Fun fact: this website used to actually be a blog for my graphic design journey. Yes, back around 2010, when I was realizing I wanted to get a job as a designer after graduating college, I built my portfolio website from scratch using HTML and CSS. (This is not that website.) I read article after article about building a good portfolio website and many people claimed that having an active blog was a great way to show your work and also boost your SEO. Sweet! But I wasn’t (and still am not) capable of building a working blog from the ground up. So I came to WordPress. I gave myself small projec ..read more

This weekend I entered my Melon Lord cosplay into Y2Kon’s first ever cosplay contest and I’m pleased to announce that I took home the gold! (Metaphorically.) A Crazy Idea On the morning of Tuesdays, September 5, 2023, I woke up with a ridiculous but impossible to ignore idea. With Y2kon, a nostalgia-fueled convention geared towards cartoons of the 2000s, coming up at the end of the month announcing Michaela Jill Murphy (voice actress for Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender, as one of their guests, I wanted to through together an ATLA cosplay. While I did not want to try to make a Toph cosplay ..read more

Much like my Elizabeth cosplay, this one came about because I wanted to do something funny with a voice actor at a con. Toph’s VA Michaela Murphy is coming to Y2Kon and while I didn’t think I could throw together a Toph cosplay in time, I thought of the next best thing: Melon Lord. Now let me get a quick disclaimer out of the way. I’m going to be updating this as I go. I intend to enter Melon Lord into the cosplay contest and typically I would print out my build book. However, I’m running low on time, so I’m using this blog post as a digital build book instead! (Or, I don’t know, maybe my over ..read more

This cosplay was a long time coming. I’ve wanted to cosplay Elizabeth since 2014 and wanted to make a competition-worthy build since around 2017. Every year, I would think of it and never do it because I was too scared I wouldn’t live up to the lofty expectations I had in my head. It took Troy Baker making an appearance at WeebCon this April for me to finally just buckle down and do it. This won’t be the end of Elizabeth. I still want to do the competition build that I have in my head. But it’s at least a start. I’ll be honest, I had this draft started back in June and now it’s September. I on ..read more

The pandemic did a lot of things for a lot of people. For me, it helped me remember why exactly I cosplay and what I value out of my experiences in this virtual and in-person community. While I still craft when the desire strikes, lately my convention and cosplay experience has been that of support and I’ve really been enjoying it. Volunteering/Unofficial Staff My first convention of 2023 was the very first Waifu Expo (now rebranded to Kimochii Con for inclusivity). Knowing many people on staff, I attended as a volunteer to help out my friends. I primarily helped Ace, the Cosplay Department He ..read more

Continuing in this practice I started in 2021, it’s time to review how I did on my 2022 goals and set some new ones for 2023! 2022 was an interesting year, starting with the excitement of finally becoming homeowners (the Millennial dream!) and all the stresses that come with that. Below are all the goals I had set for myself and their status. 2022 Goals: Overall 77% Accomplished Much better than 55% completion for 2021! I think cutting down total number of goals helped make this a lot more manageable. I had forgotten about my self-shoot goal to be honest, so that’s why those numbers are lower ..read more

I had the opportunity to judge another cosplay contest this past weekend at the HKMKT NightMKT event and it got me thinking about what makes a good judge. There are many skills required and I thought I’d talk about them! Hard Skills—Be the expert. Craftsmanship If you’re going to be an authority on craftsmanship, you need to be a craftsman. That just goes without saying. That said, in the cosplay world, there are many different types of creation. You don’t need to be a master of every single one—anyone who claims they are is a liar—but being a master of one or more categories is good. Any good ..read more

In February and March, I crunched on my Kena cosplay in order to compete at the Nishi Fest contest. While my work managed to get me a Judge’s Award, I knew I could do it better. So here are the improvements I’ve made, just in time for A-kon! Screenshot of Kena from the gameItems I Bought Two 1″ x 50″ PVC pipes 1″ PVC pipe couplings 1″ PVC pipe caps More blue holographic vinyl Sand 9V battery case Worbla’s Finest Wood glue Maroon knit fabric Black cord What I Already Had Foam clay (TNT Cosplay Supply) Scotch tape Kobracast Plastazote Lots of hot glue Shrinking tube Heat gun Paint Staff 2.0 ..read more

I’m saddened and annoyed that I even have to make this post but I guess I have to. WordPress notifies you whenever someone links to content from your website and asks whether it is approved or not. It’s a handy feature that I only really see when I link to my own posts within my blog, when referencing another related build post or the like. It is very rare for me to get a ping from an outside source linking to my website. Well this morning I received two notifications that my website had been linked. When I went to the source, I found a website (who I will not name) that had completely taken m ..read more

I just finished watching the Youtube premiere of the Online Cosplay Tutorial Challenge 2022 award ceremony and am happy report I won a Judge’s Award! Back in February, Knovice Cosplay announced a unique online cosplay contest. It didn’t involve submitting cosplays but rather tutorials for cosplayers! I loved this idea as soon as I heard about it, as someone who documents their builds a lot and will make the occasional tutorial on Youtube. They allowed for multiple submissions (up to 3) and a wide range of formats. You could submit: a Tiktok video or Instagram Reel, a Youtube video, a Twitter b ..read more