It was two weeks before San Diego Comic Con, and all I had was the helmet at the time. I had seen Master Chef jokes been done for years, usually just a standard Master Chief armor with an apron, but rarely with the full actual chef coat. The helmet had been given to me as a gift from a friend a few years back, and I had the chef coat and hat. The stars aligned and Master Chef became my first ever cosplay.
I used Velcro to attach the chef hat to the Master Chief helmet. Under the chef hat is a little Halo 4 Crawler action figure named Remy. I had to add some padding within the helmet to keep it in place. The pants and shoes were from my days of working in the fast food industry! lol
People’s reactions were immediately positive. Within 5 minutes of wearing the costume, I was pulled aside for a quick interview with a local San Diego news anchor. Then at the Halo panel, all the cosplayers in Halo armor invited me to hang out with them and I became a part of the local Southern California Halo cosplay group @anvilstation. They eventually taught me how to work with foam and I built an actual suit of Master Chief armor!
This costume has impacted my life so significantly. Because of it, I’ve made some of the coolest friends I’ve ever had, and continue to meet cool awesome people still to this day. I use my cosplay to attend charity events and entertain guests at fundraisers, so I feel like i get to really give back to the community. Getting here just took the first step of deciding to cosplay at all, and I’m thankful that first step was an awesome pun that entertains to many people at every con I go to.