My obligatory MTAC post…

I spent most of Thursday night running around trying to finish up everything before Friday morning. I had decided that the boots I had purchased for my Celes costume were too tall and went on a fruitless 2.5 hour search through Opry Mills and Cool Springs for mid-calf white boots with a narrow heel. They don’t exist in April. However, Charlotte Russe was having a $4.99 boot sale and I did find some brown boots that I decided to cover with white fabric. So, then I had to make a trip to Joann’s for the fabric. I also went to Target for a few things, then went by the Marriott to pick up our passes for the con. After I got home, I had to cover the boots I had bought, finish painting Ben’s knife for Locke, do laundry, sew Ben’s belt for Locke, pack, and other various little things. I need to teach Ben to sew. I finally went to bed around 2:30 am.

I got up early Friday morning and drove to Clarksville to pick up Sabrina. Then we went back to the apartment, packed up both my car and Ben’s and then were off to Franklin. We arrived and checked into the hotel. The room was ready and on the third floor, right next to the elevator. Perfect. I went with Sabrina to pick up her pass and to get a schedule. Ben and I changed into our Wallmarket costumes and then went back downstairs. We ate lunch at the restaurant in the hotel, Lorraine’s. I had some very yummy chicken, pork roast, and cheesecake.

Wallmarket Aeris and Cloud were a big hit. Everyone seemed really surprised and happy to see cross-dressing Cloud, since it is so rarely done. At 2:00, we went to the Make Your Own Movie panel. We watched a short film on how to get rid of a dead body, which was pretty funny. They explained how to do some different camera angles. It was pretty interesting. After that, we changed costumes into Black Mage and Misa and walked around for a bit. Around 6:30, we decided to make a run to Kroger to get some snacks and soda, and also went to McDonald’s for a bite to eat.

Ben and I got in line to see the Protomen at 8:30. Sabrina didn’t think she could stand up for very long, so she decided to go back to the room. Which turned out to be a great idea, since we waited…..and waited…..and waited…..and waited. After 10:00 passed, we were so fed up with waiting that we left. I have no idea what time the concert actually started, but an hour and a half late is WAY too late.

On Saturday, Sabrina and I got up and went to the con suite for breakfast. I had a yummy egg, cheese, and sausage croissant and a banana. There was supposedly a Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy photoshoot at 1:00, so we went to get Ben up. We put on our Celes and Locke costumes and went downstairs. We found the photoshoot, but it seemed to be exclusively Kingdom Hearts, and we thought we would look a little out of place, so we decided to do something else. We went to the Build Your Own Mecha Workshop, in which four teams were competing to build a mecha out of random scraps of things, like keyboard parts, circuits, aluminum foil, and duct tape. It was pretty interesting to see what each of the teams created.

Then I drove Sabrina back to Clarksville while Ben hung out with Wayne. When I returned, we put our Wallmarket costumes back on and went downstairs to get in line for the cosplay competition. While we were walking past the people who were already in line, everyone broke out in applause for Ben’s costume, hehe.

The competition was pretty good, and the skits (ugggh) didn’t go on too long. At cosplay half-time, they announced the theme of next year’s MTAC: giant monsters (like Godzilla). They also announced that Kaiju Big Battel would be there next year. Ben and I freaked out about that. If you’ve never seen it (it comes on G4 in the mornings sometimes), it basically involves people in very weird costumes fighting. It’s hilarious.

After the cosplay, we hung out with some random people and ate Domino’s. Later, Ben and I went to check out the Random Battle Group. Ben got asked by one of the participants to be a summon (he was in his Black Mage costume again) and he agreed. I got this all on video (which will be up at a later date).

On Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. We ate breakfast in the con suite again (I had generic Froot Loops this time) and then packed. We were planning on going to watch the Ramen Eating Contest, but didn’t make it in time, so we went home after that, since Ben had to be at work and I had to go to Sabrina’s baby shower at 4:00.

It was a pretty good weekend….I definitely can’t wait till next year.

It’s mage love.

I’ve added every picture of us taken that I could find in the cosplay section.

