Kraken Con 2014

(I made a page with all of my cosplays, and it's going to be updated with each of my costumes... check it out!)


Oooh look what I finally got around to! I guess I've been building up to this for the past... 4 posts or so? Well, here I am, finally posting about the big day :p

Who all went: Dad, my mom's parents (Grand and Big-C), my brother (Dante), and my aunt's exchange student (Peter)
Yeah, so I'm calling peeps by what I call them irl bc that's easier.

Sunday morning we started getting ready, so that we could try to be out of the house by 8:15. I made last-second finishes to my costume (oh, the curse of a cosplayer XD) and did my eye makeup as I waited for the glue to dry. Then I helped my brother get his costume on... lots and lots of safety pins! Once my grandparents arrived we all piled into my dad's car and were on our way!

Dad and Big-C sat in the front and listened to a church service. Grand sat in the back with me (she borrowed one of my Doctor Who shirts for the day), and Dante sat in-between us so I could paint Aangs arrows on him. We got to the restaurant where we were picking up Peter, so Dante and I walked in looking like crazy people in half cosplay! I had on super heavy eye makeup and nothing else, and my hair was back and I had a wig cap around my neck, no armor... just a black dress over my red shirt and pants (I looked like some sort of failed punk band :p)

Omg it's my face AAAAAAA

After the looooong drive up, we got to the con center, and I finished putting on my costume. Finally we were there! We turned in our registration and the fun began! When we got our wrist bands the volunteers were so excited about Dante and my costume, and they asked for pictures and, yeah, it was pretty cool! It would be fun to work at something like that, then you could see everyones costumes! Once we got to the main room, (after stopping for quite a few pictures- there was one girl who even did a selfie with us! Yay cosplay selfies! Haha ok moving on...

Unfortunately, I missed the first panel I wanted to go to- "Cosplaying in Character", which probably would have helped a lot for my Performing Arts final. Oh well, since I missed it, I had the oppurtunity for something else totally awesome to happen!

When we got to the main room, I see someone with a cosplay that looks familiar, and then I realized she was Toph (also from ATLA) and it was amazing! She ran over to us and we went all crazy fangirl, and then we were just like "CAN I HUG YOU OMG" and it was the best thing ever :D Quite a few people walking by got pictures of us, and then we all went to the photo studio together to get our pictures taken.

AAAA I"M SO PROUD OF OUR COSTUMES :D

After taking the picture, we parted ways, promising to meet back up again. My group took off to look around the Dealers Room, and I made a bee-line for my favorite artist, Yuumei. I was so excited to meet her! She's had a big impact on me and my art, and she was such a sweet girl in person, as well. She's used her talent and difficult past to really reach out to so many people, and honestly, it's really brave that she does that. She also has brought awareness to the pollution problems in China, and advocates to fix it. Haha when I found out that she was going to be there, I ran around my house like a crazy fangirl screaming all sorts of crazy stuff :p. I planed to spend only $10 to $20 at her table... obviously that didn't happen. I spent at least $40! Oh, well, it was worth it :) seeing her work on my walls makes me really happy.

Then it was time for my first panel, which was on writing villains. It was very helpful, and the director really made us all participate, it was so much fun! Haha we got a little side tracked and started talking about FMA, and then later on he gave me some tips on my villain. He also talked a bit about world building, so that was cool, too. This summer I'm going to post all of my panel notes from this (school) year, so if y'all are writers, you may be interested in this one.

"Re-Imagine" by Yuumei

After the panel was finished, I went out into the dealers room and looked around, bought more stuff from Yuumei, and went upstairs to have lunch with my group. The food was really good (i got a burger), but a bit expensive (con food always is). I realized that eating with armor and collars and 3 lbs of vinyl is HARD. So I took it off and realized that the con center wasn't 150º, but more like 70º. Yeah... it was quite a relief. It was really funny to see all the characters from different fandoms eating together! Before I headed down to my other panel I ran into Toph again and we took a picture:

Azula and Toph have lunch together... because why not

The next panel I went to was on creating a web comic. It was really helpful, because I'm interested in starting one (I'll have more info for y'all later). Here's their site: Captain Quail. They write a Star Trek inspired comic that has birds instead of people. It's pretty funny! During the panel they wrote/drew a comic that was directed by the participants, so that was pretty fun!

When the panel was over, girls dressed as Anna and Elsa (who I had pegged as "MUST GET PIC WITH THEM) came up to me and asked for a picture, so we all posed and someone took our picture for us ^.^

My group was almost ready to leave, but we all decided to walk through the dealers room one more time. I went to a table that was selling posters and figurines, and got into a conversation about anime with one of the people selling posters as I bought a FMA wall scroll. I went by two steampunk booths- I bought a pin that reminded me of Winry (for my pin collection), and a rose hairpin (which I wear almost every day now lol). Of corse I stopped by Yuumi's table one last time and got one of her smaller prints. 

Some Cosplayers I ran into :)

Not the best pic but oh well :p

We ended up talking to a guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear and his daughter was dressed as Neytiri (I think... well, she was the blue chick from "Avatar" (the movie)).They were really fun to talk to! Father/daughter cosplayers, he got her into it. He made his Buzz costume back in 2001 or so, and it's really cool! Each button will actually play a different sound clip, just like Buzz's in the movie! It's also made almost completely out of cardboard- true cosplay dedication! 

The girl was really excited to be at the convention, and it was really fun to talk to someone so young who had already been immersed in con culture for almost their whole life :)

Thor! He's friends with Buzz, and his costume was just as amazing! he was telling us about how he made it... really impressive! haha this is one of my favorite pics (I feel like I perfected my Azula stance/face by then)

I wandered around some more, and ran into Princess Bubblegum and Jack Frost cosplayers. We all fangirled over each others costumes for a good five minutes before we calmed down enough to take pictures. Cosplay selfie! It was the perfect ending to such a fun day :D

Con Review
I had soooo much fun at Kraken Con! The panels were easy to find, the venders room was well organized, and not overly crowded, there wasn't too much of a bleed-through with noise from the video games and anime screening. There was a cafe' on the upper level (though it was a bit over priced :/ ), and instead of badges they had wrist bands, which I really liked, because then I wasn't having to deal with an extra thing around my neck.

For such a cheap convention, I would say that it was extremely well done. My only complaint would be the heat. There was air conditioning in the building, but it wasn't turned on until about three. Hopefully next time they'll turn it on earlier.


PS: I lost my camera charger, so art is still on hold :/ I might be able to find my old camera... idk we'll see what happens. Wish me luck on finals!