Holly Conrad
by Fred Topel for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

One of the most impressive aspects of San Diego Comic-Con is the annual masquerade, where cosplayers show off their creative designs. Everyday people create the images of comic book, movie and video game characters with costumes rivaling big Hollywood productions. For his documentary on Comic-Con, Morgan Spurlock chose one cosplay artist to follow for a portion of the film.

Holly Conrad designed an entire ensemble of Mass Effect costumes for the 2010 masquerade. Comic-Con: Episode IV – A Fan’s Hope follows Conrad from designing the costumes in her garage through assembling them on stage, as one of four stories surrounding the convention. He also follows a group of artists seeking mentorship, a comic book shop owner and a couple of geeks in love.

Holly Conrad is one of the film’s breakout stars. Simply from the ingenuity of her Mass Effect costumes, producers of the Mass Effect movie offered her a job as a consultant on the film. Everywhere she goes in her Shepard costume, she stands out and gets compliments from impressed onlookers. That includes driving to the film’s Los Angeles press junket. Conrad planned to give all her interviews in costume, so she was suited up as she drove to Beverly Hills one Thursday morning. We spoke with her by phone, her very first interview of the day, to celebrate the glory of cosplay. She also wore her costume to the film's Hollywood premiere.

SuicideGirls: Do you ever feel like cosplay is committing social suicide?

Holly Conrad: [Laughs] At times it can be but I think if you do it right, you tend to be more socially accepted than suicidal.

SG: Yeah, don’t guys think the costumes are hot?

HC: I think they do. I think it depends on the person. A lot of times obviously they have Slave Leias and things like that, but my personal preference is space armor.

SG: I’m not saying it has to be revealing, but I imagine people would admire a good costume.

HC: Exactly, yeah. Definitely.

SG: I’m a one man show as a journalist. How do you manage the stress of putting together a group act?

HC: [Laughs] It’s pretty stressful. Mostly just random arguments that turn into hugs and crying when everything gets suddenly better.

SG: We see in the film when one of your team can’t quite handle the costume, and you have to manage that.

HC: Oh yeah, usually what I try to do is take care of the people in the more complicated costumes because they’ve got it way worse than I do. Ideally we have someone’s boyfriend or someone’s friend handle it for us. If we can get more people to help that’s the best but obviously if we can’t, then we just kind of make do.

SG: Is it harder to find supplies and craft stores these days with the economy?

HC: Not really. Actually, I live in L.A. now and all the special effects stores and everything out here are all still totally here, so it’s different but it’s not a complete lost art yet.

SG: How much time do you have to play Mass Effect?

HC: Actually when I first started playing the game is when I decided to make the costume. I think I had over 15 play throughs on the second game so I had quite a bit of time between my day job and making the costumes to play the game. I made sure to play all the way through before I was completely inspired to make all the suits.

SG: What is your day job?

HC: Well, back then I was working at an animatronic factory called Garner Holt Productions. It was over in San Bernadino where I grew up, kind of in that deserty sort of area. That and the haunted house is where I met a lot of my team. That’s where I was working the whole time until I decided to go crazy and spend all my money and start my Comic-Con suicide mission.

SG: What did you do for Garner Holt?

HC: They do a lot of stuff for Disney and things like that but I was just in the molding department, being a mold rat. I was just doing my cleaning mold thing, clay walls and things like that at the time. Then I moved to figure finishing which is where I learned to do more of the sculpting sort of things that I ended up learning to do.

SG: Have you always had work in the industry?

HC: No, not always. A lot of shops lay you off or you take an internship and it doesn’t work out. I usually end up working in a coffee shop if things go south. [Laughs] I’ve worked out six coffee shops.

SG: That’s good solid work.

HC: Yeah, at least you know if things go bad you can definitely go and work at a coffee shop or something like that. It’s always good to have a backup.

SG: Have there been any costumes you attempted and couldn’t complete?

