2016.

Actually its been ages!

I haven't actually blogged since almost 2 years now! Did anyone miss me? haha
Should really continue off with my Sydney Adventures but honestly with my old photos which is somewhere stored in my backup drive and its super hard to recall memories from way back so I will start this anew!


Since February 2014, I have been....

Cosplaying.

Near the end of 2013, something hit me, something which I never thought of but it wasn't long before I realised it.

My high school friends and I were no longer as close nor were we actively seeing each other. It has come to a time where people branched out to their own interests and careers and here I was sitting at home, like a potato.

I was never one to go out clubbing and drinking, nor was I someone who constantly stuck with one person so it wasn't hard to just lose track of things and wonder into my own world where I would, work, game, hang out with the bf, uni and repeat. Mind you, it was definitely not a bad thing, but I felt that I needed to have something I could dedicate myself to and something to call my own. Luckily for me it was also that year in 2013 that I wanted to try and meet new people in uni and in doing so met an outspoken girl Jeer Photography :3 and it was her who finally pushed me into cosplaying. 

Long story short, she began photography and started to go into cosplay photography and met a whole horde of new people and once I met her, she kept showing me and teasing me with all these amazing people that 'dress up' as characters they like and with their photographers create photos of art. 

Not just regular photos you normally quickly snap around but gorgeous works of art. Every inch in the photos are precisely placed in order to convey the messages from both the photographers and their cosplayer's. Every bit that is edited turns ordinary to extraordinary, like modelling shoots and campaigns but rather than the photographers taking sole charge, it is a team work of both the subject and photographer working in unison. It sounds all over the top but trust me, its been almost 2 years since Ive started, Ive worked on shoots that can last 12 hours straight, been to conventions where you practically don't have time to eat, only posing and sitting down before another photo is taken, and have worked day and night to get costumes ready for the day. Cosplay is hard work. But it is a super rewarding hobby. 

My cosplay journey began soon after I bought the Lacus Clyne costume from Milanoo~ 

Took me a week to remodel two jackets into one for my first ever Hinata (Naruto) photoshoot with Jeer Photography (around jan-feb 2014)

First Cosplay Photoshoot~ Jeer Photography

It was straight after that I realised how fun a cosplay photoshoot was and how I really want to attend a convention now to see those amazing cosplayer's Jeer Photography kept telling me about~ it then lead to this

Supanova 2014, I got sucked into FF13, Serah Farron caught my eyes and I really wanted to make her style and steel outfit. It was casual looking but cool at the same time! As someone who had no sewing skills other than making garbage bag tops for my barbies, it was a huge challenge but ultimately it paid off. I posted a selfie and progress photos onto the Melbourne Cosplay Community and caught the eyes of MaxLy Photography!

It was honestly one of the most nerv racking but at the same time feeling like I've won the lottery when he asked me if I wanted to do a mini photoshoot during the convention!
Not only was I just a newbie, but to be asked by a complete stranger who noticed and liked my work was just overwhelming nice, I managed to drag the bf along and came Supanova, came my first ever convention photoshoot.

After receiving these photos I was just simply over the moon at how nice Max made me look! But it also caught my attention on one thing which may seem very vain but it is definitely a good motivator. During the shoot, Max had a hard time trying to get me to pose my facial expressions better, and as I normally take selfies it was something I never took notice until then, although it was hard I tried my best to convey a certain feeling through. Added I noticed my weight and size is not what I liked to see on camera, I didn't want to have to edit alot for my body and therefore realised in order to look better on camera, I needed to change my eating habits! I needed to be healthier!

Cosplay did something to me, it made me want to improve myself as a person and this was something I've never had before.

Cosplay also opened me up to so many connections I would never honestly could dream of! As someone who was tiny in height but super vain, I knew no photographers would want me to be their model but through cosplay Ive met so many wonderful photographers who take everything I can offer and use it to produce something we can both be proud of! 

I have met people who I can hang out, outside of cosplaying, people from all walks of life and on top of it we can all meet up to enjoy something we love <3

I ramble alot when I get passionate about something haha,

Photos speak louder than words so I'll let these photos do the talking~ Most I will put in chronological order and which convention they are from :3 it is only a snippet of the photoshoots Ive done, rest can be found through my Facebook page:
KayE Cosplay
and my worldcosplay account
KayE

Meowstic #678 Pokemon Gijinka

 Below is my Q. girls <3 It started with my dear Pixie who asked me to join a group cosplay for the girls from Love Live! School idol Project, they already had a few members and I was one of the last to join. As I didn't know the anime nor the characters I was happy to just be in a group so I took which ever character was given to me which ended up being Hanayo Koizumi. This lead to my obsession with wanting to cosplay all the girls! Haha

This group also took me to places and made me take chances I would only have previously dreamed of~ going interstate for a convention, performing to audiences and meeting our idols <3 I adore these girls and just like in the anime, no matter what life leads us to, we will always be able to look back and realise we achieved something great, together as Q.

My Q girls <3

Rin/Hanayo/Maki <3

Idols Idols Idols! It was almost half a year since I started cosplaying when I met my girls and we went to SMASH sydney in hopes of meeting our cosplay idol Reika. I only knew of a few popular cosplayers and she was one of those few I admired dearly, to meet her in person, to speak with her and be with her was just amazing. Words cannot describe it, I still remember that August day in 2014 as if it was yesterday!!

We met Reika, performed for her and was on her twitter <3 Photography by Jeer.

