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I thought it would be nice to have a place where cosplayers can get together to discuss projects and to get help and advice on their builds and such. Whether you are a newbie or a pro there is someone here that might need you.

Alright, Rangers! We've been talking about this and dreaming about this. Now's the time to start doing this! Not much in the way of rules or categories yet. I'm figuring that, as we usually do, we will come to working consensus via discussions in the thread. Post pictures, talk trash, put up links to resources and most of all - HAVE FUN!

Nightcrawler_Bamff Beats Back The Blob! "Professor? Professor! We need backup! Professor!" The cry came over loudspeakers placed invisibly throughout the facility. Nightcrawler flew off a bar high overhead, flipping, and landing silently next to the professor. "Scott! What is it?" "We're engaged with the Brotherhood, but Blob is missing. I just overheard the police radio that he is across town robbing a bank. I think the rest of the Brotherhood are just the distraction, but it is taking all of us to keep the civilians safe. We cant get over there." Professor Xavier turned to Nightcrawler. "Kurt, I know you just got here and have yet to make a decision about staying with us, but I must ask for your help. I have no one else I can send to stop The Blob." "Heir Professor, I owe you my life. I will help you in this and make my decision later." Charles leads Kurt to a nearby TV screen and turned on the news, where a man larger than any Kurt has ever seen is standing outside a bank with bags of money in each hand. The police have him surrounded and were firing their weapons, but the bullets never penetrated his massive belly. "Mein Gott!" "Fred Dukes' mutant ability allows him to distort his own gravitational field, making him essentially immovable and allows his girth to stop nearly any projectile, as you can see." "How far is zis?" "It is quite close. I believe this is why the rest of the Brotherhood are causing mayhem on the other side of town; to draw the X-Men as far away as they could. This bank is only about one mile from here." BAMF! With a puff of smoke, Nightcrawler disappears from Professor X's side and appears facing The Blob. "Well arent you cute! Xavier sent me a pet!" "Zis does not need to get any uglier zan it already is, mein freund. Put ze money down and ve can all go home." "Show me what you got, furball! Nobody moves The Blob!" Challenge 9 Our hero is up against his first true villain! I felt Blob was an appropriate adversary choice for a fitness challenge! Haha! I set this challenge up a little differently than I've done in the past, so may end up needing some tweaking once we get going. Inspiration taken from previous mini-challenges! Main Goal: Gymnastics! Aerials have been feeling good fairly consistently. Seems mostly at this point that I need to get over the mental block and stop putting my hands down! Also working on back handspring passes. Lost my round off-back handspring-back-handspring-back tuck on the tumble track a few weeks ago and am working to get that back. Also lost my round off-back handsprings on the floor, so working those again too. Quest: Beat The Blob! Blob's HP bar has 150 hit points. Each exercise point earned using the Weight Watchers program deals one point of damage. To encourage real workouts instead of walking the mall all the time, true workouts (which will be subjective deciding what that consists of) will be worth an additional two points of damage. Gymnastics workouts do not get this addition because I don't need that as motivation to go! Don't Feed The Blob! The "crash diet" I did for the first half of last challenge gave me good results and was not nearly as difficult as I had anticipated. I will repeat this for this challenge, with some tweaks. Six WW points allowed per meal One WW point allowed for snack once daily (the rest will be fruit/vegetables, which are free on the program) This makes up to 19 points allowed per day. Each point over these allowances, The Blob is healed for one hit point. I have several events planned during the span of this challenge, so this will happen more than once, and will be allowed! Though I will have to work harder to defeat The Blob! Splits: Still working the splits. Again, I will be doing one stretching session each work day and two on my days off. Each missed session will heal Blob one hit point. Life: Busy again!! 1. Volunteering with United Heroes for Hope 2. American Sign Language Interpreter Program application due next month 3. Emerald City Comic Con is also next month 4. Continue working on Gambit costume - before July, I plan to have armor boots, a homemade spandex body suit, and an extendable bo staff. 5. Start working on Star Wars costume if I have time - will need to be completed by July.

Totally random, but if you could pick ONE fantasy outfit to be acceptable in your day-to-day wardrobe, what would it be? This could be a costume from a favorite show or movie, or pieces of a fantasy-themed outfit you think would work well together. How about it? I would pick this, from Once Upon a Time's closet: But without the pigeon. Not like the poo would show up on the outfit.... I'd just prefer a falcon is all.

