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Hullo and welcome to Afton's cosplaying log!
In case you stumbled here, unawares of who I am, I am the webmistress and owner of the growing domain moonshadow-garden.NET, and owner of about a dozen journals across the LJ code-based sites, my most popular being my DeadJournal and my Blurty. If that still doesn't ring a bell, well... you may want to seriously reconsider what you're doing here. ;o Or you can stay and read onward. It's up to you!
In the spring of 2003 I started to acquaint and become friends with a few people with their major hobby and obsession being this phenomenon known as 'cosplay'. Apparently this has been around for a while, but if you want to see more about what the deal is, you can visit the official US cosplaying web site at Cosplay.com. If you just want the short digested version, well here I go: we all know about anime, manga, and video game fandom are practically a cult in Japan. One day apparently some dude decided that he wanted to go dressed up as his favorite animanga character. No, there is no such thing as Halloween in Japan. So, it was a little unusual. Gradually the thing became a rage and became known as 'cosplay', which stands for 'costumed-play'. It became an addition to anime conventions and eventually exceeded the previous purposes of the conventions themselves. People everywhere were making their own costumes or commissioning others to make them or ordering them from businesses... yet another offspring of the animanga cult.
Somewhere along the line, the cult spread to the US, and quite surprisingly all kinds of people participate in it. All you need do is browse the pictures at Cosplay.com or do a search on cosplay to see how many different people engage in this obsession nowadays.
Being an avid fan of anime and video games, therefore, as I made friends with some of these people and learned about the fun they have dressing up and going to conventions, I decided that it was time for me to take my fandom one step further and get into cosplay myself. I started off with little research on conventions and discovered this: there are two conventions in Texas. UshiCon is in Austin in January, and Project A-kon is in Dallas in May. Unfortunately there are none in the Houston area. However, if I was avid enough I am certain my parents won't mind in aiding in the transportation. I then did some more research on ways to attain costumes and found that I most likely would have to make my costume myself. This was not an issue for me, however, considering my mom sewed many clothes for us and for herself "back in the day" and doesn't mind the notion of teaching me a few of her secrets.
I spent the summer brainstorming possible characters. My first thought went to video games, and therefore led to Final Fantasy. I have been an FF fan for years, and bear some physical resemblance to several of the characters. However, research led to the following conclusions: Aeris and Yuna, my two favorite characters and ones I probably resembled most, are way overdone. Quistis would be creative and was therefore indeed a possibility, but I put the gamer path aside and turned my focus to anime.
Now, there is basically one anime series that comprises most of my life: Rurouni Kenshin. Problem here? I have little physical resemblance to any of the characters. Now, no one said that you have to physically resemble the character you're portraying, but after critiquing some of the photos and costumes at Cosplay.com I found that it does mentally bother me if there is little physical resemblance and nothing done to create this resemblance. My favorite character here is Misao, but she's almost everything I'm not: short, dark-haired, blue-eyed, etc. It would take a lot of work for me to even look like her qua facial features, and then there's still the height. I would consider a few other females, such as Tomoe or Megumi, but it's basically the same problem minus the height. Plus, they all have very Asian features. The only character I physically resemble is Okon of the Oniwabanshu, but she's only a very minor character. I did not rule out that possibility, however. The nice thing about her is that her outfit is the same as Misao's with only a few modifications.
Then I went on a trip over the summer and spent some more time brainstorming, and came up with two other possibilities: San of Princess Mononoke, an anime movie, and Belgemine of FFX. San would be an easy project to start off with, since her outfit is basically comprised of only a blue dress, white apron, and a white skin of some sorts. And then there's some tribal jewelry. I am not unknown to the art of jewelry-making, so this would not be a problem. The Belgemine idea fascinated me even more, however. In all the hundreds of pictures I'd browsed at Cosplay.com, I hadn't found a single Belgemine. She's a minor character, but still a pivotal and very cool one. I resemble her enough physically. Also, her dress is medieval in style, and I have always been fascinated with medieval culture.
I created this account, though I have a few other Caleidas, for a future cosplaying log once I decided on a character and actually went so far as to buy fabrics and the like, so I would be able keep track of my progress and others could enjoy it as well. After evaluating my monetary plans for the schoolyear I figured I would begin running the idea over my parents in the fall and see what will happen.
September, however, brought a few changes to my plans. The fuel for these: Homecoming. I'd already decided after not attending Sadie last year that I wanted to go to this dance. I know what they say about it, that it's evil, but I love to dance and feel the need to experience a high school dance at least once. However, my endeavours to find a dress during the summer had all failed or fallen into the void, leading me to believe that I would be better off going along with the theme. When I finally did discover what it is to be ("A Night at the Box Office"), LotR was the first thing that came to my tired mind. However, I quickly threw out that first instinct as I decided that going as a LotR character would be an incredibly nerdy thing to do. >_> It is, however, the one I kept returning to in the end. And after watching TTT on DVD, I really couldn't help seeing myself in Éowyn's green dress, she being one of my favorite fictional characters ever, after all. Before I knew it I'd discussed the idea with my mother and we were going out to buy fabrics.
Now, it is only implied that cosplay has to be animanga or video games. At several of the cons there have been photos of LotR cosplayers, however. So, there is nothing to say that I can't consider making an Éowyn costume cosplaying. Plus, this will be my project to teach myself how to sew and hopefully the stepping stone for some further costumes such as Belgemine, Quistis, and Okon or Misao. The dance is November 1st so the project will be complete by then, and if I find myself being agreeable enough with the labor and handy with a sewing machine, there are none to say that I can't play around with some things and make a costume in the spring and have it ready for A-kon. Therefore...
Thus begin my endeavours as a cosplayer! And this log will chart my progress as I search for fabrics, sew, and go to conventions or dances or the like. ^_^ I have high hopes for this new obsession, and hopefully it won't die out almost as soon as it began. Well, only time and a little bit of sewing and blogging on my part, can tell!
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