Sakura-Con 2014! Post 3 of 3: More pictures!!

Greetings, everyone!

Ahhh I can't believe it has almost been a month since Sakura-Con 2014 has passed.  It still feels like it was just this past weekend.  I guess that means we are just this much closer to the next one, right? Lol.  Some people say I'm too optimistic, but I can't help it!

It goes without saying that I have a lot of "favorite things" about Sakura-Con, but when I say that seeing other cosplayers is one of my favorite things, I sincerely mean it.  As a fan, it's so fun to see people bring my favorite characters to life.  And as a cosplayer, I'm always interested in the methods other cosplayers use to do their cosplays.  

Unfortunately, when I'm in cosplay, I can't run around getting as many pics as I would like to get.  Fortunately, Brenton is a very understanding husband, and pulls double duty capturing pictures of Justin and I, and the other cosplayers at the convention.  Thanks so much, Brenton!

As for the batch of photos we got this year, I put little captions under the ones I know, and left the ones I'm not too sure about without caption.  Feel free to chime in if you recognize something I didn't.  Hope you enjoy them!

Adeptus Sororitas from Warhammer (Battle Sisters) 

League of Legends

League of Legends

League of Legends 

World of Warcraft (seemed outnumbered this year haha)

So this next batch of photos should be titled "We let Justin loose with the camera Saturday Night," ahem, "Late Night Sakura-Con hosted by Justin M." Brenton and I are so exhausted by the time the concert ends on Saturday that we usually call that bedtime.  But apparently, the nightlife of Sakura-Con is a whole different beast than the daytime.  I'm gonna need to learn to like energy drinks so I can join in the fun next year! Justin and Bob somehow had the energy to explore all of this, and captured photos of it!

Star Wars

Gundam!

Attack on Titan

Cool little explanation for this next photo- this year Sakura-Con had a little partnership with Dungeons&Dragons to have a campaign at the con this year, DM'd by none other than Matthew Mercer, the voice of Sinbad from Magi, among many other roles and talents.  Here he is hard at work.

Matthew Mercer

League of Legends

The rave!

Rave + Borderlands = ?? 

Cosplay chess

Well guys, thats it for this year! I had such a blast, as usual.  I'm hoping to make it to more conventions throughout the year, but in the meantime definitely keep coming back here for updates and ramblings.  I've set some pretty big goals for myself, and have a lot of new cosplays and photoshoots planned, so please look forward to that.

Any questions, comments, or concerns? As usual, I love to hear from you so don't be afraid to comment or seek me out on the Twitterverse, @whimsyAly.

See you soon!
-Alycia

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

Mini Top Hat Workshop with the Navigator Scouts!

Why hello everyone!

At the beginning of February, I had an great opportunity to meet some awesome young ladies from Montana's first chapter of the Navigators USA scouting group (more info of what they are about here: http://navigatorsusa.org/ and their Facebook page here:  https://www.facebook.com/NavigatorsUSAChapter62 )
While these scouts are normally working with nature and preserving the great outdoors for their activities, thats a little difficult to do in the harsh Montana winter.  So when its cold and wintry outside, what else can one do but some awesome arts and crafts?

This was my first time ever preparing and teaching a workshop of any kind, so I was unsurprisingly nervous.  I decided to hold the workshop on my mini top hat tutorial (here), with a bit of a show and tell with some of the cosplay props I've made.  These decisions weren't out of the blue; it was after I learned from the scout's leader, Peggy, that the girls were excited about costuming and arts and crafts that I went with this theme.

For assistance, I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow mini top hat enthusiast, Aubray.  We dressed up in our most girly, frilly, top-hat-themed finery, loaded up her car with cosplay props and craft supplies, and embarked on our journey to the meeting place.  One map mishap and a phone call later, we made it!

Thanks to the kind parents in this scouting group, we had a warm place to have the workshop, and another parent donated some marvelous materials for all the girls to use.  Five girls were able to attend, around the ages of nine and ten.  All of them were very nice, but most importantly they were enthusiastic! After I did a little show and tell of the props I brought, including my Buster Sword (kudos to Aubray for lugging it from her car!) we jumped right in to crafting time!  There is a little fashion show that Peggy caught on video, check it out below!