Story: Nightcrawler's best friend growing up was his adoptive brother, Stefan. Even as children, Stefan could feel a growing darkness inside himself. Terrified of this, he forced Kurt into a blood pact, swearing that if Stefan were to ever give in to this evil, Kurt was to stop him at any cost. Not believing his best friend and brother ever capable of such darkness, Kurt immediately pushes the thought from his mind and forgets about the silly pact. Now, as Nightcrawler heads home from his long struggle escaping the imprisonment and abuse of the freak show in the American circus, that promise is the furthest thing from his mind. He reflects on the changes he has seen within himself these last several weeks. He is now much more flexible, which will aid in his tumbling and acrobatic skills when he returns to his home circus. Equally, if not even more exciting, Nightcrawler has developed a new ability: Teleportation! With conscious effort, he can envision himself in another location and, in the blink of an eye and a cloud of smoke, he finds himself there! He can't wait to show his family his two incredible new skills! His excitement is quickly forgotten as he arrives home and finds the village nearby terrorized by a recent string of murders. Upon investigation, Kurt learns that Stefan is the one responsible and has been killing children from the village! The promise made years previous comes back to him as Nightcrawler prepares to confront his best friend. It will take all of Nightcrawler's willpower and determination to face his closest friend. I was originally planning to take a martial arts class, but my work schedule just does not allow for me to commit to anything. Instead, I will focus on the determination required of Nightcrawler in order to fight his friend and brother. Main Quest: Back handsprings continue to be my main goal. I made great strides in the last challenge, landing two back handsprings on the floor and adding a back tuck after the back handspring on the trampoline! This is the last full challenge before Rose City Comic Con, which lands two weeks after the end! Last chance to move my back handspring to the ground so I can handspring down the hall at the convention! Missions: 1. P90X. I will be following the P90X program for the duration of this challenge! I will be giving myself some leeway in the interest of time. With the con coming up, I have a LOT to get done. On days that I will for sure be able to make it to gymnastics, I will not be doing the P90X workout. I am also choosing not to do the optional stretching video on Sundays. 2. Protein. Carrying this over from the last two challenges. 130 grams of protein per day every day. 2. Willpower. NO MOVIE THEATER POPCORN! Probably the biggest obstacle for my weight loss at this point! This will be VERY difficult for me because I LOVE going the the movies and eating popcorn!! 3. Stretching. Carrying this one over too. I WILL get into the splits by the end of this challenge and hopefully have progressed enough to actually be comfortable in them. One minute hold in six different stretches and each type of split EVERY DAY. Life Quest: Finish my Nightcrawler costume!! LOTS to do before the convention!!

THE SETUP I know the next challenge doesn't start until November 11 but... I can't resist College. Senior year. A director friend, M. Doyle, asked me to play a part in a student film she was working on called Project Delta. Despite my shyness and lack of acting experience I said yes. Best decision ever. Because of the excitement around the project and the fact that I had to look good on camera while doing fight choreography over multiple takes, I consistently exercised and was in pretty good shape. It turns out that nothing in the world gets me motivated like being in a film does. From this base I have two slightly divergent reasons that I'm really motivated this time around. DIVERGENCE ONE: HATTER Doyle and I are turning the story idea behind the film into a webcomic called DELTA that she's writing and I'm illustrating, and because I've been looking at the characters so much recently I've decided that my character, Hatter, is kind of tired of being trapped in my body. I want to become more like her. Physically. Because I definitely do not want the violent homicidal tendencies and insanity DIVERGENCE TWO: TAKE OVER THE WORLD I saw Doyle recently and she mentioned another film idea she's been thinking about in which I would play the villain... again (Type cast much? Haha! I promise I'm not actually evil...). The outfit I would wear would be of the tightly-fitting variety so if/when this film happens I'd like to actually look good in the costume. It would also make a rocking awesome GLaDOS costume so I will be using it as such, meaning that I have until February to shape up as much as possible. SO THE POINT OF ALL THAT IS... I'm slim and at peace with my pear-shaped body, but I'm the consistency of a well-worn throw pillow. I'd like to be stronger, gain some muscle mass (and definition, but it's more important to me to be strong and healthy than "toned") so I will not only look good but will be able to do physical activities as needed without feeling like I'm going to keel over and die. GOALS 1) HATTER HANDSTANDS. No real reason for this except I would feel super cool if I was able to do a handstand. And Hatter would love it. She's such a goob. (Yes, I talk about my characters as if they're real people. It's normal.) I started working on this back during my Project Delta days and worked up to being able to do a wall handstand for about 10 seconds but I haven't done any for a while so it's back to square one. Success means I can hold a wall handstand (or close to one) for at least 30 seconds by the end of the challenge. STR1 DEX4 2) SHAPE UP FOR WORLD DOMINATION. I started doing some light weight training this week so I'm going to keep that up every other day and increase the intensity as I feel comfortable. I'm focusing on my arms and abs mostly. I've made walking a habit so I'm not as worried about my legs. I will keep track of how many reps I do and how heavy the weights are so I can track improvement. I will consider myself successful if I feel good about my improvements by the end of this challenge. STR4 3) FUEL UP ON PREMIUM. I have a gluten intolerance and a couple of other food-related problems. My family is supportive, but it's too expensive for us all to go gluten free and they sometimes forget that I need to eat differently, leaving me to scrounge the fridge while they're eating fancy lasagna or breaded chicken with broccoli (which I love but my esophagus does not). I've wanted to take charge of my own meal plan but our house is tiny and there's not enough room for me to have a totally different food area for my stuff. I've decided the best way to handle this is to take over all the meal planning for the whole family. That way I can control what is eaten, reduce and provide myself alternatives for gluten-containing meals, and help out my very busy mom at the same time. I will be successful if I can make a healthy and relatively inexpensive meal plan, and cook at least three of the major meals for the whole family each week. CON3 WIS1 SIDE GOAL. I've never been consistent with reading my Bible except when I was in college and brought it with me to study between classes. I'd like to make it a habit again, so I aim to read and study at least 15 minutes a day every day. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but I need to start somewhere and it's better than what I'm doing now! WIS2 A PRESENT FOR YOU! I also wanted to share a Level Up Tracking Sheet that I designed and have been using for the last three challenges. It's really helpful to me so I figured someone else out there might like to print it out and use it. It was too big to download into this post so you can find it here.

