Sakura-Con 2014! Post 2 of 3: Morgiana and Masrur debut!

Hi there!

Welcome to the second of my blog posts about the awesome time that was had at Sakura-Con 2014!  Now, if you've looked at any of my blog posts the past 9 months or so, you would have seen that I had been working on a cosplay for Morgiana from the anime/manga of Magi.  Justin, being the awesome brother-in-law and cosplay partner that he is, cosplayed Masrur from Magi with me.

Before I launch into gushing about how much fun we had at Sakura-Con, let me explain a little more about the construction process for our cosplays.  Most of mine was chronicled in my blog posts, so I will tell you a little bit about how Justin's went.  For the most part, the clothing part of his cosplay were similar in style to mine, so that was easy for me to do.  The next part was a learning process for me-- making a chest and back plate out of Worbla! The steps I followed to create this I learned from the book on armor making I purchased from Kamui Cosplay (http://www.kamuicosplay.com/,) so I won't go into too much detail.  First, Justin was a really good sport and let Brenton and I wrap him in plastic cling-wrap and masking tape so we could have a pattern to work from.  Then, once we sandwiched Worbla and craft foam together, it took a couple tries for me to figure out the best way to create the sculpted abs seen on Masrur's armor pieces.  What I decided on doing was heating up the Worbla section by section, then hand sculpting each "ab."  It was tedious work, but the results were awesome.  Follow all that work up with some primer, sanding, then good ol' Rub n' Buff, and we were good to go!

Here is where the epic part really starts.  You see, once I get used to a material, like Wonderflex or Worbla, I want to stay in that comfort zone and use it for everything.  About 6 months ago, I even blogged with some photos about the wrist and ankle bracers, for lack of a better term, that I had completed for my Morgiana cosplay.  Enter Justin, who also needed a set of bracers for his cosplay, and he basically told me "Nuh-uh, I got this.  I'm gonna make us metal bracers, and its gonna be epic."  Okay, so maybe it didn't go quite like that, but you get the idea.  I'll be the first to admit it, I'm somewhat of a control freak when it comes to certain things.  It was hard for me to relinquish control, but boy am I glad I did.  After a bit of experimenting, tinkering, and elbow grease, Justin had created both our sets of bracers, and they turned out beautiful.  The proof is in the photos, the metal bracers are a whole new level of stunning compared to my first trial with the Wonderflex.

Speaking of photos, you are probably waiting to see those! Look no further! But don't worry, I have more to say in a bit ;)  This first set of photos are ones that Brenton captured of us out and about around Sakura-Con.  Some are captioned, some aren't.

Fellow Magi cosplayers! Saw them again at the meetup, more on that down the line!

Morgiana is having none of your sass, photographer! There is the door!

Partying it up with Thranduil! Fabulous!

Alright, lots of photos coming up again! This was probably the highlight of my convention, the Magi cosplayer photo shoot at the Aniplex booth! Aniplex is the production company for the Magi anime, so they were putting on a lot of Magi events this year.  The photo shoot was right in the middle of the exhibitors hall, so it was jam packed! Major kudos to Brenton for getting a front-row seat and grabbing these awesome photos! I will put little captions explaining what was going on in each shot :)

Titus and Scheherazade 

Justin and I, fighting stance.

Don't know what camera to look at!!

The next three shots are panoramic style of the mass group shot.  Organized chaos!

All the Judar cosplayers.

Oh Sinbads... you so crazy! Yes, the far right cosplayer is the same one from the first picture.

Morgianas!

Ja'fars!

Masrurs!

Here are the three "main characters," Aladdin,  Alibaba, and Morgiana.

Each Morgiana had to carry a Aladdin or Alibaba.  That was fun!

Judar and Aladdin, "good vs. evil."

 So apparently, while we were all posing for photos and participating in the craziness, Aniplex had the director and character designer for Magi observing, and the volunteer cosplayers were judging our costumes.  To my surprise and delight, they gave me a prize for my costume! I have a little picture of it at the end of this post, but it was a cute little set of square cloth posters, featuring Morgiana! I've never had the nerve to participate in cosplay contests, and I was really nervous when they announced that they had been observing us this whole time, but I was really happy that they chose me as a winner.  It may be skimpy, but this cosplay was a lot of hard work!  After I received my prize, the director asked me if I would dance like Morgiana does! Eeek! It was nerve-wracking, but I spun around a couple times, and the awkward photos below ensued, haha.

The girl who cosplayed as Yamuraiha, below, also won a prize.  Her staff had LED lighting and changed colors! She made a cute Yamuraiha.  

 The last part of my Magi adventure started on Friday, but ends on Sunday.  Friday evening, we went to the English Dub premier of Magi, and got to watch a couple of episodes of the anime.  Then, there was a Q&A session with some of the English voice actors for Magi.  That is always fun to listen to, but I can never think of any good questions to ask!  At the end of it all, they raffled off different prizes, and I happened to win a ticket to the ticket-only autograph session with the Magi guests!  I was ecstatic!

Come Sunday, I don once again my Morgiana cosplay, because what else would I wear to a Magi signing? Armed with a single autograph board, I anxiously wait in line.  I have it on first-hand accounts from Justin and Brenton that I was breaking out in hives by the time I was next in line for autographs, as is wont to happen when I get nervous.  The first in the row of the autograph panel was the director for the anime series.  He recognized us from the day before at the Magi photo shoot, which made me feel very honored.  His signature and drawing of Aladdin made me so happy, but (and I'm not complaining, believe me) he used up the whole autograph board I had bought! Luckily, they had posters there for signing, so Justin handed me one of those.  Next, the character designer whipped out a drawing of Morgiana next to his autograph, which also made me very happy!  The producer of the anime was present, and also complimented me on my cosplay.  If  Justin and I weren't already elated, the voice actors loved our cosplays, too!  We only had a brief time to chit-chat, but all the voice actors were so kind and fun.  Love that they included their character names next to their autographs.

Top Row:  Autographs!
Bottom row: My prize from the "contest" at the photoshoot,  and the ticket stub for autograph session,

So in case I didn't make it clear, Justin and I had an wonderful time in our Masrur and Morgiana cosplays.  Thank you so much to everyone who complimented us, wanted a hug, or wanted a photo of us.  It is such a good feeling to have our hard work so well received, be it through fans, fellow cosplayers, or from the people behind the scenes of the anime.  Thank you so much to Justin for the fantastic metal bracers, and for being the best cosplay partner I could ever ask for.  A big thank you to Brenton and Bob for taking photos and for putting up with Justin's and my demands throughout the con.  As with all my cosplays, this one also taught me some important lessons, but I will continue to improve myself because of it.

Thats it for tonight, but next week or sooner I will put up the last post of my Sakura-Con 2014 blog post.  As usual, hit me up with any questions or comments, or just to chat!  Love hearing your feedback!

With sincerity,
Alycia