Cosplay fun with the Stringer family
by Anne Stickney 
Dec 15th 2011 at 1:00PM
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. Sample the whole spectrum on our Arts and Crafts in WoW page.
When I ask cosplayers, "How did you get into cosplay?" the answer most often given is that they attended a convention, saw someone in the costumes and decided to create a design based off their characters or a character in game. Well, today I've got a submission that happened to be the other way around entirely! After last week's amazing tauren cosplay, I was sent this amazing female tauren costume along with a whole host of others from 30-year costuming veteran Susan Stringer.
Susan didn't start out playing WoW; it was her son Jake's dwarf hunter costume that inspired her to try her hand at creating a WoW character. One thing led to another, and Susan picked up WoW and started playing for herself, eventually completing the costume you see above. For the Stringers, both cosplay and WoW are now a family activity.
When I ask cosplayers, "How did you get into cosplay?" the answer most often given is that they attended a convention, saw someone in the costumes and decided to create a design based off their characters or a character in game. Well, today I've got a submission that happened to be the other way around entirely! After last week's amazing tauren cosplay, I was sent this amazing female tauren costume along with a whole host of others from 30-year costuming veteran Susan Stringer.
Susan didn't start out playing WoW; it was her son Jake's dwarf hunter costume that inspired her to try her hand at creating a WoW character. One thing led to another, and Susan picked up WoW and started playing for herself, eventually completing the costume you see above. For the Stringers, both cosplay and WoW are now a family activity.
I'm not an oversized male tauren, but I am that super-rare female tauren played by a 50-year-old mom. Both my sons played WoW, as did many of my friends. My younger son is an Alliance dwarf, but we try to forgive him for that. He was the first in the family to wear a costume of his toon to Dragoncon when he was 15 years old. We put the costume together out of assorted things we found around the house. My husband did make the gun for him and we modified a mask. His wire rimmed glasses are actually his real prescription corrective lenses. I was intrigued by the costuming aspect of the game and laughed that I should be a cow! No one could say I was to fat to be a cow. My son grumpily corrected me that they were tauren!
I started working on a tauren costume even though I didn't play the game. It wasn't turning out very well. As a 30-year veteran of convention costuming with a list of awards as long as my arm, I could do the actual clothing, but I just couldn't get the feel for the head without playing the game.... so I started playing with three characters: a tauren shammy named Polyurathain, an orc hunter named ScarlettP for my old, pre LoTR - LARP character who was based on my old AD&D game character, and my blood elf warlock whose only real function has been to make bags for the others.
Later, we found a pair of plastic motorcycle gas tank covers and just knew that they would make great WoW shoulder pads. We bought one of the commercially made male orc masks and started working on an orc costume for my older son. When my preconvention home hair dye job turned purple instead of red, I knew I needed to throw together a copy of my female orc, ScarlettP and accompany my son. The reaction to the costumes was very encouraging, so I started pulled out my prior failure at making a tauren and started over again.
By this time, the uber-awesome tier 3 Earthshatterer costume that I had started was no longer available in the game, but it was so pretty that people loved it any way! I keep hoping that with transmogrification, I'll finally be able to get it in the game ... if only we get to the point that I can copy an NPC's outfit, because the main quest giver at the start of Vashj is totally wearing my dress!
We are now planing on making Poly the tauren shammy a new outfit, recycling the head and hooves as well as dragging my husband in as an undead warrior. My older son will be doing his first cross gender costume as his game female orc rogue. He has already chosen his fake guild name "G.I.R.L." which stands for Guy In Real Life. My younger son will do a faction change and join us as a goblin priest. As a set of 4, we thought it would be funny to tell people we were "LFG, need tank."
Thanks for reading! Play nice!
Susan Stringer
Thanks for the submission, Susan, and for the amazing pictures -- be sure to send in any future costume work, too!
If you are a cosplayer or crafter and you'd like to be featured on the site, send us an email and we'll make it happen!
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including arts and crafts, fan art, WoW-themed recipes, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself by emailing anne@wowinsider.com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ladygamertn Dec 15th 2011 1:19PM
Wow, the creativity and ingenuity are amazing!!! I mean, when I see gas tank covers, Tauren shoulders are NOT what I think of... Great story and wonderful family!!!
loli.gigis Dec 15th 2011 1:24PM
"The family that plays together stays together" takes on a whole new meaning :) what great family fun and memories! Love the idea for a group costume too!
Kylenne Dec 15th 2011 1:45PM
I love seeing families cosplay together. One of the best I've ever seen was several years ago at Otakon, a family that consisted of husband and wife as Mario and Peach, the older kid as Luigi, and the baby as Toad. They even did up the carriage to look like a mushroom house.
catherine Dec 15th 2011 2:43PM
If you look at the pics, the orc mask has 4 eyes
Edymnion Dec 15th 2011 3:16PM
I'm the one in the easy leather armor and the hastily thrown together male orc suit. Didn't have a lot of time for that one, so I never got around to putting blackout mesh over the eye holes, and those camera flashes really bring it out.
I saw the article last week with the Tauren and first thing I did was turn around and go "We gotta show 'em Poly." Looks like she sent in more than just pictures of the tauren though. =P
Going to take my time on building the female orc rogue though. Going to use Shadowblade armor (the old ICC raid gear), and already got plans on sticking a camelback under the fake boobs so that I can have some water while running around in a bunch of foam rubber and leather.
Going to be a BLAST. Come to Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA, you'll see us. Come say hello!
Kylenne Dec 15th 2011 4:03PM
@Edy: It's still not bad for a last minute job. I like it. :)
Edymnion Dec 15th 2011 4:16PM
Ha, we should make a game of it. Post a Quest here on WoW Insider and take quest rewards with us to Dragon to hand over to anyone that turns it in. =)
Jabadabadana Dec 15th 2011 6:39PM
So the head is material built over that plastic embroidery mesh? And if so, what material? Just curious.
That's a really nice costume though. I think the gear holds up much better close up, than ours.
ScarlettP Dec 16th 2011 8:26AM
Hi Jaba, The Tauren head is actually sculpted foam rubber covered in short nap fun fur. The hair is made of 6 wigs cut apart and glued on in sections. I thought the super long hair was kind of fun, but had to cut quite a lot off. Otherwise, you would never see the back of the costume. The plastic needle point mesh (Bravo for knowing what is was) is only there to cover the parts where I can see out. At a distance and in most photos, you can't see it at all. The taxidermy eyes are glued to the mesh. That looked REALLY funny before I put the latex eyelids on. I'm very sorry that I didn't get a photo of the "Dramatic Cow".
Dementron Dec 15th 2011 7:07PM
These are pretty cool. I love that the whole family can cosplay together. The four-eyed orc is a little freaky though. XD
catherine Dec 16th 2011 6:32PM
heh