lame rather than light blue trim on Utena's suit. We also hand-colored Anthy's wig with purple sharpies in order to get the right color, since the wig came to us in an icky neon purple shade.

Favorite Aspects:
Anthy's enormous skirt, and her shimmery teal fabric. Utena's overall snazziness and the pink curly wig.

Princess Neptune from Sailor Moon Manga:
Costume Info:
We were looking for a simple, quick costume set for AX, and decided to make another Uranus/Neptune set since we still had Spice's wig and Sugar's hair is still the right style for Uranus. This dress was a challenge, as the gathered side is extremely difficult to fit properly and took quite a bit of careful draping, but we were very pleased with the result.

Favorite Aspects:
The color, and the gauzy organza fluffies.

SugarxSpice, your costumes are amazingly detailed, and it certainly shows you two put a lot of care and work into them. It was great getting to see your Marie Antoinette, and your Lady Oscar costumes. They looked much better in person. Keep up the great work you two, and we cant wait to see what new costumes you'll be making next.

you can see more costumes made by SugarxSpice at their website.