Press AltF4 to activate Australia’s cosplay champion
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By day, Stephanie Vander Heyden is a personal trainer in Melbourne’s western suburbs, and by night – well, after work and on weekends – she hits the switch and becomes champion cosplayer AltF4.
Like any superhero worth their cape, being the best cosplayers means leading a double life.
Champion cosplayer Stephanie Vander Heyden, aka AltF4, at the Oz Comic-Con in Melbourne on Saturday.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Cosplay involves dressing up as characters from films, books and video games, although that seems a prosaic definition of a pastime that is a portal to an underground community, if not an alternate universe.
Vander Heyden’s recent creations include Holga Kilgore from the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Chandra from Magic: The Gathering and the Crystal Maiden from Dota 2.
If these characters are unfamiliar, suffice to say it would be dangerous to mess with them.
Vander Heyden is showing off her cosplay range at Oz Comic-Con in Melbourne this weekend.
The 32-year-old is self-taught, initially learning by watching YouTube.
Making a good cosplay outfit requires an array of skills: sewing, patterning, 3D modelling and printing, sanding, airbrushing, hairdressing and make-up, even building with EVA foam.
“I learnt how to do 15 or 16 different methods of crafting just to make one costume,” Vander Heyden said.
“It’s a mental hobby because there’s lots of little hobbies inside one big one.”
She discovered the Melbourne cosplay scene almost 10 years ago and, after winning the first competition she entered, became hooked.
Last year, Vander Heyden won the Australian leg of the annual global competition, the Cosplay Central Crown Championships, and then represented her country at the finals in Chicago.
However, Vander Heyden wasn’t in green and gold, she was dressed as Vertigo Valorplate – a creature resembling an insect with large bug eyes and wings protruding from her helmet – from the video game Godfall. AltF4 prefers cosplay with helmets because although they restrict vision, there’s less bother putting on make-up.
Cosplay is still a small movement in Australia compared with countries such as the United States and Japan, but local competitors held their own internationally, Vander Heyden said.
And the Australian scene is growing, driven by gaming and comic conventions.
“You can have a meet-up with a giant group photo of 300 Spider-Mans. It’s really exploded,” Vander Heyden said.
While there’s the occasional gig with gaming companies, there’s still not much money in cosplay, and Vander Heyden is concerned that turning her passion into a job might mean she wouldn’t enjoy it as much.
For now, cosplay is her way of showing appreciation of the characters she loves.
“It’s like an open love letter to something that means something to me,” she said.
Oz Comic-Con continues at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre on Sunday and will then head to Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.
AAP
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