Category Archives: Cosplay

Planning Out Future Cosplays

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If there’s one thing I’m looking forward to with attending conventions this year, it’s planning a new cosplay. It’s been a while since I spent months preparing a new cosplay for a con. I usually figure something out last minute, and it looks okay, but I’d rather have something ready to go. I have two big cons that I’m attending in March: Planet Comic Con and C2E2. This gives me about four full weeks to get everything ordered and ready. I wanted to share how I get inspiration for cosplay and the steps I take to have the cosplay ready.

Image is a picture of me cosplaying Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad. I have blue and red eye shadow smeared with a black heart drawn in eye liner near my eye. I'm wearing a jacket plus the t-shirt "Daddy's Little Monster"

The first thing that I like to do is go to Pinterest. I have a cosplay board where I will pin cosplays I like or that I want to complete someday. I have recently gone through my board and deleted any pins of cosplays that I’m not interested in. This is to help consolidate what types of cosplays I want to complete and when. Once I did this, I started searching different fandoms or characters to get an idea of what could be done versus what might be too complicated. I don’t cosplay professionally; it’s more of a hobby, so I’m not interested in doing any sewing for a cosplay. Once I get a few ideas, I have to figure out how to purchase or put together the look.

I’m not sure why I didn’t do this earlier, but I created an Amazon wishlist titled “Cosplay”. This is where I have been saving clothes, wigs, jewelry, or anything else I need to cosplay a character. I created this wishlist a few days ago, and it keeps me organized. With cosplay materials, it can take weeks to ship on Amazon, so if I can have the items saved to order ahead of time, that would be ideal. I have two cosplays saved in my Amazon wishlist, and I plan to order some of those items this week.

This leads me to the two cosplays I’m leaning towards. The first is Harley Quinn from The Suicide Squad, specifically the red dress with the combat boots. Harley Quinn is one of my favorite characters to cosplay as because she has so many different styles throughout her appearances in video games, comics, and movies. The red dress is a mood, and it fits Harley’s personality. The second cosplay I’m thinking about is a splicer from BioShock. Splicers are enemies with wrenches or a fishhook that attack you throughout the game.

I’m excited to start putting more of my energy into cosplay! It makes me look forward to future conventions because I will have a new cosplay ready to go.

Jessica Jones at Twin Cities Con

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I finally made it to my first convention of the year! I try to make it to a few conventions every year, but I quickly realized that my schedule was packed. I had Twin Cities Con on my radar for this year, and I was happy to have been able to attend on Friday. I tabled at the Twin Cities Geek booth, which is the online magazine I write for. Twin Cities Con was one of the most organized conventions I have ever been to, especially since this is only the second year for the convention.

Image is a photo of me standing in front of a booth. To my right is a big banner that says Twin Cities Geek. The poster is a magenta, purple, and black poster. The banner reads: Twin Cities Geek www.TwinCitiesGeek.com Minnesota's Geek Culture Magazine by MN Geeks, For MN Geeks. Geek News Coverage of local events & topics important to you. Community Calendar Find out what's going on! FREE event submissions! Below the banner, there's a table with lollipops, and various cards and items with the Twin Cities Geek logo on them. I'm wearing a black mask and I'm wearing a black faux leather jacket, white t-shirt, and jeans.

Before Twin Cities Con, several bigger conventions tried to move into the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. However, these conventions were focused on profit and drove away the local community. Each convention never stayed longer than two years. With Twin Cities Con, there was more partnership with the community. One of the runners of Twin Cities Con talked to the local cosplay community to get a gauge for what weekends Twin Cities Con would work for everyone. With Twin Cities Con happening every November, it doesn’t run into some of the local conventions in the summer. There was a lot of thought put into this convention.

Image is a selfie of me. My lips are together and I'm holding my left hand up in a fist. I'm wearing a black glove.

As far as cosplay, I always wait till the last minute. I went through all of my previous Halloween costumes and ended up settling on a Jessica Jones cosplay. I already had the leather jacket, the light jeans, and the combat boots. All I needed were the black gloves and the white t-shirt, which I found at Target the night before. It was such a quick cosplay, and I did get recognized, which is always fun. I wish I had thought more about what I wanted to cosplay as. I have an orange wig sitting in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear yet.

Twin Cities Con was a blast to attend. I’m excited to see this convention grow. Minneapolis and Saint Paul need a bigger convention similar to C2E2 in Chicago, and I think Twin Cities Con can get there.

Pirate Spotted at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival

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The last time I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival was in 2019 or pre-pandemic. I was planning to attend in 2021, but wedding plans quickly booked my weekends. I wanted to make it a priority to attend this year. I’m so glad I was able to go.

Normally, we always drive to Ren Fest, but this year we decided to take the bus. There’s a bus that will do drop-offs at the entrance. It’s well known that Ren Fest has extremely long wait times to get into the fairgrounds. By long, I mean you could easily be waiting 2+ hours to park a car. Once I found out the bus was an option, I kick myself as to why I didn’t do this years ago. It was so slick. There were times that the bus had to wait, but once we got closer, there was a bus line created, so we could bypass a lot of the car lines. I think it took 20-30 minutes to get there versus hours waiting in a car.

In previous years, we tried to go towards the middle of September as it’s supposed to be cooler. However, the weekend we went, it was 80 degrees! It was nice not being cold, but it messed with the tradition. I used to always order soup in a bread bowl, but it was too hot. I opted for potato skins, chicken fajita, and a chicken wrap for dinner. I did stick with the apple cider float, which I still love. It’s the perfect fall beverage.

