I started cosplaying as soon as I started going to conventions. Growing up in a nerd family with nerdy friends, I was already well aware that people dressed in costume to go to sci-fi cons and I had plans to do no less when going to my first Nan Desu Kan in 2002. In what would end up being a very typical move, I way over-estimated my skills and under-estimated the work by choosing to do Lulu for Final Fantasy X. Despite this, I found myself really enjoying spending months tracking down materials and the pride of walking around in my outfit.

Over the next fifteen plus years, I found myself completely enraptured with this hobby and all its different facets. I learned the basics of sewing and pattern reading from my mother, learned more advanced techniques like fabric selection and pattern modifying from fellow cosplayers I met. I found an amazing group of girls with whom we made a dance troupe and had the best road trips through snow-blown states to get to conventions. I helped run a Colorado chapter of the International Costuming Guild that organized public photo shoots and group costumes at local cons. I got addicted to competitions, both the recognition of the work put into an outfit and the fun of working in a group. I met more experienced cosplayers in competition green rooms; kind, wonderful people who nurtured and befriended me, giving me a community that was loving, even when we were competing against each other. That’s the thing about communities, if you keep being involved, you keep running into the same faces.

Eventually, I started traveling out of state to compete with these friends, taking home top awards at the powerhouse competitions of their day, such as Anime Expo and Fanime. I met non-local friends, cosplayers who managed to do miraculous things for that time, like have websites and build props with fiberglass. Soon even the west coast competition circuit felt like a home con, seeing the same groups of friends in the green room, complimenting each other on what we’d all brought that year. It’s far easier and more pleasant to lose to a friend when judging can come down to judgement calls. I began hosting panels, first with my more experienced friends and then, when I found I enjoyed the experience of getting to talk shop with other people, on my own.

After about seven years doing competitions in and out of state, I stumbled into my second favorite niche of cosplay; industry events. Competitions were starting their inevitable downward trend as attention turned from awards to photos and conventions began to put fewer resources towards the events. The annual stress to grind out top-tier costumes and skits year-after-year had also taken a toll on both my friends and myself and we were all ready for a break. I studied abroad at a university in Japan, gaining a new passion and invaluable cultural context to many aspects of the hobby. When I came back, I was asked by a close friend if I would be interested in helping to promote the dub release of series that started as a web comic I had fallen in love with while abroad.

My first industry event was cosplaying as America for Hetalia: Axis Powers and I was hooked. Getting to promote a series I loved, being involved in all the panels, the autographing, the guests, my fellow cosplayers, it was all an amazing experience and something new to do when just standing in halls for photos had lost its appeal. Conventions became exciting again with new opportunities all the time. Through volunteering with American Cosplay Paradise, I got to work with the creator of Madoka Magica, the Japanese director of Hetalia, Japanese bands Kalafina and Chemistry and many others. For the past five years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work as one of the “approved” Sailor Jupiter cosplayers for the new US release of Sailor Moon, a childhood dream I didn’t even know I had.

While I find keeping up a consistent social media presence and the struggle for name recognition exhausting, I still continue to compete, judge contests, host panels and guest at conventions. In 2013, Lilacwire and I were runner-up to be Team USA for the World Cosplay Summit and we again ranked highly in 2014. I’ve been a guest at over 15 conventions, most of them outside of CO, judged double that amount of contests and hosted triple that amount of panels. I’ve run the cosplay department of a major convention and experienced the common and uncommon frustrations and drama that sometimes arise at cons from both sides of the argument. I still consider NDK my home con and try to host at least three or four panels every year to give back to the place where it all started for me.

Website: https://www.acparadise.com/loves/teca

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TecaCosplay/