Lady Mario, ready to save the Mushroom Kingdom :)
Photos are courtesy of X-Geek and Nude Carbon Studios.
Got some fun pictures from Anime Detour in my Mario dress :) Thanks to Makio’s Place for the pictures, the wifey for bringing my Mario sketch to life, and Anime Detour for being a ridiculously fun weekend <3
This Tiana that I met was so amazing! Not just because of her cosplay, but she had the character nailed! She was so nice, and that smile was so perfect! I had to get a picture with her (also I love how Yoshi is totally looking up at Naveen) The best part was that you could just tell that she loved her cosplay, even when I saw her from a distance I could tell that she really loved the character and was enjoying portraying her, not just for all of us to gush over, but for herself, and there’s no better feeling, when it comes to cosplay, than enjoying yourself.
If anyone knows who she is please let me know so I can credit her properly :)
I haven’t updated in a while because it’s been convention madness, but Anime Detour is tomorrow and I’ll be there this weekend! I’ll be Mario on Friday, Wonder Woman on Saturday, and Sunday is up in the air. A few notes:
1. We’ll have a table in Artist Alley <3 We’ll have our books, pre-orders for the re-release of “Seeking the Storyteller” with pre-order bonuses, and plenty of fun, new crafts (table pic is from Kitsune Kon last weekend, but it shows some stuff we’ll have)
2. "Love Your Cosplay Body" will be Friday @ 5 pm in Plaza 2, which is my panel all about loving yourself and how it’s important to your cosplay.
3. "It Gets Better: Anime Detour" will be Saturday @ 1:30 pm in the Grand Ballroom, and I get to be on the panel with some amazing people :)
Hope to see you there!
Growing up, I was one of the weird kids. On top of loving video games, I loved anime, and back then that wasn’t “normal” for a black girl to be into. I was told that I wasn’t “a normal black girl,” to “stop acting white,” and was pretty much told that I wasn’t portraying my race accurately. I was also told that I “wasn’t a real girl” because I played video games. Add the fact that I was overweight and I was just this ball of oddness to people.
I did have friends, friends who I still love dearly today, but they weren’t into this whole anime/video game thing. Still, we were close like sisters, but I didn’t have too many people who could quote “Dragonball Z.” But at the age of 18, when I stepped into that convention hotel, I was suddenly surrounded by like minded people. It wasn’t just one or two people, but hundreds of them, and I suddenly didn’t feel like “the weird black girl.”
My interview with “Twin Cities Geek” celebrating #28DaysOfBlackCosplay.
Thanks so much to everyone who celebrated #28DaysOfBlackCosplay and thanks for letting me be a part of it. This movement has really shown that cosplay is something that all of us can take part in, and more importantly, it showed that there are many of us out there to support one another. To everyone who has ever been told that they’re “wrong” because of how they look or what they’re into, it’s o.k. to be different, and you’re not alone. The month may be ending, but the love and support is going to continue for the rest of the year and years to come.
So I was listening to the Black Girl Nerds podcast last night, and they had PNW Fattitude as guests. The podcast was amazing to listen to as they covered plus sized cosplay and were all very encouraging. One thing that stuck out to me was the message of “making your cosplay your own.”
A lot of times, plus sized cosplayers think they can’t do certain characters because of their weight. I’m guilty of this. I’m guilty of having this voice in my head that tells me, “No, Bri, you can’t.” As confident as I am, I still have the voice of the fat, weird, black girl who was told that she was strange for being a geek. She’s still there, you know?
But the ladies on the podcast had this awesome message on how, essentially, you should cosplay how you want to cosplay, and do characters the way you want to do them.
Make the cosplay your own.
And it’s something that I tell myself when that voice pops up in my head. When I have that moment of insecurity, I quietly tell myself that it’ll be fine, that I’m having fun, that this is my take on a character and I’m going to rock it.
So here’s some examples of me doing just that :) I started to sketch designs for characters I wanted to do, and my wifey would bring them to life. This is in order of oldest (my Green Hill Zone dress) to newest (my Mario dress).
And remember, always remember, that to love your cosplay is to love yourself :)
New cosplay done!!!
So I sketched an idea for a Mario dress and the wifey brought it to life. I’m so excited with how it came out <3
