Cosplay Couture Frankenstein’s monster (Eve)
From the archives, July 2014:
Cosplay Couture interpretation of Frankenstein’s monster (Eve)
Costume by Courtney Coulson
Make-up by Lauren Payne
Photography by Luke Milton
Location: Carport
Here’s something we’ve been anticipating for around seven months now, having both become obsessed with the Frankenstein novel and all its various interpretations. Mary Shelley’s work differs massively from the classic Universal film which gets the Michael Bay treatment by comparison. Shelley’s monster is eloquent, emphatic, and pendulum swings between sadness and rage. This is the creature we have wanted to create. Huge thanks to the remarkable talents of Lauren from Lollilicious Make Up Artistry who helped make our plans possible through her wonderful work.
-Luke Milton
I’ve completely fallen in love with Frankenstein, the book has no equal and it’s become a great source of inspiration for me. Luke and I also saw the National Theatre play back in November and I was profoundly moved, it really captured the emotional core of Frankenstein and it was after this that the two of us began wondering if there was any way to give the Creature the Cosplay Couture treatment. After watching many, many adaptations seeing what worked and what didn’t, I ended up with a creature of my own. I call her Eve, as the original Creature is sometimes dubbed ‘Adam’, this isn’t intended to be the Bride, rather a genderswapped Creature as I wanted to channel his emotional journey. This was the most physical performance based shoot I have ever done and I loved it, I was also working on a concrete floor on a cold night in a tight costume and it made the experience feel more real, now I want to see what my next big challenge will be.
The costume was mostly inspired by the Creature’s birth, often depicted wrapped in bandages, it’s a stretch cotton bodysuit with something like twenty metres of bronze organza hand wrapped and stitched on top, and it laces up at the back. The Creature’s birth is never really explored in detail and it varies greatly when portrayed on screen, so my interpretation is of a creature suspended by leather harnesses within an artificial womb.
-Courtney Coulson
Cosplay Couture Tintin & Haddock
From the archives, July, 2014:
Cosplay Couture interpretation of Tintin and Haddock
Costumes and styling by Courtney Coulson
Haddock by Luke Milton
Photography by Sabatomic Photography
Location: Fremantle docks
For such a simple costume, I am most happy as Tintin, he’s a character I really identify with. And this time Tintin is joined by Haddock and Snowy! As we have already done a couture shoot with Tintin, I thought I would mix things up and go for a more accurate costume. So the styling is relatively understated, but my personal touches are still evident in the velveteen “plus-fours”, leather boots, and camera. Besides this shoot was about debuting Haddock’s costume.
How do you make Haddock look fashionable? It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, the general silhouette and colour pallet is unchanged, but I swapped out the anchor jumper with an anchor t-shirt, which I painted myself. Plus scarves are always a cool accessory.
And introducing Bailey as Snowy, conveniently I just happen to have a little white dog for the part. He wasn’t too difficult to work with, he was pretty anxious about being in a new environment, so he stayed close by, the only challenge was getting him to look at the camera for more than a second.
Courtney Coulson
It’s always a thrill to work with Sab- she is an amazing photographer who understands what we are trying to accomplish and make us look good, It’s also a thrill to be in front of the camera again and getting my Haddock on, thank you for indulging me.
-Luke Milton
It was really fun to get back to shooting. Courtney has amazing dynamic poses and Luke has a wonderfully expressive face.
-Sabrina
Gozer- Ghostbusters
From the archives, June 2014:
Gozer the Gozerian- Ghostbusters
Costume and make-up by Courtney Coulson
Photography and props by Luke Milton
This year, this month in fact marks the 30th anniversary of Ghostbusters, which is one of my all time favourite films, so I couldn’t resist making a tribute to it.
Our Re-Animator shoot taught us that a minimalistic concept can yield surprising results. Often times we will spend weeks designing, making, planning and researching for a shoot, but in this instance it’s just a carport, a smoke machine and a purple light. Gozer’s costume is really simple, it’s just bits of fabric and plastic (in my case, bubble wrap) glued to a unitard, it literally took me a day to assemble. Hell, I spent more time and money on my Ghostbusters uniform and props.
Courtney Coulson
I have discovered smoke and coloured lights. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Luke Milton
Herbert West: The Re-Animator
From the archives, March 2014:
Costume by Courtney Coulson
Photography, sets and props by Luke Milton
This shoot was quickly put together after watching all three Re-Animator movies in the past week. The challenge, of course, is to take a character with a very basic costume, use minimal props and set, and still manage to get across the essence of Jeffrey Comb’s iconic Herbert West. It’s really all about the look and the lighting and I’m happy with the results. This is the first time in a while that we’ve used the studio lights, but we used them outside in the carport at night to give us a grittier feel (and a bit more space). And I love making blood!
-Luke Milton
This was a unique challenge as West is such a minimalistic character, alter a single detail about his look and it changes everything. It’s also the kind of costume that only works if you vaguely resemble him to begin with, which considering this is crossplay, I think I at least pass. I didn’t really have to make anything for this costume, I already owned everything except for the glasses, I had to find the perfect frames. In terms of facial expressions and poses, again, I was kind of limited. West is pretty unfazed by any of the events of the films, his usual expression is a stern pout which I tried my best to emulate. And of course the syringe had to be ever present!
