My Misaka Mikoto Cosplay

This year, I decided to do an "easy" cosplay: Misaka Mikoto from "To Aru Kagaku no Railgun". She's a Level 5 esper who can manipulate electricity, one of the strongest espers in Academy City. She is nicknamed, "Tokiwadai's Ace" or "Railgun" for her trademark move:

Here's my cosplay creation journey to give you an idea on how to cosplay:

Step 1: Get source material.

Step 2: Start with the hardest element.

Step 3: Know your skill level. A skilled seamstress I am not. Value Village is my friend.

Step 4: Make your modifications. Forty minutes later and I wind up with an unfinished vest.

Step 5: Make the character specific elements.

Step 6: Get your odds and ends. The loafers were hard to track down. I wound up getting these in the kids' section at Payless for 50% off. The knee high socks were from Adene's. I picked up the hairpins from Wal-mart.

The other two items hard to find were the temporary hair colour for my eyebrows and a large enough coin for launching Misaka's railgun. A lady at a hair salon recommended I get creamy eye shadow to colour my brows. Maybeline's Color Tatoo line works like a charm.

One of my friends found two big coins at the Farmer's Market for 50 cents apiece.

And now, for the big reveal:

To learn more about cosplay, check out my last entry, The Art of Cosplay.

The Art of Cosplay

Cosplaying is one of the ways I express my inner geek. Short for "costume play", it involves much more than dressing up in costume. For many, it's a labour of love, involving countless hours to either make their character's outfit from scratch or to track down components that can be modified.

That's only part of the equation. Cosplay also involves becoming your character. That is, learning some of your characters trademark moves, poses and catch phrases so that when you're geeking out at an anime convention or comic con, you are that character.

People actually will chase you down like paparazzi to take your photo:

You can also enter cosplay contests.

Here's a video I found of some fantastic cosplaying at Anime Expo 2013:

Next up: photos of my latest cosplay project.

My TableTop Games Shopping Spree

It all started with Wil Wheaton's Tweet about Qwirkle on May 13, 2013: "Turns out Qwirkle is a really fun #Tabletop game." I was intrigued. Time passed, work happened and a flood came, so I forgot about it. Later in the summer, when one of my friends posted a photo on Facebook of her new newly acquired Qwirkle, I remembered. She and her hubby hosted a little games night and I got my chance to try it.

How can I describe Qwirkle? It's like Scabble with colours and shapes. It's also like Sudoku in that a tile can only appear in a sequence once. The object of the game is that you're trying to earn the most points by building tile sequences. The tiles you play must share one aspect in common with the the tile you're connecting it to, either the same colour or shape.

You seek to build as many Qwirkles as you can (worth 12 points each). A Qwirkle is a set of six tiles that share one thing in common (colour or shape).  I loved it and set out to buy my own set.

That night, we also played Pandemic. I heard wonderful things about it at GeekMoot and really liked the idea that it's a co-operative game. Sadly, our team during games night wasn't able to save the world from the dreaded Black Disease, so I was itching to try it again and save the world.

Each player has a role, such as Dispatcher, Researcher and Quarantine Specialist. You work together to treat, cure and eradicate disease around the world, but you're constantly fighting epidemics.

We tried two other games that night too: Love Letter and Biblios. The former was all right but the latter is a game I'd like to try again.

A few weeks ago, I set out to buy Qwirkle and Pandemic. Unfortunately, Imaginary Wars didn't have either, but I picked up Labyrinth. It reminds me of the 2D adventure video games, in which you are trying to find hidden treasures. However, it's 3D and you must push a tile into the board to move the tiles around. Sometimes, you wind up in a dead end path and wish that the next player pushes you off the board so you can come in at hopefully a more favorable position.

Then, I went to the Sentry Box. Now, I knew they were big, but I never realized they were THAT big. It's the largest gaming store in all of North America, with over 13,000 square feet of tabletop gaming, models, comics, manga, books, plushies and play space.

I, er...um....bought enough to get the bulk discount:

So far, my family has tried Tsuro, which was featured on Wil Wheaton's show, Tabletop. The rules for this tile-based game are simple: 1 - Last dragon flying, wins. 2 - Follow the path. 3 - Don't crash into other dragons. It's fun to watch that particular episode:

Another new game that we've tried out is Edo. North Americans will say "EE-doh" but the Japanese student in me will pronounce it as it should be ("Eh-doh").

Although it took me a while to weed through the instructions (too much information to digest in one sitting), after a couple of rounds of gameplay, it's becoming one of my fave games. It's like Dominion in the sense that you are building a "kingdom" (er, "daimyo"). It's like Puerto Rico in the sense that you can build, harvest and earn money. Combine that with very well designed pieces - solid construction and aesthetically pleasing - and the Japanese theme and this chibi samuari is hooked.

We will get to the other table games in those bags, but all in good time. I think we'll tackle the award-winning 7 Wonders next, as well as No Thanks.

If you're interested in checking out any of these games, drive past Toys'R'Us and head to a gaming store that specializes in European tabletop games, like Imaginary Wars and Sentry Box. Online, you can purchase Edo, Qwirkle, Tsuro and Pandemic on Amazon. One of my piano families recommend German Games.

Ready for FallCon 26?

Looking forward to my very first FallCon experience. Although I can't spend the entire weekend playing tabletop games, I'm just glad that I will be able to try out some new games. Online registration has closed, but you can still register for available sessions at the door. For more information, visit FallCon's website.

You can also check out the promo piece that appeared in FFWD earlier this week. FallCon was also featured on the Breakfast Show this morning.

Calgary Japanese Festival 2013 Blooper Reel

Some of you on Facebook liked the idea of seeing a blooper reel of my Calgary Omatsuri footage. Well, here you go. Technical issues and sliding guitars make for an interesting time:

The 2013 Calgary Japanese Festival was a grand success. There were more displays, more tents, more food and more cultural programming. It was too bad that some of the indoor programming was cancelled, and that some sessions happened out of sequence. I was really disappointed that the sword making session was cancelled.

If I have one suggestion, it's that the indoor programming repeats. Then attendees wouldn't have to choose between indoor and outdoor events.

Organizers are looking at larger venues for next year. Sugoi, desu ne?