Image is a photo of me sitting on a bench. I'm wearing all red and dressed like a pirate. I have tall black boots, a wide red hat and a red pirate jacket. Next to me is a skeleton. Above the bench is a sign for Lavigne Leather.

This year, I decided to wear a full costume! I decided to go with a pirate look. I rented my costume from Royal Fashions Costume Emporium, which I have been doing since 2018, except I would always rent for a convention and not for Ren Fest. Renting a costume is great because it’s cheap and I don’t have to store it anywhere. It was a little bit hot, so I ended up not wearing my red pirate jacket as I really didn’t want to overheat. Wearing a costume for the Ren Fest is so fun, and I plan on doing this every year going forward.

We spent six full hours at Ren Fest, which included seeing two live shows, shopping, and walking around. I missed going to Ren Fest, so I’m happy that I was able to go this year.

Image is a selfie of me wearing a red pirate hat and I'm wearing a black long sleeve blouse shirt.

Incorporating Wigs into Cosplay

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I started cosplaying in 2013 when I attended my first convention. My friend and I thrifted overalls for a Mario & Luigi cosplay. My interest in cosplay developed since then as I have cosplayed Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, the Punisher, and a variety of other characters. I set two personal rules for cosplay. The first rule I had was to wear comfortable shoes. I have no problems wearing heels for a nice dinner where I know I won’t have to walk too far. At a convention, I know I’ll be walking everywhere, so I will not wear uncomfortable shoes and be miserable the entire time I’m there. The second rule was to never wear wigs. I figured wigs were itchy, and I didn’t want to be uncomfortable. Recently, I started wearing wigs for certain events, and I realized I was wrong. I wasn’t itchy, and I loved how wearing a wig elevated my cosplay. I wanted to talk about my experience with wigs.

Image is a photo of me smiling at the camera. I look like I'm at work. I'm dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland. I have a blonde wig, the blue and white dress and a black bow headband.

My first experience wearing a wig was for a friend’s birthday party. She was hosting a color party where each person was assigned a color and had to wear that entire color. I told my friend to give me the color no one wanted because I wanted a challenge. The color I was assigned was orange. I ended up finding a short orange bob wig on Amazon and paired that with orange tights, an orange crop top, and orange shorts. Included in my wig were various wig caps to ensure that my hair was put up and out of the way. The wig I bought fits my head perfectly. Unfortunately, I ended up throwing the wig out because I think someone spilled a drink on it. It smelled like booze and sweat, and it was clear some of the hair fell out through the night.

Image is a photo of me wearing a long blond wig. I'm wearing a sky blue dress lined with gold and a gold lacey cardigan.

Besides the orange wig, I ended up renting Halloween costumes this year since I didn’t have time to plan out my costumes. I used Royal Fashions Costume Emporium to portray both Alice in Wonderland and Daenerys. Both costumes utilized the same blonde wig. Similar to my orange wig experience, I loved this wig. I felt sassier portraying Daenerys, and part of the reason the look came together was because of the wig. The more I incorporated wigs into my cosplay or costuming, the more I became a part of that character. I slowly started to realize how wrong I was about wigs.

For my future cosplays, I plan to incorporate wigs in the future. I have a long orange wig hanging near my closet that I still have to use. I want to make a Keyleth cosplay from Critical Role or use it for a future Starfire cosplay. I’m excited to start incorporating wigs into my cosplays!

How Cosplay Improved The Relationship With My Body

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Image is a photo of a Bane cosplayer and a Harley Quinn cosplayer in a hallway of a hotel. Bane has his full mask on from The Dark Knight Rises and Harley is sticking her tongue out at the camera.

I was telling a couple of coworkers about Gen Con. One coworker made a comment asking, why do you cosplay? She doesn’t know enough about cosplay to know why someone would want to dress up as a fictional character and parade around a convention hall. It’s a legitimate question especially because she had never heard of the term cosplay before. I thought about my answer and this made me want to devote a whole post as to not only why I cosplay, but how it improved my self esteem.

When I was in middle school, I was increasingly aware of how much I hated my body. When I say hate I meant I truly despised the way I looked in the mirror. I didn’t feel confident when I would wear shorts or a swimsuit. I didn’t know if I would ever come to appreciate my body the way it is.

When I graduated from high school, my confidence started to blossom, but I had a long way to go to address how I felt about my body. When I went to my first CONvergence back in 2013 was when I cosplayed for the first time. Me and a friend cosplayed as Mario & Luigi. It was a simple cosplay I purchased from Ragstock. However, once I put it on, I felt cute and could walk around and do what I pleased. I received some warmhearted compliments on my cosplay. Once CONvergence was over, I knew I wanted to do more with cosplay and challenge myself to take on other characters.

Image is a photo of me as Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales. We both are doing the classic spider-man pose with our hands.

The more I cosplayed, the more my confident I became. There were cosplays that were more revealing than others. What empowered me though was the control I had to show what I wanted on my terms. It was my body and I could conceal or reveal it if I chose to. This conscious choice I made is what has allowed me to fall in love with myself and the way I am. Additionally, cosplay exposed me to other body types and seeing other people rocking what they have, creates this open and accepting environment. 

I owe a lot to cosplay and how it’s changed my way of thinking. Every time I know I’m attending a convention, my head starts spinning as to potential cosplay options. Once I settle on an idea, I’m determined to pull it off. My relationship with my body is one I will always have to work on and be aware of, but I’m at a much better place mentally and all it took was to dress up as Harley Quinn.