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.

Cilan Progress 2

Ah been a long time since I updated! I get so caught up in stuff that I forget to. I make sure I take lots of progress shots when working on cosplay but always forget to upload them! Anyway I'll do some various posts over the next few days to catalog what I've been doing a bit. So I'll start where I left off with Cilan. The costume's production went very smoothly leading up to Anime Boston.

Here's the finished shoe. The loafers were cheap ones from Wal Mart but they do the job. They're Dr. Scholl's brand too so really comfortable, perfect for a con. I bought the yellow laces separately of course.

Here's how I made the button on the vest. Using the same bright yellow fabric I used for the back tab of the vest, I cut ovals larger than my cardboard base and snipped them all the way around so the finished design would look more oval. There ended up still being a couple points here and there but I think it looked good. After gluing the strips to the cardboard, I covered them in more glue just to seal it up. I think I used Sobo glue maybe? And then I used sticky back velcro to adhere them to the vest.

Here's a test using the colored hairspray. I always use the Jerome Russel brand. It produces very strong saturated colors and looked really great in the final form.

Another test after having sewn poor Pansage's tush to my shoulder.

And the finished cosplay! I'm toying with the idea of making the waiter's apron and napkin when I cosplay this again sometime.

Cilan Progress

Here's some progress shots for my costume of Cilan from Pokemon Black & White! Coming along pretty well.