Fiorini, a junior in fashion design, works her interest in costume design and art into detailed cosplays of characters from books, movies, comics and video games.
On Saturday, Fiorini transformed from college student into hacker Lisbeth Salander from “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” for Bloomingcon at the Indiana Memorial Union.
Fiorini has cosplayed at Indiana conventions since summer vacation, after she began work on a would-be Halloween costume of Sheik, the male-disguised version of Zelda from the “Legend of Zelda” video games.
She won Bloomingcon’s cosplay contest Sunday wearing the Sheik costume, which she stitched from sweater material and foam-covered fabric to look like armor.
The competition was the final event in the two-day con, which racked up 155 attendees during the spread of panels and gaming.
Fiorini competed with students and Bloomington staff dressed as Katniss Everdeen, the 10th Doctor, Dipper and Mabel from “Gravity Falls,” and William Wallace from “Braveheart.”
Allison Saffel of the Union Board’s Gaming and Electronic Entertainment Committee helped judge the cosplayers on skill, authenticity, originality and “awe” factor. She said the amount of hand-crafted detail in Fiorini’s costume set her ahead of the competition.
“From every impression, it seemed like a well-made, well-stocked, professional presentation,” Saffel said.
Fiorini chronicles her costume-making process on her Facebook page, EXFCosplay, where she also takes costume commissions.
The process of becoming Lisbeth Salander took roughly an hour. Fiorini balanced her laptop with character portraits of Rooney Mara as Salander from the American movie on the toilet seat in her apartment bathroom and paused to check her progress against the references.
“A lot of cosplays evolve as really intricate gowns or armour, or costumes and garments,” Fiorini said. “It’s more difficult to be (this) character without doing specific things like the piercings and the eyebrows.”
To that end, Fiorini lightened her eyebrows, contoured her face and added fake facial piercings like Mara’s version of the hacker, as well as a hand-dyed and black-Sharpie-d wig.
“I don’t look like Rooney Mara,” Fiorini said. “I don’t look like Noomi Rapace. I have to do other things to suggest the character.”
The facial makeup and jewelry for the cosplay took the most time, as Fiorini tamped down her eyebrows with a glue stick and eyeshadow, contoured her face and eyes with dark shades and attached fake piercings and gauges with pliers and Pros-Aide, a medical adhesive.
The temporary neck tattoo, a hornet, was Fiorini’s own work, traced onto tattoo paper from Hobby Lobby with a gel pen.
“This whole process is hilarious because of the stages I go through.” Fiorini said. “The eyebrowless stage is really terrifying until I get the eye makeup on, (that) sort of balances it out.”
Fiorini nixed most of the titular skin art for a “plainclothes” cosplay put together from items in her closet and from Goodwill.
“I like her look better in the American version,” Fiorini said. “The Swedish version (of the character) is, like, straight goth, and in the American version she is something else entirely, like she doesn’t fit anywhere.”
Fiorini said she tries to find cosplays that will “read well” on her body, style of movement and face shape, but also draws inspiration from strong characters in the media she consumes.
“I don’t want to say she’s a lot like the ‘badass female heroine’ — she is, but she also goes against what the world says that is,” Fiorini said. “I think all of my cosplays have been pretty badass women — like I could never do Princess Peach or Cinderella.”
Other cosplays of Fiorini’s included Ramona Flowers from “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “The Bride” from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies.
“(Salander) takes care of herself, which is something I’m really bad at,” Fiorini said. “I’m a people pleaser, and I think a lot of her character I want to emulate in my own life, like her stability of self and her knowledge of who she is.”
Fiorini had not taken a sewing class before her junior year, but picked up most of the skills she needed to make her first costumes on the fly. She called cosplay “an art form and a science,” where some looks and materials can be hacked with a craft foam or dye and others can be Googled as needed.
Avant-garde structure and different sewing techniques learned in her classes have also helped, Fiorini said, as translating animated characters into a live-action setting can be difficult for cosplayers at any level.
“The pride I take in this sort of thing — I think I’m relatively gifted (at it), and I’ve succeeded at it before, and I think I can again,” Fiorini said. “It kind of keeps me accountable to doing things I can be proud of.”
Fiorini double-checked her costume in her roommate’s full-length mirror before heading to Bloomingcon.
“Cosplay is becoming more popular — cons and nerd-dom is becoming more popular,” Fiorini said. “The cool thing about conventions is that no matter what the theme of the convention is ... at every con, you have cosplayers and fans of everything.”
