So I thought I should get around to writing my pixelcon report before kamicon happens and I get too much of a backlog of convention reports. 

So pixelcon is a free gaming convention that was held on January 29th in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  I'm not much of a gamer, but enough of my friends were going and it's free so I decided to carpool with my friend Sam to the con.  I didn't have a lot of time to make any new cosplay for pixelcon, so I pulled out an old cosplay that I've only worn a few times, Millia Rage from Guilty Gear.   I failed to check for all the pieces before the day of the con, so while I was getting dressed I realized I was missing my headband.  Well, I improvised and turned a cheap Naruto headband I had inside out which worked okay.  Sadly, my serious space case fail made me put Sam and myself a little behind schedule, but we made it to the con without missing much.

At least going to this con will help me find kamicon since they're in the exact same building.  I always have a hard time navigating the University of Alabama because all the building look the same to me!  My plan is to just walk around until I find someone to ask where I'm going and it worked for pixelcon.  When we got to the building we still had a hard time finding our way to registration since there were so few signs or people to ask.  Everything was going on upstairs so when we walked in downstairs it looked dead.  Once upstairs though it looked really good for a free, one day con. 

We got our badges in a matter of seconds which was really nice.  Then we glanced over the schedule which seemed nice, but since I'm not a gamer and that was the focus, I didn't really plan on going to anything other than entering the cosplay contest.  My friends and I walked around the main events room which also had the fan tables and some table top gaming in it.  This is always a double-edged sword for cons since it's nice to have a lot of stuff in one open area since then people can watch a main event while doing other stuff, but it gets so loud in there that it's hard to do anything.  I hung out at the sukoshicon fan table for awhile which is always great cause I get so excited talking about our upcoming events!  I'm so pumped for all the sukoshicons this year!!! 

While hanging out with everyone in the main events room, a news camera came around and interviewed a couple of people including me.  I tried really hard not too sound too silly and I totally pimped sukoshicon, but they cut that out of what they showed on tv.  You can see the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N59J9qCVys4 Of course they show me the first time they say geek.  I've so never been a closet geek! 

Then I got drafted by a friend to help out with the con's cosplay panel.  At first I was super intimidated since I thought it'd be just me and her running an impromptu panel, but when we got there I found out it was a Q&A style panel with several other costumers.  The intimidation just changed really though cause some of the other costumers did really impressive stuff like ghost buster backpacks and stuff I have no clue about.  At least I was the only one who seemed to know much about sewing so I had something to bring to the table!  I'm really glad and thankful I got drafted for the panel cause I had a great time.

After the panel, some of my friends and I decided it was lunch time which turned into a huge 3 hour adventure since the original place we were going was closed at the time.  We ended up going to Olive Garden, getting a lot of funny stares, and becoming bffs with our waitress since she's a Japanese major.  Good times! 

When we eventually got back from our adventures, most of the fan tables were packing up so since we didn't have the table to hang out at or too much to do right then, we played King which just consist of people drawing pieces of paper with numbers except for one paper that had a K for King on it.  Then the King tells random numbers things to do.  This resulted in many shenanigans and me breaking my shoe.  Since it was a one day con I totally blanked on bringing a cosplay repair kit so I just dealt with my broken shoe by running around in my socks all night. 

After awhile, it was time for the cosplay contest to start.  We'd all turned in entry forms earlier, but there was no pre-judging so we all just lined up in the main events room a little bit before the contest started.  I was a bit disappointed that there was no pre-judging, but I understand that it's hard to fit in pre-judging at one day cons. 

I put my shoes back on right before going on stage and lucked out that they didn't completely fall apart until after I walked off stage.  They had a little time for skits or whatever, so I just yelled "heaven or hell, let's rock!" and did my best to strike a cool pose without flashing anyone cause I really had no idea of anything to do for Millia Rage.  It apparently worked somewhat though cause I won 3rd place.  I'm so glad I didn't get 2nd though cause the prize was a free ticket to imagicon. 1st, after last year I would never go to that con anyway, and 2nd, just a few days ago they ended up canceling this year's con and moving it next year to Georgia.  I feel so sorry for the 2nd prize winner who was this awesome girl dressed as Mario with huge pipe she was in!  1st went to a really convincing Joker.  His make-up was great.  Congratulations to both of you.  Everyone was really great in the contest!  

