Costumes, Tutorials and Skits by Tab
Hi there! I’m Tab Kimpton and here’s an archive website of my costume work. I mainly work as a comic artist nowadays so unfortunately I now only make one costume a year for myself, but I try to keep the site updated when I can!
I started cosplay back in October 2007 for a small recon in my local town. Since then I have made dozens of costumes, for myself, friends and commissioners. I do a lot of skit and performance work in my costumes, so you’ll find some funny stuff on this site as well as serious costumes. I love making obscenely complex costumes then taking them up on stage and being ridiculous in them.
I have several years experience giving panels and workshops at events, from sewing skills to laugh out loud Yaoi panels. I try to have a fresh set of panels for each calendar year to keep things exciting. If you’d like to have me do a talk at an event for you, please visit the events section to see my schedule and the sort of panels I give.
I run a dealers table at most Anime/comic events in the UK showcasing my LGBT comic work. If you’re interested in LGBT, Queer, Gender and Sexuality comics, feel free to have a look at my comic work at Discord Comics
If you’d like to see why I don’t have time to make as many costumes any more, check out my house renovations at the Fantabulous House
Cheers! -Tab
How to make a loki costume part 13- Armour attatchments
Had an awesome time in Norway at BANZAICON! (despite missing our flight and having to take an emergency ferry!) Over there I did a panel on how I built the loki costume which reminded me to get finishing on this tutorial!
Sometimes the hardest part of making armour is figuring out how to attach it to yourself. Here’s what I did with mine:
Minamicon 19- The Greatest Skit in the world!
More minami shenanigans! Christian and I practised for weeks to create the beauty you see in this video.
This was also the debut of my Gilderoy Lockhart costume to match Christian’s Snape. I bought the suit from an ex-hire ebay store and the shirt and shoes I already had.
The teacher robes were made with 4m of tan crepe, lined with some fabric I bought a few years back. The cravat is just a tube of matching fabric. The waistcoat is also made by me, I’ve got some photos to put up a tutorial later! The wand was sculpted from plastic, balsa wood and milliput, a silicone mould was taken and the final cast in easy flo 120 resin.
Super comfortable costume, though if Snape wasn’t next to me people just thought I’d decided to come as Emperor Tab, the fancy pants.
Site Edits
Looks like we had some site issues which means my costume gallery went down! It’s all back up now, feel free to use it to stare at my face.
In other news, I got a picture of myself not in costume!
Got this taken at Jcon, a big thanks to Rei Bennett
Amecon Shenanigans
I got up on stage and acted a tit. Here’s video evidence.
Big thank you to Karen for performing beautifully with me, Christian for helping me peg bits of blue costume on my washing line as it dried, Kii for letting me borrow her embroidery machine for the trim on the costume and Timber for manning my stall while I was off swanning about the convention.
Also a big thank you to the judges who decided I deserved a second place compared to all the other amazing costumes. Sima Yi was made over a period of 9 days with about 100 hours work, I didn’t even think I’d get it finished for the omake! Details on costume construction to follow when I get some pictures of it. Most of it is spray paint and acrylic ink, though it uses a lot of techniques that other people will probably appreciate for future costumes.
Last Con of the season!
Phew, what a year! Just came back from the last convention of the season, now have a big break until the end of January for Akumacon in Ireland!
It’s been a busy year, more conventions than I ever thought possible have turned up. The next few months will be focusing back on commission work, a January of Taxes and refurbishing our shed to take more stock.
I’ve been behind with updating the site with tutorials, but I’ve been doing some really interesting commissions recently that has thrown up what I like to call a “disaster tutorial”. It’s rare that you get to see people make mistakes, so I’ll be taking you step by step through everything I did wrong, what I learned, and the final finished result when everything finally went right!
Riddle me this batman…
Ayacon Performace- A Traditional Japanese Dance
KONNICHIWA!
We’ve got some videos and Photos from Kii’s performance at Ayacon! A delight to watch as always, Kii brought down the house with her geisha moves and cheeky smile.
The Kimono is actual a real silk furisode from Japan because I’m a weirdo who likes collecting pretty fabrics. Songs are Murasaki no Yukari by Rin’ and Bad Things by Jace Everett.
A big thank you to Bento Dan and Batale for the Images and Video!
Kitacon a Burlesque Bouquet of Beauty and Booty
Finally got all the images and videos from Kitacon!
We did 3 performances this year, starting off with The history of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the melody of Tetris:
Watch the original video here!
Billy Strings then sang about some things in his head, accompanied by his troupe of puppets
Warning, Video may contain HOT ASS.
And Roxie Parts finished off the show with a burlesque performance the likes of which the con scene has never seen:
Warning, video also contains copious amounts of HOT ASS.
We have some pictures up of the event on the characters pages, so you can check out Roxie’s new costume!
Warning- Pictures contain Cogsworth’s new face!
Cogsworth 2.OOOYEAH
Roxie Parts
Billy Strings
Minami Con a Trouser Ripping Sucess!
Finally have all the photos and videos from Minamicon, so now I must share them with YOU, the consumer!
At Minami I debuted part of my Iron Man costume, dazzling the audience with my costuming skillz:
If that’s not enough to wet your appetite to watch our skit, well, it has Timber.
If you’d like to know more about the costume you can read up on it here.
Or you can click the image to look at more pictures of me in my pants.
Did someone order a party?!
Back from BanzaiCon and Norway!
Just got back from Banzai con and my fantastic trip to Norway. I tell you, the Norwegians know how to throw a con!
Some of the highlights of my trip:
- Waking up at 4 am for the train trip to London Stansted
- Paying £70 because when Ryanair says 2 15kg bags, they mean 1 on the way, 1 on the way back.
- Airports make people seriously angry. I was the happiest one there I swear.
- Landing on a run way with 5 feet of snow on either side
- Becoming “The English Dude” on the friday because I didn’t mention why I was there to people.
- Paske Eggs!
- My hotel room shower had 2 shower heads. One for my head, one for my butt.
- Free wifi!
- The opening show!
- Awesome stage with amazing projector and sound system! I got to use a headset mic!
- People loving my stall stuff
- Meeting some amazingly friendly people and talking about the difference between the countries
- Weird money is weird!
- Pizza at the end of the convention with some of the people I’d made friends with. Awesome end to an evening.
- Norway man and Norwegia woman!
- Selling enough that I could abandon a suitcase in Norway and not pay the extra luggage charge on the way back.
Here’s the video of the opening show. I kind of turned away at the caramelldansen bit thinking it would be like every expo, but then it got so much better. These guys are great, you can tell they worked hard, and it’s really funny.
(link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOxPb0v2uxg)
Also, here’s a picture of Norway from my hotel room:
