Grace from Grave Craft
This month, we're thrilled to shine the spotlight on Grace from Grave Craft as our Maker of the Month!
But there’s a sweet twist—when she’s not crafting fearsome creations, she’s whipping up delicious cakes that are just as meticulously designed.
Join us in celebrating Grace's incredible talent, a creator who truly knows how to balance the eerie and the delightful!!
Now it's time for a little Q&A, let's go!
1. How long have you been creating and how did you get started?
I’ve been cosplaying for about 11 years, but I’ve been making armor and props for the last 5. It all started in 2013 when a friend and I discovered Anime Weekend Atlanta. We rushed to Spirit Halloween, where I grabbed a truly awful costume, but I was instantly hooked. I haven’t stopped since! For the next con, I made my very first costume...it wasn’t great, but I was so proud of it! From there, I started buying sewing patterns, watching tutorials, attended as many cons as I could, and just experimented with different materials and techniques.
2. What is/are your favorite Surebonder product(s):
I love working with Surebonder hot glue sticks. The Cosplay Stik is fantastic when working with foam to build armor pieces and their Clear Stik hot glue sticks are just the best!
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| SHOP COSPLAY HOT GLUE | SHOP ALL-PURPOSE HOT GLUE |
3. What inspires you to create? What do you love most and what is the hardest part about the creative process?:
My Friends always push me and inspire me to continue. I have such a heavy drive for this that I also inspire myself! I love working with my hands and wearing my creations. It always makes me feel so incredibly confident and strong! The hardest is marketing myself. I'm a one man team. I make the costumes, film, take photos, make content, edit videos for my YouTube, make thumbnails, post on socials, create websites, run an Esty store, create patterns and digitize patterns of my costumes. etc. It takes so much time and can be extremely overwhelming!
Baldguycosplay is probably the one maker I get a lot of inspiration from. His work is always so perfectly detailed and he has really inspired me to create more with textures and painting techniques. It seems like he has an incredible drive to create like I do. I love his work for the realism. He takes his time and makes sure every piece is as realistically textured as possible!
5. How do you manage and overcome creative burnout?:
I switch around a lot with creating. I mostly make costumes and prop but when I'm burnt out I'll paint with watercolors, or edit a silly video. I also have many days where I allow myself time to rest in-between projects. Watching movies or playing games always helps me rest, but at the same time can inspire me to keep looking at costumes or props I want to make! One time I was resting playing a Zelda game, and I saw the decayed master sword and JUMPED up and immediately started making it!
6. Have you experienced a fail? How did you work through it and what did you learn?:
Oh constantly! I really like to talk about fails as they are such a common part of any kind of creating or trying something new. I learned everything I have from mistakes and playing around and figuring things out. Its hard to find an answer for "what did you learn"...because I've learned so much from them! It's of course hard to fail and make mistakes, but I think we should start to look at them differently, they aren't really fails...fails are letting them take hold of you and allowing them to make you quit.
7. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get started?:
DO IT! Go buy some foam, a Surebonder hot glue gun and some glue sticks, paint, a heat gun, just play around and make mistakes. Watch mine and other creators YouTube channels, go on Etsy and find pattern sets. Go to cons and talk to the cosplay guests and attend maker panels. That is how I learned!
8. What’s next for you? (a new project? a new technique? a new venture?):
I am making another Monster Hunter armor. The Dober armor from MHW. I have created a really cool technique for making foam look like leather and I wanted to challenge myself with a heavy "leather" style costume. The armor has leather belts, bags, clothing, etc! I want to take it on an upcoming adventure to Utah and do a really epic photoshoot!
Check out more from Grace:
Instagram: @Grave_CraftMakes
YouTube: @Grave_CraftMakes
Etsy Shop: GraveCraftCosplay