-Courtney Coulson
A Collection of Custom Dolls
Back around 2014 I discovered Monster High and was inspired to customise them. It would go on to generate the foundation of the Doctor Travian novel I am writing. I had no experience painting dolls or miniatures prior, my earliest attempts were rough, but I would soon pick up the skills. I learned to paint their faces, insert glass eyes, re-root their hair and make detailed miniature costumes. I sold custom dolls for a time on Etsy, and I would gift a few to my friends.
I don’t have time for such a hobby anymore, but I am proud of the work I did.
Doctor Travian
Others
Metal Girl Solid Podcast
Join Courtney as she experiences the Metal Gear Solid series for the first time, playing not in release order, but chronological order.
This series is intended to be a most thorough and academic exploration of the Metal Gear Solid series. Investigating the real history, politics and philosophies behind the story, as well as delving into the game guides, scripts and novelisations to bring you the most complete understanding of the works of Hideo Kojima.
Cosplay Couture Tinker Bell
From the archives, March 2024:
Cosplay Couture interpretation of Tinker Bell from Peter Pan
Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson
Photography by Luke Milton
Location: University of Western Australia
Tinker Bell is one of those characters that is cosplayed a lot but is hard to do well. Disney makes great business decisions, but sometimes less-than-great creative decisions. The mainstream Tinker Bell has become a spritely valley girl with a posse of fairy friends who are all a vehicle for merchandise. But if you go back to the original book, Tinker Bell is far more volatile. She can be unpredictable, jealous, and vindictive. Tinkerbell has a bite. But there’s also a beautiful, ethereal, otherworldly nature to her. I think our biggest success with this shoot was integrating into our environment and my favourite pictures are those where she is lost in the green.
-Luke Milton
“A girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage” -Peter and Wendy; J.M Barrie
Tinker Bell has had a fairly consistant, very feminine, silhouette from the beginning. Though she wasn’t the first, she has certainly informed pixies and fairies that came after her visually. I used lace as a nod to skeleton leaves and I imagined she might pick up hints of pollen and other parts of nature, so the sponged on pastel shades are intended to reflect that. As for the wings, the bigger the better! They are constructed from “fantasy film” and wire, by far the most involved aspect of this costume.
-Courtney Coulson
Cosplay Couture Robin (Carrie Kelly)
From the archives, February 2014:
Cosplay Couture interpretation of Carrie Kelley as Robin from the Dark Knight Returns
Costume and styling by Courtney Coulson
Photography by Luke Milton
Location Claremont
I’ve always been a huge fan of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. The female Robin is a nice twist but what I’ve always loved about the design is that it’s very androgynous. As a teenager first seeing Carrie Kelley Robin I wasn’t even sure if it was a boy or a girl. I think it’s the glasses that really make this one. Without them it could be any Robin, but with them it’s definitely Carrie.Location wise the goal was to keep this as absolutely simple as possible. Miller uses very sparse backgrounds, and there’s so much iconic colour in the Robin costume itself that I didn’t want anything competing it. We waited until the sun started going down and tried to get some striking, colourful shots with the Robin character spotlighted.
– Luke Milton
This is my first superhero Cosplay Couture and while I like comic characters, they are re-designed all the time, whether it be by official sources or the fans. They are also very much tied to their specific colour schemes and logos. It’s a bit intimidating to try and adapt to fashion. But there’s something about Carrie that just spoke to me, I love her androgynous look, I love that her costume is just thrown together and mostly from a halloween costume. She’s scrappy, she’s plucky, she’s my Robin.
My intention was to create an outfit that felt as if she had found all these items in her own wardrobe and there are many practical items in this outfit, for example the cape has been replaced with a hood that sits like a collar. But of course I still wanted to keep that sense of fashion, the vest is the statement piece and the utmost attention was payed to the tailoring. Overall the silhouette had to be sleek. As for the make-up, I decided to go with black lipstick as it’s bold and lends itself to the graphic (novel) look.
-Courtney Coulson
Knuckles
Knuckles (watercolour and marker)
This year I’ve been spending every evening practicing art, but you wouldn’t know it because I only post work when it is fully completed and I am satisfied with it. I think we live in a world now that has been conditioned to treat everything as a source of generating content. No, focus on honing your craft, then share it with the world. Social media will distract you from meaningful progress if you’re obsessed with demonstrating superfluous improvements along the way. You think Da Vinci was cranking out a masterpiece everyday?
I’m trying to get more into colouring, I am finding I am fond of watercolours, it seems to be my favourite medium. Amazingly this is just a cheap watercolour set from Kmart. It’s surprisingly vibrant. This painting is based on a screenshot from the show Knuckles, I chose it because, aside from Knuckles being adorable, it presented a challenging lighting scenario . There’s also the difficult perspectice of the building behind him. That ended up being overwhelming, so I kept the background abstract. I’m most proud of how the flaming fists turned out.
Travian Designs 