My dad cannot stop inserting himself into literally anything that I do
I'm 25 and my Dad is almost 73. Throughout most of my life, whenever I try do anything that requires any bit of creativity or problem solving, he cannot help but shoot down my idea and give me unsolicited advice on his own superior solution, and it is infuriating. The most recent solicitation has been in regards to a cosplay I'm making for a convention in a few months. I'm not the best at foam-smithing armor and I've done a ton of research and asked a close friend for advice. They're a professional award winning cosplayer who has done tons of costumes and even managed to get a really good job because of her technical skills. She directed me what to do and I've been following her advice to a T.
I wanted to show my dad what I've been working on because, you know, showing your parents cool shit you're doing is kind of like a normal behavior. Plus, since he's an industrial designer I thought he'd find this cool because making cosplay is very similar to making product mock ups. I told him about the challenges of it and the cool solution and process my cosplay friend showed me, and he had to jump the fuck in and tell me what to do. He kept telling me why my process looked really hard and why it won't work. Then, I was told how I should do these solutions instead and why it'd be way easier and didn't even give me the time to tell him why I disagree with him. He then gave me a list of like things to do, like go talk to his old engineer who did shit like this, and even offered to just straight up do it for me.
He's even done it since I was a kid. I remember when I was 10 I found a tutorial on thingiverse for how to make Ezio's hidden blade from assassin's creed. I asked him to buy the parts from a hardware store but he came back with completely different parts and told me how this version is going to work better. It made me throw in the towel completely and taught me not to try anything creative or get any help from him because he's just gonna make it different and throw a wrench in the process.
I know in situations like this, you shouldn't argue back and just roll with the punches because its over something trivial like a costume - it's not a major boundary violation. But still, it is so fucking annoying and makes me feel incompetent.