After the cosplay contest the con pretty much wrapped up, but the did have closing ceremonies where they gave out a ton of free swag!  I had already gotten a free video game and con shirt from the cosplay contest, but towards the end they just let people grab whatever was left since when they did the drawing a lot of the names they called were of people that had already left.  I ended up getting 2 pokemon tins with some pokemon toys and cards in them and another shirt for Tovar so it was a pretty awesome haul especially for a free con.  Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by this con!

This con was so much fun especially for how crazy busy I was!  I really hope everyone had a great time because I know all of us on staff worked our butts off to put on a great show for you guys.  Tovar (my boyfriend) told me this was the best con he had been to in a very long time and he goes to a lot of cons so I think that's a great sign for sukoshicon!  We did end up having some technical difficulties that gave us grief like the skype session and some projectors messing up, but we tried our best to work around it. If anyone does have any comments or complaints about the con, please comment or send an email to me at [email protected]

So let's start from the beginning.  Even before the con, I'd been working pretty hard putting up flyers and telling everyone who'd listen about this.  The Monday before, Courtney (Sukoshicon staff member & president of UAB anime club) and I went out as cat girls to put out flyers.  I think we got to about 10 places (mostly different game stops) and later in the week we covered UAB too.  We also made a cosplay supplies trip to a thrift store which really motivated me to cosplay Panty at Sukoshicon that weekend.  I had so much trouble getting my 2 Panty cosplays together, but it happened at the last minute since I was so determined and Tovar (my boyfriend) stayed up till 4am to help me.  I really wanted some fun new things to shoot since Mike from emeraldcoastcosplay.com was driving all the way from Destin, FL for Sukoshicon and he had Panty on his list of characters he really wanted to shoot.  It was a great last minute surprise for him!

So, the night before the con, set-up went really well thankfully because I had to run to pick up Tovar from the airport then finish getting all my cosplay and event stuff together.  I'm really so horrible at procrastination!  Tovar was an angel though and painted my gun for me which saved me so much time working on stuff.  We got everything finished around 4am and went to bed planning on waking up at 6am.  Well, that failed and we somehow woke up at 8am freaking out about running late.  So we rushed to get ready and got to the con around 10am right as VIP stuff opened up.  Honestly, I didn't have anything to do till later so I made sure no one needed help and ran off for a mini-photo shoot with Mike.  Even in the freezing cold, I still had way too much fun posing as Panty (red dress)!  To see these photos, check out my Panty red dress costume page or Mike's gallery (you'll have to sing-up on his site).

After helping random stuff for a bit, the VIP (con suite for pre-registered) room opened so I went to watch it until my panel with Michael on cosplay modeling & photography started at 3pm.  I stayed in Panty for awhile in the VIP room, but with me answering the door in that we looked a bit too much like a VIP room at a strip club, so I changed into Ariel (Kiss the Girl dress).  A little before 3pm someone came to take over the VIP room for me so I could run to my panel.  Well, there had been some technical difficulties with the skype guest so that was actually starting at 3 which pushed my panel back 30 minutes.  This was all cool though since my panel was mostly a short power point then just taking pictures of volunteers while giving them posing advice.  We finished the power point right at 4 and went on a photo shoot field trip so the main events room could get back on schedule.

I didn't think the panel itself had been a smash hit, but we had a HUGE crowd follow us out for pictures!  I should have know every cosplayer would jump at the chance for a photo shoot.  Well, even with only taking a few quick photos of everyone and having another photographer show up to help out, it still took about an hour to finish.  My hands were numb by the end of this and I'm sure Mike was freezing too, but we stuck it out and then even got some pictures of my Ariel cosplay before running inside to warm up.  The photos Mike got from this shoot and a few others can be found here.  Photos of my Ariel costume can be found in my Ariel costume gallery and Mike's gallery (you'll have to sing-up on his site).