HC: Actually there’s been quite a few. It’s usually not because I can’t complete them. It’s just because I don’t have time. So I’ll usually start something crazy and then halfway through I’ll just get another project that’s paid and have to put it on the back burner.

SG: What are the ones we never got to see?

HC: Oh, I had a costume planned for Star Wars: The Old Republic that was one of their main characters. They wanted me to go to cons and things like that. I just completely ran out of time, ran out of money. They weren’t paying me for it. It was just going to be for fun but I just didn’t have time to complete it. I really want to make a Star Wars costume in the future so it’s on my list.

SG: What other subjects or characters are on your dream to do list?

HC: Oh my God, a lot of obscure games. Not necessarily obscure but older games that I was a big fan of as a kid I’d love to make some costumes of. Like Baldur’s Gate, it’s another role playing game that Bioware did I can’t imagine how many years ago. It was like late ‘90s. There’s a whole group of people from that game that I would just love to recreate. It’s all medieval costumes and armor so it’d be really fun for me.

SG: Where do you cosplay the rest of the year?

HC: I’ve been to a lot of different Cons actually. Usually we have a panel at PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. We go to the Penny Arcade Expo east and west. I’m going to WonderCon in costume. There’s quite a few different smaller cons that aren’t just Comic Con that are actually really, really awesome. Almost more artsy and cool at times than Comic Con can be.

SG: What are you going as for WonderCon?

HC: I actually made a Mass Effect 3 Shepard Suit so it’s a completely new suit but the same character.

SG: Was Mass Effect your best costume or do you have other favorites?

HC: I have a few favorites. Before I did the Mass Effect suit at Comic Con I did a 12 foot tall character from an old game called Planescape: Torment. It was this super tall goddess woman built onto a PBC frame that I actually built onto a handicapped scooter so it looked like it was floating. That was insane because it was 12 feet tall. It was the tallest thing they had in the competition that year. I was really proud of that because at the time I had no idea what I was doing and it still turned out okay.

SG: Who is that character?

HC: The character was The Lady of Pain. It was sort of like a goddess woman.

SG: How did you do 12 feet?

HC: I actually built it onto the base of one of my mom’s old handicapped scooters. It was actually almost like I rode in it rather than walked in it so it was kind of like a float. It came out awesome though. It was really fun. We couldn’t even get any good pictures of it because it was too tall.

SG: What are your plans for Comic-Con 2012?

HC: Well, I’m getting ready for this Comic-Con and I think my plan is everyone in the movie, we want to get back together and wear our suits again for one last convention in those suits. I’m going to be making Steph, you saw her in the movie when we did all the triumphant things, Steph was there so I’m making her a costume and a few other people. So it’s just going to be the same thing.

SG: Is the Mass Effect movie still happening?

HC: I actually don’t know. I haven’t heard much either. Last I heard they were getting a director so I guess they’re still working on that, or if they’ve done it they’re waiting to announce it after the third game’s been played out. The third game was just released.

SG: Do you still have a job on the movie?

HC: As far as I know. They don’t actually tell me much so I’m hoping. I’ve definitely got my fingers crossed for that. I know how all this stuff works so I’m just like I hope it happens.

SG: Have you had a chance to play ME3?

HC: Yes, I have.

SG: Have you beaten it yet?

HC: I have beaten it. I did actually beat it.

SG: Thoughts?

HC: I actually really, really like it. I love all the characterizations and everything. I know that there’s a bunch of controversy around the ending but I think people are just jumping the gun. I think they just need to wait and see what they’re going to come out with next instead of fan raging over the ending, because the whole game was amazing and beautiful. The characterization is just fantastic. I’m a huge fan of all the characters. That’s why I make the costumes. That’s honestly why I play the game anyway.

SG: How did you pitch yourself to Morgan Spurlock?

