Convention Fans

One of the highlights at GameX, which I attended last weekend, was that three cast members from the hit webseries, The Guild, were attending as guests. Although I don’t play World of Warcraft anymore (I’ll renew come expansion time), I am still a dedicated fan of the The Guild.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of GameX’s PR manager, I had an opportunity to sit down and interview The Guild’s Jeff Lewis (Vork), Robin Thorsen (Clara), and Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo).  Each one was gracious and funny, and I hope I’ll soon have a chance to meet the rest of the cast as well.

The full transcripts of the three interviews are linked below:

An Interview with The Guild’s Robin “Clara” Thorsen
An Interview with The Guild’s Jeff “Vork” Lewis
An Interview with The Guild’s Sandeep “Zaboo” Parikh

One of my favorite online writers is Liz Ohanesian, who with photographer Shannon Cottrell, have been hitting up Los Angeles’ fandom conventions for LA Weekly. These ladies were brought together to scope out a convention, and ever since then, they’ve been hitting up cons like San Diego Comic-Con, Long Beach Comic Con, and Anime Expo, just to name a few. They are the kind of reporters we love here at Convention Fans, because they are writing positive stories about fandom, cosplay, and conventions. I recently had a chance to interview Liz and Shannon, and we chatted about how they ended up in the world of fandom cons, their favorite ones to attend, and their advice for budding young journalists out there.

What follows below is my interview with the dynamic duo, and at the very bottom you’ll find links to some of their recent stories at LA Weekly! Special thanks to Shannon for giving us permission to repost some of her great photos with this interview.

Liz and Shannon, when was your first fandom convention, and how long ago was it?

Liz: Anime LA, probably about three years ago.

Shannon: I think it was Comic-Con San Diego 1993, or maybe it was 1994. It was before they changed the logo to what it looks like today and it was, of course, a lot smaller.

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One of the single most popular images at Convention Fans is of Lindsay, a Blood Elf cosplayer, from her debut at BlizzCon 2008.  What was so interesting about Lindsay, for me personally, was that she had never attended a convention before, and had never cosplayed either. And there she was on stage at BlizzCon, showing off her very first costume. That move took a lot of guts.

Well, I’ve kept in touch with Lindsay over the past year, and watched her become a true cosplaying force to be reckoned with.  She went back to BlizzCon in 2009 with an absolutely incredible Blood Elf costume, and took the stage in the costume contest once more. Although she didn’t win, the amazing amount of growth and progress from her first costume to this one is astounding.

I asked Lindsay if I could do another interview with her, about her costume, and about her BlizzCon experiences. I’ve also been given her permission to share some of the great photos of her latest costume with all of you. Please check it out below!

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Sometimes it seems like the ladies really dominate the whole cosplay community/scene. But, the male cosplayers are out there, and I recently found a really great one to interview! Cosplay.com member Allspice has costumes from multiple genres, including Disney, anime, video games, and even board games (and he’s definitely one of the best Prince Phillip cosplayers I have ever seen!) . So take a look at the interview below, and check out this guy’s great cosplays!

Allspice, how old were you when you attended your first convention?

Allspice: I was fourteen, but at the time had never cosplayed before!

How did you get into cosplay?

Allspice: My friends practically drug me along into their cosplay group. I reluctantly agreed, but after the experience, I was hooked! It was so much fun!

Are you a self taught costumer, or did you have someone teach you to sew, etc.?

Allspice: I would hardly call myself “Self Taught” though a lot of my experience came through fiddling around. My Grandmother and Mother both sew, and so I grew up watching them go to town on a machine. I learned all the basic functions of a machine this way, ,and so when I decided to learn, this knowledge made it much easier to pick up the skill. Even today I’ll still go to one of them if I have costume issues to fix. Haha!

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I just love it when I find couples that cosplay together - especially if they are cosplaying as a pair of connected characters. A few months ago I discovered a cosplayer named “Livvy”, who operates livvylove.com. Livvy and her significant other, Adam, have some absolutely adorable cosplay costumes! I had a chance to talk to them, and find out more about their couples costumes, and how they balance costume construction responsibilities between the two of them.

Livvy & Adam, what were your first conventions? How old were you, and which cons were they?

L. & A.: AWA 10 was our first convention and we were 21 years old.

How long have you each been cosplaying?

L. & A.: After AWA 10 we decided to start cosplaying so it’s been about 5 years.

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