I made my first cosplay in 2008 when I was just a baby nerd in middle school. My mom is an avid quilter, so when she heard I wanted to try sewing she bought me my own sewing machine and took me to a sewing class. Throughout high school, I sewed one or two other things for myself, but I didn’t get started seriously with cosplay until 2013, when I was thrown into a cosplay contest that I was in no way prepared for. My best friend asked me to join her in the World Cosplay Summit preliminary at NDK and I agreed, having no idea what was actually at stake for the contest. Gradually I started to figure out that the contest was much more intense than I had imagined, and even more frightening, I would be competing against veteran cosplays that I greatly respected and would never have had the guts to approach otherwise. I wasn’t proud of the work that I produced and lost a lot of sleep over having to present my shoddy craftsmanship to others as if it were my best work. But by the end of the contest, the veteran competitors made me feel welcome and hopeful, and I thought maybe if I put more work into it, I could improve and create something I was actually proud of. The rest is history!

So basically—my goal with cosplay is just to keep doing that. Creating things and learning new skills and improving brings me joy so I’d like to continue, and as I go along doing that I hope I can be a positive influence for other cosplayers as those veteran cosplayers were for me. For me that includes giving positive feedback about others’ improvement, encouraging them to push themselves but not burn themselves out, and being transparent about my process.

I’ve had difficulty deciding what to make tutorials about because I feel like I have very little knowledge to contribute that is “new,” but I have already created a few tutorials or at least introductions about things relating to kimono, paint mixing, and resin. I’ve also run a couple panels about how to tackle complex costumes and helpful knowledge for kimono cosplays. The more I work on the education side of cosplay, the more I realize mistake number one is assuming that everyone has the same goals and background knowledge as you. It wasn’t too long ago that I myself had no idea where to buy materials or how to sew a regular seam, but the humility to ask for help is something that I’m still working on to this day. As I go on I’d like to create more really, truly, base-level beginner tutorials for this hobby that seems to get harder and harder for people to sink their teeth into.