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I borrowed Pokémon Legends: Arceus from a friend in early 2022. I devoured the hell out of that game and played it to its very limit, completing everything down to even the Path of Solitude quests. It's become one of my favorite Pokémon game of all time. Also, Warden Ingo is in there and he took over my life for a bit. I'd only gotten to go to a convention for the first time since the pandemic had cancelled all cosplay events a few months prior, in a pretty uncomfortable costume, and a lot of costumes I'd made during that time of forced break had been... Not very satisfying. So when I got obsessed with the game, I latched onto the idea of cosplaying Ingo. Unlike my last few cosplay vibe failures, there weren't any cosplay pictures floating around social media at the time I could use to psyche myself out of the idea.

My goal with Warden Ingo was to be as accurate and realistic as possible; I wanted to look like I had been stuck in the wilderness for a couple months, with heavy weathering and a more "real" take on his goofy sideburns. I thrifted some bits, as usual, and found a nice pair of shoes and pants, as well as a black undershirt to match the character. I custom patterned his tunic and sash (and hand-embroidered the Pearl Clan emblem), made his hat using one of Kamui Cosplay's EVA Foam hat patterns, And made his coat out of a heavily modified commercial pattern I found hanging around in my pattern drawer. (I was really cheap on this build in order to save money on the wig-related elements.) The sideburns and goatee were ventilated by hand on wig mesh and while I am so very proud of them, it took about 40 hours and fucked my hands up for a while, so oops.

The whole outfit was completed with a lovely Hisui Pokéball purchased from NisuzCraft (which are unfortunately no longer available as of writing this in 2025.) And I think I looked like a great Warden, if I do say so myself!

I try not to get hung up on perfectionism, nowadays, because it's burned me more often than it has created a satisfying experience. With Warden Ingo, however, it paid off; when I look at myself in the mirror I feel like the character walked out of the screen. I brought it to Otakuthon 2022 and had loads of fun; one of those times where I was so happy to be the character that I didn't mind that most people didn't really pay attention to me. (Though one of the artists in the Artist Alley got super excited seeing me and it made my day!) Gluing facial hair to my face isn't the most comfortable, especially with the goatee that threatens to fall off due to skin movement, but it's manageable.

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