Youmacon Follow-Up

Welcome back to the monthly edition of “Mikey Does Exist” XD.

Just got back from Youmacon, and although I was not feeling well for most of it, I still had a ton of fun and am super excited to show off the new cosplays from the weekend!

Jordan came this year so we actually had 4 new costumes in total, 2 for each of us. The first was pair was actually Jordan’s idea to begin with, and I’m so happy we made it happen because it was ridiculous and fun: Calvin and Feilx Fischoeder from Bob’s Burgers!

You can be sure we’ll wear these again because it was so much fun, though to be fair we really didn’t get much recognition. We also sadly never found a Belcher family while we were wearing them. Actually we didn’t see any other Bob’s Burgers cosplays there! Still, this might be my new favorite pair so you can expect to see them again next time Jordan goes con-ing with me. Also, the best part is my good friend decided to join us as Gayle! She even had a cat anus painting!!

If there’s anyone else out there who wants to join us as random Bob’s Burgers side characters, or even as Belchers, let us know cause we’d love to have a big group some day!!

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The second new pair was something that’s been on our list for a long time, as it’s a pair of characters from one of Jordan’s favorite anime series. I’m referring to Kamille Bidan and Quattro Bajeena from Zeta Gundam.

Since Gundam Wing was more popular in the US than the UC timeline series, we really don’t see a ton of MSG or MSZG cosplays. There was one other Char cosplayer, dressed from Mobile Suit Gundam, but I didn’t manage to get a photo of him.

We got a good bit of recognition in these, which kinda surprised me. But as several people said, you never see Zeta cosplayers so people were pretty excited about it. I also had several people ask me “Have you seen Char?” which of course the only acceptable answer is “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I also had a few people shout “Sieg Zeon” my way, which is… kinda ironic but I suppose it’s appropriate. It’s rather akin to when I’m wearing Edgeworth and people just scream “OBJECTION” at me.

I would love to do a shoot with a photographer at some point with these two, I think that would be fun and I feel like Jordan would be excited to have nice photos of them, since Kamille is one of his favorite characters. The Rennaisance Center is definitely a good place to photograph these two, but with it being a con weekend is was pretty crowded so there weren’t a lot of open spots we could use. I’m super happy with how these all turned out though, especially for being cell phone photos.

And of course we got some goofy but appropriate shots since this does actually happen on the show.

Needless to say we had some fun in these cosplays and I’m looking forward to wearing them again some time soon.

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These were the only new cosplays we wore this year, but I did have one other debut of a prop I’d been working on. My friend decided to do Zelgius from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn, so I got to make Alondite! I was super happy to deliver it because I’m really proud of how it came out.

I was even happier when I saw it with the cosplay though, because it was absolutely amazing!!!

This was their first attempt at foam armor and it turned out SO WELL!!!

Also, we had an Ike there for the photoshoot so with his Ragnell and my Gurgurant, we had all of the Tellian divine weapons in attendance!

We did get a photo with all 3 of us, just sadly not on my phone.

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So despite being sick, I still had a great time at Youma! My con schedule is done for the year, so I don’t have any more events coming up until Ohayocon in January, but I do have some commissions this winter, and I’ll be working on something new for myself for Ohayo (though I haven’t figured out what just yet).

So, I’ll leave all of you with the rest of the cosplay photos I got this year and bid you adieu until next time!

Cloud & Reno (FFVII)

Aerith (FFVII)

Spyro Armor

Gilgamesh (Fate/Grand Order)

Someone from League of Legends (I don’t play League but her outfit was so cool!!)

Gon, Kurapika & Leorio (Hunter X Hunter)

Sakura Kinomoto (Cardcaptor Sakura)

Chefs (Overcooked)

Roland & Evan (Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom)

Amuro Ray (Mobile Suit Gundam)

Hades (Hercules) & Vald (Fate/Apocryha)

Youmacon (at last)

Hello friends!

Sorry for the long hiatus… I realize you’re probably used to that at this point but I’d love for that not to be the case lol. Since I last posted a bunch of stuff has been going on, which is mostly why I haven’t been posting. Youmacon was a couple weekends ago, and it was super fun! I have a couple photos to share from that, and eventually I’ll have my hands on some more when I get photos back from the shoots I was involved in.

The other big thing that’s been going on, and the main reason I haven’t been super active online lately is that Jordan, Donner and I have moved! We didn’t move far, we’re just a few minutes down the road from our old place, but the new house has a bit more room, which will hopefully be filled up in the not-too-distant-future with an expanding family. We’ll see how that process goes. Anyway, things are kind of a mess right now but when I have most of it put away I’ll make another post to show off my new craft areas!

So Youmacon. I had a blast at Youma; despite having a pretty full cosplay schedule it was a pretty chill con, which is always nice. The impromptu Fire Emblem gathering we had was waaaay better attended than I was expecting! Look at all these folks!

