Shannon
Carnival of Masks presents Los Angeles, CA based costume designer, Shannon Martinez, as part of our Beyond the Carnival: Interviews with Costume Folks Around the World series.
CoM: Shannon, tell us about what you do.
SM: We are a Los Angeles-based family of costume loving, video game playing, convention going nerds who apparently looked at normal hobbies and said, “No thanks, we’d rather spend three months figuring out how to make a six foot mechanical wing fold into a doorway.”
We create costumes because we love the entire ridiculous process. The research. The sketching. The foam. The fabric. The electronics. The engineering. The inevitable moment when someone says, “Okay, but how are you actually going to WALK in that?” And, of course, the 2:00 a.m. realization that we have made a terrible mistake.
We cosplay characters we love, but we also really enjoy creating our own characters and putting our own spin on existing ones. Sometimes that means changing an era, adding mechanical elements, exaggerating a design, or just asking, “What would make this even more unnecessarily complicated?”
We don't do it for publicity or to sell costumes. We do it because creating things together is one of our favorite family activities. If something we make causes a stranger to stop, smile, ask for a picture, or yell the character's name from across a convention hall - mission accomplished.
CoM: What inspires you?
SM: Pretty much anything that makes us say, “Ohhh...that would be FUN to build.” We love great character design, storytelling, video games, movies, anime, history, fantasy, other costume designers, artists, makers, and the incredible creativity we see from random people online.
Sometimes inspiration comes from the character. Sometimes it comes from an event. Sometimes it comes from a piece of material sitting on a table that suddenly becomes something completely different in your head.
We also love designing for the experience. Who are we going to meet? Where are we going? What's the atmosphere? How can the costume contribute to that world for a few hours?
Because ultimately, the best part isn't the costume. It's the moment somebody sees it and their face lights up. That's the good stuff!
CoM: How did your life in costumes begin??
SM: We blame our son. He wanted to go to Comic Con and asked us to help make an anime character costume. At the time, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable family project. That costume somehow ended up being featured on a Japanese cosplay blog. And that was it, the gateway costume.
Suddenly we were looking at EVA foam differently. Hardware stores became costume supply stores. Things in the garage started disappearing. Trips began being planned around events. Conversations started with phrases like, “Hear me out, what if we built...?”
What started out as helping our son make one costume turned into something our entire family loves doing together. We regret nothing. Except possibly glitter. Glitter was a mistake.
CoM: Do you attend costumed events?
SM: Absolutely. At this point, giving us an excuse to wear costumes is probably dangerous. We always attend the Labyrinth Masquerade Ball in Los Angeles. It's one of those wonderful events where everyone seems to agree that reality has been temporarily suspended and we're all going somewhere much more interesting for the evening.
We also never miss a Renaissance Faire. There are costumes, characters, storytelling, craftsmanship, questionable accents, turkey legs, and adults enthusiastically pretending it's several hundred years ago. What's not to love?
But we also love traveling for events. We've traveled all the way to Versailles for the Marie Antoinette themed festivities. We'd love to keep going!
Our costume bucket list currently includes Brazil and Venice. And honestly, we'd travel just about anywhere in the world for an amazing costumed event. Money permitting, of course. Apparently airlines refuse to accept “but this suitcase contains a fabulous costume” as payment.
CoM: What's your favorite thing about costumes?
SM: The creativity. Costuming is this wonderful collision of art, engineering, storytelling, problem solving, fashion, fabrication, and occasional insanity. One day you're sewing. The next you're sculpting foam. Then you're learning electronics. Then you're standing in a hardware store holding plumbing fittings and thinking, “Technically, this is armor.”
We love the ingenuity of figuring out how to turn an idea into something real. Especially when the idea probably shouldn't work. But our favorite part is what happens afterward. A costume gives complete strangers permission to interact with each other.
Someone smiles. Someone asks a question. A kid gets excited. Another maker wants to know how you built something. Someone asks for a picture. We enjoy making new friends, talking to people we never would have met otherwise. For a few minutes, everybody gets to play. It’s being a kid again, sharing in joy. That's pretty magical!
CoM: Do you have a costume related business?
SM: We’re Creatures and Cosplay. But “Business” sounds suspiciously like work, and we're trying very hard not to ruin a perfectly good hobby. We don't sell our costumes or build products for customers. We're much more interested in sharing the creative process, talking about techniques, exchanging ideas, meeting other makers, and finding increasingly elaborate excuses to dress strangely in public.
Turning it into a production business would change the reason we do it. We want to make something because we desperately want to see if we can make it, not because twelve units need to ship by Friday.
So if it's a business, our business model is terrible.
Revenue: $0. Foam and fabric expenditures: We prefer not to discuss this. Return on investment: laughter, friendships, family memories, creativity, and the occasional five year old completely losing their mind when they see a character they recognize. But to us, that's a pretty good return. We're extremely profitable in joy.
CoM: Who are some cosplayers you love in the costume world?
SM: We absolutely love creators like Evil Ted Smith and Yaya Han. Evil Ted's work is fantastic for makers because he has a wonderful way of demystifying fabrication and showing people that incredible things can start with surprisingly ordinary materials. Yaya Han has also done so much to elevate cosplay, costume design, craftsmanship, and the community around it.
But our absolute favorites: Random cosplayers on Instagram. Seriously! We love finding someone with 327 followers who just spent six months making an absolutely insane costume in their apartment. We love beginners, we love professionals, we love the person whose seams aren't perfect but who figured out how to make the eyes glow! We love historical costumers obsessing over buttons and fantasy costumers who clearly decided historical accuracy was for cowards!
Show us what you're making! Tell us how you made it. Show us the part that went horribly wrong before you figured it out. We will follow you back. There is too much creativity in this community to act cool about it.
CoM: Anything else you’d like to share with us?
SM: We think adults should play more. Somewhere along the way, people get told that imagination is something you're supposed to grow out of. We disagree. Build the armor, wear the ridiculous hat, make the wings, be the pirate, become the elf! Spend three days engineering something completely unnecessary because you had an idea and wanted to know if it could exist. And when somebody walks up wearing something they clearly poured their heart into, tell them how awesome it is!!
Costuming has taken our family to places we never expected, introduced us to wonderfully creative people, and given us memories we wouldn't trade for anything. We're just trying to leave every event with sore feet, a camera full of pictures, a bunch of new friends, at least one story that begins with “You're not going to believe what happened...”, and another idea that is almost certainly going to require more foam. If we can make somebody smile along the way? Even better.
Create weird things. Wear them proudly. Be kind. Invite everyone to play. That's pretty much our whole motto!
CoM: Shannon, your joy radiates through your answers. Thanks so much!
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