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Why Valve is awesome: A story about being lucky by Ddz

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Why Valve is awesome: A story about being lucky.

By Ddz



I’m not exactly sure where to start this incredible story about being lucky as shit, but here goes, from the top:

Last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, my software development/IT staffing company let us off work early. We had no travel plans for the holiday, so a few coworkers and I decided to go to our favorite dive bar, where we pretty much regular every Friday night. We were sitting there enjoying some cheap booze and nerding out over some recent video games when the guy behind me at the next table interjects into our conversation “Hey, we’re hiring”. I spin around for an introduction, and ask where he works. He replies “Hi I’m Mike and I work at Valve.” Instantly I got all starry-eyed and I couldn’t even tell you what I said in return, but apparently the conversation went well enough for my colleague and I to schedule a meeting with Valve to begin doing some recruiting for them. They have an extremely high bar, but we were (and still are) up for the challenge. I work exclusively on their roles and allocate time to work on them now.

Fast-forward to April. I got lucky and I was stalking the PAX prime website and got lucky enough to snag a 3-day pass before they instantly sold out. Woo-hoo! I was going to attend my very first PAX ever. I immediately started planning on who I was going to meet up with, and then, I decided I wanted to do the ultimate nerd thing and cosplay (also my first time doing this). I’ve always been an advocate for Valve, and Portal is one of my favorite games, and so I decided to embark on getting the materials to make my costume. Chell has an easy enough one to do, right? I fucking guess. Decided to get bold and send this email, which sent a chain reaction of events (I blacked out last names, phone numbers and emails for privacy stuff – if I accidentally didn’t cover one up, please respeck; . Also this is dated most recent to oldest, so might want to read from the bottom:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...2b1830cf81.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...59f05a5b81.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...29d6a4d743.jpg

So you can pretty much imagine I’m freaking out at this point. I had exactly 1 month to figure my shit out. The first thing I did now that I had secured a portal gun was buy these socks on Amazon.com for $9.99. Easy enough. I own a pair of black flats that were comfortable enough to wear all day, so that part of the costume was a cinch. They arrived in just a few days.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...990cb5dc19.jpg

After this it got pretty intense. I searched around for a ready-to-buy costume but I couldn’t find any. The only one I found was with a HK company, Cosplayfu (http://www.cosplayfu.com/product/Che...ay+from+Portal). Costume looked pretty good, so I decided to email them, only to get my heart broken because it was going to take 30 production days, and then shipping from HK can take ungodly amounts of time. That option was out. I decided to take on the project myself, and that’s when I decided to post on BG for halp. Thread here: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/111...Chell-jumpsuit.



I decided to buy this flight suit off of Amazon for about $35 (below), and then I figured I’d go get it tailored then try to fumble around with adding the details myself. I went to Jo-Ann fabrics, bought a few yards of duck cloth (orange, some white, and black for the button snaps on the arms), along with some iron-on cloth for the back-logo and some button snaps for the arms. Overall that cost about $60.

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...af88fdac20.jpg

The suit arrived within a week, and I was so excited! I tried it on and, it being a mens small, it was gigantic on me. I immediately messaged friends, looked up tailors, and started chatting with people who could possibly help me with some seam work. Luckily, I had hired a woman earlier this year who had some great connections in the costume world. I scheduled to meet with a friend of hers, waited three days, and then she backed out of the project. A week had gone by and I still hadn’t made any progress. Back to scrambling!

Then, I met another friend of hers, who turned out to be the most wonderful person in the world. I scheduled to meet with her two weeks before PAX, and trekked to her house with my suit and materials in tow. For $110, she fitted the suit, shortened the arms, legs, and torso, added the white striping on the arms and waist, added the pockets, and added drawstrings to the legs. I could not have asked for anything better! I would definitely recommend handing every single cosplay project you have to her, just ask if you need a referral local to Seattle.