And look at the wealth of game representation we had! We planned the Tellius stuff around my friend’s Lord Ike and my Ashnard, but we got folks from Blazing Sword, Fates, and Geneaology/Thracia too!

This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for.

We also got some fabulous derp photos with all of the caped characters (and Rhys (and Reyson)).

Look, a flock of birbs!

I’ve also wanted to get something resembling this art forever and I finally made it happen!

Also, while we were hanging out waiting for the official shoot to start, we got our photo taken by the folks at MLive!

Apparently they think my friend is a very salty solution lol
Here’s a link to the article, there are lots of great cosplays to see!

So Ashnard got to have lots of fun this year, and the other major thing was my debut of Fran! I’m so excited with how this cosplay turned out and I love her so much I want to wear this all the time!

I had so much fun wearing this cosplay even though it was a bit of a chore between the somewhat unruly weapon and the giant hoops, but I was so happy it didn’t even matter.

I definitely learned some things wearing it the first time too, so I can improve my experience next time. Mainly that the horn needs to attach to the wig, because as soon as I started sweating a bit the lace front tape just gave way. I’ll still use the tape to keep it in place but I need a strap or something integrated into the wig to keep it on my face when the tape gets loose. I also need a pair of flat shoes because I would have worn this on the con floor way longer if my feet didn’t want to die in those boots after the 5-6 hours I was in them. When I took them off to eat some dinner my feet were so happy lol.

We had an awesome Apocrypha group and did some shooting with Robbie; I’m super stoked to see the results since he always does an amazing job. It was cold as shit out by the river but it was so beautiful! You know I’ll share them as soon as I have them but for now, ta-ta!

Youma 2017

Welcome back, folks! As per usual, sorry for the prolonged absence! October was a bit hectic, between hosting and recovering from my Harry Potter weekend, and launching full-force into a commission that needed to be done and shipped before Halloween, plus the serious con crunching I did with my last minute necessity of doing an extra cosplay. So, I'll be rolling out all of the details and construction of that stuff this week, but while Youma is still fresh in my mind, I wanted to give you guys that rundown first.

But before I do that, I wanted to plug my social media expansion:

Mikey is finally on Instagram! 

I finally caved after 8,000 people have told me I really should be. And it'll be pretty exclusively cosplay-related photos, because I have no reason to post other stuff there (except maybe photos of my dog, because he is a good boy). So, you can follow me @mikeydoescosplay for the easiest updates on my WIPs and cosplay photos, since you won't have to sift through the inane stuff on my Twitter account.

And with that, on to Youma!!
I'm including primarily photos of my own cosplay here, if you'd like to see the hall shots I got of other awesome cosplayers, check out my Youmacon facebook gallery. 

Thursday

Thursday was super chill and I got up there way earlier than I needed to, but I was glad to since it meant I got a decent parking spot and didn't have to worry about a ton of traffic. When folks finally got there, I did eventually change into Masrur from Magi, since two of my friends wanted to get our little group together at last. Unfortunately, one friend got in super late and the other just never got into costume, so it was just me. But that's ok because at least i finally wore the cosplay I made about 2 cons ago! And I got a few photos! And a few people even recognized me, even though there weren't that many con-goers around yet.

I'm super happy with how he turned out, and he's actually not that uncomfortable, other than the breastplate rubbing a bit under my arms. Eventually I'm hoping we can get our little group together but I'm not in any rush now that it's all finished.

Friday

Friday was great because there were still a bunch of city folk out and about in the convention center and I got to watch as they slowly disappeared and more con-goers arrived. I was dressed as Hestu for most of the day, which is the first sime I've worn him since I altered his head.

When I initially made his tree head, I just made the whole thing out of cardboard, including the but that actually went around my head. There was some foam for cushioning, but it was still super uncomfortable, and gave me headaches after wearing it for 30 seconds. So I decided to change it up because I want to wear this cosplay more since it's more fun and let's be real, Hestu and I are pretty much the same person... plant... being... thing. So to fix the issues I was having, I found a baseball helmet at the thrift store and pretty much just glued what I already made to the top of it. I added some extra fleece wrapping to cover the helmet, reattached the eyebrows and the velcro to attach the mask, and voila, I had a tree head that didn't make my actual head feel like death any more.!

The best part about wearing Hestu around on Friday was that apparently being a tree meant that I was more approachable/less intimidating that most of the other cosplayers? Because no less than 10 times I had normal people come up to ask me what was going on and/or if they could get a picture with me. One couple in particular was super excited to get photos with me, and the lady and I posed with the maracas. It was fantastic. I also had someone from a local news station come and talk to me but sadly I can't remember what station, nor was I successful at finding a video online, alas.

Once it got into the evening hours I changed out of Hestu and into my brandy-new cosplay that I finished sewing literally 24 hours before I left for the con (and those of you who know me know that's cutting it way closer than I ever do). I'm of course referring to Crow for my P5 Phantom Thieves group. 