HC: First I sent a letter, so I sent a letter talking about what we were doing for Comic-Con and all that. Then after that we did a YouTube video and we put out a YouTube video of us working in a garage on all the costumes. The video ended up going viral on Reddit so it ended up getting 100,000 views in a couple weeks or something crazy like that. So it was sent around to all these game companies and game companies started recognizing us. It ended up being that Morgan saw it and they really liked it and liked our story. It just kind of happened.

SG: Were there other cosplayers you were up against?

HC: I think there were actually. I saw a couple of people, this isn’t official, but I saw a couple people online saying, “Oh, I was up for this position.” People that follow me on Facebook say, “I saw the movie and Holly Conrad is great.” Everyone’s been super positive, even if they weren’t a featured character in the movie because the movie is so amazing.

SG: How do you feel when you’re able to dress up as someone else?

HC: I love it. I always kind of joke that it’s kind of like being in drag minus the gender confusion. You get to completely be another person, another persona for an extended period of time and it involves a lot of makeup and dressing up and being uncomfortable. But it’s kind of like a complete transformation from normal daily life which I think is what makes it really, really fun.

SG: How is your self-image as Holly?

HC: Oh, I’m pretty happy with my self-image. I enjoy finding fashionable things. I still dress in crazy leggings with space patterns and things like that. I think my cosplay kind of leaks onto my everyday life in a way, but when I was younger it was really hard. I didn’t have a great self-image in high school and elementary school, but I kind of developed it over time in making costumes.

SG: Did cosplay help you define yourself?

HC: Oh, completely. Completely because it was kind of a mix of all the things I enjoy like costumes, armor, fashions and all those things. It sort of gave me a place to express the art that I was interested in while at the same time obviously making you feel good about yourself because you get to make something, wear it and have people enjoy it.

SG: Do you do work for hire? Where could someone contact you?

HC: I actually have been doing work for hire. I’ve been crazy, crazy busy but you can go to my website if you want to check out all my stuff. I’ve actually been working for Bioware, the company that made Mass Effect and a few other people who’ve done really cool side projects. I have a website. It’s just Hollyconrad.com and my twitter is where I update everything and usually send everyone because I’m on there all the time talking about what glue I’m using. It’s the same thing, @HollyConrad. My tweets are usually about me burning myself and what kind of glue I’m using.

SG: What is the good glue these days?

HC: Actually Barge glue. I use Barge glue for everything. It’s kind of a super toxic glue that shoemakers and special effects artists use. It’s just a really intense glue.

SG: Has costuming become your full time job now?

HC: Yeah, it has actually. I’ve been doing costuming and I’m working on doing tutorials for YouTube and all that kind of stuff so it’s been really, really awesome. I actually did production design for a short film a couple months ago which was really, really fun. That was kind of like a dream come true.

SG: Have any other movie companies reached out to you?

HC: No, they haven’t. I actually haven’t heard much. I mean, the movie’s not out yet so maybe once it all comes out I might get some people calling which would be super exciting.

SG: Did you get to know any of the other subjects from Comic-Con: Episode IV?

HC: Oh yeah. Actually all of us get along amazingly. It’s really, really great. James and Se Young who got engaged in the movie, they were actually working on the same production that I was when we did production design. So Se Young was actually the art director and James was one of the producers and editors. My whole team worked on the project too so it was really, really cool.

SG: What’s that project called?

HC: It’s still a secret project. We’re under NDA.

SG: How do you like your first press junket?

HC: Well, I’m still in traffic getting there. I’m hoping it’s going to be awesome because I started getting dressed in my costume. I’m actually driving in my costume right now. Then one of my lights wasn’t working so I freaked out about that. Now I’m in traffic hoping my lights are still working and looking absolutely ridiculous.

SG: What portion of the costume are you wearing in the car?

HC: Oh, everything. Including the makeup.

SG: Have you gotten any looks from other drivers?

HC: I just don’t notice anymore to be honest. It’s so common these days, I really just don’t even notice.

Comic-Con: Episode IV - A Fan's Hope is now playing in theaters and On Demand.

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Holly+Conrad/