Interview with Venus

Welcome everyone to GeekGetup. This will be the first of many interviews with Cosplayers from around the world. This week on GeekGetup I am interviewing my cousin Venus. Welcome, Venus!

Hi Jacob. It’s nice to be here.

Thanks again for this. So Venus, could you give us a little background about your cosplay experience?

Well I started cosplaying when I was still in High School. My sister Athena made my first two costumes. They were Sailor V and Cinderella. The first convention I went to was Anime Kiai in Flagstaff.

That’s so cool. Now that you are making a lot of your own costumes, what would you say is your overall skill level?

I would say probably on the high end of beginner. I still have a lot to learn. But I’ve had to learn new things for each of the costumes that I have made. I have also had to make up some of my own patterns. I am nowhere near the advanced level but I might be close to being intermediate level.

Well, again thanks for being here. I am fairly new myself and it is great to see the different perspectives from people of different skill levels. Now you said that your sister made you your first two costumes. When did you decide that you wanted to start cosplaying for yourself?

I decided that I wanted to start when I first lived with Athena, in 2012. A few months before I moved in with her I had started reading Fairy Tail and I had decided that I wanted to cosplay Lucy Heartfilia. There was a Fairy Tail cosplay day a couple months after I had moved. So we decided that I would make a costume for that. So Lucy was the first character I cosplayed as. I even got a reward for that costume.

Fairy Tail is amazing. My wife and I did a simple cosplay of FitzSimmons from Agents of Shield at last years FanX in Salt Lake. But I am currently working on Mystogan who is also from Fairy Tail. Now you said you got a reward for your Lucy cosplay. Did you enter into a competition?

Sort of. I was said it was a Fairy Tail Cosplay day so it was supposed to be mainly characters from Fairy Tail. There was a contest for best female and best male Cosplayers. Well there was only one other Fairy Tail Cosplayer and it was another Lucy. I don’t want to sound mean but her Cosplay didn’t look that well made. We both entered the contest and I won the Best Female Cosplayer reward. But it doesn’t count like reward from a Masquerade contest, because it wasn’t an actual convention.

Well good luck if you ever enter a costume into a Masquerade. I am personally aiming to enter my costume for the Masquerade at WorldCon next year. For all those who are just starting out cosplaying, what is some advice you could give and what do you wish you could have known when you first started out?

Thanks for wishing me luck. I know that I’ll need it. I think some of the best advice I can give is don’t choose flat fabrics, such as the plain cottons normally used for quilting. With those fabrics you look like you are actually in the comic, video game, or whatever your character is from. You want fabrics that stand out and give dimension to the character. For example when I was making Lucy Heartfilia I used satin for the vest, bias-tape, and the heart on her shirt. It gave even more flare to her already bright outfit. Another thing I would recommend is making sure you give yourself enough time to make your costume(s). Some of the simplest parts of a Cosplay can take the longest. For another example, this past Salt Lake Comic Con I made a couple capes for one of my brothers. Capes are very simple; basically just a bunch of straight lines. However, I had to alter the pattern two different times for the two capes. And that made the process take a bit longer than it would have normally. I can’t think of anything that I wished I had known when I first started cosplaying. Athena was there the whole time I was working on Lucy and so whenever I had a question I could just as her for advice.

That’s a lot to take in. Cosplaying definitely takes a lot of work. I just have one last question. If someone told you they hated your cosplay, what would you do?

That’s a good question. I would probably want to know if it was the character they hated or my cosplay of the character. I know that I would be hurt because no matter how simple a cosplay is, a lot of time and feelings were put into it. It’s hard when someone says something so hurtful about something that is so important. However, I also know that there will be other people out there who will appreciate the cosplay. Those are the people that are worth listening to.

And that’s what matters most. If you put that much effort into doing a cosplay that you love, then you will love the results. It’s a learning experience and everyone has to start somewhere. Those are the experiences that will shape you into the cosplayer that you become. Thanks again for joining us Venus for the first interview on GeekGetup. Keep on cosplaying!

Thank you for wanting to interview me. This has been a very enjoyable experience. I will definitely keep cosplaying and I will follow your cosplaying experiences. I’m looking forward to seeing all that you and your wife do. Good luck with your cosplays!

Thanks for joining us this week on GeekGetup and don’t forget to watch out for next week’s post!

Image found here.