Author: traviandesigns

Artist, costumer, podcaster, android

Cosplay Couture Tintin

From the archives, October 2013

A Cosplay Couture interpretation of Tintin

Costume (pants) by Courtney Coulson
Photography by Luke Milton in collaboration with Sabatomic Photography

Shot in Atlantis, the abandoned theme park


Tintin has such a simple yet iconic look with a very distinct colour palette, which made him a perfect candidate for a couture treatment. The sweater was a lucky find on ebay, everything else came from my wardrobe already, including the breeches which were originally from my Road to El Dorado Miguel costume.
Hair was tricky to get to stay in place as it was a windy day, fortunatley it’s behaving in these shots.
Make-up is light and all pinks to give a more young, cute kind of look, just like Tintin!

-Courtney Coulson

The most hostile environment, where we battled overgrown paths and giant spiders, but what is Tintin without adventure? I was drawn to the odd statues although they are more comical than old-worldly and it was tricky to take out the clues that many of them are near visible shops and car parks. The real treasure was the rocky landscape that we found in the heart of the theme park which looked far more exotic than the rest of it. I think that much of what we shot would look beautiful in black and white but when you lose the iconic colours of Tintin’s costume you risk losing the sense of the character.


-Luke Milton

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A Physical Manifestation of Regret

I don’t know why I’ve been hesitant to share this one, all my art has been equally angsty lately, but I’m trying to be more abstract. Domas quickly became my favourite character in Ranking of Kings, his grief and regret physically manifest in attacking and permanently disfiguring himself. Spoiler: everyone gets a redemption in this story, but I think Domas’s arc is wrapped up too simply. I’m left thinking about the complexities of this character.

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The Hallucination

I survived the colonoscopy, they didn’t need to perform surgery beyond the biopsies, I won’t know what’s wrong with me for a couple of weeks still.
Waking up from the anaesthesia was horrific, I was drifting in between dreams and reality, both seeming to be equally real. The hospital was on fire, I called out to Snake, he stood there doing nothing. Then in reality, I kept trying to turn over on my stomach and crawl away. The doctors were yelling at me to open my eyes, I couldn’t figure out why they were getting angry at me. I didn’t understand why one of them kept poking me so hard in the ribs, I would have punched her back, but I wasn’t lucid enough. I thrashed and writhed around, the doctors all had to hold me down and sedate me, I then starting hallucinating that certain rape scene from Berserk. I woke up later in another room, still struggling to regain consciousness.
They later asked me if if I was afraid of snakes. “Why?” I asked. “You kept saying there were snakes”. I laugh, “Oh, Snake, that’s the codename of this character in this game I like”. Thankfully one of the nurses was a gamer, so he got it.
It could just be that I had a bad reaction to anaesthesia, or maybe I’ve retrained my brain having had to lucid dream so often to combat the nightmares. Big Boss is one of those “tulpas” I call on to intervene.

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Metal Gear’s Raiden in the style of H.R. Giger

This started as an experiment with AI, I gave this suggestion to a number of art generators (did you know even DeviantART has one now? It’s terrible). Then I did my own interpretation of the prompt, what I quickly realised was that not only was I able to make sensible observations (this is how Giger draws hair, this is how Giger draws hands, etc) but it came from a personal place. I wasn’t just mimicking an art style, my own experiences and emotions and traumas were bleeding onto the page.
Also happy ten year anniversary Revengeance, hope this is a fitting tribute.

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Cosplay Couture Nathan Drake

From the archives, October 2013

A Cosplay Couture interpretation of Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series of games.

Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson
Holster by Jack Barbour
Photography by Luke Milton in collaboration with Sabatomic Photography
Shot in the sand dunes of Lancelin and a rest stop along Indian Ocean Drive

The Uncharted series is my favourite series of games of all time and Drake’s had an influence over my wardrobe ever since. I was wearing daily cosplay couture before it was even a thing.
Drake’s look breaks down to a few essentials, a half tucked henley shirt into some cargo pants, the Sic Parvis Magna ring and the horseshoe belt buckle. Beyond that I had a fair amount of freedom.
I love his shemag (scarf) that he wore in the third game, so that was a must, the aviator shades were more of a neccessity as it gets damn bright out there on that white sand in the middle of the day, I don’t know how Drake does it, oh that’s right, the badass squint! I gave it a go, think he does it better.

Hair was challenging as Nate wears it very short and neat and overall I wanted the styling in this shoot to look casual, not overly done up or intentional. I went for slicked down at the sides and left the top messy, the wind took care of the messy part! Make-up is lots of bronze and gold.

In terms of physicality I had a lot of freedom there too, Drake can be serious or he can be cocky and playful. He’s got a pretty relaxed posture, but very shoulder oriented.
-Courtney Coulson

Two main challenges shooting in the dunes. First is keeping that sense of space and expanse while maintaining a focus on the model – it needs to be about Drake, not the environment, although they have to compliment each other. And secondly the mass of sand and insects that were twirling into the camera. This created a fleet of black spots on all of the images leading to an extensive “Attack of the Clonestamp” scenario. Very happy with the exposure here though, and the lighting owes a lot to Sabatomic’s deft placement of the handheld flash.

The second location was a discovery while stopping to shoot the Eleventh Doctor. It led to a quick change and a stint under a bridge (while trucks roared overhead). Terrifying.

– Luke Milton

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