Everyone had so much fun, so I was really relieved! Things got a little sticky with the hot glue guns, not even I came away unscathed from the wrath of super-heated glue, but I think despite that all the girls had a great time!  They were all so energetic and creative, and all their hats came out so unique.  Mine looked almost boring in comparison, haha!  At first, I wanted to jump in and give advice on how I thought the hats should look and be made, but then I remembered that my original intent for this whole workshop was to show that you can do anything you want when you are creating art or costumes.  There is no right or wrong way to do art.  So when you set a pack of ten year olds loose with glue, feather, beads, ribbon, and fabric....magic happens!  It happens so often in today's schools and society that you are corralled into doing things a certain way, to conform to certain standards, and I think we lose a lot of our creative freedom as we grow up.  I can only hope that Aubray and I showed these young girls that you can still have creative freedom as a "grown-up," and that if you want a purple leopard print top hat with pink and green feathers and polkadots all over, go for it!

As for myself, I learned a lot from this workshop as well.  For example, I'm better with kids than I first thought I was, or so I hope!  Secondly, I'm really thankful that I asked for help from Aubray and that she agreed to help (thank you soooo much! ^.^)  Also, if I ever do another workshop with the mini top hats, I would probably prepare the pattern and basic structure of the top hat beforehand so we have more time to focus on what is important-- creating your unique top hat style!

A big thank you to Peggy and the Navigator scouts for arranging this and having Aubray and I for the workshop.  It was a great honor to be able to do that.  Thank you to the parents who lent us their house and donated materials! And thank you to Aubray for assisting me the whole day long.  I was seriously impressed by your mad glue gun skills!

Sincerely,

Alycia

Sakura-Con 2014! Post 1 of 3: Zack and Cloud!

Hello everyone!

Welp, another Sakura-Con has come and gone.  It always feels so surreal when I think about how much fun I had there interacting with other people, shopping in the exhibitor's/artist alley hall, and going to all the different panels and events.  It is also difficult how fast those three days fly by.  Three days in a normal work-week go by so sluggishly, but somehow three days of Sakura-Con fly by!

We arrived in Seattle Thursday evening, and once we got checked into the hotel, we took to wandering the streets around the convention center.  Much to our bewilderment, most people we happened upon had their badges and swag bags for the con already! After a little asking around, it turns out you can actually pick up your badge Thursday night if you pre-registered! Oh man, it was so relaxing being able to do that! I'm definitely going to remember to do that next year.

Friday morning, I woke everyone up bright and early, despite their protests.  We, okay, I,  decided we would wander around the exhibitors hall and convention center before getting into cosplay, because it is just a lot easier to maneuver when you are not wearing pauldrons and carrying a twenty pound, 6 feet long sword.  I scored plenty of great loot, do you guys want to see any of it? If there is enough interest I will definitely post some photos.

After about an hour or two, Justin and I decide we can't wait any longer to get into our cosplays, so we return to the hotel room to get into our Final Fantasy 7 cosplays.  We decided to wear these again this year for multiple reasons.  One, the swords are freaking epic.  Two, we love FF7.  Three, a heck of a lotta time was devoted to creating these cosplays and it would be a shame to only wear them to one convention.  It is my pleasure now to show you the photos we captured of us cosplaying as Zack and Cloud at Sakura-Con 2014! *hint- click on the photos for a gallery view, or view one by one below!

As you can see in the above two photos, Brenton captured some awesome images of the "behind the scenes" preparation.  I couldn't not include them! In case you're wondering, I'm carefully applying the scar to Justin's face, haha.  

As for the next two photos, we were trying to capture the "intimidating" aura that members of SOLDIER, imagined or not, should have.  I'd say Justin succeeded, but as for myself... I don't come across as too scary haha.

 The photo below turned out so well that I actually printed off a poster-sized version of it for Justin and I! Really pleased with how this came out.  Thanks, Brenton :)

Another photo of myself, staring wistfully into the distance.  It's hard for me to remember not to "smile for the camera" when I'm cosplaying as Cloud.  I'm a very smiley person, but Cloud is a very somber, stoic character, so I catch myself smiling a lot.  Plus, its hard not to smile when I'm at Sakura-Con!

Before I forget, I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who wanted pictures of Justin and I this year.  To have the cosplays we worked so hard on be so well received for two years in a row is a huge compliment.  It means so much to me when someone wants to give me a hug or tell me how much they like my cosplay.  Thank you all so much!!

