Ben Wright-Heuman - Cartoonist Extraordinaire
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CosPain0029

1/30/2018

3 Comments

 
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I was going to do this strip at a later date, but voice actor Taliesin Jaffe recently said something that made it relevant, and which influenced the character designs for this strip.

For those who are unaware, Mr. Jaffe is one of the stars of the Dungeons and Dragons webshow Critical Role, one of my favorite creative projects currently airing. While talking about his character design for the new campaign, he said that he told the character artist, "I would like to cause cosplayers to have a nervous breakdown."

To be clear, I get that it was said in jest and in no way an attack on cosplayers. If anything, it was said with love, because he knows that cosplayers enjoy a good challenge. It was just a happy coincidence that I came up with this joke shortly before Taliesin made his comment on Talks Machina.

Anyway, the original concept for this joke was inspired by a character design that a friend of mine recently cosplayed from the game Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. We had joked that one character, Allice, had the least practical character design ever. And she had a 3D model in the game, which meant that animators had to figure out how that solid-gold-toilet-bowl necklace wouldn't slip off its precarious perch and up the game's rating. It became our poster child for the impossible-to-cosplay character design until fairly recently, when my friend figured out a way to make that magic happen. If you're interested in finding out how, she has a Patreon tier that breaks down her design process here.

The CosPain Print Poll is running until the end of January! If you haven't given me your feedback yet, please do.
3 Comments
Shade
2/5/2018 02:13:53

If it helps, game developers sometimes get caught out by their own designs. Many hire actors to portray their characters at trade shows, usually those not open to the public so that they’re not competing with cosplayers. In spite of having budgets that can go into the thousands and the services of professional costumers and armourers, they often have to make compromises or admit defeat entirely. I’ve seen too many disappointments and outright failures that would have been better left at home, considering that they’re supposed to promote a game within the industry.

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Ben Wright-Heuman link
2/5/2018 11:38:50

Think of how much money they could save if they got cosplayers to do it. Thousands of dollars for a team of pros, or a couple hundred bucks for one fan in their garage with a sewing machine and a heat gun?

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Shade
2/5/2018 14:12:40

This might sound crazy (because it is) but there has always been something of a competition among the big developers to spend excessive amounts of money on things like presentations at the closed trade shows just to prove that they can. They regularly spend a quarter of a million or more on a presentation stage and display that perhaps only 250 people will ever see. I’ve actually had several game and animation characters based on my appearance - I’m full Cherokee - and a couple of times I was asked to present the characters at trade shows. One involved full plate armor, black with gold trim, over a mail jacket and leggings that cost them 20,000 US. I still have the armor, since it was made to fit me exactly. Damned hot to wear and weighs 115 lbs.


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    About

    CosPain is a comedy comic strip about the insanity that happens at cons, especially in relation to the cosplay community.  New strips post every Tuesday at noon EST.

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  • Home
  • Comics
    • CanonWrite Productions >
      • Less Than Secret
    • The Letters of the Devil
    • CosPain
    • Minicomics
    • Anthology Submissions
  • Illustrations
    • Original
    • Fanart
    • Caricatures
  • Portfolio
    • General
    • CV
  • About
  • Store
    • Physical Store
    • Digital Store
  • Contact
  • Commissions
  • Links
  • Patrons
  • Twitch