Which of your Silent Hill costumes is your personal favorite?
I think my personal favourite Silent Hill costume is my Lisa Garland costume. I've done quite a few Silent Hill costumes now. Lisa wasn't the first one that I made, but it was one that tested my drive to be as accurate as possible with getting the details just right to do the character as much justice as possible.

Why did you decide to make the costume of Joshua Shepherd?
I've always wanted to make a Nurse costume from one of the games. I didn't quite feel ready to make a monster nurse costume and although at the time when I made this costume I hadn't played the first Silent Hill game, I was quite familiar with the game and I grew to really empathize with the tragic character of Lisa Garland. This costume tested my Cosplay boundaries because up until this point I mostly Cosplayed younger characters or Cross-played boys. Cosplaying a more mature character with a plunging neckline and high heels was definitely a new and exciting experience for me, which made me more comfortable to later Cosplay characters like Maria.

How long did it take to finish it and how difficult was it?
It took me several months to actually start working on this costume when I finally settled on making it. The bulk of construction for this costume was done between January and May 2009. I wore this costume to Katsucon that year in February and most of the costume was done for that con. The dress was completed in February although I messed up the design because I was confused about the length of her skirt thanks to playing Origins and I made it too short. I took time after the convention to redo the skirt part of the dress before I re-wore this costume to a con in May and I was able to hide the adjustment thanks to the belt.

My mother was kind enough to knit me my wonderful red sweater. I feel like that element gave the costume a nice small town, country feel. Knitting the sweater took my mother a few months so it was only 3/4 of the way done when I wore it to Katsucon. It was completed during the spring. The costume itself wasn't that difficult to make. The biggest problem that I had was finding a base pattern to work off of that had the right style of collar and basic shape. I ended up combining a couple of patterns and winging some of the design to get the right look, but I'm thrilled with the result. I can't thank my mom enough for her help with my sweater. That aspect of the costume makes it quite special to me.

Was there any particular thing about the costume that was a bigger challenge?
One major challenge with this costume was actually finding a decent pair of red high heels. It took a couple of months with a lot of searching in stores and on eBay before I finally found a pair that was the right style and colour to match hers. Then, the even bigger challenge was functioning at a convention while wearing these high heels. I kept trying to find suitable really low heels or flat red shoes to wear while I was just walking around, but I never did find a decent pair. The belt on Lisa's dress was a bit difficult to design because I couldn't accommodate a functioning belt with the long zipper in the back and type of fabric that I used. I faked the belt a bit using velcro to allow it to open up around the back to make it easier to zip up the dress. Getting a nice curve on the neckline was a also a bit of a challenge. I had to hunt a bit to find a pattern with a nice shape that matched Lisa's dress.

Anything else you think is needed to be said about the costume?
Cosplaying Lisa turned out to be a real thrill because the tragic and yet sweet nature of the character offered me a lot of range when doing photoshoots. I worked with a really stiff, thick white fabric (mostly because of worries of opacity), which turned out to look really nice as a uniform. This costume went through a couple of revisions, but I couldn't be happier with it and the fact that my mother knit my sweater for me makes me treasure this costume. I'm really glad that I Cosplayed Lisa because this costume opened the door for me to Cosplay Maria from my favourite game of the franchise, which was something I wouldn't have had guts to Cosplay as before. I think my Lisa costume shows a lot about my love for Silent Hill Cosplay and offered me a lot of inspiration to keep pushing myself to make more costumes from the game series. It's a real honour to be a part of the wonderful community that is the Silent Hill Cosplay community. Everyone is so friendly and excited to share their passion for the series and support each other. I count myself as being very lucky to have met so many great people through Silent Hill meets at conventions and online post-conventions and I look forward to getting to know more Silent Hill Cosplayers in the future.