Selfie!Con

Hey everyone!
Just got back from an awesome weekend at Matsuricon! As usual I'm not great at remembering to have people get photos of me in cosplay, but I did happen to constantly get selfies with people so yay for that!
 

Friday

I went down in Sothe, since I haven't worn him in a long time, and a friend of mine who does every version of Sothe ever was coming! So we decided to do PoR & RD Sothes together and it was glorious!

We went to the FE photoshoot and the person running the shoot didn't know who we were so we almost didn't get a Tellius series shot. Oops. But we did have a third, and made a Green-Haired Trifecta with Stefan!

After the shoot it was time to put my dance shoes and my fancy pants on because the wonderful Trickssi was running the formal ball and doing lessons beforehand, and I was not about to miss out on any of that.

So my fellow Sothe and I stopped being the same person and transformed into these winners!

God bless her for taking selfies with me otherwise I'd have no photos of my own cosplays from this weekend XD

Despite the lack of useful equipment prvided by the con for the lessons, we still had a lot of fun and learned to waltz, rumba, tango, swing, and salsa! I got some practice as a follow, which is always nice, and got to dance with some awesome folks. There was even a guy who asked for extra swing lessons afterwards when he learned that I was semi-competent at that one, so when we were at the actual ball he would come over every time a swing number came up and learn some new moves! Sadly I am not nearly as good a teacher as Trickssi so it was an interesting challenge, but we had a lot of fun! Also, my feet wanted to die.

After the formal I managed to meet up with my Wolf Pack at last since everyone was finally there by that point. We hung out for a while but everyone was tired so we we're up as late as we could have been.

Saturday

My only actual plans on Saturday were to go to the Destiny shoot in the afternoon, but I knew I didn't want to be in the Speaker all day so I went over in the morning in Oliver.

He's simple and comfy so it was a nice choice for the morning. I'm pretty sure only one person recognized me outside of my group of friends, but I'm totally fine with that since I know it's not a super widely-known game.

Once it hit early afternoon it was time to change into the Speaker and head to the Destiny shoot. The shoot was awesome, and sadly I don't have any photos to share at the moment because I didn't take any.... and let's be honest they all would have been terrible because I can't see anything directly in front of me when I'm in the Speaker. I do, however have another selfie with Genki that is the only documentation I possess that I actually wore him at all.

The shoot was great though, even though there were only a few of us. I got to make friends with Foundry 13 and Otherworld Cosplay, who were there as a titan and off-duty warlock, respectively. All three of us are planning on doing more Destiny cosplay, particularly with D2 coming out in a little over a week, and I'm hoping I get a chance to play with them at some point because they were both super chill and fun to hang out with. I know I definitely want to make my own warlock at some point, and if I have as much fun playing D2 as I did the original, I know I'm going to maintain that interest. And besides, the designs are so awesome it definitely tickles my creative juices too.
Another bonus was that we had one of the staff photographers running the shoot, so we should have some really nice photos and they should be up on Matsuri's website! I'll be sure to clue you guys in when I see those.

I bummed around the convention for a while longer in the Speaker, hoping there would be a few other people who wanted photos, which there were... along with a lot of questions about what the heck I was doing when the Cabal took over XD

Finally I had enough of being blind and having to walk like a princess, and changed into Penny. Unfortunately the Destiny & RWBY shoots were back to back so I didn't make it, but I did run into an adorable Velvet on my way back over to the con floor.

I spent the rest of the night hanging out and laughing my ass off with my wolf pack, AROOOO!

Sunday

Sunday was my usual waking up way too early because my body doesn't understand what it means to sleep pat 6am, so I loaded up my car, ate some free breakfast, put on some yellow shorts, and wandered over to the con center as Banjo & Kazooie.

The con center was a ghost town at that point so I just chilled and played pokemon for a while, but I ran into a few folks I knew before long and everyone seemed to be back together a lot earlier than I was expecting. We wandered around for a while, I found an artist with a full set of Team CFVY buttons (ok, my friend found them first but whatever) and bought some gorgeous Persona 5 prints from an artist I already have some prints from. Then, it was time for Mikey to go home to his boys. After the not-too-long-but-plenty-long-enough drive, there was much rejoicing, and many snuggles.

And that was that! I didn't really take many photos, although there were plenty of great cosplayers about.

And as most of you know at this point, my next big event is my Harry Potter weekend at the beginning of October, so I'll be making a ton of stuff for that. I may or may not be posting super regularly here this month, but I will definitely be taking photos of all the stuff I'm creating and will be sure to share.
Until next time <3

The Overdue Review(s)

Hey guys, so it's a month after the fact but hey Ohayocon was a thing! I actually had a lot more fun this year than I have in a long time, and it was all thanks to awesome con friends! Here's a quick play-by-play.

Friday I got all dolled up in P'Li and headed south. Honestly, I think my makeup this time around looks even better than last time!

Don't hate me cause I'm beautiful.

*Muah*

Sadly, my Red Lotus group still hasn't panned out, but people have started stuff so hopefully the next time you see me in this costume I'll have some other kickass benders with me! As such, I changed out of her pretty quickly because braid of doom is not very comfortable and I wanted to hang out in my new costume, so consequently the only photo I have of me actually in the costume is the selfie I took when I got there.

Next up was Torchwick from RWBY! I promised my friend, who make a gorgeous Cinder that the next time she's running a formal ball, I'd have him done so we could attend together. And guess what, she ran a fantastic formal ball and these two lovely villains danced the night away!