I finally found one of us with the red mage we ran into on Saturday:

We went and saw Silent Hill on Monday night. It was okay. Not the best thing in the world, but decent. I was mainly disappointed in how non-scary it was. I can’t even play the games, they scare me so bad, but I never once felt scared during the movie and only mildly creeped out about once or twice. The direction was pretty good, however. They definitely got the look of the town and camera angles down.

Back from MTAC…let’s see what I can remember…

Friday, I got dressed in my Miwako costume at my parents’ house and then drove up to Franklin with Samantha following me. We got there and found Ben, Chance, and Kris, who had been dropped off by Wayne. We got the hotel room and registration buttons. While the guys were getting into costume, Samantha and I took Lilli down to the Chibi Corner where she colored a nice picture of purple Pikachu. We went to the dealer’s room and I noted the price of Pocky and also that there was an Aeris figure selling for $65. I wish I had money. Lilli fell asleep after that, so we took her back up to the room and hung out. When she finally woke up, she was hungry, so Samantha, Ben, and I all went down to the hotel restaurant to grab a burger. However, Lilli was pretty cranky, so Samantha left after we ate. I wish we could have hung out longer, but I will see her next month!

We all walked around for a bit, going to the gaming room where Ben played Soul Calibur 3 and I gawked at the people playing DDR whose feet were moving impossibly fast. I took a few pictures, as you can see in the gallery, but this was the only day I carried my camera around.

I wore my Miwako costume on Friday because there was an invitation-only Paradise Kiss party happening at midnight that night. I kept getting stopped by other Parakiss cosplayers asking if I had gotten an invitation, as they were supposed to start handing them out after Opening Ceremonies at 6:15. But by 8:00, we still hadn’t received anything. Finally, around 9-10 pm, I received my invitation. Ben went as my guest and my friend Chris somehow showed up. The party wasn’t much, but we did get free sparkling grape juice.

Saturday, I woke up at 9 am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I put on my white mage costume and went downstairs. There was supposedly a cosplay.com photoshoot going on that morning, but I never did find it. However, there was a family taking pictures in front of the atrium fountain. I wondered if they had been warned that there would be a bunch of people in costume roaming around that morning.

I went and bought some Pocky and then went back upstairs to annoy Ben until he woke up, because there was a red mage downstairs and I wanted to get our picture taken with him. The guys all got ready and we went downstairs.

Our mage costumes were insanely popular. We would move five feet, get stopped for 10 photos, move another five feet, 10 more pictures. And they were INSANELY HOT. We had to keep taking breaks from wearing them. It wasn’t so bad at Momocon because it was cool outside, but it was much hotter outside than in this time, so we couldn’t get relief just by stepping out the door.

There was a Final Fantasy photoshoot planned for 5 or 5:30. We hung out by the fountain but no one was showing up. We did see a Yuna and a very pretty Amano Aeris (I wanted a pic of her so bad, but I didn’t have my camera with me!). So we went and sat down and it was in progress when we walked back! So we joined in and everyone took pictures. Most of the people were from Final Fantasy VII, with the exception of us and Yuna.

At 6:00, we got in line for the cosplay contest. I plan on entered these contests at some point, so I like to see who wins to know what I’ll be up against, skill-wise. The guy that was hosting the event may have been the most annoying person in the world, however, and everyone in our group got fed up and left. Except me. I stayed for the whole thing cause I wanted to see who won. You can see the award winners on this site.

After that was the “rave,” but we didn’t go to that. At 11:30, we got in line for Advent Children, hoping that it was the new dubbed version since the voice actor for Vincent, Steve Blum, was introducing it. However, it was the subbed version that we had already seen. I was soooo tired at this point that I kept falling asleep during it. I did stay awake for all the good parts though!

Sunday, we got up and Ben and I put on our Mugen and Fuu costumes. He had to help me tie the obi. I have no idea how anyone does that without help! We checked out of the hotel and went to the Ramen Eating Contest. The winner was a very small 14-year-old girl who somehow downed 13 bowls of ramen noodles! Then we watched some very strange DVD about people who dress in monster costumes and wrestle?? I’m still not sure what that was, but it was pretty funny. We were going to buy more Pocky after that, but the Dealer’s Room was closed, so we ended up just leaving.

