Honda Tohru & My First Convention-Sakuracon 2002

Costume: Honda Tohru, Fruits Basket
Cons: Sakuracon 2002, A-kon 2002
Pictures: None, sadly.

I cosplayed to my first convention, and a damned good job it was for someone with no access to a sewing machine and too poor to buy much of...anything, really. Hail college! I'm just sad I have no pictures of it and the con was so long ago that any online pictures are long since lost to the interweb.

I decided on Honda Tohru from Fruits Basket. The anime had come out during my freshman year, and it was one of the first series that I watched together with the people who became my best friends in college. It was a good series, and good moments to remember. And Kyou was HAWT let's not forget.

Tohru in her school uniform looks like this:


Now, considering I was a stick-thin 18 year old with waist-length dark brown hair, you can see how this outfit would appeal to me. And actually, making this costume was almost ridiculously easy--but only because I got really lucky at Goodwill.
What I found for the base garments were darker than the source pictures, but when you've found a tennis skirt and blazer the right size and length you just kinda roll with it. They were perfect--except her outfit's got white on it.
This was where one of my good friends who could sew came in. In a stunningly selfless move, she sewed all the white parts out of white fabric by hand and attached them to the blazer just because I asked real nice. Friends are cool.
The blue lines on Tohru's cuffs and whatnot were from the fabric store, I think they're used to bind edges or something but they were the perfect color and length. I think we iron them on.
I got blue ribbon for my hair from Wal-Mart if I recall, and the shoes from Goodwill. Knee-high socks came from my closet.

It was a simple, adorable outfit but it came out great. Only problem was that Fruits Basket was so new, and torrenting so unknown, that almost no one knew who I was! I had maybe 5 or 6 pictures taken, but by then it was too late. I was hooked.

I loved it. Cosplay was like being able to wear a sign that said, "Look how clever I am!" while at the same time advertising for other people with shared interests. Sign me UP.

Moment of Win:
I took this costume to A-kon 2002. I'm from Texas but when to Seattle for college and never came back--except for summers. My parents let me drag them up to Dallas, but I had to get to and from the convention on my own. Fortunately there were shuttles.
After the dance on Saturday night, I tropped back to the shuttle pick-up spot to wait for the one that went to my hotel. I'm still dressed as Tohru, and looked about 12. It's about 11pm.
As I'm sitting there, one of the hotel shuttles--not mine--pulls over. I'm kind of freaked out by this. A man sticks his head out the van's door and calls out, "Are you okay, young lady? Do you have a ride coming?"
I realize he's bought it, hook line and sinker. My first real cosplay.

A cosplayer remembers: The beginning.

Technically, Honda Tohru wasn't first time I cosplayed. In 2001--my freshman year in college (yes, I'm old, shut UP.)--my anime club had a Halloween cosplay contest and I dressed up as Shampoo from Ranma 1/2. My hair was long enough and I faked her hair buns with squares of cloth, scrunchies, and a pair of socks. I wore what I called my 'oriental hooker dress' which was a cheongsam in orange...It wasn't bad, for an afternoon's hectic attempt.
I didn't win though--one of the girls there in addition to being SUPER HOT had a fantastic Mireille from Noir. But it was a start.
It was thinking, "I can do better than this."

Looking back, I guess it was pretty gutsy to prance up to the front of a room of people I barely knew in nothing much and say, 'lookit me!!' but I was pretty impressed with myself at age barely 18.
To be fair, weird outfits and attention-whoring always came pretty natural to me, I just got subtler and better at it as I got older.
I'm going to blame my parents though. They started it. Well no, it may have been me, but they made it so much worse.
It started with skating--roller skating, but the competitive kind. How early '90s is that? Don't answer. Anyway, I wasn't too bad at it so for a good span of years every couple of months I got tarted up in some little sparkly spandex thing and smeared with stage make-up and sent out to have a rink full of people watch me try and hit my loops and axles. I did a mean shoot the duck too.
While the skating scene palled after a while (I wasn't dedicated enough to go state level) I had been stripped of something important--a fear of spandex and looking ridiculous in front of crowds. Have you seen a 7 year old girl in full stage make-up from the '90s? Ooh, tiny hooker, where has your tiny brothell gone?

It's really all downhill from there, I suppose.
~Raiphin

A list of Successes, sometimes for a given definition of "Success."

Here's my cosplay resume, if you will. Descriptions will arrive in reverse order, and pictures where I have them!


First Costume:
Honda Tohru, Fruits Basket (2002, Sakuracon)

Second Costume:
Meroko Yui, Full Moon wo Sagashite (2003/2004, Sakuracon)

Third Costume:
Black Rise, .Hack the game (2004, Sakuracon)

Fourth Costume:
Kaitou Jeanne, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (2005, Sakuracon)

Fifth Costume:
Cardboard Tube Samurai, Penny Arcade (2006, Sakuracon)

Sixth Costume:
Yuuko, XXXHolic (2007, Sakuracon)

Seventh Costume:
Hinamori Amu, Shugo Chara (2007 Kumoricon, 2008 Sakuracon)

Eighth Costume:
Lina Inverse, Slayers NEXT version (2008/2009 Sakuracon, 2008 Kumoricon)

Ninth Costume:
Hinamori Amu blue version, Shugo Chara (2008 Kumoricon, 2009 Sakuracon)

Tenth Costume:
Time Stranger Kyoko, Time Stranger Kyoko (2009 Sakuracon)

Ten costumes....I know it's so many fewer than some people do, but they meant a great deal to me anyway. *sniff*

Good memories, good times.
~Raiphin

Introduction to Surviving Cosplay

I recognise that sometimes what holds my costumes and props together is hope and hot glue.

It is my goal then, that everything I learn though screwing up, breaking things, and getting more burns than seem really necessary can hopefully be of use to someone else and they can skip to the fun part at the end.

I've been cosplaying since 2002, but didn't get really hardcore about it until 2006. The next entry is a list of my costumes, and I'm intending to do little bios about each one and include pictures where I can. After that I'm going to start entries about my upcoming costumes, so that the in depth screwy process of making them come together can be seen. Will there be magic or mayhem?
Both, duh, this is cosplay.

All you can do is prepare for the worst.
And that's why this is my guide to surviving cosplay.

~Raiphin
6/20/09