Blyth's Sawchuk turns heads with cosplay prowess - April 4, 2019
BY DENNY SCOTT
For the past seven months, Blyth-area youth Ella Sawchuk has been putting her alteration skills to work to further her passion for cosplay.
Cosplay is the practice of dressing up like characters from books, comics, movies, television or video games. Sawchuk first got involved last year, making her first costume to attend a convention in Toronto.
Her first costume was Black Widow, a character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that most recently appeared in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, which she crafted herself, minus the footwear.
“I made my Black Window costume, excluding the footwear,” she said. “I’m not quite there.”
She said, if she had a week to focus on making the outfit, she could have done that, but, as she fits in her cosplaying alongside school and her other activities, it took her a month to put it all together.
More recently, Sawchuk has been buying higher-quality costumes and tailoring them herself, pointing to outfits like her Peggy Carter costume, another MCU member who appeared in her own television show, Agent Carter, and Captain Marvel, from the recently released Captain Marvel movie.
The latter drew some local attention when she reached out to the Park Theatre in Goderich and offered to wear her costume for the opening night of the movie, an appearance she will be repeating on April 26 when Avengers: Endgame, in which Captain Marvel is featured, opens in Goderich.
The first appearance went pretty well, Sawchuk said, with people taking photos with her and appreciating the outfit.
That positive feedback has been a running theme for her cosplay projects, including her Instagram account @cospleanor.
“I get a lot of positive feedback and I think that’s because I enjoy what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m connecting with other people with similar interests.”
As for her next projects, Sawchuk said she is currently looking to bring Elsa from the Frozen series to life, based on what was seen in the recently-released Frozen 2 trailer, as well as another MCU hero: Valkyrie, who last appeared in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok.
The two fit her cosplay mandate, which is to shine a light on strong, positive female role models.
Sawchuk also recently hinted at a Hope Van Dyne project on her Instagram account, a hero better known as The Wasp from the recent MCU film Ant-Man and The Wasp.
For more information, follow Sawchuk on Instagram at www.instagram.com/cospleanor/