Despite the incredible frustrations with having to hand sew on the ridiculous amount of trim involved in this cosplay, I am SO HAPPY with how it turned out, and so glad I managed to get it done in time to be a part of this Phantom Thieves photoshoot. I had so much fun and everyone's cosplay was ON POINT.

Photo courtesy of back_of_beyond_cosplay

It was such an honor to be a part of this group of incredibly talented cosplayers. You should check them all out on Instagram because they have a bunch of other wonderful cosplays too:
Skull: climbingtartarus
Queen: madster.photo
Oracle: lightofhope18
Joker: galbadian_aristocrat_cosplay
Panther: lyssalalaa
Noir: I don't have her info but I will share when I find out!
Fox: multiversecosplay

We shot with Robert Tate Photography and I cannot wait to see how the photos turn out! I will be sure to share them when we get the proofs back.

Saturday

Saturday was another awesome day with 3 group cosplays planned, all of which were great!
The morning started with some good old-fashioned Ghibli cosplay: Howl and Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. Ok, we also had Turnip Head, Calcifer, and Heen. The best thing about doing Howl this time: I had a new wig that wasn't totally disgusting.

The weather was lovely (if a little chilly) so we got some wonderful photos outside along the riverwalk. I'm hoping some day we'll be able to get my Markl in here too, and perhaps find a Witch of the Waste so we have a full crew!

After spending time wandering the con floor, I went back and changed into Mad King Ashnard for the Fire Emblem shoots. We organized a little Tellius gathering (which only had 4 people but was still great) before the main FE shoot.

I love this costume so much, it's ridiculous. I don't care that almost no one recognizes me, because the ones that do are keepers, I made a new friend that was as a matter of fact. And that cape is so freaking luxurious. And the shoulder pauldrons of doom are wonderful. And the giant terrifying sword. I even really like how I look with that wig and weird facial hair. The only thing I need to do is find a better way to attach the shoulder armor to the cape, because every time I moved my arms they would pop off, and I actually lost one of the spikes as a result. But that aside, it was great to get some awkward family photos with my friend cosplaying Soren.

We also decided to recreate the HERON PUNCH since my Sophie from earlier came back as Reyson.

I didn't take any photos at the big shoot, since my phone was dying by that point and I didn't feel like worrying about it, but I did get a nice villain photo with my friend.

Reyson also got a lovely selfie of us with my friend's Ike.

While the photoshoot was of course dominated by Awakening and Fates cosplayers, I was impressed at the representation there. We had at least one cosplayer from every game except Thracia 776, Binding Blade, and Sacred Stones, which all things considered was pretty good!

After the shoot was over and I was tired of wearing 18 lbs. of velvet cape, I went back to the room to change into Junpei. Unfortunately the rain picked up on my walk back over to the Ren Cen so everything got wet, including my already heavy-as-hell cape. But there was a very sweet guy walking behind me who offered to hold my cape so it didn't drag through the puddles.

When I finally dried out a bit it was finally bro time with my senpais!

It was so nice to be back in normal, comfy clothing and I had a blast hanging out with two of my best con friends. It's been forever since we've all cosplayed together so it was nicce to be able to just chill. We got some food and I of course refused to take a serious photo the entire time I was in Jupei.

As the evening went on, I ended up splitting from the group for a bit because some guy lost his phone and his friends so I lent him my cell to get in contact with them. Somehow during that time they decided they didn't want to go to the Persona gathering and went back up to the room, evidently having a seriously harrowing journey on the elevators. I decided I didn't want to deal with it so I huffed it up the 25 flights of stairs to the room and consequently passed out.

Sunday

Sunday was actually pretty good, since we got an extra hour of sleep with the time change, so I slept in to what felt like 9 but was actually 8. I got my stuff packed in my car without having to deal with busy elevators and went to breakfast in my Hufflepuff gear with a few extra critters.

We wandered for a bit and said goodbye to the friends we ran into. I eventually decided to shell out the $25 for a Sunday badge so I could wander through the dealer's room and I'm glad I did because there was a lot of great stuff. I ended up spending almost all of my cash (but I was smart and kept enough for tolls on the way home).

Here's the haul! There were so many awesome artists, and I didn't even see everything because the hall was so big and I ran out of money before I made it all the way through lol. My favorite purchases were definitely the Jill/Haar print, which I got to chat with the artist about Tellius-series FE for a bit and re-motivated myself to fix up Haar for this year. Also the Krem pillow that I have been snuggling with the entire time I've been writing this post.

As per usual, coming home from a con this awesome has motivated me to plan out and start working on some cosplays for next year (since I have no more cons this year), and I'm hoping to channel some of that motivation toward some commissions I have to work on, as well as a few more posts about the commission I just finished, the rest of the magical creatures I never posted about, and my Crow cosplay since I did actually take a decent number of progress photos with my recently joining Instagram.

So stay tuned, folks, because there will be a few more posts coming in the next couple of weeks!