Here is the excerpt from my message to my cosplay artist:

“So I am not going to include info on what I did to make it fit you – it’s too specific. I am used to writing technical sewing info so not sure how much is too technical or not.


After doing the fitting alterations I started the application of the white. The thinner white bands are 1 inch with a 1/4" fold under on each edge. The thicker waist band is 2.5" with the same turn under on each edge. If adapting this costume to a larger person it is important to keep the scale the same. For a large size I would likely go up to 1.25" and 3" bands. I precut these strips from the full width of the white fabric I was using. If I did it again I would likely make bias strips but the straight strips work just fine. I recommend having more that you need precut so you can just apply them without interruption to cut more.

The thicker white band is placed with the upper edge at the waistline, so it emphasizes the hip line. The thinner band above is positioned right under the bust. If I had it to do again I would move it up on this one; just not quiet in the right spot. The most important part when positioning these bands is that they maintain a parallel line. Although the original concept art shows the back of the thinner band dipping I found in practical application this would only work on a person with a super long torso. Sometimes animation just doesn't translate the same. I applied the thick band first and then measured and positioned the second band an even distance around. The thick band obviously ends before going all the way around. I estimated this distance by laying the jumpsuit flat and then halving the distance from the zipper to the side seam. The "pocket" bands on the hips run from that point to the side seam at about a 45 degree angle. I applied these all at the same time so I could tweak the angle and length as I went.

For the pockets I used left over pieces of orange fabric. Scale again is important. The pocket on the bust needs to be in scale to the persons bust so it covers but doesnt overwhelm the bust. I believe it ended up being a 3" wide (Jamie - will you check?). I cut and applied the white strips to the orange fabric and then applied it to the jumpsuit. This just makes it easier to see and keep things parallel. The bottom of the pocket edge should be parallel to the stripes below it. If the person is very busty you might have to adjust and I would recommend positioning it during a fitting.

For the legs I cut off just below the knee and created a casing for elastic. The back pocket is created the same way as the bust pocket. It is positioned half way between the center back seam and the side seam. Again scale is important. The lower pockets are all about the same size and an inch bigger than the upper pocket. The front pockets are not practical but I created them the same way in order to keep them square. I recommend against applying the white band directly to the jumpsuit because it is too easy to end up with oddly angled rectangles. The only difference when applying these "pockets" was the additional white and stitching all the way around. They could be practical if you choose. The position of these pockets is pure estimate by comparing the jumpsuit with the concept art.

Due to the fitting alterations the arms were open at the seams. This made applying the white band easier. I positioned them by measuring down from the shoulder seam. The white band is about half way between the bottom of the cuff and the shoulder seam. Remember that the distance from the shoulder seam to the band will be a difference distance from the underarm seam to the band. In this case it was about an inch different. This keeps the band straight across the bicep as opposed to dipping down under the arm if you used the same distance around. Even if you apply the band without the arm seam being open still measure from the shoulder and under arm. This will keep it even and crisp looking.

The cuff on the arms should end at about the elbow. I had marked this in a fitting. The cuff in this case was 3 turns and about 2.5" wide. I measured how long I needed the sleeve to be to do this and trimmed of the rest. This jump suit had a sewn cuff and the extra bulk could ruin the crisp look of the cuff. To create the cuff just turn 3 times evenly and straight stitch over the seam and tac on the front. In this case the sleeve was tapered so only the last turn of the fabric was caught in the seam otherwise it would have pulled and made the cuff too tight.

The last thing is the logo on the back. It is cut out of iron on and then positioned evenly between the white band and the collar. You could embroider it, paint it or stitch on little pieces of fabric but iron on is by far the easiest.”

(For the logo on the back, I printed out an 8.5x11 Aperture Science logo, cut out the black parts, then used it as a stencil to cut the white fabric. I made another trip to my cosplay artist’s house and she ironed it on for me – so awesome.)

I picked up my completed suit from my artist with a week left until PAX – I was set!

