How was your 2018? I’m looking forward to 2019!

Outside of cosplay my life pretty much fell to bits this year, which in turn impacted my enthusiasm and productivity. But that’s how life goes isn’t it? The optimist in me thinks, “it wouldn’t be interesting if things went smoothly all the time!”, while the cynic thinks.. well, stuff I’d rather not repeat here. Hah!

Despite a rocky year, here are some of my cosplay highlights!

Events

I attended less events than I usually do. I appeared at Anime Go! and Rai-Con Spring as a guest and attended EXP-0, SunnyCon and AmeCon for the fun of it!

Anime Go!, a lovely local library event reached its third year running! There were some hiccups behind the scenes, but it was a great success as always. Right now it’s unclear whether it will be running in 2019, but I’m hopeful it will return!

SunnyCon runs very close to home so I pop by every year. Despite some of my previous comments, it’s a great event and I always look forward to it! This year I entered their Masters Competition and won 1st Place – I’ve competed internationally and won different qualifiers before, but SunnyCon was the first time I’d actually won 1st Place overall in a competition which was pretty awesome!

AmeCon was my designated “enjoy yourself” convention. No big stressful commitments, just a nice weekend to kick back with friends! I did a shoot with Emzone Photography on Friday as Eleanor, but that’s about as serious as it got.

I turned down most guest spots I was offered this year. Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love being a guest and judge, it’s a huge compliment to be asked and it’s the reason I attend most events – but this year, at times so much was stacked against me (scheduling, short notice, distance, finances..), it became impossible to commit. I’m aiming to get back into the swing of things soon!

Cosplay

I didn’t make many new costumes this year; most of my efforts went into upgrading older costumes this time! Sometimes it’s better to take an older project and work on polishing the bits you didn’t like to get a better result than to churn out new things for the sake of it, to be disappointed.

I wore Elize to EXP-0 locally and won a Judge’s Choice award in their contest! It was a really nice gaming-centric event at a local university, I hope it returns next year.

Prince Sakura was revamped to wear with PopcornKuma as Princess Syaoran for a long overdue photo shoot.. we made these in 2016 and didn’t have any photos together! I redid most of the hat (at least.. as best as I could with limited materials), repainted the sword and adjusted some of the fitting on the costume.

Eleanor was pretty much entirely remade, the only original piece left is the jacket! I got most of her ready in time for Anime Go, then finished her props and boots in time for SunnyCon ready for the contest. All that hard work paid off!

I only made two brand new costumes this year: Mikuru Asahina and Charles Boyle (Brooklyn 99). Both of which were made specifically to party and get drunk in! Even though it was a silly project, I’m really proud of how Mikuru turned out and I hope to wear her a lot more in future!

This year I also had a huge clear out of some of my older costumes and wigs that I hadn’t worn in years. I normally hold on to things because I’m very sentimental, but I’m happy that so many costumes I have neglected now have a new lease of life with people who will actually wear them once in a while! It’s nice to have extra space, too!

Because I attended less events, I had less pressure to make things if they were unlikely to be worn. I usually spend so much time stressing over details, deadlines and commitments, it was nice to take a step back for a while.

2019

Who knows what 2019 will bring? I have a lot of unfinished projects from this year that will hopefully be completed, and a few new ones in planning too. In the UK there is no “big summer convention” in 2019, so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what events I’ll be attending next year. Only time will tell!

In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful holiday and an excellent 2019!

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