Q. At Animaga 2014 <3


I will most likely make a huge post dedicated to my Q girls as it'll be a super long story haha (will make it up with tons of photos though :3) 

Remember my Milanoo costume? On 2014 I debut it at Chaos Convention :3

MaxLy Photography

TDP photography

Near the end of 2014 I attended a bigger convention known as PAX, it was a huge gaming convention so I thought to cosplay as Serah Farron FF13-2 ver instead :3 Costume this time was purchased but heavily altered as it didnt fit at all haha the sizing literally looked like a bag on me, it was ridiculously huge~

T.I.P photography

2014 quickly came to a close, you'd think for my first year of cosplaying Id take it easy and relax~

Nope :3 end of year is never an excuse for no shooting haha 

It took awhile but after being convinced by MaxLy, I finally made Tuna (Yuna) FFX. I've still yet to receive the images from MaxLy but luckily for this shoot I had a photographer friend Pierze who came down from Sydney to shoot with me and also Hiryuu photography another friend of mine who also shot that day. It took awhile and we only had literally 15mins of sunset but here are the results <3

Pireze Photography

Pireze photography

Pireze Photography

Hiryuu photography

Hiryuu Photography

Yuna was actually not the last shoot I did in 2014~ Sneaked another one in thanks to Pireze making his way down to Melbourne

So that was pretty much my 2014 haha journey into my adventure of cosplaying :3
If anyones interested you can always keep up dated on my facebook page

KayE Cosplay <3

Will most likely make the second post about 2015 cosplay adventures! Hope I wont bore anyone but to me, this is an exciting adventure and I am super happy I finally got into it and cannot wait to see what my future holds!


xoxo
Melbmissmisc

Cosplay~

Always been a huge fan of anime and cosplay, but never really had the time/funds/guts to do cosplay myself.

It honestly wasn't until my Hanami Day trip which rekindled my love for dressing up and not to mention how much easier and fun it was to take photos of myself whilst parading as someone/thing else! 

Every time I go out, I get all prettied up etc like outfit/makeup/accessories, so honestly cosplay is no different, however instead of playing the role of myself, I am immersed in the role of being an anime fictional character hehe

With my rekindled love and added with my impulsive-ness personality, I immediately started to search all the cosplay stores out there....

starting with "CHEAP COSPLAY" as my google search (｡･ω･｡)

The best and probably cheapest site I found is Milanoo which offers discounts and various what nots during different seasons :D currently they have discount on total price until 29/9/2013 so if you want to order, better do it fast!

I found various outfits from them which are uber tempting to buy like TONS of Naruto cosplay and Final Fantasy ones!

They are having a sale on this outfit 50% discount which brings it down to only $17.80 AUSD which makes it even cheaper on USD

$40.07 to be Ino! You know you wanna!

Obviously the popularity of the characters has an impact on the costs. The more popular it is, the better quality material they will use as people will compare as they've seen so many good bad and ugly types of cosplay.

One thing I love about Milanno is how non-shiny their fabrics look! One thing I hate about cheapo cosplay is that the manufacturers just think because it is cosplay or a costume, they dont have to use normal material and we the consumers end up wearing shiny ass fake looking stuff.

Back then cosplay weren't so popular hence prices were waaay higher and to get only crappy stuff? NTY (no thank you)  But with Milanno, they seem to have hit the spot by supplying cosplay/costumes which look like real outfits :D

As I am writing this, I am dying of anticipation and so excited about my soon to be purchase from them haha

Here are just more cosplay they offer:

Be Vincent for the low low price of $102.41 AUSD

Or the pretty Rinoa for $77.92

For $95 you can be the awesome sexy Cloudo Kun

Serah costume only $38.95 thanks to their current discount promo :D

Other than cosplay costumes they also have wigs which are done very nicely and all have pretty good reviews

This one is probably one of their higher end types of wigs so it is costly around $50.08 but I think its worth it. Looks amazing here lol

Not to drag on and on about what they offer, here is what I WILL BE GETTING

Lacus Clyne!

Hehe yepyep I wanna be cosplaying Lacus! Why? Because its pretty and its pink LOL, added the cost is only $57.88 which imho is dirt cheap! I'll be adding the extra charge for it to be custom made also :D So totalling to around $81 AUSD

This will be my first time every purchasing cosplay and through a site I have never bought anything from lol so it is a huge as gamble but its just once off so I guess I will have to try to see

There are some very bad press about Milanno especially from the current community of cosplayers I asked, however many have either got other peoples opinions or through what reviews have said dated 2 years back, so I am hoping things will be different now :)

I suppose with anything, there will always be hit and miss so that is a given, and unless I try I cant really just go by what others told me, especially when they purchase another type of cosplay and not this particular one (crosses fingers)

In terms of the wigs, I will buy from ebay as it is cheaper and white boots I can purchase anytime from a retail store so thats no biggie.

Absolutely cannot wait for it to arrive. Total estimated time is 21 days maximum so from now it'll mean hopefully it'll arrive 19/10/2013! Just before my Sydney trip and before Armageddon which I still dunno whether to go or not haha depends if I am broke or not to purchase the tickets I guess :3

-begin rant- 

PS: Alot of people have been telling me I get what I paid for with cosplay which is sometimes correct, however I have to rant that even IF I were to spend $200 on a cosplay, unless they use some damn unbreakable fabric, all fabric will wear and tear so yes rich bums go ahead and spend a ton of money on it, but it doesn't hurt to bargain hunt from time to time and try out cheaper alternatives rather than stick with the majority and going by what others say.

Added I rocked a $30 cosplay kimono on Hanami Day without ANYONE ever coming up to me and saying my outfit was shiit or crappy. Infact I had tons of people wanting to take photos because I looked really nice and my kimono was beautiful, sometimes the cost of the outfit doesn't show through, it is HOW you wear it and HOW you present yourself confidently which makes all the difference. 

-end rant

Heres the photos of me with my $30 Kimono <3

Didn't even iron it :( didn't have time haha

Take care and until next time!

xoxo M3