The Nordic Museum(Nordiska museet)in Stockholm hosts cosplay contest

Well I am not worthy, but looking forward to see the results of this upcoming contest!

During five months, Nordiska Museet in Stockholm (Nordic Museum) is hosting a contest where creative cosplayers create costumes for the theme folklore beings. Here you can follow the participants' work until The Swedish Cosplay Championship (Cosplay-SM) in March 2017. Here you can also immerse yourself in the subject of folklore beings with the help of the Nordic museum experts, collections and archives.

 

Conditions of contest

If you are applying for the contest, you must be at least 15 years old and live in Sweden. Participants are expected to share their creative process in social media. Nordic Museum has the right to disseminate the participants' pictures, and the museum's own descriptions of the process and the costumes, in social media and on the museum's website. Participants are expected to display their costume at The Swedish Cosplay Championship 2017 in Stockholm.

In order to take part in sponsorship money for the costumes, you need to be able to bill the museum through your own company, or (if you have no company) through online billing services such as Freelance Finance. We will help you to use the service if new to it.

 Rules

Creating the costume

The creative process begins after the selected participants first information meeting, where participants can share information about the theme and conditions.

The participant shall create his own suit without outside assistance.

The contest is formost a crafts contest, which means that completely bought costumes are not allowed. Few details and modified components may be included in the suit as long as the participant is able to describe the work around the parts purchased or modified.

The contest encourages all or part originally designed characters. Feel free to use the museum's source material to create your own interpretation of your folklore being.
It is allowed to create the outfit for a model, which then also expected to show off the suit during the evaluation and demonstration.

The suit may not violate Swedish law.

The judging

•  The costume will be assessed by a jury in a closed room.

•  During the assessment the participant should be wearing the suit itself, or have a model show it.

•   The contestants will then be able to account for both the creative and technical process behind the suit (ie the participant's interpretation of the theme "Folklore Beings", the participant's vision and how he then chose to portray this through his craft).

•      Participants are encouraged to share their "work in progress" pictures, films and other materials during evaluation. Reference materials will be prepared by the Nordic Museum.

 

During the assessment points are awarded according to the following model:

Craftsmanship: 0-15p
The suit's crafts; workmanship, choice of materials, techniques, etc. will be assessed.

Interpretation of the theme: 0-10p
We assess how the suit is linked to the theme "Folklore Guard and Nordic Lights" and the interpretations of the source material made by the participant. Creativity and originality are encouraged!

Display of costume

As a participant in the contest you are expected to show off your costume on stage during The Swedish Cosplay Championship in 2017 and do a short catwalk / interview and during the price ceremony. However, this will not affect the outcome of the contest.

Preserving the costume for the future

It is desirable that the participants within a year from the end of the contest leaves the suit to The Nordic Museum's costume collection, to be preserved for the future (optional).

Later, awsome nerds!

A hell of a summer....and good ending of the year 2016

In my last post I promised more to come during the summer, well I hit a wall with my studies this spring and got behind some. Been catching up since and suffered from a minor depression during the same time. So with the lack of strength I have not held up my promise. Sorry about that, but I hope I can make it up to you know when feeling better again.


I have been taking it easy during the summer not doing much but been outside fishing on the lake nearby or working a little on my next cosplay and helping my youngest son with his cosplay.

Sabine Wren helmet in the making

Curious? Well, if you follow me on twitter I revealed my cosplay there not long ago, If you missed it the costume is a Sabine Wren of Star Wars Rebels genderbend. I really like that show since it is part of the new canon and actually Sabine is my favorite character. The idea was to have it ready for Swedish cosplay convent Närcon (more about that further down) in my town last weekend of this October, but I will not be able to finish it in time...and I packed on a few so I really want to lose some weight before I make a tight outfit like that, LOL. I have begun on the helmet, armor and weapons though, and I am pretty far in the progress of that as you can se in the pictures. Hopefully I can lose some weight and be able to finish the costume for The Scandinavian Sci-Fi, Game & Film Convention in early December.

Dinner party Jason 

My 10-year old son, Mattias, has caught up with the liking of cosplay and wanted to join me at the convention in December, where they have a cosplay contest for kids. Because of the small amount of time we decided to make a mash up cosplay we call Dinner part Jason, basically it is a Jason Vorhees costume but instead of the movie G.I. Joe kind of gear we have resown an old black suit of mine, adding a white shirt and a red bow tie. Voilà! Dinner party Jason! LOL. 

