4 posts tagged “five star stories”
Passing out now. More later. YAAAAY!
When I first saw Ed Pingol's business card at my local boba spot, I was surprised. It was a well-designed card with an interesting picture of a couple in profile against the setting sun on the back. Curious, I took the his card home and checked out his site that night. And, you know, it was probably one of the luckiest finds I've had in a while. I sent him an email after going over his awesome work and asked him (in a really long-winded message) if he'd be interested in shooting some nerds in costume. Turned out that, although he was a comic book fan, he had never heard or seen cosplay and was really interested. I mean, we were just a little different than his usual fare of brides-to-be. Well, except maybe AJ. Har.
After a few more emails and a meeting over boba, where I got introduced to his partner-in-crime/wife Monica, we set a date. It was a little of a push to convince AJ and Judy that paying for his talent would totally be worth it, but thankfully they agreed.
With Ziga-docious, Kimperative and Marcuzzin' in tow for our-less-than mobile selves, Ed and Monica's open excitement about our costumes and the sneak peeks we were getting of our shots from the back of Ed's camera, it was a pretty exciting shoot! Marcus even held one of my snotty tissues, that is why he's a "cuz" now.
Anyway, a chemically dubious building, one snapped acrylic rod, a few hundred photos and several tissues later we had wrapped up with a promise that we'd get preview shots on his site within the week and a full CD of all the high res files in a month or two. We got the previews the next day. SWEET!
Comic-Con, as usual, didn't disappoint. Granted, I didn't go to any panels, but I spent (too much) money in the dealer room buying cool stuff, ate at Tin Fish way more than I should have (can't help it if it's in my direct beeline from hotel to convention center), said wassup to Aaron McGruder (creator of The Boondocks), ran into a dead-on lookalike of Andre 3000 of OutKast (anyone know if he's a comic nerd?), participated in the masquerade with my girls the HCC in our Five Star Stories costumes and won...
Best in Show!
I really thought it was a total crap shoot on who was going to win.
SDCC generally brings out the best of the best in costumers and with
the color guard awesomeness of the Greasy Potter skit (wait for it on
YouTube, seriously), larger-than-life Pinky & The Brain, Okami
furry, peach-butt goodness, Josie & The Pussycat Dolls Revue of
"Don't You Wish Your Hero was Hot Like Me?" (again, wait for it on
YouTube), Dr. Who Dalek, awesome Transformers, World of Warcraft
snake-lady, multi-armed thing... oh man, I could go on, but there were
over 150 people in about 50 groups that competed over the weekend!
The competitors generally have an idea of what they won while they're waiting backstage during the awards ceremony because the staff lines everyone up in order so it's easier to get everyone on stage. When they stuck us at the end of the line during the trophy distribution (the spot for Best in Show), AJ and I seriously kept turning our heads (and almost taking each other out in the process) to see if anyone was going to line up behind us. We even kept telling ourselves, "Well, they could be bringing someone in from the other side of the stage..." I was basically in denial until I had the trophy in my hands. We also won two industry awards: a $150 credit to Anime Pavilion for their favorite anime costume which we split between the 12 of us (Paradise Kiss DVD #1 for me), and $100 plus a pretty awesome sword from The Testmarket Evolution for best anime costume.
Much love to Judy, AJ, Aimee and Char and our incredibly amazing and patient handlers (HCC Transport Team) who totally helped the five of us out when we became clothed masses of uselessness thanks to our costumes. Marc, Jenn, Oscar, Kim, Arthur, Josh and Robert... you guys ROCK! Go go mighty HCC Transport Team!
As for the subject title of this post, thanks to That Guy Can Hella Draw (.com) and Dancehall Dan, who were playing random clips while we were chillin' in the hotel room over the weekend, I now have a new default MySpace song:
Chocolate raaaaaaaaaaain...
The big summer convention season is upon us and a bunch of people are discussing their cosplay plans and showing progress photos of their new projects. One of the coolest things about cosplay is that there is no set way to create anything when you're reinterpreting 2D characters to the real world, so half the fun of seeing these progress photos is discovering how things are interpreted differently by people.
Anyway, I figure this may be my big final bang for cosplay, so here's my list for new costumes this year!
Lace from Ibara
Debut: Anime Expo
I'm hella excited about this big obscure group cosplay that will take place when a bunch of us walk out at AX with all these characters on. I'm still worried about my whole thunder thigh problem when it comes to those crotchless pant-things, but I figure some strategic posing will keep me off 4chan. Ha.
For all you Ibara group people, I've been going through Cure and saving random Ibara cosplayer pictures for reference to see what works and what doesn't. I can't guarantee all the characters, but if you're interested here's the link. If you have any requests for more pictures of certain characters, let me know!
I haven't quite figured out the exact design that's going on with her left pant leg, thank goodness for artistic interpretation.
Debut: Comic-Con
What may be HCC's final masquerade hurrah! AJ let me borrow the manga a while back and, after questioning her endlessly about plot points (because, really, that series reads like Memento in comic form) I found I really liked it! Last year, when we picked out the characters we were going to cosplay, we were shooting to have them done for AX... but uhh... yeah. Don't hold your breath.
I have a pretty good idea how that wig is going to be constructed that involves a big fat headband, two wooden dowels, a couple foam pool noodles and heavy gauge wire with a shit-ton of extensions. After this costume is done I'll probably never wonder what it's like to have antlers ever again. Not that I ever wondered to begin with.
This must be the year that I decide to show some leg. What the hell short skirt and green tights (not to mention Lace's crotchless wonder of an outfit). Okay, it had me at the wig, seriously. She could've been wearing parachute pants and a rhinestone wifebeater and I still would've wanted to cosplay her because of the wig.
Debut: Yaoi-Con... I think.
In the spirit of tradition of us (us being Oscar, AJ, Kim, Judy, etc.) doing something completely crazy for a "small" con, we've been looking at the designs for this game and been awed by the uniform look of the... uh... uniforms. I think we're still in debate if we're actually going to do it and, if we are, if we're going to do their standard uniforms or their half-demon forms. Only time will tell, my friends!
I'm pretty sure I'll stick to cosplaying on a much smaller scale after this year, especially since the Best Bud wants to get back in the mix. It'll be fun to do duo cosplays with her with silly characters (like Bust-A-Groove!). I figure all the money I'll save from scaling back on this hobby can be redirected towards... even MORE concerts. Sweet.