Now it was really starting to get into busy time.  It was almost time for cosplay contest pre-judging so Trixie (con chair), Stephanie Chateau (owner/producer of Concept Galaxy), and myself ran off to that.  It went really well and I greatly appreciate everyone who entered even though we only had about 15 entries.  We had our little pow-wow to decide all the winners and then it was just about time for the contest at 7pm.  Everything was really going by fast!  Even the contest went by super fast, but I hope everyone had fun participating and watching it.  Though, my boyfriend didn't even watch it!  He got stolen away by Courtney's cooking mama panel.  I always lose him to food!

The cosplay contest award winners:
Yoko's (my) judge's award: Sloth from Full Metal Alchemist
Trixie's judge's award: Rebecca Chambers from Resident Evil/Biohazard
Stephanie's judge's award/Best Character Likeness: Greed from Full Metal Alchemist
Best Technical: Orochimaru from Naruto
Best In Show: Kaito & Akaito from Vocaliod

Thanks again to everyone who entered.  You guys are awesome!  I loved seeing these costumes and it was a lot of fun joking around during the contest especially picking on Seth who entered as a walk-on only to mess with the people who entered only because he wasn't entering. 

After the contest was my second panel, Iron Cosplay which sadly had to compete with Rock Band so I was surprised that I still got 2 teams to compete.  The costumes they made in about 45 minutes were really impressive and I'm glad everyone seemed to have fun.  I'm hoping to do this panel again at future sukoshicons so I hope to see more people enter it in the future when it hopefully isn't competing with a major event. 

Now that all my panels were done and the VIP room had closed, I could just chill out for the rest of the night which was fantastic.  Of course, I tried to help wherever I could, but everyone seemed to have it under control.  I switched out of Ariel and into Panty's school uniform.  Even though it was dark outside, I was still hoping to get a photo shoot somehow with Mike.  We decided trying an indoor shoot would be best.  We lucked out that the second panel room was free which had this really pretty bar I wanted pictures at.  We were both a bit scared the lighting would fail, but it actually turned out really well.  It's always so fun doing photo shoots with Mike and Tovar even helped with some posing ideas!  To see these photos check out my Panty school uniform page or Mike's gallery (you'll have to sing-up on his site).

I had already missed a good bit of the rave with all the cosplay changes and the photo shoot, but I hurried up and braided my wig so it wouldn't be a hassle before going to shake my booty.  Surprisingly, Tovar was really excited about this rave so I got to actually dance with him at a rave for more than just a few minutes for the first time ever!  He's such a great dancer and we had the best time at this rave even though it felt like it was over way too soon.  A great time always does end too soon though.  Thankfully, I didn't have much break down so I was done pretty quick and ready to leave.  Though we still didn't end up leaving till almost 2 so I was super tired driving home.

I've been toying around with getting my own little website to put up all my costumes on for awhile so everything would be in one place, but I kept putting it off.  So, now that godaddy is running discounts for domain names for about $2 my boyfriend went ahead and bought my domain name as an early Christmas present.  Thanks love!

It's the perfect time to start up my website since my last final is today and it'll be awhile before anymore conventions.  I need something to keep me busy for the next couple of weeks before the next semester starts.  So expect a lot of updates within the next few weeks!

So what kind of updates?  Well, I'll be making a page with all of my costumes, pictures of the costumes, and a little description of how and why I made each one.  I'm trying to decide if I should organize them chronologically or into genre sections (anime, comics, sci-fi, ect).  I'll also have a little about me page, convention page (where I'll try to list the cons I've been to, but it'll be hard to remember all the old ones and I'll say if I've helped at any of them), and a couple other part that I'm still trying to figure out.

So that's about it for now.  Keep checking out my sites for many updates!

~Yoko Mizuhara