Our Passion

            Do what you feel is comfortable and do not let anyone tell you otherwise.  Doing something different might lead to negative attitude from people. Cosplaying is not normal. Cosplaying is something that requires courage and positive attitude.

My friend Anna was cosplaying Nami from One Piece.
I was Teemo from LeagueOfLegend.
My friend took the picture and we had no pose,
 so we just didwhat ever we felt like.
The picture was during a Animefair at Japantown.

            When you first start to cosplay you might be afraid, nervous, embarrassed, and ashamed because you are doing something different than other people. Let me tell you! Don't be afraid because there is whole community of cosplayer standing there with you. Cosplay may not be a normal thing to do, but we still love it. Cosplay helps us stand out, enjoy our moments and meet many more people with this hobby.  

Majority of people think cosplayers are fans dressing up for anime, movie, books, and comic character running around conventions and taking flashy photos.

Well… For me is more than that.

As Patricia Hernandez said in the article "Cosplayers Are Passionate, Talented Folks. But There's A Darker Side To This Community, Too." Cosplaying is a passion. Non-cosplayers only see the end results of each cosplayer. They do not know who is underneath the costume. Many cosplayers have their own stories, their reasons on why they chose that cosplay. They have reasons on why they put their self on the spotlight for everyone to see their art.

            Being a cosplayer is like being a #1 fan, you need to have knowledge about your cosplay. You need to learn their actions, lines, postures, and every little details of the costume. Just randomly throwing on something that might look like the outfit of the character is not really considered cosplaying for me. No one is asking you to be a professional, however please respect the character you are cosplaying.

When I go to the convention with a cosplay on, I tend to wear my whole outfit the night before and try a cosplay test aka costest to check if there are anything wrong with it. Most of the time I would find button, string loose, makeup wrong and some other small details I would not notice before trying on the cosplay. Most importantly I practice my cosplay posture because most of the time when you go to convention with a cosplay on, people will ask for pictures. 

Believe me, practicing the pose beforehand helps A LOT.

No practice = no posture, expression, unprepared for random shots.

 Let me tell you the how big the difference of having practicing posture beforehand and no practice is. The picture above was taken by my friend when we were at JapanTown. I’ve cosplayed as Akali from LeagueOfLegends for JPOP summit, an small anime fair. I did not practice my pose beforehand because I was rushing the outfit the night before. On the day of the event I did not know how to pose and when people ask me for a picture all I did was standing there with a dull face and clinging on to my prop. When I saw the pictures my friend took, I wanted stick my head in the sand and never come out.

In this picture, I had the right position and expression.
 Both of the cosplay is from LeagueOfLegend.
He made the costume all by him self.

Here is a picture of me at Japan Expo. I cosplayed as Akali again for this convention but, this time I  had practiced the poses and makeup the night before. The practice made my trip to the convention smoothly, I knew what pose to use when people went up to me for pictures. When I saw the pictures my friend took of me during the event, I was satisfied.