2013 Con Costume Schedule!

Its been awhile since I’ve posted because I’ve been busy making my Halloween costume and planning for next year! Anyway, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I’ve made my decisions on what costume to do for each con next year. There is a chance I’ll see something amazing and change my mind (new Game of Thrones in April!), but here is the tentative list. I will update this throughout the year.

Aela the HuntressMomocon (Won Best in Show Master!), Dragon*Con

Magical Girl Nyan Cat (was Super Secret Original Costume)Momocon, PAX East, Dragon*Con

Sailor VMomocon, AWA

Cardcaptor SakuraSeishun Con

Chibi Chibi MoonDragon*Con (group), AWA

SheogorathDragon*Con
This was a very hard decision, but after deliberating over and over on which one to do for the Friday Night Costume Contest (aka the big kahuna of contests for me!), I decided on Sheogorath from Oblivion. It is just a stunning and incredibly challenging costume.

Lady Comstock and ComstockDragon*Con, Anachrocon 2014?
I’ll be Lady Comstock from Bioshock Infinite, and I’m also making Comstock for my boyfriend. He’s growing out his beard!

Historically Accurate MeridaAWA

AWA 2012 Costume Contest Experience

Best in Show Journeyman - AWA 2012I finally did it! I won an award!!! My third contest and first award… and I got Best in Show Journeyman. Holy poop I did not expect that! I even got $150, which was totally unexpected because I never tried to find out what the actual awards were. I’m kind of reluctant to take it out of the envelope though, because its part of my award and its very special to me.

I have a lot of thoughts about this experience that I have to get out. First of all, I am amazed at the response my costume got at AWA. When I wore it to Dragon*Con, only people that got close and talked to me praised it. Very few people got pictures. Most of the parade pics are “accidentals” of me in the background. So I left feeling kind of defeated. My costume I spent 4 months on was nothing special. I know, Dragon*Con is extremely overwhelming since there are tons of professional level amazing costumes floating around. Still, I felt sad.

But at AWA I was super shocked that everyone wanted pics of me. It wasn’t just because my costume was good, it was because they got the reference and loved Skyrim. The Skyrim fangirl inside me rejoiced! When I went on stage at the contest everyone went berserk. And then I won the award… so yeah, needless to say I felt very good that my hard work and Skyrim Lydia were appreciated.

The overall contest process was very nice. I expected to wait at least an hour from checking in to getting judged, so I signed up for an early time so I could make it to a panel later. But they seemed on their game this time (compared to what I read about last year), and it went fast. Then again, I was under hot and bulky, and I think they may have let us cut in front of everyone to go first. :-P I stood around for awhile afterwards admiring costumes. At some point I went back to my car and changed into my Skyrim commoner dress to go to the leatherworking panel. 5 or so hours later I changed back. Waiting for the contest to start took awhile, but it was a breeze because of the awesome people I got to talk to. Also being in hot and bulky, I got to stand in an air conditioned back room. Maybe there is something to this hot and bulky thing… :-P

I guess if there’s anything negative to say about the contest, its that it sucks that judging and the contest are so far apart. Even if my costume wasn’t hot, I wouldn’t want to be wearing it the whole day for fear of getting it messed up. Plus I couldn’t sit in it. (And the one I have in mind for next year might not be “sittable” in either.) But I do know the judges needed that time to deliberate and get the awards personalized. Plus they need a buffer if time goes way over. I think next year I’ll sign up for the last judging time (as long as it doesn’t conflict with panels I want to go to) to decrease the amount of time between judging and the contest. Then again, going early gives you enough time to change in between, and the judges aren’t cranky yet. I dunno, its a year away so we’ll see. :-P

Now for mushy feelings!

I’ve listed before in other posts what my reasons are for competing. Winning is like the icing on an already delicious cake, it just makes it so much more awesome. ^-^ For me, winning is not about and has never been about the actual physical award. I’ve never looked up the previous prizes given or really thought about it. People that only compete for money or free stuff… well it is ‘Merica and they’re free to do what they want, but I guess I don’t think nicely of them. :-P It is honestly the recognition and verification that I “did good” that I want. To know that my hard work paid off. So winning Best Journeyman, the second highest award, especially never having won anything and being a novice (I entered as Journeyman but qualified as novice), was just amazing.

So yaaaay I won something!!! :D

AWA 2012!

Man, AWA was so awesome this year! I had soooooo much fun. I’m really tired though and really need to clean up my apartment, put costume stuff away, sort pictures, etc, so it might take awhile for me to document everything. I finished the costumes I was working on, so at some point I’ll go back and update those posts with final pictures. Anyway, I’ll document my happenings in this post!

Friday

Friday was the first day of the con, and I got there fairly early so I could register for the costume contest. I cosplayed as Sailor Saturn. Turns out she was on the photo scavenger hunt list, so that was a very lucky costume choice. Soooo many people took pictures of me! I’m kind of a closet attention whore, so I loved it! I’ll hopefully have pics of me all over the internet! :-P I was by myself for the whole convention, so the picture taking didn’t inconvenience anyone.

Speaking of being alone, its not as bad as it sounds. Its actually kind of awesome. I could do whatever I wanted, like panels and stuff, without having to convince anyone else to go. I was afraid I would be bored, but I was actually fully entertained the entire time (pictures helped fill up spare time). The only downside to being alone is having no one to hold your stuff or help you with costume changes.

Anyway, I did the Sailor Moon shoot, my first ever photo shoot. It was so fun and I got lots of pics! I also went to the Sailor Moon panel and left with the urge to watch the whole anime again. I also won a Sailor Mercury doll for being awesome. I bought 2 Sailor V mangas in the dealers room, since I learned that the mangas were all recently redone. (I might buy the Sailor Moon mangas on Amazon at some point).

Saturday

Saturday was the best day! I showed up for judging in the morning and had a good experience. They were totally on their game, and I didn’t have to wait in line very long. I ended up hanging around talking to people about their costumes (which for me is the best part of doing contests). I had time to change into my Skyrim commoner dress and do normal things like buy stuff and take pictures. The leatherworking panel was super awesome. I’m excited to use it for my Aela the Huntress costume! Marie Claude also gave some great tips in general at her panel. I then changed back into Lydia and went to the pattern making panel.

After that was contest lineup. There was quite a bit of waiting around, but since I was in the hot and bulky category I got to wait in a hallway with the AC blasting. I also talked constantly with people about their costumes. Then the contest happened! Everyone cheered like crazy for my costume and totally freaked when I put my helmet on. :-P When they were calling out awards later, and I didn’t get best video game, I just thought “oh well” and cheered on everyone else getting awards. But then I ended up getting Best in Show Journeyman! I never thought I’d get that award, I’m so happy and grateful! Since my current post is super long and I have a lot to say about this contest experience, I’ll make a new one (here).

After the contest was a lot of picture taking and talking, and I went to Yaya Han’s panel on the sociology of cosplay. She’s so awesome! :D We talked about crossplay, which was something I’d never really heard of, and it made me feel better about wearing male costumes (like the Sheogorath I wanna do).

Sunday
I didn’t do much on Sunday, but I went to the meet the winners panel and talked with a judge and other awesome people. I took more pictures, got a big Japanese candy grab bag, then went home.

So overall, I had a super fun time! I would almost say that it was better than Dragon*Con, but the two cons are totally different in nature so comparing them is hard. I will say that even though Dragon*Con has a huge amount of the most amazing costumes, I had a better costuming experience at AWA because since there were less people, my costumes got more attention and support. The cosplay panels and guests were super awesome, and I came out with knowledge I didn’t have before. I will definitely be going to every AWA I can from now on! :D