Katsucon was out of this world! I had an amazing time and can not thank Christine and Grig enough for inviting me out for the event this year. I don't even know where to begin! The Gaylod Hotel was gorgeous and so nice to the attendees, the World Cosplay Summit was hosting the US Preliminaries during Katsucon, photograpghers from around the county (and other countries) flocked to the convention to take video and still images, and Katsucon wouldn't be complete without the thousands of amazing cosplayers who brought such beautiful costumes to wear.

I started out Friday by getting into my Litchi Faye Ling cosplay from BlazBlue! Thank you Laurel for this shot:

click to see larger photo

After hanging out at my Merchants booth for a while and greeting the attendees at Opening Ceremonies, I changed into my Christie costume from Dead or Alive, for a group meet with 3 other DoA girls. Photos coming soon! That night I hosted my popular Sociology of Cosplay panel and was happy to see a packed standing room only room full of cosplayers eager to share their stories. We ran out of the 1 hour slot super fast. I will need more minutes next time. Wherever I go, I advocate "Anyone can cosplay", no matter their gender, race, age, height, weight, bodytype etc. It is so important for cosplayers to be positive toward each other, and understanding of each others' situations. It warms my heart whenever I meet like-minded people and at during the Sociology panel I was happy to meet all of you.

Saturday was THE big day for me. I agreed to take on the craftsmanship and performance judging duties for the Katsucon Masquerade, as well as host the World Cosplay Summit afterward. It was also the day I was debuting the new costume I had been working on like mad. I got up at 7:30am to iron Carmilla and lay out all of my costume pieces, and by 10:30am I was suited up and ready to hit the con. 

My new cosplay is another Granado Espada Wizard design, that has been on my list for a while now. It involves a corset, heavy mermaid skirt, a hoop skirt and full petticoat underneath, 7 inch heels because in order to get to Silhouette of the dress right, I had to be much taller than I am, and a hat that covered my left eye lol. Walking, or more like hobbling, in that costume was fun. 

 Photos by Joseph Lin, Anna Fisher and Judy Stephens - click to see larger images

 I started having a sore throat on Thursday morning and by Saturday I was struck with a full blown cold. Thankfully TrainerNick and Paloma from Security took great care of me all day, making sure I took medicine and ate regularly. I managed to sneak in some Wizard photos with the talented people above and Slave To Anime, then it was time to craftsmanship judge the Masquerade contestants. That took 3 hours, I walked around a bit and then settled in for the Masquerade itself. It was fantastic this year and we enjoyed the skits especially. Congrats to the giant Zelda group for winning Best in Show! My favorite skit was the Ranma group, as I grew up with the manga and anime and they did such an amazing job with the writing and execution of the performance, not to mention super clean well made costumes. I was so happy to see a perfect Ranma skit on stage.

With no break after the Masquerade, I marched into the Green Room of the World Cosplay Summit Prelims, to go over last minute technical stage related things. So many amazing costumes were fluttering around backstage! I wished the groups good luck and got ready for my cue to go on stage.

Hosting the WCS was a huge honor and great experience - thank you again to Laura and Ed for letting me be a part of the event. I had the best seat in the house! Watching the performances up close made me appreciate all the hard work the cosplayers put into them even more. Before I knew it, all 22 teams did their skits and the judges went to deliberate. As I had a lot of friends competing, I was just as nervous as they were, anticipating the winners. I was overjoyed to hear Katie and Diana announced as Team USA - these laides will represent our country well in Japan. Keep up with them on Facebook over here! 
After the coongratulations it was past midnight and I had been in costume for 13 hours. There was nothing left to do but to change and fall in to bed.

Sunday morning came early for me - I had a videoshoot appointment with Ackson at 9am with my Carmilla - Vampire Hunter D costume. I started getting read at 7:30am and managed to get out the door in full costume by 10am!! Ackson recorded some of me getting ready in the room, and footage on the floor of Katsucon. The video he produced is unreal, I am so shocked at the artistry and soul this man puts into his videos. The level of sophistication is incredible, yet he always maintains a sense of humor as well. 

Please enjoy Ackson's 2nd Katsucon video, there are some amazing costumes featured in here! Crunchyroll also posted an article about Ackson's videos here.

I also did some photos with various photographers on the floor, including Elysiam.org. Last 2 images are by Gary Thompson and I-Hate-The-World. Thank you!


Click to see larger images

I'll leave you with a couple of fun shots of Carmilla and Ponies! Left image is by Fenyx Designs!

Overall an amazing amazing convention, despite being sick the entire time I got to do everything I set out to, and my friends took such wonderful care of me that it made me appreciate them that much more. Can not wait until Katsucon 2013!

Here is my finalized Katsucon schedule. As you can see, it is jam packed.

I am super excited to a part of Katsucon this year - had to miss it in 2011 which makes this trip that much sweeter. Hope to meet many new friends and catch up with all my dear buddies who I haven't seen in so long. I'm hard at work on my new costume, it will be interesting to wear it for 12+ hours on Saturday since my schedule won't permit much of a break.

In other news, The iPad based pop-culture magazine "Champion!" is celebrating the release of a brand new issue today. I had the honor of posing for the cover in my self-made Scarlet Witch costume from Marvel's "Avengers" series.

