Animazement 2012

Convention: Aimazement (animazement.org)
Date: May 25-27
Location: Raleigh, NC

Animazement is always a fun convention to go too. This year, for the second year, I judged the cosplay contest. I have always loved competing at Animazement, and did so for many years, so it is neat to be on the other side judging all the amazing costumes, the amount of creativity that people come with just amazes me!

I had not had that much time to sew because of graduating from grad school earlier in May, so I put together a lolita dress and brought some older costumes and outfits (Cooking Mama, USO Girl, and a Steampunk outfit). I also made some cute hair bows to match my dress, sadly one of them fell out of my bad while I was unloading the car and disappeared!

My new dress! So comfy! (Thanks SoulFire Studios for the photos!)

I got to room with the wonderful Chiara Scuro, who I also rocked some steampunk outfits with on Saturday night (Thanks FoxFang for the photos!)

As for the actual convention, Animazemnt always has a lot going on from a cool little artist alley, to a sweet dealers room, to concerts (which sadly I missed and as many of you know I love a good J-Pop concert), to panels and of course the Masquarade!

The dealers room was nice, lots of fun stuff! (I walked away with some cute Tasty Peach Studio's jewelry, a panda necklace shaped like a candy corn and a super cute pink Alpaca plushy!).  Because of judging I did not get to attend many panels, but all the ones my friends went too, and ran all seemed to go great and have a wonderful turnout. I was also incredibly impressed with one of the contest entrants who came to the feedback panel on Sunday, she showed up with her boyfriend in costume and a pad and pencil and asked us (the judges) how she could improve some areas of the costume, and took notes on what we said so she could improve, it was very refreshing to see someone take constructive criticism and use it to their advantage to learn, instead of getting mad about it.

Over all Animazement is always one of my favorite anime cons to go to because of all the wonderful people and wonderfully run convention. I have been going for many many years and I hope to continue to go!

One of my favorite photos taken by Quadrain! He always takes some of the best pics of my outfits and costumes!

Holy Cow! I am in the Washington Post!!!

So while at Mysticon 2012 back in February an interviewer from the Washington Post took some photos of my USO Girl costume, and the issue came out!! Here is a scan of the article with the photo of my USO (and The Chainmail Chick as well!). It is really cool to have been featured in this article!

RavenCon 2012

Convention: RavenCon
Date: April 13th-15th
Location: Richmond, Va.

This was my first Ravencon. I had known about the con for years, and being from Charlottesville you figured I would have made the trip to the convention at some point. But last year I was filming on Plan 9 during Ravencon and other years it ended up being the same weekend as the DC Cherry Blossom Festival. So I made the trek there this year! However I had been to this hotel! AMA was held here back in the day!

Friday: Made the trip to Richmond.  Checked into the hotel and then headed out for food and Toys R Us, where I found some super cute Kuromi socks on sale!  Then headed back to the hotel and looked around. Saw Kara and a few other people I knew! Went to opening ceremonies and saw Carla's awesome cake she made for the con! Checked out some panels went to some room parties and then headed to bed (since I always get tired after being in a car for a few hours). I did not really get into any costumes on Friday, mostly was me just being lazy walking around in a Doctor Who shirt.

Saturday:
Got up and breakfast at the hotel.  Got signed up for the costume contest. Chilled out with some of the awesome people from Mysticon for a bit, walked around and checked out the dealers room (bought a cute pair of brown and green chainmail earrings) Went to the Doctor Who panel since we were filming it for GPR. Then got into costume for the contest.  I wore my Clockwork Android costume for the contest.  I am SOOOOOOOOO happy they hotel was very well air conditioned. I really dislike the mask at this point after wearing it for so long at Dragoncon and busting a blood vessel in my eye. It is fine for limited wear, but a few hours noooooooo. I had a kid look at me in fear then attempt to pull the mask off my face (old enough to know not to grab and pull at someone, so that was a but annoying) So I did my walk on and off the stage, was a creepy robot, and got BEST IN SHOW! woot! Made my weekend! Was very excited and honored to get best in show! After the contest got out of costume and had dinner with Kara and Rob, then went back to the hotel, hung out at CapClaves party for a bit with Kara, watch some of the Bella Morte concert, and then headed to bed.

Sunday:
Got all packed up, walked around the con center and dealers room (got a cute purple and black chainmail bracelet). Went to the Doctor Who Vs. the Xenomorphs panel, got pulled up on stage to be a panelist for it, So we filmed a GPR episode of it with Billy, Myself and Davey on the panel.  After that said goodbyes and headed home.  Long and fun weekend!

and sadly the only photo I have of the weekend is me in my Doctor The Who shirt. No costume stuff this time :(