I was hot!
That’s not me being immodest because my midriff was showing – that was because I was crowded in on all sides by people queuing for Pocky at the ‘Tokyo Toys’ stall whilst dressed as Ulala. And when you’ve dressed as Ulala as many time as I have, keeping it fresh doesn’t mean that you can get away with the nice cooling mini skirt again – you have to wear a long sleeved top, big headphones, striped trousers and a baby pink wig that turned the top of my head into a personal scalp sauna.
Sometimes, you have to really love Cosplay to do it.
Fortunately – I do.
And, my love of Cosplay means that even though I may be behind some of the other Ready-Up staffers in terms of Xbox achievement points, I am ahead in world records to the number of one (apart from Kirsten). Rather than scouring through every square inch of the ‘Gears of War’ universe for dog-tags, I and 375 other cosplayers were working our glue guns to the nub to make our video game dreams into bright, glorious, three dimensional – and occasionally itchy – reality.
The first time I broke the world record (hah – I’m getting an old hand at this) for the ‘Largest Gathering of Video Game Cosplayers’ was in February of last year and it was put together by games industry names. There was only about 80 of us in cosplay but we set the record and so I got my first ‘Guinness World Record’. This was a very small amount of cosplayers and this was easily broken later that year at a German convention. But 3 days later at the October MCM Expo we just went and broke it again.
Dallas-area Anime convention ‘A-Kon’ claimed several times it had broken the record with nearly 700 cosplayers but as Guinness Adjudicator Gaz Deaves said to me whilst holding the record, they never sent Guinness any proof of this. So here I am again, London MCM May 09. “Another MCM, another World Record”, shouts Gaz to the huge amount of photographers in front of us (see I told you I would get to the front). In fact, I just went up to Gaz and asked to hold the record with him for the photos (quite impressed he remembered my name too). So from the measly 80 cosplayers who turned up at Millennium Bridge in the freezing February frosts to the now 376 record breaking cosplayers basking in the heat. I know I will be there for the next one for as long as I can make costumes.
I have to say that this year’s MCM Expo has had some of the best cosplay costumes that I have seen in a long time. Some of the outfits must have taken months to make. The minute I saw this ‘Wolf Link’ costume I could have just taken him home. In a quick interview with ‘Wolf Link’, I asked…
Ulala: “So ‘Wolf Link’, whats it like to be constantly changing from regular ‘Link’ to ‘Wolf Link’?”
Wolf Link: “Hoooooooow… uuulllll!!”
He then proceeded to chomp on my microphone.
One of my all time favourite heroes decided to show up at this year’s MCM Expo. The legend himself, Mr. Earthworm Jim. My best chum Susan came dressed as Faith from Mirrors Edge and my Square Enix crazed buddy Laura went as Sora from the Kingdom Hearts game.
Ready Up’s ‘Cosplay Clash’ is going to be a lot of fun as well as the rest of the Insert Coin 09 event. It’s the first cosplay event to be run by passionate gamers and seasoned cosplayers, the first event with good prizes to be won (money!), and the first event to ban ‘Free Huggers’ (well, okay I can’t really ban this, but I would discourage anyone to come and try to ‘Free Hug’ people or ‘Free Hug’ me, as these days, it’s as bad as saying ‘Free Swine Flu’).
The London MCM Expo has become somewhat more of a chore than an enjoyable experience and it was very hard to see anything at the event due to the amount of people that attended. It was very uncomfortable and I got whacked by various ‘kooky cosplay kids’ and their weapons. The event has become less of an exclusive fun weekend about sci-fi, film, comics and games for everyone to enjoy and more of a place where kids hang out, draw Manga, ‘Glomp’, and just act stupid. Insert Coin 09 will be an event for everyone. Smaller and more specialist in its subject, it should be a great escape from the ‘big daddy’ of conventions, which in my opinion, has fallen victim to Manga and its own success.
Not sure about an outfit for the ‘Cosplay Clash’ yet, but there are still quite a few Ulala outfits left, so I have options. Decisions, decisions…
…or I may do something completely different. Like come dressed as ‘Pudding’. For those of you who don’t know who Pudding is, go out and get a copy of Space Channel 5 right now, or face my wrath! Or Sega Superstar Tennis at a push.
Well I hope you all enjoyed my swinging cosplay report show, I’m Ulala reporting for Space… er, I mean Fran reporting for Ready Up!
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May 29th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
*starry anime eyes* wow I really want to go to OCT Expo!
May 29th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Awesome stuff!
I love the Excell centre, very cool place. I dare think how hot that Wolf Link was =/
Awesome costume Fran :)
May 29th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Cool pics and costumes. How many characters did you recognise?
And I see Mario behind you while you were holding the certificate. Saw that Mario on Mark Boss’ YouTube vid as well.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Wolf Link is cool… :D
I have to ask, how long did that Mirror’s Edge tattoo take?
May 29th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Fran – I reckon you can get away with being a bit more big-headed! In all these pics you are indeed a hottie! ^_^