BlizzCon 2010's costume winners share cosplay experience

Personally, the gloves are my favorite part of the costume. I decided to go for chainmail even though I had tried it before. The gloves were the bane of my existence for about six months. It gets very tedious linking together tiny metal rings and scales for hours on end. But this is what cosplay is about.
Putting in those hours and creating something amazing.

- Brenna Bozanic, Ysera

So here I was, flat on my butt, unable to see a thing, with one hoof broken when I heard one of the BlizzCon employees yelling into his walkie-talkie, "Illidan's down! Illidan's down!"

I yelled back, "This isn't a raid &$@#, get me up!"

At this point I heard Jay Mohr calling me a diva for wanting a grand entrance or something and all I could think was that there were over 20,000 people out there waiting for me and probably a million watching live on pay-per-view and I couldn’t get up. Yes… Illidan fell and couldn’t get up. I was only down for about 30 seconds before my trusted minions stomped on my foot to break off the other hoof (I couldn’t walk in just one good one) and got me out there.

- Armando, Illidan

I took what I had learned in years past and applied it to the monk costume, and began the lengthy process of learning about leather crafting. My goals this year were simple: I wanted to be able to sit down in this costume, I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, and I didn’t want the costume to explode after multiple wears. Having only one simple piece of concept art to work off of, I wasn’t expecting it to be as well received as it was. The monk is not wide nor tall, does not glow or have any special effects, and the detailing that was done is hard to see from far away. Lack of grandiosity aside, I worked at the detailing and capturing the look and personality of a strong female warrior and hoped for the best.

- Christina, Female Monk