THE SETUP College. Senior year. A director friend, M. Doyle, asked me to play a part in a student film she was working on called . Despite my shyness and lack of acting experience I said yes. Best decision ever. Because of the excitement around the project and the fact that I had to look good on camera while doing fight choreography over multiple takes, I consistently exercised and was in pretty good shape. It turns out that nothing in the world gets me motivated like being in a film does. From this base I have two slightly divergent reasons that I'm really motivated this time around. DIVERGENCE ONE: HATTER Doyle and I are turning the story idea behind the film into a webcomic called DELTA that she's writing and I'm illustrating, and because I've been looking at the characters so much recently I've decided that my character, Hatter, is kind of tired of being trapped in my body. I want to become more like her. Physically. Because I definitely do not want the violent homicidal tendencies and insanity DIVERGENCE TWO: TAKE OVER THE WORLD I saw Doyle recently and she mentioned another film idea she's been thinking about in which I would play the villain... again (Type cast much? Haha! I promise I'm not actually evil...). The outfit I would wear would be of the tightly-fitting variety so if/when this film happens I'd like to actually look good in the costume. It would also make a rocking awesome GLaDOS costume so I will be using it as such, meaning that I have until February to shape up as much as possible. SO THE POINT OF ALL THAT IS... I'm slim and at peace with my pear-shaped body, but I'm the consistency of a well-worn throw pillow. I'd like to be stronger, gain some muscle mass (and definition, but it's more important to me to be strong and healthy than "toned") so I will not only look good but will be able to do physical activities as needed without feeling like I'm going to keel over and die. GOALS 1) HATTER HANDSTANDS. No real reason for this except I would feel super cool if I was able to do a handstand. And Hatter would love it. She's such a goob. (Yes, I talk about my characters as if they're real people. It's normal.) I started working on this back during my Project Delta days and worked up to being able to do a wall handstand for about 10 seconds but I haven't done any for a while so it's back to square one. Success means I can hold a wall handstand (or close to one) for at least 30 seconds by the end of the challenge. STR1 DEX4 2) SHAPE UP FOR WORLD DOMINATION. I started doing some light weight training this week so I'm going to keep that up every other day and increase the intensity as I feel comfortable. I'm focusing on my arms and abs mostly. I've made walking a habit so I'm not as worried about my legs. I will keep track of how many reps I do and how heavy the weights are so I can track improvement. I will consider myself successful if I feel good about my improvements by the end of this challenge. STR4 3) FUEL UP ON PREMIUM. I have a gluten intolerance and a couple of other food-related problems. My family is supportive, but it's too expensive for us all to go gluten free and they sometimes forget that I need to eat differently, leaving me to scrounge the fridge while they're eating fancy lasagna or breaded chicken with broccoli (which I love but my esophagus does not). I've wanted to take charge of my own meal plan but our house is tiny and there's not enough room for me to have a totally different food area for my stuff. I've decided the best way to handle this is to take over all the meal planning for the whole family. That way I can control what is eaten, reduce and provide myself alternatives for gluten-containing meals, and help out my very busy mom at the same time. I will be successful if I can make a healthy and relatively inexpensive meal plan, and cook at least three of the major meals for the whole family each week. CON3 WIS1 SIDE GOAL. I've never been consistent with reading my Bible except when I was in college and brought it with me to study between classes. I'd like to make it a habit again, so I aim to read and study at least 15 minutes a day every day. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but I need to start somewhere and it's better than what I'm doing now! WIS2 A PRESENT FOR YOU! I also wanted to share a Level Up Tracking Sheet that I designed and have been using for the last three challenges. It's really helpful to me so I figured someone else out there might like to print it out and use it. It was too big to download into this post so you can find it here.