Today we’d like to introduce you to Casey Renee Cosplay Welsch.
Casey, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In the summer of 2013 I had just moved to Chicago from Phoenix Arizona, I was new in town, didn’t have many friends and was looking for a hobby to fill my time so I bought an $80 sewing machine on Amazon and decided I would make my first costume to wear at a convention. Having no experience with making a complete costume by myself I struggled A LOT but I made my costume, debuted it at Wizard World Chicago and was hooked ever since. I taught myself how to make corsets, ballgowns, jackets, headpieces you name it I was trying to make it.
After about two years of costume construction as a hobby, I decided to take commissions, the work steadily grew and then my fiance had an opportunity here in Atlanta so he took it and we moved once again. After a month of living in Atlanta and struggling with my day job (Starbucks) and my passion work (costume making), I had an accident where I broke my foot and sprained my ankle keeping me from returning to Starbucks for 4 weeks. At that time I kind of knew I would only have this chance to make it work, so I left altogether and started on my journey of being a full-time Cosplayer/Costume Maker.
That summer I won three major awards for my Rococo Belle costume and was able to finance new machines and started live streaming on Twitch. Now on Twitch, I challenge myself with bigger and better projects as well as developing a safe space for people to come hang out and share their love for cosplay, creation and just nerd culture. I still take commissions full time and I constantly learn new techniques to better my skills.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been the easiest road, some struggles that come with cosplay, in general, are the hidden “competitions”. Everyone is always competing with everyone else to get more likes, have a “better” version of the same costume, be the “first” to do a certain costume. There is a place in the cosplay world for competitions and that’s in the costume contests. I personally don’t like to compete on social media for more likes or who did it better. It’s not healthy for the community and can really turn outsiders away from the community.
Something that I value in my stream community is that everyone is welcome and allowed to share their art. We have a group of people who support each other, raise each other up instead of putting them down. I know at least 3 other creators making the same costume I am but we are all doing very different things and therefore it makes our costumes unique and a reason to bond instead of competing.
There is also a lot of hate towards certain types of cosplay and I try to stay away from that as well, I want to surround myself with people who are open-minded and can appreciate the art without having to put someone else down. Its almost a daily struggle, trying to fight off trolls and hate, and sometimes I struggle with it but that’s how I know it’s time to take a break from social media and just work on a new project or got for a walk.
Please tell us about Casey Renee Cosplay.
I am a cosplayer/costume maker. My full-time job is making costumes for others however I also live stream and crowdfund my personal projects and photo shoots. Most recently we crowdfunded a costume called Amethyst by the artist Sakizou, it’ll be the most expensive and time-consuming project I have ever taken on to date but my stream is excited to go on this journey with me.
For commissions I typically sell generic Star Wars costumes as well as Game of Thrones costumes, however, I am hoping to break into the Disney Princess Ballgown making a market. I just completed my very own version of Belle from Beauty and the Beast and I am taking on commissions for petticoats, ballgowns and even corsets. I make only costumes for adults, I do not take children’s costumes because more often then not parents are not willing to pay my prices for a costume that their child is going to grow out of in a few months.
I’m most proud of the fact that I have created relationships with many of my clients to the point where they keep coming back, many of them join me on stream, interact with my social media and that’s an amazing feeling.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memory from my childhood has to be my first audition when I was 12 years old. I had a friend who did musical theatre at a local community theatre and she asked me to audition for Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
To audition we had to have a 60-second monologue and 32 bars of music so my mom wrote me a monologue as if I were the White Witch (being new I had no clue where to get a monologue from) and my sister coached me on singing Ain’t No Mountain High. My family was so excited and supportive of my choice and they helped me rehearse down to the minutes before my audition.
I nailed my audition, made it in the play as a chorus member and continued to do theatre for another 13 years. It was so awesome to have a family that took my passion and made it their own and they continue to do that.
Contact Info:
- Website: caseyreneecosplay.com
- Email: caseyrenee4@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/caseyreneecosplay
- Facebook: facebook.com/caseyreneecosplay
- Twitter: twitter.com/caseyreneecosplay
- Other: twitch.tv/caseyreneecosplay
Image Credit:
Shield maiden Shots
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