NYCC 2012

This past weekend I went to New York Comic Con for the first time! It was crazy and overwhelming. But I had fun. Would prefer to return doing the artist alley next year, but had fun nonetheless. I'm going to San Francisco today and I need to get some sleep so this is gonna be a relatively quick post! If you wanna learn more about my perspective on the con as an illustrator, check my other blog.

Waiting for the Yoshitaka Amano panel. Was really cool to see him.

I mentioned all of my highlights as an artist in my illustration blog. But this was one of my cosplay highlights! Getting to meet one of my favorite cosplayers, Vampy! Oh right, my costume btw is a Stormcloak from Skyrim. It's not quite finished yet, but that's what the chain mail was for. I expect to finish this up in November and hope to post a celebration pic for the 1 year anniversary of Skyrim.

We went to Starbucks one morning so I had to get myself a sweetroll based on that Skyrim joke all the guards say.

Kevin went as the Greatest American Hero again, which is funny because most of the popularity of this costume came from an audience of men who grew up with this show in the 80's - even regularly people on the streets of New York outside of the con!

Met up with my buddy Deadpool!

The next day he sported his "Batpool" costume which was really cool! There's Lizz in the shot with him.

Dr. Rockso!

I was really lucky to find these other Skyrim cosplayers cuz there weren't many there. I think it's starting to fizzle out sadly.

This weird guy put a gun to Kevin while he was in his schoolgirl uniform.

Took a few pics of notable things on the show floor too. This scythe is a replica of the one Death uses in Darksiders II. It was hard to get a good pic of with the reflections in the glass.

And Kratos! This was a really cool statue.

Darth Maul made of Legos! The Lego booth was really cool.

And of course lots of cool cars! Like this mystery machine.

Gotta have the Dolorian.

I wasn't familiar with these suits but I thought they looked cool.

I couldn't believe the size of this ad!

And the outside of the convention center with the massive crowd of people flowing into it.

That's all for now! San Francisco calls but I'm excited to resume some costume work in November!

DOA 5

I almost forgot! I pre-ordered the collector's edition of Dead or Alive 5! It comes with a poster, art book, soundtrack CD, bonus costumes, and of course the game, all neatly bundled into a really nice looking steel case, as shown below. At only $80 (only $20 more than the game on it's own), it's a steal. I recommend it especially if you're a fighting game fan or DOA enthusiast. I got hooked on DOA2 on Dreamcast, but I've never owned an XBOX so sadly, I couldn't keep going with the series till now.

If you compare the character models to those of DOA4, you'll see the major improvements. The faces are finally realistic to match the bodies. The anime faces were ok but with the realistic bodies, it always looked a bit off to me. Kinda like animegao cosplayers...

I've really wanted to cosplay from DOA for a while. Hayate looks pretty cool, but I might wanna go with Jann Lee. I love Bruce Lee films XD and it would be fun to do his blatant "Enter the Dragon" costume. Maybe I can do this next year. Hopefully that gives me time to work out a bit??

Making chain mail is fun!

My first time working on chain mail! It's pretty enjoyable, kind of like working on a puzzle. Since it's a repetitive process, I don't have to focus too strongly on what I'm doing so I can link them together while watching a movie or whatever. Can't wait to show what this is for soon! I'm planning this costume for NYCC. More to come soon!

Nidorino Photoshoot

Here's another cosplay I procrastinated on posting. Actually, I had wanted to do a proper photoshoot for it but kept forgetting, or didn't have the right hair length, etc. So I finally did it! Yesterday in fact! Here's the cosplay.com spot for details.

I actually first did this in Otakon 2010. My friends were all looking at possible gijinka cosplays to do because we had come upon a wealth of designs (all in the style below) that someone had done of like all the freakin' pokemonz! Sadly, only 1 other person ended up following through, my friend you did the partnering Nidorina. I did this one other time at Anime Boston 2011 but I think I'm done with it now.

Here's the reference for the gijinka:

Miyavi Cosplay from Torture

This is a cosplay I did for Miyavi's concert in New York at Irving Plaza last year. It was part of his "WHAT'S MY NAME?" World Tour. And it was Halloween, so people across the city weren't freaked out by my visual presence! It took me some time to upload this costume for no reason at all. So here it is! Just a few pics. Details can be found on its cosplay.com spot.

