Ramona Flowers Cosplay Makeup Transformation (Video)

One of my goals this year is to get more involved with video content! I had a photoshoot as Ramona Flowers, so I decided to record my makeup process. I knew nothing about makeup before I started cosplaying. Everything I've learned is from cosplay!


Please let me know what you think of this video and if you have any video requests.

Interested in learning more about cosplay makeup? Be sure to read my guides: part 1 and part 2.

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Dragon Con 2014

The iconic carpet inside the Marriott Marquis!

Because my usual Birthday Con didn't fall on my birthday this year, I decided to go to a convention I've heard so much about - Dragon Con!

Dragon Con is unlike any other convention I've been to. It's often compared to San Diego Comic Con because of its size, but it's a totally different beast. SDCC is a giant celebration of consumerism - there's a bigger focus on celebrities and swag. Dragon Con feels more genuine and fan-run. Both are massive in scale, but have totally different focuses. I also noticed that overall, Dragon Con has more elaborate costuming - probably because there is far less walking involved - as well as just really obscure costumes.

At the airport - Dragon Con, I'm coming for you!

Dragon Con runs literally 24/7. I'm not one to stay up too late at conventions - usually, I want to wake up pretty early to get into costume so that I don't waste the day. It's so disappointing to get into costume late in the day and wind up changing out before you get to do anything! At most cons, programming ends pretty early. At Dragon Con, though, most of the events I wanted to go to were late at night. I got back to the hotel room around 4 AM every day, still in costume, and was shocked to see how many people were still hanging out, still in costume! It's just a totally different vibe, but I loved it.

I also think Dragon Con differs from other cons because while there are multiple host hotels, they are mostly connected by easily accessible sky bridges. For the most part, I used these instead of heading outside - they were more convenient and I didn't have to deal with the threat of street harassment for being in costume. This makes it feel like Dragon Con is its own world. It's amazing.

I can't begin to list everything I did at the convention, because most of it was spontaneous, but my weekend definitely included rum buckets, kigurumis, nerdy burlesque, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, photoshoots, and, as always, lots of cosplay.

Costume-wise, I wore Ramona Flowers, Luna Lovegood, and a new costume - Butters from South Park: The Stick of Truth! My beautiful friend Mary has an amazing Princess Kenny costume, and when she asked me to join a giant South Park: The Stick of Truth group at Dragon Con, I couldn't say no! This was my first time cosplaying a male character and my first time in a group so large. It was so much fun to get to meet everyone in the group and chat with other fans.

Photos by Agent Topanga Lawrence Cosplay!

You may remember Mary as the Roxy to my Ramona from SDCC last year - we reprised the roles again this year! I always love having other Scott Pilgrim cosplayers with me, especially my favorite evil ex-girlfriend. I also cut and styled Mary's wig for her to make it more fluffy and voluminous, and it was surprisingly fun! I want to take on more wig projects in the future.

Photos by Agent Topanga Lawrence Cosplay!

Have you ever been to Dragon Con?

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Anime Fest 2014

Anime Fest is a four-day con because it usually falls on Labor Day weekend (my birthday!). This year, it was in mid-August, but I managed to stay for all four days anyway.

For the first time ever, I organized a panel! The Superheroesque team (myself and Liz) invited a few of our friends, Starman from My Geeky Geeky Ways and Camille from Samurai Pizza Kitten Cosplay, to talk about confidence in cosplay! You can watch the full panel (minus Q&A) below.

Putting the panel together was a learning experience. I had never tried to organize people in multiple cities for something like this before. Everyone was super flexible, but there was definitely a learning curve. It can be a little difficult to make sure everyone knows what's happening.

With Anime Fest, you have to submit your panel, badge holders can vote for it, then it may or may not get approved. While voting can help your panel, it doesn't mean that the panel will get approved. I was definitely surprised when we got way more votes than expected and then we were approved!

Camille always has the cutest cosplays!

I was nervous that nobody would come to the panel... and I was nervous that lots of people would come to the panel. We noticed a line forming before we set up, and I was totally shocked. We ended up mostly filling up the room we were in -- which wasn't huge, but still totally unexpected! I feel like we had a really good reception to the panel, too. We had lots of people come up to us after to ask questions and get more information. I definitely want to do another panel in the future!

Liz and I wore our Archer costumes for the panel and did a shoot with Aperture Ashley too. That was easily one of the most fun photoshoots I've ever done! The absurdity of Archer lends itself to a lot of silliness, like arm wrestling, choking, fighting, and dolphin shenanigans. I can't wait to share the photos with you all - I'll probably post them on my Facebook page first!

Making ugly faces with Kat and Matt!

With the panel over, I didn't have any other big commitments (besides cosplay). I brought my Luna Lovegood costume to wear with Kat's Ginny Weasley! We did a shoot with Cosplay With Me and met up with Matt later, who basically looks exactly like Ron Weasley. It's always surprisingly fun to bring Harry Potter costumes to conventions, everyone always gets a kick out of it!

