Back in January, we were deciding what future costumes we wanted to do and Babyberry said "Katamari." We all thought it was an awesome, original idea and we immediately began coming up with all these fantastical concepts to encorporate. Surprisingly, most of them ended up being realized.
The costumes were simplistic enough, but Imriela was also able to rig invisible speakers under her dress that played Katamari music. Unfortunately the noise of the convention was so high most people couldn't hear it.
The props were mostly made by Evali. We had eleven items plucked from the game, all made from felt. Two of the items were purses, and the two largest (Mogran and the Hoshino girl) also spoke. She rigged them up with recordable greeting card parts. Mogran growled ferociously, and the girl spoke "I feel it, I feel the Cosmos!" Also, someone stole our rice ball prop. We could have made you one that wasn't all ratty!
The ball was approximately 25 yards of upholstery foam, 50 yards of muslin fabric covering it, with another 50 yards of hook velcro sewn strategically to that. Felt acts as the loop part of velcro, and sticks to it quite nicely. We were able to swap around objects any way we desired for pictures. The one major failing of our ball was it's stability. Since we had to drive it to Atlanta, we didn't get a chance to see the large Katamari fully put together until the day of the contest (when we sewed the two halves into one piece early in the morning). Because of this it was unfortunately unable to stand to its full height, but we're glad people liked it anyways.
Babyberry also made an adorable storybook that explained the geometric process behind construction (it looks a little like a chemistry problem) and contained in progress pictures. We gave out Katamari beads with our cards when we had a chance, but unfortunately they were in limited supply.
