Gadget Gears

23/02/2024

To all my friends - I hope each one of you is lucky enough to have an Uncle Iroh in your life, I know I am. Grateful to my real life mentor .studios who has certainly been there to support and encourage me on my own Zuko kind of journey

Now can I nerd at how frikken good he looks as Iroh?? Am I right?? Loved making these costumes and having the team of artists come together for a year’s long project

A HUGE thanks to for capturing the vision, it was a frikken joy to work with you

who created the custom tea set and all of the pottery in this series. She is actively selling and I’m excited to help her get more of her work online to sell

for collaborating with me on the tea stand and for always being open to the crazy ideas I come up with - please check them out!

12/02/2024

“We ran as if to meet the moon” 🌙

Were you Team Princess Yue or Team Suki?

📸 .photo
❄️

19/10/2023

Finally putting this back together after the beads tried to escape their storage box. I was lucky (for the second time) that one of the jade or amethyst pieces didn’t get cracked or broken - yet.

A fun cosplay element for a character who’s just waiting for the occasion to get made. Seriously, I have a few costumes that exist as yardage in boxes…one day I’ll find a group or partner! Until then, they wait lol

30/07/2023

You don’t need words to tell a story and I’d say these custom pieces I made for say quite a lot, am I right? As a designer and fabricator, I am a storyteller that uses fiber, fiberglass or foam to tell you a bit about a character and the world they come from

05/06/2023

Gearing up and designing something new to take to O Comic Con this July! Stay tuned!

05/06/2023

An incredible group to fall in with, getting to level up and learn from the best!

One epic shot!! 🔥🔥



hensley__



gears.design

27/02/2023

Go beyond your limits and set your heart ablaze!

Words cannot describe how excited I am to team up with the incredible and .cosplay.photography in Quebec for this shoot! Rengoku’s fiery personality intimidated me quite a bit, plus, he has quite a “look” lol He is the complete opposite of Tomioka BUT I remember laughing a lot around Kaoru and so, I set my heart ablaze ;)

I have admired Kaoru ever since competing against her at and if you haven’t had the opportunity to meet her, I hope you get to!

24/01/2023

I work with some pretty frikken cool people. Fight me!

Def not screen accurate BUT for 6 hours and 3 costumes later, we had fun as a shop!

10/01/2023

Death rosettes! At least, that’s what I was jokingly calling this pile of pins, waiting to bite the seamstress who dared sew them lol My first time doing rosettes and even with having “Do you hear the people sing” stuck in my head, I had a good time

05/12/2022

I never thought I’d design and fabricate puppet wardrobe but it’s a fun challenge. This production took a new turn for me though! On the last shot before wrap, more puppeteers were needed and I got dragged into puppeteering. (It’s a feat of athleticism in my opinion) Desperate times indeed lol - I am an imposter, especially when I have to be next to who isn’t human in her energy on set!

Always a pleasure to collab with - go check him and his puppets out! He is incredibly talented and I look forward to our next project together :)

19/10/2022

I was challenged to design and drape two genderbend, lo**ta cosplays for and and I’m gonna be honest, the idea sounded completely mental. How on earth do you make caution cone orange…kawaii?

As nuts it was, it was also hella fun breaking down, what I saw, as the core, character/costume elements. While Sasuke doesn’t really read without Naruto, I think it’s also poetically fitting that the two support each other’s designs when they stand side by side. These are incredibly rough concepts but I’d like to make them into a reality one day

I wasn’t able do a sketch but a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Not to mention this format has really been successful when pitching my crazy to a client. What do you think? And would you all be interested in seeing others?

15/10/2022

Little things for a stop motion set. Cute, right? Clay plates, alien conspiracy board (super fun) a cat tower/scratching post and then dinner on the plates! Can I mention the “frosted” glass of lemon water is a hollowed out hot glue stick? Yup. With nail polish and crushed, clear beads for “ice” - I love being a trash panda and coming up with weird solutions!

11/10/2022

Emmène moi à Paris ✈️ I love working with gowns and it’s what I miss from my opera days the most!

21/08/2022

I believe little details express imagination, expressing who I am without words

Pictured here are Celes’ leather roses, hand cast pewter cameo and custom shoes

They are certainly splashes of countless hours that many have seen as a lot of work wasted on a trinket. However, my professor of the dark arts (a wise and quirky props-master) once told me that the story you tell to yourself and that object, gives it purpose, meaning and direction. And while the audience may never hear all the details to that story, it makes all the difference

19/07/2021

I don’t think I ever got a pic or video after her rhinestones went on. 2,000 ish hand placed stones me her so sparkly!!

