We were lucky to catch up with Jesse Trotter recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jesse, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I started cosplaying in 2014 with my now ex-girlfriend. I had learned a lot of my crafting skills from LARPing and after watching a show called Heroes of Cosplay on the SyFy Network I gain interest. I actually bought my first cosplay but it didn’t fit so i slowly altered it and that was my first steps into cosplay itself. Over the years I have grown in both skills and as a artist but sadly as I get older it gets hard for me to make costumes. I wish I had started sooner so that I could have done more with my career as an artist.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Like I said I started in 2014 and learned a lot from my LARPing community that I am now in. The LARP that i played was called S.O.L.A.R and I learned much of my leather making, paint, and other skills which pave the way for me to become a successful cosplayer. While I am particularly good at leather crafting, I am most proud of my recent creation Maltheal. He is a character from the Diablo series and he is my first ever foam build armor set. I don’t really see myself as anything special in the cosplay community but one thing I do pride myself on is just being there for everyone in the community. I try to answer questions whenever I can and help lift people up in the community as often as I can.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Probably the best story I have right now about my resilience in cosplay is my most recent build. Malthael is my first foam build but what made him so hard is the fact that I suffer from RA. Rheumatoid arthritis is slowly destroy my joints in my hands so its hard to cut and shape the foam just the way I like it. I took two and half years to build this cosplay due to this disease.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are several I wish I knew about it when I first started out. Youtube videos, books, forums, etc. It wasn’t until around 2016 that I really started diving deep into it that I now have the resources I do now.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @solarwolfcosplay
• Facebook: @solarwolfcosplay
• Twitter: @solarwolfcosplay
• Youtube: Solarwolfcosplay
• Other: also on Tumblr @solarwolfcosplay

Image Credits
Photographers: James Garner, Solita DelaCruz, Patrick Sun, David Leo, and Alexandra Lee Studios My Lovely wife Rachel Trotter also known as BLuechick12