Budgeting your MONEY at Conventions

Costumes are not the only thing a person has to budget for. Where else will you wear those costumes, but the vast amount of conventions and events throughout the year!

Money is always a touchy subject. Some have more. Some have less.
What is fact, however, is that money is needed when planning to go anywhere…especially conventions. Cons can be as cheap as you make them or as expensive as you would like them to be.

There are lots of ways to budget for conventions, but the best thing to note while planning is how much you are able to spend. This can be a base cost (I.e. you are able to spend $300) or a combination of costs by adding up what the costs may be (I.e. gas+hotel+food+misc=X amount of money).

Here are a few tips when it comes to planning for conventions:

I dont WEAR makeup

This is more of a rant then helpful. I'm sure I could be helpful and tell you ALL to wear makeup when you cosplay because it looks better in photos and blah blah blah.

But i'm not.

Because i DONT wear makeup and, honestly, I dont really see the point at times.
Recently someone said they did not "understand" people that did not wear makeup. Well, let me help them out...

Rest of 2010

I have not been in a very cosplay mood lately. After having been at this for nearly a decade, I am wanting to progress in the hobby further then I think that i have. I have seen people that have only started a couple years ago progress quickly while i have been at a slow pace. It is mainly because I have been a student my entire cosplay career until this summer. So, now, it seems like a world of cosplay possibilites have opened up to me and i am ready to embrace them.

The four images above are probably the last costumes i will do for 2010. I am currently working on two of them. I also will (hopefully) do a Christmas costume this year and I have one comic outfit planned for a comic convention in October.

From L-R
Juri Han - Super Street Fighter 4
Ginga Hagane - Beyblade Metal Fight/Fusion
Rei - Highschool of the Dead
Tsunayoshi Sawada - Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Curious

I oftentime wonder why some people go to conventions. Mainly lolitas or ravers. Perhaps for their own themed events (like loli panels or the raves)? Sometimes they have no interest in anime at all...

Costume List - Anime Weekend Atlanta

Here is a non-tentative list:

Friday:
Morning - Edward Elric.
from Fullmetal
Alchemist

Afternoon - Lolita and
Ginga from Beyblade
Metal Fusion

Night - rave outfit

Saturday:
Morning - Yoko Ritona
from Gurren Lagann and
Perona from One Piece

Afternoon - Juri Han
from Super Street
Fighter 4 and SUPER
NEW SECRET COSTUME

Nightish - Ginga?
Juri? And RAVE OUTFIT

Sunday:
Lolita more then likely

This is all subject to change. I'm commissioning quite a bit of my secret costume and the wig for Ginga...so I'm leaving it in the hands of my commissioners :)

After AWA is Xcon, which is in October. I will be working on Silk Spectre I from the Watchmen movie and maybe two others including A DISNEY BALL GOWN 'O DOOM, which I might commission anyway

HUGE BALL OF STRESS

As my next convention steadily approaches, I have been stressed about cosplay.

I am going to take my friend's advice. My friend is Livvy, owner of www.livvylove.com, a cosplay site. She does some fantastic costumes and typically attends cons in Georgia. We got to talking today and she told me that I need to focus on one costume at a time. She even told me the mental process as to what she does when she decides what ONE costume she will work on.

I'm lucky to have my cosplay mentors that keep my head on straight. Sitting down with a stack of reference pictures, I will definitely be choosing ONE costume at a time.

My 'problem' is that I have too much time in-between costumes so my mind wanders a lot (haha). It is only natural to have so many costumes that you want to do in a short span of time. This is why you must reevaluate the BUDGET and the REASON you want to do each individual costume.

Hopefully, I will figure all this stuff out before Anime Weekend Atlanta gets here in September. It'd be pretty strange cosplaying in my birthday suit *cough*. I think I will focus on Vanille, but I also want two others! I feel bad when I scrap costumes, especially if I'd told people about it -_-

WHO should I cosplay!? - The Art of Choosing a Character

Maybe it's just me and 8 years of this, but it somewhat annoys me when a person asks someone else - especially people that do not personally KNOW them - who they should cosplay. But let's back it up a couple of steps before i get into that...

Choosing who to cosplay is probably one of - if not THE MOST - important steps of cosplaying. Of course it is. You have to be able to CHOOSE something to cosplay before cosplaying - duh. With the thousands of possibilities out there, it is perfectly fine to become overwhelmed at who, what, etc to cosplay. It is intimidating to see many cosplayers choose cosplay after cosplay with (seemingly) no problems.

And even if you consider yourself a pro at choosing costumes, you still might become conflicted about choosing what to cosplay NEXT after a project is completed.

Sticking to yo gunz!

One problem I have in cosplay is becoming so devoted to a costume that you do not think about starting anything else. It gets CRAZY when you have multiple projects at once.

Right now I have two in progress, one that needs to be redone, and several that I want to do (atleast 5 or more)

Its a problem.
I envy those that can stick to their guns and work steadily on one costume.

So, I have attempted to come up with ways that may help cosplayers do that.

1. Work steadily - like maybe every DAY - to finish a costume. That way it gets done quicker and you're able to move on to the next.
2. Motivation! Find something to motivate you, whether it be a song (T.I's Movtivation is mine), rewatching/rereading/replaying the series,
3. Get inspired! I find that looking at people that have already made the costume inspires me to make my own
4. The rule for everything: HAVE FUN! If it becomes too stressful, taking a break works wonders. Its sometimes good to have two projects because one upsets you there's another that wants your attention :)

New discovery!

As I become more frugal, I start looking for more coupons to use at craft stores. As I'm sure you all know, I'm working on Vanille from Final Fantasy 13. Her costume has a large amount of beads that could cost a lot.

After googling, I found this!
http://www.mycraftcoupons.com/

It has printable coupons for A.C. Moore and Michaels! They currently are offering 50% coupons off any 1 item that last till July 10. Last time I was in A.C. Moore I paid $8 for two packs of beads! Now I can get that for $4 (with help from a friend or significant other so we can use more then one coupon) OR I can visit both stores and use coupons at both to further save money.

I'll be looking for coupons to some fabric stores next :)

June 4!

Happy Independence Day!

I have some new posts coming up! Tomorrow I will blog about choosing a costume and also tell you where to find great pictures from Anime Expo.

Soon, I'll devote posts to finding commissioners, places to buy wigs, surviving a convention, and more! If there's a question about cosplay, ask me and I'll answer it!

Spread the word about this blog! I'll start posting more frequently if I get 10 followers by August.