AX 2006 Costumes!

[furtech]

There was a poochload of costumes at the Anime Expo. There was no end to the parade of Incredibly Hot Girls In Skimpy Costumes and Bisho-guys. Incredible craftsmanship. But...because I have weird hobbies, I only have pics of big fuzzy monster costumes. I got damage.


Here's a group being interviewed. As expected, the press had a field day. Fortunately, they tend to focus on the pretty girls in the skimpy outfits rather than the freakish more unique costumers. This can be frustrating for other cons: once the press finds a focus, that's the reputation that con will have forever. SF fans=geeks; furries=freaks; LARP=sad. In anime fandom's case, this works in their favor, as the cons are portrayed as just a lot of fun.

In the dealer's room, there was a huge line: I found out that they were waiting to me a pair of J-Rock idols . J-Rockers have huge, scary fangroups. I'm surprised to find that the same mindset can be found here in the US-- though it could be part of the "trying to be MORE Japanese than the Japanese" mindset of some anime fans. It's ironic that by imitating the Japanese fans in ultra-fanatic, screaming, berserker glomping -- that they are kind of imitating the Japanese who are imitating the Americans who are...etc. Crazy.

In my wanderings I came across a fellow creature-cosplayer , hoshikage! She has corrupted convinced another cosplayer that playing creatures is fun! It doesn't hurt that she won a craftsmanship award in the masquerade!

This guy had a REALLLY BIG SWORD!

Okay, so this does count as a (visible) pretty girl, even if she's in a monster costume.


Here is a very fuzzy Red 13

Sentai! This is a very cool costume! He's playing a villain from Gaoranger-- the Japanese version of Power Rangers. Very nice job! All craft foam as far as I can tell. Nicely on-model. Too bad neither he nor his friend spoke much English or I'd have dragged them to the Sentai gathering on Tuesday. I think they were from South America.

Here's a very nice Vampire Hunter D.

Cool idea of the con: Someone made a giant MUSUBI costume! The cool idea is that they used those packing peanuts to simulate giant grains of sticky rice! Gotta use that for -something-!

I'm not sure what the giant orange cat is. He looked like Bill The Cat, but I was informed that he's a thingie from Final Fantasy. He was hanging with a Moogle, so that makes sense. Kind of neat in a skanky orange cat way.

There were a bunch of costumes that I thought were really cool, but I had -no idea- what they are or what show (if any) they are from:

So sleek and cool, but no idea what he/she/it is. They were with the bad guys in the Kingdom Hearts gathering, tho'.

Totally tribal and cool, but I have no clue at all what it's from. There were two of them, the other was more animal-like but still colored and decorated in the same theme.

Another colorful character with pointy things and lots of buckles that looked cool. No idea.

These two win the WTF-but-cool costumes. They were always in motion, all a-wiggle and wavy.


Next: "My Costume Was GARBAGE!"

Comments

[was1.livejournal.com]

The costumes look fun, and thanks for the fan service of the girl in the Felicia costume ;)

It's amusing that the cute-girl factor helps the press representation of the fandom. We could use more of both in furry.

In a related note, I'm talking to someone new from eHarmony. She seems interesting enough to start exposing her to more of my odd hobbies, so I showed her my photo page. She saw the photos of furry cons and after reading up on the fandom said she was kind of taken aback by it. She did ask me for my take on and why I was interested in it, so I don't know if she's completely scared off. Still it's another reminder of having weird hobbies and how it makes it harder to meet up with people from the outside :P

[furtech.livejournal.com]

The Felicia was um...very well done. Very. Not as keen as YaYa's, but still right up there in the top two!

There's nothing like giggling cute girls to get you good press.

*Aggh!* Mistake! Don't show them stuff like that so soon! If they're not already fans (diehard-go-to-cons-fans), wait until Waaaaay later to show/tell them stuff like this. I've actually had a couple of professionals tell me not to be so open so early. Hell, *I* freak out at some of the things at these cons (and it isn't difficult to find the stuff online!). Get to know each other first! Then mention that you go to "science fiction" or "comic" conventions once in a while. If that doesn't freak her out, THEN slowly introduce her in tame amounts. Seriously.

The assumption on their part is, "If the tip of the iceberg is THIS freaky this EARLY, there must be a MOUNTAIN of weird under the water." Establish a relationship on how functional you are first!

[was1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it, since the photos are all tame, but there is mention of the fandom and there are photos of costumes. We'd been talking for awhile, and I'd moved slowly. I'd mentioned to going to cartooning/animation con in Toronto and she found the C-ACE page and asked me if that was the one, so that had seemed okay. I can understand holding back with discretion at first, but at some point it feels like you're hiding something.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

It's not so much avoiding it as just not mentioning that activity. You can probably think of a dozen things you like to do that didn't come up in those first conversations. Like that.

If a potential match mentioned (in their profile or in conversation) being into, say, "pilates" or "Kundalini yoga" I would be googling those words before the pixels finished brightening on the screen. You can bet she was doing the same. Just type, "furry" on Google Images and see what comes up (literally). Imagine her surprise!

You're a very well-rounded guy: let her get to know you first before breaking out the weird. You have plenty of activities (hiking, films, restaurants, etc. as well as intelligent views on current events) that you can use.