Friday night, we arrived a little late to the Final Fantasy photo shoot gathering, but still managed to get into some shots! One of my favorites is below, it was all the "angsty" characters doing what they do best-- angsting.   It was a lot of fun posing with everyone!

 Fun fact: after we left the photo shoot area, we ran into this awesome Sephiroth who was rocking that one giant wing! So who could resist a few pictures??

Well, this is concludes the first post in my series chronicling Sakura-Con 2014.  It was so great adventuring as Zack and Cloud again, and I can't wait to show you guys more photos from the next couple days of Sakura-Con! 

Any questions or comments about our cosplays, or our time at the con? Hit us up! My Twitter handle is @whimsyAly, you can comment below, or shoot us an email to heartandsoulcosplay@gmail.com.  Love hearing from you!

-See you soon, 

Alycia

April 2014 Loot Crate

Hello everyone!

I hope things have been going well for everyone.  The past month was pretty busy for me, as I was finishing up Justin's and my own new cosplays that we debuted at Sakura-Con 2014 this past weekend.  It was awesome, we all had a blast, and I will blog about it and have pictures posted very soon, I promise!

Now, coming back to reality after a weekend of nerdy awesomeness is always rough, but this year my pain was eased by returning to work to find April's Loot Crate waiting patiently on my desk.  I'll tell you right now, I was totally stoked for this months theme, Dragons, because I have been completely obsessed with dragons longer than I have been obsessed with Hello Kitty, which is saying something.  I think I received the first dragon in my collection when I was 7 or 8, and my passion for them since has been undying.

I could go on about how much I love dragons forever, but thats not what you came to read! Instead, read about how much I loved this months Loot Crate!

First up, the Loot Crate exclusive Nord figure! What a cutie, er, ferocious little guy! His helmet is removable, his arms posable, and his weapons also are removable.  Loved that they included the (miniature) great-axe along with the sword, as the great-axe is usually my go-to weapon in Skyrim (still lamenting my lack of Elder Scrolls Online...) Anyways, here is a picture:

The next item I plucked out of my crate was the Game of Thrones mystery figure box.  I hopped on the Game of Thrones train a little later than most people, but it's one of my current favorite live-action shows.  I mean, DRAGONS!! How could I not like it??  It was with baited breath that I opened my box, because I reeeeeaally wanted a dragon figure.  And if you saw my recent Instagram post, you would know the answer to this, but I am thrilled to announce that my mystery figure was in fact the dragon Viserion!  I honest to goodness squealed out loud.  Take a peek at the cuteness:

Double dose of awesomeness this month in the form of two d20's!  The bigger the better? The big orange one is actually a stress ball.  Gonna keep it on my desk at work for those really tough phone calls.  And also to make crucial decisions, like where to eat for lunch or if I check my voicemail now or in 15 minutes, haha.  In all seriousness, you can never have enough d20's around.  Love it!

 I thought the Dragon Shield screen clean was a very unique addition to this month's box.  Being relatively new to Loot Crate still, I'm still not sure what to expect, but as always I am pleasantly surprised.  The screen cleaner works really well, although it is intended to be stuck to the back of your phone, but my deco, blinged-out phone case doesn't really allow for that.

Okay, we've spent most of this blog post talking about how much I love dragons.  Truly, I'd rather befriend them than slay them.  No kidding, I have to mentally prepare myself in Skyrim before I go fight a dragon because I end up feeling bad for slaying it.  But the dragon slayer dog tag is pretty neat.  Again, a unique concept in my opinion.  I'm wearing it as I blog, actually! 

Last, but not least, the dragon jerky.  I'll admit, the green, powdery coating on the outside made me a little cautious.  But, for the sake of authentic blogging, I made my husband try it with me, and it was delicious! The right balance of tender and tough, with a savory flavor that wasn't overly salty.  I have a hunch that dragon jerky, if dragons did exist, would not be quite so succulent, but if it were I may just have to retract my previous statement about befriending rather than slaying dragons (I jest, I jest!)

So, in case I didn't make it clear, I loved this months Loot Crate.  It continues to surpass my expectations, and I always enjoy every part of it.  Not to mention, DRAGONS!!

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post.  Did you like this style of write up, or did you better enjoy last month's write up where I also filmed a video.  Talk to me in the comments, or send me a Tweet to let me know!  And  the Sakura-Con 2014 blog post is coming soon, so keep an eye out for that!

Take care!
-Alycia