OverWatch

Overwatch is a very well known objective based game, focusing on team reliant competitions where two teams of six players compete against each other. LarpLikeRae was never a big fan of planning the games themselves but took a liking to watching the gameplay, enjoying the characters and bringing the challenge of creating them in real life!

From a dream of making a character come to life to years later of practice, persistence and dedication making that dream into a reality!

Steampunk Mercy

"For my Steampunk mercy cosplay.... lets start out with this very long story. So buckle up everyone! When I first started to get into Cosplay and wanted to dress up as the characters that I loved the most in high school, I first laid my eyes on Mercy. I remember how I loved her design, especially her colors and personality. I didn’t know much about the gameplay because I had never played it at the time, but my friend was really into it and being able to watch the gameplay first hand made me want to give it a chance to make her outfit. Just know that this Cosplay was one of the first times I tried to make an outfit and didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I ended up getting into my own head and felt as if I did terribly... so I gave up. The only thing I tried out was dying the shirts sleeves by hand and it ended up bleeding everywhere. But now that I have had years of practice with sewing, building LED lights, and so many other things, I ended up putting together this entire huge Steampunk Mercy. At first, I didn’t know if I wanted to give the steampunk version a try or if I wanted to do a different version of her, but because it was a very well requested theme throughout my cosplay career to make steam punk themed cosplays (Especially for Wild Wild West Con) I decided to go with Steampunk Mercy. For this Cosplay I had began to test my knowledge as well as test myself with new abilities. I learned how to properly animate LED lights and wings as well as making the wings flap. I also was able to make armor from Worbla and EVA foam. I also learned how to style wigs the way I desired such as gluing hair back with tacky glue onto the wig after cutting it off. This Cosplay was one of my favorites however, I did end up throwing it out after it broke after a competition. I had one MC and judges choice of Tucson Comic Con 2023, and right after the competition we ended up walking to the hotel and one of my wings snapped off. It was very very troublesome to remake the Cosplay and the wings so I decided to scrap it after several times trying to rebuild it. That being said, if I ever do Cosplay as Mercy again, it will not be the steampunk version because it is so complicated and I have thrown out everything. I would most likely do a lifeguard version or her casual doctor outfits just to make sure that I can still Cosplay as her, but please note that for her steampunk version I made in 2023, it will no longer be coming back."

Without knowing too much about a character to immediately falling in love.

Ashe

"For my Ashe Cosplay, I first did not think I would ever cosplay as her and technically I didn’t even know who she was. Cloud had introduced me to Ashe from 'Overwatch' in October 2023 when I was considering making NSFW content for my Patreon at the time. He had recommended Ashe and because I didn’t know who she was I was reluctant at first, but once I looked her up, I knew exactly that I had everything to do a Closet Cosplay of her that same day. I got together a cowboy hat and Cloud had made the little symbol for the top of the hat out of elastic and EVA foam. I was able to throw together the rest of the cosplay easily before doing my own photo shoot. This Cosplay is one of my favorites of overwatch and I will definitely be bringing her back just because it already is a very comfortable Cosplay let alone being a costest. If I were to re-cosplay as her, I will definitely add more attention details and sew the entire cosplay rather than using supplies that I already own. I will say, her wig is one of my favorite wigs ever and it’s extremely comfortable to wear! A couple months after I made my Ashe closet Cosplay I ended up using the wig for my Chica cosplay from Five Nights at Freddy’s."

There are moments with cosplayers where they only really cosplay a character once for publicity but decide that they don’t actually enjoy cosplaying as them.

Tracer

"Sometimes there are Cosplays that cosplayers make that are only done because they think it will do well in reality half the time it is not something that is taken an interest in. I never thought that I would be doing a Tracer cosplay whatsoever, but once I had found out that I was going to be tattooing at Tucson Tattoo Expo in 2024 I wanted to bring characters and Cosplays of mine to tattoo in that were comfortable and be easy to tattoo in. Another attribute I wanted to add was to have very recognizable characters, however the hardest part about those three things is finding a cosplay that everyone will know. So I went with TinkerBell, Ashe and Tracer from overwatch. On sunday for Tracer it was very overstimulating cosplay and halfway through the day I took off the wig because it was getting annoying and my comfortability was not being met up to par with my tattoo work. However, it was my first time cosplaying as Tracer with it being a costest, and barely throwing things together. I don’t think I will Cosplay as her again in the future and if I do, I’ll of course do a different version. Kind of like mentioned in my Mercy post but for now I think I would rather cosplay as Ashe, or any other overwatch character rather then to be tracer again.