southern-cospitality

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We are once again partnering with Project A-Kon to run this year’s Cosplay Museum! Please follow the link if you would like to make a submission. Keep in mind that you will need to be attending the convention in person to submit a piece. If you have any questions feel free to contact us via any of our social media accounts, and we’ll do our best to get back to you promptly!

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Check out this awesome cross stitch and help out one of our members!

Cross Stitch Clearout - Help Me Help My Friend!

Originally I wanted to sell these for some extra spending money. Then I thought I was going to need to move, so I was going to use the money to pay for a rental van and apartment fees. I’m mildly better off financially now, so I have a more important goal in mind- helping my friend Alex with an important step in his transition. All money after material costs and shipping for anything you buy will be given to my friend’s surgery fund. He has a YouCaring page if you would like to directly donate or see more information: https://www.youcaring.com/alexander-greer-435203

Simply message me with an offer on any of the pieces in this post and we’ll work something out. It’s that easy!

I’m also currently open for commissions, so feel free to message me for new piece inquiries as well!

(Please note that the Frozen piece is a 9x9 shadowbox frame, and so can only be hung on the wall. All of the other pieces can be displayed on the wall or free standing.)

ETA: Young Granny Smith has sold!

ETA#2: Added Riku and Squall.

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(Most of) the fabrics for Sayo Samonji of Touken Ranbu! The faux dupioni is so pretty in person.

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Space Battleship Yamato (Starblazers) cosplay from SDCC in the early 1980s, in honor of Throwback Thursday!

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Progress on Izuminokami and Kasen Kanesada from Touken Ranbu. Mostly progress on Kasen, including the silk painted cape lining and hakama. Sleeve details on Izuminokami are also featured!

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Our dear @buccellati is hard at work on Dazai from Bungou Stray Dogs! Check out these awesome progress photos. We’re so proud of her for making her first coat.

If you’re going to be at A-Kon in Dallas next weekend (June 3-5) be on the lookout for her! Despite being a DFW resident I (BabyBlueFriday) will not be attending due to work obligations, and our other two members are getting some well needed rest after finishing up the semester (also getting started on their Touken Ranbu cosplay). But we are happy to have Nini represent us and hope that she has a wonderful time.

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Souther, the Holy Emperor.

Costume/makeup by me

Photos by The Tentacle Guy

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Ikkicon sure was a wild time. Our next FOR SURE con seems to be San Japan. Any other events between now and then will be dependent on the ever present factors of time and money.

Look forward to Touken Ranbu costumes for San Japan, too! We plan to really pull out all the stops for them, so hopefully you all will enjoy them. Thank you so much for supporting us!

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Ikkicon 2016 Cosplay Contest: JJBA Ob-la-di Ob-la-da

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All of us at Southern Cospitality wants to thank everyone who made it out to the Jojo panel at Ikkicon tonight! We hope y'all had fun, and remember to stay bizarre!

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Ten Cosplay Things I Learned in 2015

Cosplay is more fun and way less stress when you’re making it for the end result and not for a specific convention.

When you’re not making it for a specific convention, it still helps to have a deadline of some sort, so that you don’t get off track.

As long as you can produce a model, 3D printing is easier than it seems and will likely become more widely used in the cosplay community. However, competitions may need to rethink their rules and judges may need to rethink how they evaluate costumes because of it.

Dressing up for movie premiers is always fantastic, especially when people recognize your character. 

If you’re cosplaying with friends, kick their butt in gear. Bleaching their hair in the hotel bathroom because they waited too long to buy a wig is not a fun way to spend the weekend! 

Dressing up with a group of friends is super fun and rewarding, but remember to take at least one photo! 

It’s worth it to take great photos of progress that you are proud of. 

Working at / volunteering for a convention is an entirely different experience and really worth doing at least once! Especially if you’re getting bored of cons.

Cosplay has come so far in terms of available materials and techniques, it’s very easy to feel left behind. However, cosplayers are still making costumes from all sorts of materials and are doing so at all different skill levels, so you’re probably not as behind as you might feel. 

Complimenting other cosplayers is just magical. My friend took the time to compliment and gush over just about every cosplayer that we passed and you could see the impact. Everyone should aim to compliment more often, it opens conversations and gives cons the warm fuzzy feeling of community. 

What are ten cosplay things you learned this year?

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Our schedule for IKKiCON! It's... well, it's just two panels, plus our spot in the cosplay show, but that's plenty of time to hang out, if desired, so see you there!