 

Photography was done by radio legend Howard Stern, the location was a beautiful townhouse in Manhattan. You can download the issue for $0.99 from the App store - it is an interactive magazine designed for the iPad with a ton of great interviews, reviews, galleries & more! The style of the photoshoot was an Editorial look at the world of cosplay featuring well-known characters from the sci-fi and comic book realms. There were 6 cosplayers including me and my smexy girlfriends Klytemnestra and Mostflogged. We had 7 hours in this unique opulent townhouse and produced photos in 4 separate locations within.

You can see a video of the behind-the-scenes happenings and photos from the shoot here!

An interview with Champion! producers about the shoot and magazine is here.

Thank you to everyone at Champion!, Howard, Judy Stephens of Mavel and my fellow cosplayers for the great experience!

EDIT: I finally updated all of my convention appearances up to September 2012. Check out where I'll be traveling to this year!

I have survived the great convention tour of January 2012! 4 event guest appearances in 4 States (and 2 countries) in a row - a whirlwind month that meant being on the road more than being home. I am happy to have survived the traveling without falling ill, weather issues or otherwise travel related problems *knocks on wood*. The conventions themselves were a lot of fun, I met a ton of new people and got to reconnect with far away friends as well, and the thing I took away from the tour was INSPIRATION. There is so much talent and passion out there in the world, and to be surrounded by creative, positive and fascinating people really gives me renewed inspiration to pursue all of my dreams and goals.

I am filled with creative energy and can't wait to throw down!   

There is a lot coming up for me and I am determined to savor each experience and opportunity. Next up for me is Naka-Kon in Kansas City, where I have never been before! I am excited to meet the local cosplayers and attendees and share my experience and knowledge. I will be doing 2 panels during the weekend and judge the costume contest on Saturday. You will also be able to see my full line of cosplay products, prints and other merchandise at my Guest table outside of the vendor hall.

At the moment I am hard at work on store products and a new costume for my guest appearance at Katsucon, one of my favorite conventions in the world. Seemingly all of my friends are coming, and I can't wait to hug them and catch up. The convention is extremely well-run, held at a beautiful resort, and the cosplayers will rule the show. I have the honor of judging the competitive craftsmanship-driven Masquerade on Saturday, and immediately afterward host the highly anticipated World Cosplay Summit USA Preliminaries. The winning team will travel to Japan this summer to compete in the WCS on television, and represent USA! I also will be doing my popular "Sociology of Cosplay" panel at 9pm on Friday. On Sunday I have a big video project planned, which I may or may not announce beforehand. And as usual, my company YayaHan LLC will have an exhibitor booth inside the hall where you can shop my full line of cosplay products, merchandise and more.

I'm off to work now, but check out my updated costume gallery! Lots of new photos today! I added a new Marvel costume gallery - of Domino from X-Force! Love this character. Check out the great photos Marvel photographer Judy Stephens took!

 I also did a fantastic Gotham Siren's photoshoot with LJinto in New York City, where I posed as Catwoman with the sexy and talented Mostflogged as Poison Ivy, and climbed all over various gates and railings lol. Definitely take a look at this moody night photographs.

It's finally that time! Your chance to bid on a FULLY AUTOGRAPHED Cosplay For a Cause calendar, with signatures from all 18 cosplayers and the 3 professional comic book artists who donated their time to create this 2012 calendar.

 100% of the funds raised will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross.

We have been promoting this calendar since July last year and are close to selling out! It was a huge undertaking to get all of the cosplayers in it, who live around the world, to sign this one calendar and it is a highly collectible, one of a kind, piece!

Please take a look at the EBay auction, and spread the word!! We want to raise as much as possible for the Tsunami victims of Japan, they still need a lot of help and the News has for the most part moved onto other matters.

Posting from my hotel room in Austin, TX. After a much too exciting day and a half of making products, shipping orders, packing, locking my key inside the car, last minute errands and airport fun times, I am laying in bed in the comfy At&T hotel, where Ikkicon day zero is already happenin', RELAXING. It's pretty awesome.

This is what I'll be wearing this weekend!

Friday: Gothic Princess, Saturday: NEW COSPLAY DEBUT!, Sunday: Rarity - MLP!

I am hosting 2 panels this weekend, details on the convention schedule.

I updated my travel schedule with three new convention guest appearances, which starts off 2012 with a bang and a 5 week convention tour for me. Here are the 4 upcoming shows while I'm waiting on confirmation on the last one.

Ikkicon: 30th Dec 2011 - 1st Jan 2012, Austin, TX  *Cosplay Guest and Vendor*

Sukoshicon: 7th - 8th Jan, Destin, FL *Guest of Honor and Vendor* Register with code:yayafan2011 and receive $5 off!!

Alburquerque Comic Con: 13th - 15th Jan, Albuquerque, NM *Anime Guest and Vendor* 

Boomcon: 21st - 22nd Jan, Costa Rica  *Cosplay Guest*

Why are so many cons going on simultaneously in January?! I was torn between Sukoshicon, ALA and Arizona Comic Con for next weekend, but in the end my desire to be ON THE BEACH won out. Yes, Sukoshicon is held ON THE FRIGGING BEACH in the same gorgeous resort hotel as Anime South a few years back, where I was also a Guest and had a fantastic experience. I am excited to return to Destin and enjoy a weekend of anime, cosplay and ocean.

If you are going to Sukoshicon but have not registered yet, use this code:yayafan2011 and receive $5 off!!

More from me after this weekend's shenanigans, have a happy new year, everyone!