Alice in Avalon

It's been a little while, but I've definitely been busy! The last leg of the 2018 year went by really quickly, but I enjoyed quite a bit of cosplay experiences along the way! Since my last update, I've had the pleasure of working on some wonderful skits, and focusing on the core of storytelling again by adding details to both my costume and our set work to develop each concept. At Anime California, I took the challenge of creating a storytelling skit from Majestic Majolical, which was more difficult than I thought. There's a lot I took from the experience that helped me go into my next project for PMX 2018. I had a wonderful masquerade partner for PMX,  and we won Best in Show with our Tanabata Madoka and Homura from Madoka Magica! Shortly afterwards, we began developing our next skit for ALA 2019, which had initially been a duo skit from a totally different series, but while revisiting the project, we began to notice some issues with the storytelling aspect of ...

Whew, it's been busy, but I'm being as productive as I can be! I'm a little dazed that Anime LA is only a few months away! "Technically" I've started, but I'm not where I want to be. Obviously with the holidays coming up, I'm going to be doing my very best to keep my eyes on the goal! On top of that, I start school again this upcoming week! It's kind of weird starting when my friends studying are on break for the Thanksgiving week here. I'm here just hoping I can brave through the holiday sales and crazy store hours, but we can get through this!

Happy Summer! It's been such a crazy summer, and while I don't intend to get too carried away with this post, I wanted to share some pretty fun updates that have been going on. Over the summer, I competed at Anime Expo for the World Cosplay Summit USA finals! It was such a crazy experience and while we didn't get the title, just being close in this race was more than enough for me and Shii this round. I definitely have plans to try again since it's still a brightly burning dream to do it, but I will admit how much work it went into to get this rolling in such a short amount of time! Needless to say, it really tuckered me out. While I've been organizing my plans for the year, I haven't really done much sewing since AX given how much of a boot camp-like experience it was, but I sincerely don't regret. We had such an amazing wealth of friends, fellow cosplayers, family, and people in our community who showed nothing but love and support for us. Most impor...

Or so I say, as I see how this year pans out with the rest of my plans. Anime LA was last weekend and I have to stop and say how absolutely awesome it was! It's great to see this convention grow over the years, especially since it's my favorite convention next to Fanime. I spent a chunk of Saturday admittedly dealing with masquerade, but overall, the convention as a whole was absolutely great. I talked to so many people, got to take lots of pictures of amazing cosplays, and I love how it hasn't lost that fun convention vibe. Even the weather was on our side!

The dream cosplay. It's surreal to believe that I actually completed it this year, but at the same time, 2005 was the hallmark of when I started going to cons, but 2006 was when I first started cosplaying at cons. That means that technically, 2016 is the anniversary of officially cosplaying! So, how to do you celebrate a ten year milestone? By cosplaying as your one true hero! I've written about my early convention experiences before, but I don't think I will ever tire of writing how my love for Utena propelled my way into the world of anime. It's funny to think that I got into anime through Utena because I related to the storyline and felt so strongly connected to its intelligence. Ironically, anime isn't always the most intelligent form of art out there, but it certainly left an impression on me that's more than just obvious in my life. So naturally, when I first got into cosplay, I wanted to cosplay as Utena. I didn't have many skills in sewing, so ...

Hello! It's been some time since I've made a proper post, but admittedly I've been writing them but losing my track of time before I get the chance to submit them. I've been working on trying to be active on social media, and I'm honestly stunned and in awe of the people who can manage to balance both out. I can barely reply to an email on my phone. Since I'm knee-deep in for AX, I haven't had much of a time to discuss any of my ALA or Fanime cosplay progress, so I thought it would be a great way to retrospect on some new sewing techniques and share in general what I've been working on. Let's start with the easiest. I freely admit that I have a love-hate relationship with One Piece. It was one of my middle school go-to anime when I was just getting into the scene and my guy friends had their subscriptions to Shounen Sunday. My best friend at the time also was a die-hard Sanji fan. Come to think of it, several of my friends throughout middle sch...

I'm both humored and gutted with nostalgia when I think how about ten years ago, I was watching Onegai Twins and buying kotoko, Mizuki Nana, and angela singles, daydreaming about Utena and calling myself a prince, wearing a Nadia shirt until it mysteriously vanished, probably back into the seas, and had just gone to ALA cosplaying Sohma Kagura with my friends. Now fast-foward to now, I got through Owari no Seraph: Battle in Nagoya and started up the winter anime season, buying Utapri, Lovelive, angela, and Faylan CDs, giggling about Fushigi Yuugi musicals, wearing a Sailormoon print shirt, and just came from ALA having cosplayed Utena, who I still daydream a lot about. 2006 is kind of a cool year to look back in some ways, and I think personally it was around that frame of time when I was having fun getting to watch more anime and be in on new titles that I could find online and not have to wait just for cons or select video stores and places to have them. It used to t...

And as usual, it's 3am here and I'm completely elated to be journaling again. I honestly feel like I own my blog a personal apology for not keeping up with it, even though not keeping up with it feels like a good sign of actually living life, yet I like chronicling things, and it's one big paradox! And as usual, I have my portfolio site but I cannot abandon this blog at all. I won't. I decided, and it's final. If I could find an awesome way to integrate it, that would be amazing. I'm don't want to just let things go by without getting the chance to talk about them, because otherwise I feel like it just fades away in a sense. I spent today ruminating that my work situation, which I have mentioned here before, has been extremely busy and without sugarcoating it, difficult. It is severely understaffed and I spend fifteen hour workdays alone, and while I'm blessed to be able to motivate myself, I'm definitely suffering a little creatively on the in...

The glorious fabric haul begins! Taking a break from my more recent remorseful, "My Hand Hurts Saga", which hasn't improved but I hope to get at least a day of rest this Thanksgiving before finishing towards most of what seems to be the home stretch for my classes. Ideally once classes are done, I'd love to get started on my ALA cosplay going. I actually have two to make, and then a holiday one after buying some lovely fabric for a holiday dress. I had planned to make a Christmas Nia outfit, although I'm unsure if I can get the wig in time. I might possibly be able to do a holiday Mirai or Stocking? So to show my homework productiveness, here's a preview of what's to come of the future of the real website I'm working on: I've started to consider to keep this blog, but to eventually transfer it over as well to the main portion of the site. I'm quite happy with how it's all looking, and I've just completed my comps for this pr...

A short update because my hands can't really do this right now. School is pushing towards finals, so my biggest focus these upcoming weeks (as if it isn't already) is finishing up all of my classes as best as I can. I literally haven't slept in days sans the one moment my mother found me catnapping on the sofa. I think the exhaustion is getting to me though, and I'm at the point where I'm just refusing coffee. Given that these past weeks have been hell on the moon for my hands with their popular demand, I'd really like to get through this semester with my hands in one piece and give them a little rest before the spring semester starts. All of my classes are currently online, so my computer time is maxed out and my hands are like, "Oh honey no." The lovely news is my spring semester looks promising, and I love the classes I'll be taking. I'm planning on moving forward with classes that are career-friendly too. I've also started my tras...