Some of the coolest costumes from the weekend were all the Star Wars people roaming around. Stormtroopers, a very tall Chewbacca, and even a remote controlled R2-D2! I got pics of Chewy. I need to find one of R2-D2. He was awesome!

Overall, it was a very fun weekend. Now I need to start preparing for AWA!!

Back from Momocon!

It was a lot of fun. I’ll try to recap.

We got to Atlanta on Saturday around 11:30 am. We went to the hotel and put on our Aeris and Zack costumes. Except Ben’s hair didn’t want to spike and my wig wouldn’t stay on. I went ahead and dropped Ben off at the con so he wouldn’t be late for the Soul Calibur III tournament and then I went back to the hotel to mess with my wig some more. I finally got it tolerable and headed over to Georgia Tech.

It took me forever to get to where Ben was because I had to stop for a picture every 5 seconds, hehe. I just wish my wig looked better from the front (i.e., not showing the front of my hair and the bangs got flat from where I kept trying to pull it forward). I ran into another Aeris, from Kingdom Hearts II, while I was looking for him as well. I finally made it to the tournaments building, and we hung out there. Ben made a good showing in the competition, but ultimately did not win.

After that, we were tired of messing with our costumes (Ben’s shoulder pads kept falling down), so we went back and changed into our mage costumes. After we got back to the convention, we went to see the costume showcase. There were some really cool costumes, unfortunately I didn’t know what half of them were cause I couldn’t really hear. Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, won first place (you can see a picture in the gallery). We hung out for a little while longer, mainly wandering around, before going to the hotel and going to sleep.

The next morning, we donned our mage costumes again and headed back. We went to a panel on voice acting first thing. After that, I bought some Pocky (yummy!), and we went to eat at Arby’s. While we were there, a man came up to me and asked me if I was with the ritual. ???? I guess my white mage costume makes me look like the leader of a cult or something. That was pretty weird.

We hung out in the board game room after that, and learned how to play a game called Spooks. It was a very random card game. Then we went to a panel on prop making that was very interesting. It was led by people who mainly worked on Star Wars costume replicas. After that, we went and played a few more random games, and then decided we should head home.

All in all, it was pretty fun. I didn’t get a chance to get a whole lot of photos, cause it was a bit of a pain to get out my camera in my white mage costume, because it was so big and I didn’t even know where my hands were half the time. But I got a couple and they are in the gallery. I also posted some pictures of our mage costumes in the cosplay section.

With Momocon coming up this weekend, I need to make a list of things to do.

- Sew the sleeves on my white mage robe
- Applique triangles onto robe
- Dye hair
- Buy red and black gloves
- Finish altering Aeris dress
- Sew Velcro onto Aeris jacket
- Spray paint jacket cuffs
- Check staff for chipped paint and do touch-ups
- Help Ben make face mask
- Find green striped pants for Ben
- Style Aeris wig
- Pack!

I don’t get paid until Wednesday, so anything involving money (gloves, pants, hair dye, etc.) has to wait until then. I have hair extensions for my Aeris wig sitting at the DHL place, so as soon as they get delivered I can do that. I’ve already got the millions of triangles cut out (and a nice-sized cut on my finger from my rotary cutter to prove it), but I can’t put them on the robe until I get some Heat’n'Bond, which I need money for as well. So until Wednesday, I need to finish up any sewing (robe, dress, jacket), and I think I still have spraypaint left over, so I can do that stuff as well.

For anyone attending, we will be wearing Zack and Aeris on Saturday and our mage costumes on Sunday. Yeah, it’s apparently a Final Fantasy con for us.

I can’t believe it’s so close! Then as soon as we get back from Momocon, I’ve gotta start working on stuff for MTAC because it’s only about a month away. I’ve got to finish up my Fuu costume (finish painting flowers, style wig, and buy shoes) and make my entire Miwako costume! Luckily, after MTAC, I have a 5 month wait before the next convention (AWA or Dragon*Con if I’m not completely broke), so that will be plenty of time to get Lloyd and Presea done. Ah, the busy life of a cosplayer.