Otakon 2013

Woooooaaaaah I haven't posted since March?!! Sorry about that... summer's been pretty crazy but it looks like now I have a little more time to organize my braaaaains. Anyway I went to Anime Boston back in May. That was pretty fun. First con I've sold my art at. I have some pictures from that on my relatively new Facebook fanpage.

In any case I recently came back from Otakon in Baltimore. It was pretty fun, albeit a little on the crazy side. This was the most packed I've ever seen the convention center, what with it being the 20th anniversary and all that. There were some things I really wanted to see but missed out on, like getting an autograph from my favorite animation director, Shinchiro Watanabe, after waiting in an autograph line for 2 hours. But I did get to see TMRevolution and the simulcast of Yoko Kanno's performance which were both pretty high on my list. As well as eating crab. That's always a must when going to Baltimore. In any case, I'll just leave some pictures here. Although I've been working on cosplay stuff through the summer, I'm a little behind in posting my progress here, and it looks like I never got around to posting my full Stormcloak photoshoot! I'll have to do that soon.

First off, this was clearly a pink ranger cosplayer I saw while on the first part of my journey to Baltimore.

Ate at a really great Korean BBQ in Boston the night before flyin down to Baltimore. I thought the menu graphic was fun.

I've always loved this ship.

On Thursday my friends went into the pre-reg line around mid afternoon to pick up badges and waited for hours. I opted to stay in the hotel room to finish up some last minute work on my costumes. I finally got into the line at about 9pm and only had to wait about 10 minutes. Mwahahaha.

Whenever I get a new wig head, I usually like to draw some sort of face on it, but I've had this guy for a while and never got around to it. So my friends decided to draw on the kuso miso face...

Afterwards I got around to starting my wig for Vyse. At the time, the only wig I was able to find in the right color was very long so I had quite a bit to chop off. Makes for a great mustache, donchathink?

First up on Friday, there was some weird red carpet walkway/awkward outdoor photobooth thing that Otakon/the city of Baltimore was doing?? They wrangled me up for this. I got some printed stickers to boot.

I've been a big fan of Fire Emblem since the franchise came to America so seeing the Awakening version of Ephraim was pretty awesome.

Brewster from Animal Crossing

This guy's hilarious. He came up to me on his own initiative to get a picture with me. It's just a coincidence we happened to both be cosplaying characters with the same color hair. But I immediately remembered him from last year as the Machoke cosplayer. I've got a picture of him from last year...

See? Freakin hilarious. And this guy laughs like non stop.

Ephraim again, this time with a Great Lord Lucina. Really great looking costumes.

Giga Pudding!

This was my Saturday costume, Vyse from Skies of Arcadia! I have a bit of touch up work to do and have to finish the cutlasses before I can do a proper photoshoot, but it was a good first run and I was surprised by the number of people who stopped me for pictures and knew who I was!

My annual visit to Edo Sushi in the mall near the convention center involves drawing faces on the drinks menu placemat.

Metal Sonic!

More Fire Emblem cosplayers! They looked absolutely ravishing. Especially Tharja (she's my wifey in the game ;D)

Fun Gyarados and Harley Quinn

Sheik and Nabooru

Pretty sweet daedric armor from Skyrim

Life-size working and sound-making R2D2! I wonder how much that cost...

Although it's usually a bit pricey, I always try to make a point of having crab while in Baltimore. Cuz it's just too damn good. This time I got a soft-shell crab sandwich. 

My final picture, probably the cutest Kiki I've ever seen! This is just as we were leaving our hotel.

Anyway, I had a really great time but as usual it was a whirlwind up to and through the convention so I'm happy to be taking it a little slower now. But pretty soon I'm gonna get back on finishing up some costumes I'm working on (Vyse included), and got quite a bit of artwork to finish as I have 3 cons coming up this Fall that I'm selling at! Hope you enjoyed the pics and please look forward to more posts in the coming months.

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.