Thursday, June 9, 2011

Steampunk Ash


Steampunk Ash (from Army of Darkness) by Clifton
Design by Atlanta cosplayer Matt Silva of Penny Dreadful Productions
I picked Ash Williams as a costume because I love the character – he is such an imperfect and unlikely hero. Unlike most modern protagonists, Ash doesn’t have mutant powers, insane martial arts skills, or magic weapons. Instead, Ash starts the series as a laid-back everyman who is constantly suffering from the Murphy’s law adage that “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” I think at one point or another, everyone has had a time in their life where it felt like something was out to get them. So I think you can’t help but empathize with Ash and relate to the choices he makes when faced with terrifying, undead adversity. Even when he is a relatively incompetent and ill-tempered jerk, you can’t help but love him because he’s been through it all, survived, and grown into a self-assured, badass demon slayer with a chainsaw-hand and fist full of boomstick. To some degree or another, I think we all secretly envision ourselves that way—I certainly do. As it turned out, sauntering around a convention with a chainsaw hand, an uplifted eyebrow, and a penchant for telling random women to “Give me some sugar, Baby” was a delightful way to bring one of my favorite characters to life.

As far as the steampunk adaptation on the character, I first encountered that genre of costuming at DragonCon 2008. I don’t know if it was growing up reading classic sci-fi like Jules Verne, the romantic Victorian flair, or my previous career as an engineer, but I found that the steampunk style innately appealed to me. At the time, I was wearing a movie version costume of Ash from Army of Darkness and it occurred to me that the Evil Dead trilogy had a lot of Steampunk characteristics. So the idea of an alternate-era Ash with a ridiculous steam powered chainsaw became the top choice for my next DragonCon costume. I think my favorite thing about the steampunk style of costuming is the freedom of creative expression it allows. Unlike most character-based costumes where you slavishly try to reproduce every detail of a character’s ensemble, steampunk allows you to add whatever unique style you can imagine.

As far as the costume goes, I think that the chainsaw hand is definitely the most recognizable aspect of an Ash costume, but if you truly plan to pull off character, a mighty chin, and the ol’ Bruce Campbell swagger is definitely key to rocking an Ash costume.

1 comment:

  1. Cool outfit, and a fellow Clifton to boot. Awesome. I rarely make the acquaintance of another

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