We also did a wonderful photoshoot with a friend of Cinder's and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the results! Just from looking at the photos on his camera, things looked amazing so I'll definitely be sharing once we get them back!

Saturday was a day full of RWBY, as my Coco and I hung out as the (once again) only CFVY members at the convention.

Naturally, since my phone camera isn't that great, I don't have any photos of us, but here's a shot of the insanity that was the RWBY shoot that evening.

There were way too many people in way too small a space, so it was both claustrophobic and hotter than hell. It was still awesome though, and we got cheers on our way up to the stage for team CFVY... or really just CY. We also made a bunch of new friends and did a little photoshoot afterwards with a much smaller subset of the group. I also haven't seen any of the photos from that yet but I'm looking forward to it!

Sunday was the usual lazy day, and I stuck to my decision of Banjo-Kazooie being my forever Sunday cosplay. He's comfy, recognizable, and rare enough of a cosplay that people get excited about him. And I finally have a photo of the whole costume thanks to Genki Wolf!

And that was it! Mostly hanging out with con buddies, and having a lovely time dancing the night away! I even hit up the rave for a little while because I magically wasn't tired Saturday night. There was also some solid cosplay from other folks, so here's a smattering of photos.

Now I'm back to the daily grind with a vending event coming up this weekend and several commissions in the works! So I'll be seeing you next time, and hopefully it won't take too long for me to get to next time XD

Twin Con Time

So I finally have a moment to reflect on my past two weekends worth of cons: Youma and Con on the Cob. Both of them were a lot of fun and I'm excited to share all of the great stuff with you guys.

So let's start with Youma. I debuted my first RWBY cosplay, Yatsuhashi!

Of course I had my Coco with me the entire time because why wouldn't I? We generally hang out together for the whole con anyway. We were also the only two Team CFVY cosplayers at the photoshoot which was kinda sad but also pretty awesome. We did, however meet another genderbent Coco cosplayer who had a gun that actually transformed! It was pretty freaking awesome!

Sadly the photo is not entirely in focus, but you can still see how amazing that thing is!

We also made friends with a Ozpin's crew, who all had really nice looking cosplays and were fun to hang out with for a while.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the actual shoot, but someone posted a bunch in their Facebook Album.

Saturday was BIRBCON, where we had a crap ton of bird laguz (along with a branded mage and a cat) for a very special photoshoot. There are only a few photos of us available right now, since we had a professional photographer do a photoshoot with us so it'll be a bit before we'll be seeing the final results, but you can see a bunch of us here, and I can at least share this photo we took.

One of the most exciting things was that we found A SECOND REYSON! She was not even aware beforehand that we were doing a Tellius shoot until we saw her in her Reyson cosplay Friday afternoon and invited her to join us, and I'm so glad she did! We also miraculously met someone who said that she and her friend were wanting to do Janaff & Ulki next year. So Youma may just become yearly Birbcon if this keeps up!

The other awesome thing is that a bunch of us ended up in this other photographer's video! You can see the video here, and look out around 2:20 to see a few laguz strutting their stuff!

Later on I changed into Yuan from Tales of Symphonia. Now what you guys should know is that this was actually one of my earliest cosplays, and it was an experiment for how to draft patterns (with the help of my magnanimous mother). Now, despite having had this costume for near a decade at this point, I've never actually worn it to a convention before, so I figured with the interesting architecture available as a backdrop, it would be a good time to dust off this sadly forgotten cosplay and finally wear him out & about to be appreciated! I did not, unfortunately, have time to fix up his swallow (as one of my first props, it was primarily duct tape, and I never even finished painting it >_<), but he nevertheless made his appearance at the Ren Cen.

I also got to step into the Saturday Tales of shoot, though there was not much Symphonia representation (75% of the people were from Zestiria or however you spell that). And I got to deliver my friend's Sailor Pluto staff, and she looked AMAZING in her cosplay!

Last up for the weekend was another new costume I managed to put together at the last minute. I wanted something warm, comfortable, and easy enough to wear around on a con Sunday, so I made Banjo, with my little plush partner, Kazooie!

I actually got recognized more than I was expecting to in this outfit, which was very exciting. The only downside is that I ordered the shorts a little small so I couldn't do fleece pants for the legs, they're just fleece leggings so they kept falling down as I walked around #cosplayproblems

Anyway, there were lots of awesome cosplayers there and I got some decent photos, which you can see in my Youmacon Facebook Album. Sorry, but I don't feel like taking the 3 hours it would take to upload them here haha.

So that was Youma, and this past weekend was Con on the Cob! I did a lot less cosplaying, as per usual I mainly went in steampunk gear since I was vending with my mom. Check out the table!

We did pretty well despite the weekend having felt pretty slow. And as for my outfits...

As I said, I did primarily steampunk, with a piratey look on Friday and my new kilt on Saturday! I did mix it up on Sunday for clean up though, since having a bunch of dangly things when you're trying to pack up all of your junk can be annoying. So instead I showed a little house pride and wore my Hufflepuff uniform.

And that's all she wrote! As for the rest of 2016, I only have one more event, which I'm vending at. I'll be wearing some wizarding gear as it the Yule Ball, hosted up in Cleveland, which is at the beginning of December. Otherwise I'll be putting my nose to the grindstone on my multitude of winter orders, so stay tuned for the lineup & the steady progress that will be trickling through!