This is a photograph taken by my sister Larissa DiPietro of me dressed as Nataku from the anime, Senkaiden Houshin Engi. I decided to post this on DeviantArt because this ENTIRE costume is handmade (aside from the boots beneath all the material I covered them with) and is thus a piece of my artwork. I sewed the pants, the tanktop, the wrap and cape thing, the ankle bands by myself. I also styled the wig, using spray shellac and hairspray. The band on my head and the things on my wrists are made out of eggcrate foam spray painted with a special kind of spray paint meant to look like stone. I used a razor blade and a pair of scissors to do minor sculpting and shaping. I used a thinner kind of foam for ankle bands, covering them with a slipcover. I used the same material to cover an old pair of boots. The "wheels" were created by making a square frame out of sturdy plywood with a diagonal crossbar to keep it from collapsing on itself. I then took two large buckets, cut them (with much difficulty) in two and then used the shape to make my wood frames more round. The sides were closed up with cardboard (I didn't want to make it much heavier) and then the whole thing was sprayed with the stone paint, black circles later painted to give the impression of holes.

Normally, I'm 5'6" but with my wheel shoes I became a foot and a half taller. It was awesome. It wasn't too hard to walk in, just difficult to go up and down stairs (which I managed, using my mad dancer skills of balancing). The only other thing that was annoying was that I kept scraping the wheels against each other and it was making the paint come off. Boo... But the worst part was binding my breasts, which are normally a decent sized B, to give the idea of "man pecs" which in the art of Houshin Engi, kinda look like high flat boobs anyway. Haha... hard to breathe...

I wore this for Otakon 2004.