We hung out in the hotel room a lot and made friends with our neighbors. Through a series of coincidences, one of our neighbors knew someone working at the hotel, but they hadn't seen each other in years. They ended up taking us up to see the rooftop of the hotel, which was awesome! Photos couldn't really capture how high up we were and how much of Dallas you could see. 

Wearing kigurumis with Liz!

Hangin' out with Leia and Kimmie from Sub Cultured!

One thing we do almost every year at A-Fest is the art auction! I love seeing anime characters re-imagined in different art styles, and there's always lots of creative work at A-Fest. If you get the chance, you should definitely check it out.

I also brought Ramona, as usual, and took a few photos with Liz as my photographer. The last day of the convention was rainy - combined with the skywalk, it made the perfect Toronto-esque background.

Overall, the convention itself was great this year! Last year, the con moved to a new hotel, resulting in a lot of growing pains. This year, a lot of those issues were fixed. I wish that a few things had been different - the cosplay contest was Sunday night, for example, making it difficult for most people to participate, and the hall cosplay contest was way too early in the con - but I still had a great time.

Have you ever been to a four-day con?

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SDCC 2014 (Part 2)

Catch up by reading part 1 of my recap here!

Friday

After the whirlwind that was Thursday, Friday was considerably more relaxed. We spent the morning in line for the Game of Thrones Survive the Realm experience. Inside, there were lots of costumes on display (so much detail!), and you could make a gif of you with Drogon, sit on the Iron Throne, and climb The Wall via Oculus Rift. It was pretty cool, but I'd already seen all of that (except the Drogon gif) at SXSW, so I was a little disappointed that I waited so long.

We were hot from waiting outside and tired, so we changed out of our costumes and into normal clothing for the Nerdist cosplay panel and @midnight live. The cosplay panel was rad - there were so many cosplayers I really admire, like Commander Holly and Chloe Dykestra - and I learned so much.

They're playing Tenacious D so it's going to be a good time. #midnightSDCC @midnight pic.twitter.com/mA6YWrqdl9
— Mia Moore (@xoMiaMoore) July 26, 2014

@midnight is one of my favorite TV shows currently - it's a game show with different comedians as the contestants, and it draws from the internet! I was so excited when I saw they were doing a live show at SDCC - we got seats in the 3rd or 4th row, so we had a great view! It started off with stand-up, then a live version of the show itself. The featured comedians were Matt Mira, Brian Posehn, Steve Agee, and Grace Helbig. It was awesome and I hope they do a live show again next year.

Saturday

Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim, just released a new book, Seconds, and hosted a panel at SDCC for the first time in 5 years! I knew I had to wear Ramona for the occasion. Lots of people dressed up in Scott Pilgrim costumes, which was awesome!

A lot of people at the panel hadn't read Seconds yet, but I was happy to learn more about what inspired the story and the artistic process. I also picked up my SDCC-exclusive copy of Seconds and got it signed by Bryan!

At the panel, I got to man the mic during the Q&A session! It was pretty easy since almost everyone was respectful and asked appropriate/good questions, but I was pretty nervous to stand up in front of a room full of Scott Pilgrim fans! Afterwards, me and another Ramona cosplayer took a photo with Bryan - she made her jacket, can you believe it?!

For the third day in a row, we went and changed into Game of Thrones cosplay for the Courtyard Mariott cosplay contest! Normally, I'm not much of a contest person. I have a lot of fun cosplaying, but my craftsmanship isn't that great. Megan (The Nerdy Girlie) personally invited us to this contest by giving us keys, and when she told me that Norman Reedus and Greg Nicotero were judging, I couldn't say no! 

Photo by Megan

It wound up being a really awesome experience, even with a few bumps along the way. All the other cosplayers there were super sweet and we bonded backstage. Norman Reedus loved my contacts/eye makeup - he said "Whoa!" - and all the other cosplayers had some seriously impressive costumes.

Photo by Megan

Photo by Megan - isn't her dress awesome?

Sunday

We were supposed to wear our South Park: The Stick of Truth cosplays on Sunday, but honestly, Liz and I were exhausted! We were only expecting to wear one costume each day, but it quickly turned into two whenever the beer tasting and cosplay contest popped up. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I think next year, I will be a little smarter about choosing my costumes. SDCC is simply too huge to cosplay comfortably, and multiple costumes a day was not a great idea! 

So instead, we took Sunday easy and wore our Westeros map shirts we got from the HBO pop-up shop. We didn't plan to pack almost identical outfits, but we both have similar tastes, I guess!

Sunday was mostly wandering around, tying up loose ends, and watching Colby do the Assassin's Creed Parkour Course. Assassin's Creed partnered up with a parkour training facility to make its game more fluid and realistic, and hires them to do videos and performances. They set up a giant obstacle course for SDCC with the official parkour team performing throughout the day. It was really cool! It made me want to learn parkour.

Liz made a video that captures the scale and immensity of SDCC really well!

This was, by far, my most packed SDCC yet. I wore more costumes, did more things, and saw more people this year than any year prior. It was such a great experience and I look forward to next year! 

What celebrity would you most want to meet at SDCC?

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