Cosplay year 2014

I’ve pretty much skipped all convention reports since… fall 2013 and I feel kind of bad about it. This past year have been the busiest we’ve had since we started cosplaying, so you’d think that there should be lot to tell! I never had any intentions to have this kind of hiatus, but… yeah.

After creating a Tumblr account for our cosplay photos, it has felt somewhat overwhelming to actually type and publish anything. Convention reports have always been difficult for me, even if this past year we did more than just attend conventions.

As EuroCosplay representative I’ve had a great pleasure to be invited as a judge in multiple events, one of the recent ones being Närcon in Sweden. Yoki took another type of challenge and have now hosted cosplay competitions at Desucon and Tracon. We’ve also gotten more familiar with people we’ve known but never had courage to actually approach. In all, we’ve had a great convention year, great experiences and you people we’ve met this past year… you are great! I just want to say that and thank you all!

This year we’ve made our personal record with five conventions we went to together; Desucon Frostbite, Desucon, Animecon, Närcon and Tracon. And that’s not all! We also went separately to Cosvision and Kawacon! That is a whole lot of cons for one year.

At Desucon Frostbite I wore Death from The Sandman on Saturday and was sharing my thoughts about international cosplay competitions in the evening in a panel with Rimppu, Majo and two Danish beauties. Yoki went as civilian and acted as one of the judges in Hall cosplay competition on Saturday. On Sunday we had a pair cosplay from Otoyomegatari; Amira and Karluk.

Photographer: Esa Ala-Petäys

Before Desucon I was really fortunate to be asked to sit behind the judging table for show cosplay category at Cosvision, one of the year’s new comers on convention front. I was over the moon with the event and set a record of panels and lectures during one con. I made to costumes for the occasion; Deidara from Naruto and Kofuku from Noragami.

Photographer: Hanna Hyttinen

Desucon was an exciting con for us as I was judging the EuroCosplay preliminaries and Yoki was hosting the show! Luckily, we are somewhat the same size, so I borrowed my Lady Doctor costume for Yoki. I made a new costume and cosplayed Zakuro from Otome Youkai Zakuro. On Satuday we recycled Snufkin and Alicia. We only made a fishing rod and a broomstick to match the characters.

Photographer: Mira Strengell

Kawacon was held in June two weeks after Desucon. Yoki was working as a supervisor at the cloakroom and didn’t take any costumes with her to the event.

We didn’t have intentions of attending all of the cons we eventually visited, like Animecon and Närcon, but some surprising events and opportunities changed our minds, like Kaoru Mori being announced as quest of honor at Animecon. Seriously, I screamed five minutes after reading the announcement and I don’t regret begging my boss to give me a free weekend. Totally worth it.

At Animecon we naturally wore Amira and Karluk. We went to see all the programs featuring Mori and also queued almost two hours for her autograph. It was amazing to chat with other Mori fans at the queue. More amazing was when it was our turn and we politely asked, if Mori- sensei could sign our hats. She did! And we changed few words about our costumes and she wanted to shake hands with us. She really seemed to appreciate cosplayers, who crafted costumes inspired by her art.

Photographer: Jesmo

On Sunday I had a new costume, Saya from Blood: The Last Vampire. Yoki recycled Fuyu Jaw’re from her original story, Varjella. We had awesome photoshoots during the weekend.

Photographer: YumiKoyuki

Next we travelled to Närcon, Sweden with our representatives who were going to compete at Nordic Cosplay Championships. Närcon was our second convention abroad and totally different experience compared to MCM London ComicCon. It was more like a festival if you think how and where Finnish conventions are organized. But truly a great experience! I’m really proud of our team and their assistants. And of course we're really happy that our team member Päivi won the final!

I really don’t remember which day we wore our costumes, but we had Snufkin and Alicia and Amira and Karluk with us. We also ended up on the stage with our Moomin costumes at the opening ceremony.

Last event of the year was Tracon. On Saturday we wore Lumiere and Cogsworth and were both working backstage that day. I was a judge in the Hall Cosplay competition and Yoki was hosting the competition. On Sunday we cosplayed characters from Yoki’s Varjella; Matriach Vaira Kirlain and Kalma Kirlain. We also had a mind blowing photoshoot… with a smoke machine!

Photographer: Emilia "AG" Lahtinen

One special event during last summer that I just have to mention is our photoshoot weekend with AG and Biitti. They came over for three days and we were able to shoot six costumes in different locations. The most challenging one was a field with blazing sun and uncooperative sheep!

Photographer: Emilia "AG" Lahtinen

Next year I’m going to start our convention season with Yukicon 2.0 and in February we are heading to Desucon Frostbite. We both have been crafting new costumes and we are going to debut them one by one in upcoming conventions. I’m pushing myself with two new outfits and the first one I’ll hopefully wear at Yukicon.

We wish everyone inspiring and productive year 2015!

Have fun!