17/03/2021

One of the last gifts to me from my late grandmother was a plastic, light up wand. She told me very seriously that with a little magic, anything is possible. Tonight as I read letters from friends, I am grateful for the experiences these last months and the dear community that sent me off to my next adventure into the unknown. Thank you to all those helping hands in my life, for being that magic and courage I need. I can’t wait to show you the project that is wrapping soon and I look forward to tomorrow where a new adventure begins.

19/02/2021

I’m excited for a future shoot for Celes! It’s in the works and I can’t wait to wear her again!!

06/02/2021

I can’t wait to share almost a year’s worth of work with you! The day will come!! In the meantime, I have to brag about my apprentice’s work. He made this custom leather piece to aid me in my work and I LOVE it

03/01/2021

I’m digging through old laptops and I found these gems! I’m going to be honest, I did rather dumb things in Luffy cosplay...okay, maybe dumb is the wrong word? From climbing a tent rope, falling out of a tree and hiding food in my pants, I’ve made some crazy good memories cosplaying Luffy. None are more documented than this one rando time I accidentally found myself in a corral and the animals tolerated my crazy antics!

27/12/2020

Sketching up a commissioned piece! I was totally doing all these battle poses and then decided I wanted to try something softer?

20/12/2020

It was a cold day and I dragged out Ed for the occasion. I love him in the winter as he is wool!

17/11/2020

My Art to Play peeps! It’s officially been a year!

🏆A2PBCC 2019 results:
#1 USA Gadget Gears
#2 France Minalee cosplay
#3 Indonesia Zai Naru Cosplay
#3 Canada Kaoru Doll from Doll Damage Cosplay

Also congrats to all participants 😍

Photo by Axel Clergeau AC - Photographie

02/11/2020

It’s officially silver and done! This build has represented so much to me and seeing the journey end was emotional. No watch in this due to the $1,000+ cost on that. It was bad enough that I did it in sliver lol. Now it lives in my pocket as a bad ass pill case!

22/10/2020

Made something simple and fun for fall! I had so much fun reimagining Tomioka’s design into a casual cosplay hoodie

23/08/2020

These blocks have really challenged me. Dupioni is fussy already but since I cut them on different grain lines, they developed some serious attitude. Rulers have been the only reason I’ve been able to keep them in line. *bad pun* But really, there is so much prep and measuring that goes into these! Tonight I start with 100 pieced blocks that will build into 50 finished units. Here we go!!

22/08/2020

I’m playing with inlaid textures tonight..instead of sewing......like I should be....
May be missing the black outlines but it makes me happy so far!

19/08/2020

Buttons right out of the mold! I did some experiments on the core colors but I’m interested to see them painted soon and sewn on the jacket. ...I should probably start seeing that jacket, right???

18/08/2020

Progress on Tanjiro continues with sculpting and casting! They look so sweet and innocent but it took FOREVER to cast them one by one to make a sheet. I’m secretly hoping they turn out amazing so I can put them my Etsy shop...that’s all for tonight but I’m back at it tomorrow!

15/08/2020

Wigs! I’m determined to get better at the super stylized ones with all of the spikes. Right out of the bag, I was pleased with the color and after teasing and preliminary spike placement, I think I’m about halfway? I’ll finish it on my god kid to make sure it’s proportioned to her face and size.

11/08/2020

When I looked at Giyuu’s geometric pattern it screamed “piece me!” And like a lunatic, I took that challenge head on. I have studied and done a few quilts and it was like cosplay and quilting had a baby in my mind. While there are blocks and rulers to build them, there was no pattern to the inner pieces. It took HOURS of trial and error before I finally was happy with a result and assembled my piece army. For the fabric, I’ve chosen dual tone dupioni with a taffeta cornerstone. These silks were TOTALLY in my stash (cause I’m a crow that loves shiny things) and I’m excited that this will be a stash blaster project. I’ve cut the pieces on different grain lines and used three rulers to keep me on track. So when the light hits the silk, it will have dimension and visual interest. I know I complicate things, but the possibilities had me stoked to try!! Cutting is done! Now to piece 100 blocks~~~