Introduction to this project.

Earlier this year we had just gotten home from MegaCon 2013, a very large anime/sci-fi/comic/general nerd convention in Orlando, Florida. It was our second time going and we went all out--hotel, all three days, planned schedule and everything. We had an absolute, amazing blast during it all and seeing all the others there dress up in costumes and cosplay made me want to join in as well. Upon returning home, despite having a whole year until the next MegaCon, I felt the need to think a lot about what sorts of costumes I could do. I thought of specific characters from things I read or watched or generally enjoyed, but none of it just seemed to have the wow factor I wanted to obtain from dressing up.

I sat down one evening toward the end of March with my old dinosaur of a Windows computer, booting up the Microsoft Zoo Tycoon 2 game and I waited. When I found myself scrolling through the available animals of all different species, I stumbled upon one of my past favorites from the Extinct Animal Pack add-on. The velociraptor. Going down into zoo guest mode allowed me to get right up close with the virtual recreation of the dino--despite popular belief, including myself prior to purchasing the game several years before, velociraptors were only around three feet tall and six feet long. Much different than the villainous deinonychus, which is the larger dinosaur that was portrayed in the ever popular Jurassic Park movie series before the deinonychus was discovered.

With the two things in my mind colliding, velociraptors and costumes, I quickly thought to myself, How cool would that be as a costume? A dinosaur. My next thought was this: how the heck would I be able to budget for something like that? A realistic dinosaur costume sounded expensive, and even though I did have a good bit of money saved up, it still didn't seem possible. But even as myself, big dreamer and ever hopeful for my own success, I finished up playing in my zoo, watching the velociraptors and their virtual mannerisms. Directly thereafter, I headed off to the internet, mostly YouTube, and began my research to see if I could find much at all relating to velociraptor costumes for smaller budgets.

The first costume I stumbled upon was the most popular of the lower-budget dinosaur costumes. Made by a creator who goes by Monoyasha, in her costuming business of Dream Vision Creations, it was also the one that made me realize that it was possible to make a realistic dinosaur costume without spending the money on latex to mold into a reptilian skin. You can find her accounts & all credit to her costume goes to her. She mainly works in the fursuit & furry fandom, but did this as a mascot costume and charged a pretty fair bit for it (she said it was the price of a quadsuit, which is a costume that walks on all fours which goes for $3,000+ I would say).

Monoyasha's work:
http://www.dreamvisioncreations.com/
http://dreamvisioncreations.deviantart.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/Monoyasha

Here you can see the first video of a velociraptor costume I found. If you check out her YouTube channel, she has several other videos of it that she uploaded fairly recently too. Do keep a few things in mind while viewing her video, as I know she gets harassed constantly and I've tried my best to be most polite with her while asking her the questions I've had (and she's been most helpful with them as she can!).
- She modeled her velociraptor costume after the ones from Jurassic Park, which is a non-feathered dinosaur before paleontologists discovered the fossil bones with feather tips built in, just as the commissioner requested.
- The commissioner also requested for more bulky ankles, which Monoyasha gladly provided for her. She is also wearing a costume slightly small for her for the video, as this was uploaded by Monoyasha herself.
- The costume was entered in DragonCon's Masquerade contest a few years ago, I believe in 2011, and won first place.

It's very impressive for what it is. This is the one that got me excited about it, as she mainly charged so much for the time it took to create it rather than the materials used.

The next significant video I found was by SparkyCanDo, who can be found at two main places:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/SparkyCanDo/322629484431396
http://www.youtube.com/user/SparkyCanDo?feature=watch
He was able to help me with quite a few other things I was unsure about, and mainly the video he created of Kriminal the Raptor.
For some reason, Blogger won't allow me to directly place the video here on the page. Blogger has always been finicky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPNvnUtrKF4

I had many other influences from others, but these are the main two. You can easily do your own research, if a dinosaur costume in general is one you'd like to attempt. Velociraptors are a bit more popular than other dinos, one day I'd like to try another one when I'm much older. If this one is fun and goes all to plan of course, too.

This costume has a lot of planning that has currently gone into it, and much more will continue to.