ladyofthethread | 2009 Cosplay Review

Last call for holiday cards! I’m in the process of writing them now and hope to get them in the mail around the 10th so if you still want one, check this entry: http://ladyofthethread.livejournal.com/165049.html

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was one of the winners for the Le Chevalier D’eon contest at ACP. :-) Thanks if you voted for me! I’d entered mainly to get a bit more exposure for the costume and I didn’t expect to do that well since Ekaterina looks rather plain on the outside. I actually voted for someone else! ^_^;

And since I haven’t had much of interest to post lately, I guess I’ll do the cosplay year in review thing now. 2009 was rather unusual for me in terms of cosplay.

-This year included my first attempts at corsetmaking, panniers, hoopskirts, and hatmaking.
-I had a sewing meltdown and had fitting issues on 3 or 4 garments in a row. o_O; I can’t remember any other time when I’d had so many problems with fitting stuff!
-After years of wanting to check it out, I was finally able to go to my first Costume Con! ^_^
-Starting with Costume Con, I had 3 cons within a month and a half. o_o; I usually only make it to about 4 a year and 3 of the ones I wanted to attend just happened to be squished together this year so I wasn’t used to that kind of pace at all.
-I ran my first panels this year on the topic of seam finishes. I’m not sure if I’m continuing next year though because I only got about a dozen people at AB and half a dozen at AnimeNext.
-I got to be one of the kings for cosplay chess at AB this year! :-D
-I cosplayed while upstate on vacation! XD
-Except for AB, I ended up sewing in my hotel room or the night before every con this year. This was partly due to my sewing meltdown and the spring cons being so close together. I’d never had to sew in a hotel room before this year and hope I don’t have to do it again in the future! X_X
- I entered 3 masquerades this year. o_O; I usually only do 1 masquerade per year and didn’t even do any last year. I normally prefer hall contests but ended up not doing any this year so things were kind of backwards.
-I actually made a new costume for Halloween which I’ve never bothered to do since I started cosplaying.

Krazy! Cosplay Party
New costume: Count D (vampire costume) from Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo

This was an unusual costume for me since I don’t usually go for the tattered look or lots of buckles. But I thought it looked cool and would fit the Costume Con theme of “Vampires, Villains, and Vixens.” The cape hides it but I kind of want to remake the black velvet robe since I messed up the fit and had to cut it open in the back to put in a zipper. This was part of the sewing meltdown. -_-;

Sakura Matsuri Press Day
Rewore: Sarah Dupont from Kaleido Star

I didn’t make it to the actual festival itself since I was at Costume Con that weekend but I got to help out with the press preview several days beforehand.

Costume Con
New prop: Suioh from Petshop of Horrors (to go with my 19th Century Count D costume)
Masquerade entry: walk-on using Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite
Awards: Best Bird and Honorable Mention for Presentation in the SF&F Masquerade, ribbon for Sarah in the hall contest

My original plan for Costume Con had been to enter Ekaterina in the Historical Masquerade but that didn’t work out due to my sewing meltdown. I was disappointed but and I decided I was better off going with my other idea of finally building a phoenix prop and showing my 19th Century Count D costume onstage. The prop probably took about as much time (about 70-80 hours) as I spent on the entire costume back in 2007 and I had to finish handsewing the tail feathers on in the hotel room.

Rewore:
Sarah Dupont
Count D (tailcoat outfit)
Count D (vampire costume)
Eugenie de Danglars from Gankutsuou

Anime Boston
Considering it was only 2 1/2 weeks after Costume Con and that I still had to write a booklet for my workshop and make kits, I gave up on the idea of having anything new for AB and just tried to get better photos of the phoenix and some old stuff.

Awards: ribbons from the staff vote hall contest for Eugenie and Count D’s tailcoat outfit
Rewore:
Eugenie de Danglars
Count D (blue brocade robe)

Count D (tailcoat outfit)

Ayame Sohma (parent teacher conference outfit) from Fruits Basket

I pulled this out for the cosplay chess match at AB and got to be one of the kings this year since Fruits Basket was important in the cosplot. :-D Finally got better pictures of this after 2 years; I haven’t worn this one much because I was disappointed with how it looks on me.

AnimeNext
New costume: Tamaki Suou (ballgown) from Ouran High School Host Club
Masquerade entry: walk-on using the finale from “A Little Night Music”
Award: Best Craftsman Craftsmanship

By this point, I really wanted a new costume to wear and I managed to make this in about 3 weeks. I didn’t get much sleep towards the end and I had to finish things up at the hotel again. x_x It’s not my best work since it was somewhat rushed but it was fun to be so poofy and sparkly. :-D I figured it would be good for the stage since I put so many sparkles on it so I entered the masquerade instead of doing the hall contest.

Rewore:
Count D (tailcoat outfit)
Count D (peacock dress)

I pulled this old thing out since I wanted to take a picture with it now that I finally had a huge bird. It’s not the right bird for that artbook pic but oh, well. ^_^;

Summer vacation
Instead of going to Otakon this year, I went upstate with my family for a vacation on a lake and brought some costumes along to take advantage of the scenery. :-D

Rewore:
Eugenie

We stayed next to a late 1800s mansion that’s now an inn and did a pretty long photoshoot outside.

Ayame (manga Golden Week outfit)

I pulled this old thing out to take pictures by the lake since it was the costume from the chapter where the Fruits Basket characters went to a lake for Golden Week.

Count D (vacation outfit)

This Count D costume was from a chapter where the characters went on vacation to a beach so I’d wanted to do pictures by the water. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t great that week and we never made it over to the water to do pictures of this one.

NY Anime Festival
New costume: Ekaterina from Le Chevalier D’Eon
Masquerade entry: walk-on using “The Riddle” from “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
Award: Marty Gear’s Judge’s Award

Started in January and postponed when I didn’t think I would finish in time for Costume Con without lots of stress, I finally finished it for NYAF. I was glad I got a chance to show it onstage here after how much work I’d put into it.

Rewore:
Tamaki
Count D (blue brocade robe)

Halloween
New costume: Daphne from Scooby Doo

Since I’ve started cosplaying, I’ve always just reworn one of my existing costumes for Halloween. But I already had a red wig and was feeling nostalgic since I’d picked up a couple of the Scooby Doo boxsets so I made this.

Conventions attended: 4
Costumes worn: 13
New costumes made: 4 (plus 1 prop that took as much time as a costume! :-P)