And this is the music video that the costume is from.

An yeah, it was awesome meeting Miyavi, as Miyavi XD

Cilan Photoshoot

Finally got all my Cilan pics sorted and edited! They're on cosplay.com now, and I will soon upload them to deviantart. This shoot was a lot of fun; I tried to emphasize Cilan's optimistic, enthusiastic, and excited-about-freaking-everything nature as portrayed in the anime. Really fun and got stopped a lot during the shoot for photos and hugs from other con goers :3

First off, here's a ref pic of the character:

The shoot was in the courtyard of the Hynes in Boston during Anime Boston 2012 and was taken by my great friend Ken Irons.

I kept this photo because I realized it was really the only full body shot I have:

Just chillin' XD

Boston!

 

 

Here's me with my friend Julia who was cosplaying Oshawott:

Whenever you have a photoshoot, make sure your photographer gets plenty o lovin':

So there you have it! It was definitely a lot of fun to cosplay and was very well received at the con. In fact I kind of wish I had cosplayed him at Otakon too but I'm sure the heat and humidity would have turned my hair into something nasty.

I have some more in depth info on the costume itself on its cosplay.com page as well as the process photos I posted here. One thing of note in particular is that I edited the photos so I would have green eyes; so I did not actually wear green contacts for this costume.

Anime Boston 2012

Ok, a very long awaited Anime Boston report. To start with, Keev (Kevin) as Ness on Thursday while we had dinner in the Copley Mall food court.

Keev has crazy hair, but for some reason it got extra crazy with this natural Shirley Temple curl he managed to get some how.

And his first crossplay, doing a Marilyn Monroe-esque pose.

Lizz in her Miyavi outfit.

In the Pokemon Best Wishes anime, Cilan gets really excited about the trains in the subway so I thought I'd bank on that. The people on board departing had expressions ranging from curious to terrified.

Another happenstance in the subway; a sign reading "ANIME". Just so you know you really are in one.

My friend and fellow artist, Ashley Riot! Check out her work here: http://www.ashleyriot.com

On Friday I went off to the Pokemon gathering and photoshoot. Lots of cool peeps and costumes:

Yes, the cutest Eevee ever.

And my buddy Jim, the best Deadpool out there!

Keev chattin' with Mista T

It's tradition for my friends and I to go to Fugakyu, an awesome Japanese restaurant in Boston, whenever we attend AB. I started with this amazing appetizer of lobster sushi.

Love me some Sapporo.

For the main course I got ramen in miso broth with shrimp and vegetable tempura. It was delicious.

It's advised that you don't play with your food, before or after you eat it. Nah just kidding the koi are for show only, not eating!

A con friend of mine cosplaying Holo from Spice and Wolf.

Loved seeing this!

This was the first gone I attended with my 3DS so it was a great opportunity to wrack up new puzzle pieces and beat Find Mii. I lol'd when I saw this:

And here's Lizz in her Christmas Mutsumi outfit from Love Hina! I made her the dress and hat and she made Tama Chan.

Lizz next to the outfit she wore as part of the MINT fashion show.

Last photo here from Sunday, when Jim's girlfriend Jen sported her Lady Deadpool.

The convention itself was pretty good. Of course doing the con report so late in the game I'm having a bit of trouble remembering everything we did. My Cilan cosplay went over really well so that was very rewarding. Lizz was ecstatic to be a part of the MINT fashion show which was a lot of fun to see. Aside from MINT though I didn't really see any guests. I wanted to get Kirk Thornton's autograph on my copy of Champloo but I missed that T_T. This year we had to stay outside the city and drive/train in because we couldn't get enough people together to book a hotel room at a reasonable rate, so that really cut into our fun time at the con I'm afraid. But regardless there wasn't a whole lot that really drew my attention this year. I felt that the guest list was a bit lackluster, particularly considering we had Nobuo Uematsu in 2010 and Girugamesh last year. Maybe I got spoiled lol. We still had fun regardless; we always do. But I'd like to see AB get some bigger stuff, especially considering the amount of money they charge per ticket. Since the con however, they have announced next year's theme: Tales of Yokai. That should be the perfect theme to debut some upcoming cosplays I have in the works ;)

Lastly, I had a professional shoot for my Cilan costume at the con so I'll upload that in my next post.