Cosplay World

It all begins with a dream!

The world of Cosplay is such a wonderful place to be in. Everyone has such an understanding of one another. It's a safe place for everyone to be what they want to be with absolutely no judgement or care. Men can put on dresses and call themselves sailor scouts and women can put themselves in large machine like monsters and no one cares! Talk about the world we should all be living in!

Cosplay Meet and Greet 2018

Summer of 2018 after Megacon I put together a Cosplay meet and greet for cosplayers of all sorts! At first, I didn't think anyone would actually go but in reality, I sold ALL of my slots within the very first two hours of setting the date and location! It was incredible! The first session was slated for 10:00AM and the last one was set at 5:30PM. Mind you, originally I did plan on giving myself some breaks throughout the day to keep myself from overdoing it but naturally I just kept booking people! Sooooo I worked the entire way through one cosplay session after another. 15 sessions in total! What an amazing day! It was so overwhelmingly great to meet so many different people with so many different artistic styles

Most Cosplayers, not all, create their costumes from scratch. They sew every stitch themselves. Naturally, no cosplay would look the same.

Others, like myself, would find pieces of their cosplay on different websites then put it together that way. Some even buy their entire cosplay online as is. Cosplay is cosplay is cosplay, whether you make the outfit yourself or someone else did. (Just credit your artist)

This cosplay event was to get me prepped for what would be my very first convention as a vendor! See below for my first Lumicon Convention experience.

Lumicon 2018

I MADE IT GUYS!!!

Day one: My boyfriend and I left Gainesville bright and early on the Friday morning of Lumicon's opening day. We were both groggy but super excited, for different reasons. He was excited to see me taking this step in my business to grow and expand into the world of Cosplay and I was just excited that I was going to be a vendor for the first time and that I was going to be surrounded by people who spoke my language. The geek language!

It wasn't until we arrived did the nerves set in and I started realizing that I had spent a lot of money to attend a convention when no one knew who I was! Would I have any photo sessions the entire weekend? Would my artwork be good enough to stand out? What if no one came to my booth at all?!?!? AHHHHH!

Thankfully my boyfriend had my hand and my back the entire weekend, as did one of my best friends who came down that Saturday and Sunday to help out. Mind you, he had been fighting this awful cold for days leading up to the convention. Talk about being a trouper!

The first heart attack happened the moment after getting to the booth. We couldn't get my backdrop to work!!!! Oh my gosh let's just pack up and go home! I'm clearly not supposed to be here! Again, my boyfriend was there to pick up my crumbling pieces and soon we had our brains working together and the backdrop went up! YES!

As the morning went on people slowly started to trinkle in, cosplayers would stop and chat, which was the coolest part! Or so I thought... Tuilo and Miguel found my table and asked for a photo session. OH MY GOSH! Duh, this is why I was here! I had been so caught up in talking with everyone and just being happy to be there that I had forgotten the very point of why I came! Tulio and Miguel started off the session train and we had a blast!

Day two came and boy was I busy! There were so many guests and so many cosplays that one, out of their element, would have been extremely overwhelmed. For it being Lumicon's first year, I was extremely surprised as to how many people were roaming the halls! WAY TO GO LUMICON!

Session after sessions began to roll in. Mu boyfriend and best friend were the lucky ones to stay behind at the booth to sell merchandise, to book more sessions, and to just chat and have a good time! Saturday was so busy that, twice, my boyfriend had to come find me during sessions to let me know that I had more sessions booked ready and waiting for when I finished.

How he managed to find me each time was astonishing as during one session I was completely around the side of the building and up a hill! To this day I'm still not sure how he managed to find me!

7 sessions later and I finally made it back to my booth to sit down for the first time all day! Even my vendor neighbors had taken notice to my absence and were all pleasantly surprised at how well I had been doing. The convention was finally slowing down to where my best friend could get up and look around and my boyfriend could go back up to the room for a nap. I sat at the booth, edited photos, and printed out 8x10 prints for everyone. I even booked two more sessions that completed off the night.

Day three was the slower day, to be expected. I sold some fan art and managed one or two more sessions before we packed everything up, tore down the backdrop and headed home.

I'm happy to say that I went home so happy with how the weekend had gone. I left Lumicon with new connections, new experiences, new memories and better than that I made new friends! I can't wait to attend Lumicon in 2019! I already have tons of new things in mind as far as cosplay goes as well as digital fan art illustrations and commissions! I hope I get to see everyone again!