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...f2b5cb157b.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...25305e5363.jpg

I took a friend with me to Valve to pick up the gun, and we spent about 20 minutes waiting in the lobby looking at all of their cool stuff – portraits of TF2 characters and lots of fan art. Then, Arsenio sent another employee to help me and I was on my way with my sweet new portal gun which I guarded with my life because it didn’t belong to me. I took it back to work for the afternoon and I spent some time nerding out some more and showing it to the devs. I felt cool even though I’m really not. BTW, the gun takes 3 “C” batteries and it lights up blue & yellow and even makes the noises – it’s really fucking cool. Not going to lie.

I have to admit, the scariest part of doing this cosplay was going from this

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...f489d6f0c2.jpg
to this

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...26cd04dfc5.jpg
in a day. Luckily it turned out pretty good and I received a wealth of compliments on the change. My hair designer, Molly, is amazing and deserves every referral in the book. Get at me if you want a totally cute, really good hair colorist and you’re local to Seattle.

Now for PAX! I only did the cosplay on Saturday, but as soon as I stepped out of the cab I was ambushed by people wanting pictures. I probably snapped over 200 photos and got massive amounts of compliments on the costume:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...6711aa4c15.jpg
http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...95fd343072.jpg

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...57cad57fa4.jpg

And this http://images.g4tv.com/rimg_606x0/Im...prime-2012.jpg.


My friend and I decided to check out the Dota2 stuff at Benaroya Hall, which was just down the street from PAX. We checked out the merchandise stuff, and suddenly I hear “Are you Jamie?” I turned around and there’s Arsenio, the guy who let me borrow the gun! We snapped this picture and he hooked us up with a ton of stickers and courier cards. I ended up handing out a bunch of the Aperture Science stickers to fans that took their picture with me later that day. Arsenio invited us to come to Valve and have lunch, and we were ecstatic – now I have something else to look forward to! Here is a pic of the Dota2 tournament stage too:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...d6a2044beb.jpg
Overall, I had an exhausting, wonderful, excellent, fucking rad experience and would do it all over again in an instant.

Monday rolls around and PAX is over. Sadness overload! I had to return the gun and put my costume into storage. I decided to write Valve an email commending them for how awesome the Dota2 tournament event was, and more importantly, thank them for trusting me with a piece of their merchandise. Here’s when shit got even more amazing that I could ever have thought:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/g...8a4c9b0aec.jpg

I cannot even say enough great things about Valve Corp. They’re some of the nicest, down to earth, most genius people I’ve ever met. I am looking forward to doing a lot more business with that company in the future, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay them for this weekend because of all the win that came along with it.

I probably won’t ever have another story this cool to tell in my entire life but if I do, stay tuned! It was a pleasure to report on my good experience and thanks for reading, guys J



Humbleness,

Ddz



Sonomaas Note:

I am floored by the generosity and awesomeness of Valve, just like Ddz was. I asked her to write this so we can share what a fantastic gaming company does when they want to show love to a devoted fan. Valve already had a customer for life with me so I hope if you didnt know what Valve did or how they worked it makes you love them all the more. Thank you for writing this Ddz, BG appreciates you being in our little community and sharing such a wonderful adventure with us.

Comments

  1. Pirian -
    Pirian's Avatar
    Absolutely awesome! And thanks for writing up your experience! I had seen your thread and have been looking forward to this blog entry since Sonomaa's post requesting it
  2. Lysithea -
    Lysithea's Avatar
    This is pretty amazing, I can only hope to work for a company like this.
  3. AshTS -
    AshTS's Avatar
    So damned lucky /jelly
  4. Jefe -
    Jefe's Avatar
    Cool story.
  5. Dngnhack -
    Dngnhack's Avatar
    In the before pic you kinda look like Jula Stiles. Anyone else see it?
  6. Caiyuo -
    Caiyuo's Avatar
    So fucking awesome.
  7. Insanecyclone -
    Insanecyclone's Avatar
    Maximum jelly