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SO we've gone through a few back up plans for Ikkicon, cosplay wise, since it's very apparent Sword Boys will not be finished in time. We're putting those on the backburner to focus on some simple, yet fun and good, costumes we can work on. Animal Crossing Gijinkas were briefly considered, but with recent high profile announcements in our pet fandom, we think these will probably be more appropriate, especially given we're hosting the associated panel... (colors, of course, subject to whatever the hell we feel like)

Note from BabyBlueFriday: I will not be attending due to budget and work reasons, but please look forward to some fun from the rest of the SoCos crew!

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look at us being mentioned in the last tweet

“Cosplay is my passion” - @notgojira 

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We already said something about this on Twitter (which you should follow us on, too) but it's something we should say here, too, SO here goes!

Some of you may be wondering, "hey, it's been awhile since you updated on the status of your Touken Ranbu costumes! What's up?" Well the long and short of it is that all of us just... grossly overestimated the amount of free time we have to work on major costume builds. You've heard this story before, you've probably lived it, but it's always something.

In Nini's case, she had a major move to worry about, transitioning between apartments, and all the woes and worries involved therein. derGlitzkrieg is undergoing some of the heaviest semesters of his education right now, building towards transferring to a major university on a costume design tract. Danzikumaru is at a point where he really needs to focus on his audio engineering career, shopping for internships and working on portfolio projects. We are all SUPER SUPER BUSY!

And we want to do these costumes *right*. In the crafting triangle, you have three options. You can get it done quick, you can get it done cheap, and you can get it done well. You can only ever have two of these, and in our case, time is not a commodity we have to spend. So in order to do justice to these designs, and NOT stress ourselves sick like we did with our cancelled WCS entry last year, we've agreed to just work on these when we can.

What does that all mean? Well you might not see these completed by Ikkicon, as originally planned. Will you see them eventually? You're damn right. We have a photoshoot in mind and we think you guys are really gonna love these when they are done. If they're completed in time for Ikkicon, good! Awesome! We have a performance in mind and we hope you enjoy them. If they're not, we're not going to lose ourselves trying to force that to happen.

We will still be at Ikkicon, of course. We have panels scheduled, and old friends to meet up with and enjoy the company of. So when we're there, please come to our panels or just stop us and say hi! But don't get married to the hope of seeing the Swordboys. It'll be a treat if they're done, but it won't be the end of the world if they're not.

That's the thing about cosplay, yanno? It's a hobby, not a job. Deadlines are not what makes or breaks it. Your own health, and the other aspects of your life, will usually come first. And that's okay. Take it from us, yeah?

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We got into a pretty awesome conversation on Twitter with a few of our buddies ( Cat-chan Cosplay, Hanyaan Cosplay, Lilacwire Cosplay, etc to name a few, and you should definitely follow those cool people if you don't already) about cosplay contests, the expectations of cosplay guests/judges, and judging experiences in general, so we wanted to collect a few thoughts here, as well.

Cosplay contests are.... weird. They are. They are a very weird concept in general. They are completely, almost wildly subjective contests where people present their crafts and performances and bare a little bit of their soul to be admired by a large crowd and judged by a (hopefully) carefully selected panel of judges. There are constantly debates about what constitutes a good costume, there are even more about what constitutes a good performance, and we can honestly tell you that it gets exhausting and frustrating at times.

But we keep doing it. Not just competing, but judging too. In fact, for a long period, derGlitzkrieg and Danzikumaru were doing a significantly greater amount of judge work than actually competing. It's bizarrely fun to get engaged in the madness. And it can be an incredibly awarding experience.

When a novice cosplayer, usually a teenaged girl who just put together her first costume, comes up to the table during pre-judginge and she just looks hopelessly nervous and uncertain of what to say. This is her first contest, probably first contest of any sort, and the judges are intimidating regardless of if they dress for comfort (our personal goal) or for wow (another subjective thing). We smile at her, and before the process can begin, *we compliment her costume*. Right then and there. And the smile we get back is just... it's magic. It's a pure and simple form of beauty. Sometimes it's the first compliment they've gotten on their costume all day. They now feel ready to talk about it, to share their love of costuming for just a moment with someone more experienced, some one who will encourage them to keep at it. It's beautiful.

At the rewards part. No matter how long you've been competing, whether it's your first or your hundredth, you never honestly go in expecting to hear your name called. There are so many entrants and so few awards. But it happens. And you get up and you are trying, desperately, not to cry. Your make-up is starting to run a little. The judges say your name, your costume, proudly, and the reward you've won, and why you've won it. They give you a hug. It's that same magic.

Cosplay contests, cosplay judging... it's all weird. But we still do it. We still love it. We hope others love it too. We'll do it again in a heartbeat. Judging, competing, whatever. It's magic.

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A very basic how-to guide to make your casual con pics a bit snazzier!

By Angelic Daze Cosplay (angelicdaze.tumblr.com)