Making a cast of Mattias head to build goalie mask and rotten head

I helped him ofcourse but he did do a lot himself on the head part we made from a bald cap bought from a movie make up shop. We then sculpted burnt and distorted skin on it with latex, grease make up and acrylic paint. The picture provided isn't the best but I will upload better ones. The iconic goalie mask we will make from scratch in polyester resin.


Conventions comes in three....? 

This fall and winter is heaven for a convention lover like myself. First up October 28-30, it is Närcon in my town of all! Amazing I´ll say. Närcon is the largest convention in Sweden with around 8000 visitors when they crown the Swedish champion of cosplay every year in February and The Nordic Champion in July every year. These two conventions take place in Linköping, but this year they decided to have yet another convention in another town so the luck fell on my town. Happy me! Fifteen minutes from home to the convention arena. No cosplay ready for this since they dropped the announcement as late  as June, and I was in the making of my Sabine Wren costume. Did not have the energy to start something new.

The weekend after, November 4-6, the MCM Comiccon takes place in Kista Convention Center north of Stockholm, less than 2 hours travel with train from where I live. Nothing to argue  about. Taking girlfriend (am I aloud to use that word at the age of 42?) there and staying att the Kista Victoria Tower Hotel wall to wall with the convention center. Can not be better I think. We also celebrate the first year together that particular weekend.

A little rest then for a about a month before The Scandinavian Sci-Fi, Game & Film Convention, December 10-11. Lots of vendors at this convention, hopefully for my liking a lot more Star Wars vintage than usual. Lots of cool other stuff it will be though, and cosplay competition debut for my son also. My friend Björn and my girlfriend will probably acompany us there.

A couple of days later is premier date for Rogue One - A Star Wars Story. I really usually don´t like fall and winter, hard not to like this one.

Later, awsome nerds!

Nico Svensson is the new Swedish Cosplay Champion

Photo, courtesy of Nico Svensson

Yesterday's Swedish Championship of cosplay gave the audience a very high standard, in my opinion - the highest ever in this contest. The costumes had a high level of accuracy and detail than ever before and there was no sure winner. Any of the ten finalists could have won.

Finally the jury crowned 22-year old Nico Svensson as  the winner with their cosplay of Eileen the crow from Bloodborne. 

Runners up was Beatrice Krüger with her cosplay of Lana from Hyrule Warriors, and  Linn Eriksson with Margaery Tyrell's weddingdress from Game of Thrones - the latter featured in this article.




Hello Nico, and congratulations to the victory!
—Thank you very much!

I watched the show on TV, and I must say you looked surprised when they announced you as the winner.
—Yes, I did not really expect to win. We said to each other before that this is an even race. Every one was so incredibly good.

So have things changed this week after your win? 
—It has been a little hectic. Everything happened so fast just over a night and I have got invitations to conventions and workshops. It's not a lot but I have had no experience of these sort of things before, so it's kind of a chock. It's a little different, but I'm getting used to it. I have done cosplay since I was 14-15 but I haven't been competing until a couple of years ago.

Photo, courtesy of Nico Svensson

Tell me about you process when you chose a character to cosplay. 
—First and foremost I look at design. If it's a cool one I go with it and if it's character I like, it's a bonus. I like working with designs.

How do you think the Swedish Cosplay community is?
—I think it's very nice and inviting. Everyone is very friendly and keen for everyone to have a good time and that it should be fun.

You will now represent Sweden in the Nordic Championship next year. What is your feeling about that?
—Exciting and scary at the same time. I feel some performance anxiety since I need to enter with something bigger and better than last time. But it will be fun and exciting.

Any ideas for a character?
—Yes, I have started to think about it but I will not reveal it officially until I'm absolutely certain I'm doing it. 

Finally, I would like to know if you have a dream character to cosplay?
—Yeah, I have a dream character but I'm not sure when I'm going to use it. The character is Dream, pun intended,  from Sandman. The design I'm doing is very much my own so I probably can't use it in a big contest. But it is a costume I really want to do.  

Thank you very much for the chat Nico.
—Yes, thank you. 

 Visit Nico's Facebook page.

Later awesome Nerds!