Belle Westaby is a multidisciplinary artist and cosplayer we’ve had the pleasure to photograph at Gen Con 2023 and 2024. Belle was one of the people who reached out and brought the Distant Era mini sessions to Gen Con 2024, for which we are extremely grateful.
As a cosplayer and craftsperson, Belle is a force of nature: previously, at Gen Con 2023, Belle won the Gen Con Cosplay Contest in the Games category for this exquisite Fearne costume, shown below.
NYX
This year, Belle brought us the Hades video game’s Nyx, primordial goddess of night, originally from Greek myth. Having spent much of my spare time in the last couple years thinking about and reading Greek myth, as well as building a series around it, I was stoked to make portraits of Belle’s Nyx.
Consummate Crafter
Belle’s artistry goes beyond these fantastic cosplay creations. As the artist Crossroads Dog, Belle runs an art studio offering a variety of charms, pins, and prints that Belle makes. (Check out the Crossroads Dog Studio shop here.) You can also visit Belle’s shop at upcoming conventions by following this link.
Belle’s costume includes several elements that light up, specifically the stars on Nyx’s headpiece and the eyes of the skulls.
Check out this comparison between the art for Nyx from the game and the cosplay that Belle created.
Notice all the costume details that Belle physically made: the crown, the headpiece, the gems, the earrings, the shoulder piece, the skulls, the garments, the eyes, the hair. I’m probably missing elements. Crafting each element of this costume to match the character from the game must have taken an enormous amount of time and skill, and once again I’m in awe of the artist’s ability to execute such a costume. I really mean that: I’m lucky if I can resew a detached button, and while I greatly enjoyed my costume class in the theatre program at college, I must admit that I received a C- on my peasant shirt. I did receive an A in lighting though, so I’m happy in my role photographing these beautiful costumes while in awe of the maker’s abilities.
Consummate Model
Belle is a fantastic model, changing positions with every click of the shutter, so we ended up with lots of variety from our twenty-minute session. I didn’t risk changing the light setup too dramatically, as we were running right up to the Gen Con cosplay parade time slot. Our light was working great, and Belle was flowing beautifully from one pose to another. However, we added a few special effects as we photographed, including a purple gel and a miniature smoke machine. These elements added some fun analogous color and texture to our shoot, and they were quick to implement.
For Belle’s detailed portrait, I placed Nyx against a background of purple and pink clouds and drew in beams of light. I painted other stars into the image as well and added glow to the skulls and headpiece to emphasize the light-up elements of Nyx’s costume (below, right). I followed up with a second take, substituting the intense purple and pink for a more graceful cloudy night sky (below, left).
It is ever an honor to photograph Belle’s outstanding creations, and once again we are grateful for the opportunity to photograph this amazing cosplay!
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