Anime North 2014

Amazing Kayle from League by Ashari Cosplay

Anime North is my year tradition and it was a whirlwind like every other year. There are not enough hours in a day to do all the things you need to do at AN.

I'll keep my blog brief so you can all enjoy my shaky cellphone photos instead :)

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Friday

Contest winners and fellow judges

I got about 30 minutes of sleep on Thursday night. My ability to estimate how much time it takes to finish a costume is horrendous and I still didn’t finish everything before I left. At least the bulk of the work was complete and all I had to do on my big Saturday costume was some wig styling.

I was in and out of sleep for the over five hour drive to Toronto with Kurumasha, Calamity, and Squeek. We made it to the hotel late in the afternoon. It was a mad rush to get badges, arrange our table, and I had to get dressed in Sakura before hitting up the Gaming Cosplay Contest at 6:30 at the Sheraton – which is a lovely 10 min trek from the main hotel that I was staying at. I had to scrap wearing my Tera costume because it was too cold out and I didn't have the time to put it all on.

There were about 10 entries for the first time event and there were some spectacular costumes. First place went to a Jade Dynasty costume, second to Tales of Xilia, and third to Lightning made almost entirely of leather. My fellow judges were VickyBunnyAngel and ZombieBitMe. It was nice seeing them again!

The rest  of the day was spent at my table with Calamity till nine. We soon grabbed dinner followed by some preparation for Saturday.

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Saturday

I spent all of Saturday morning finishing my wig for Ragyo. Most of the silver hair styling was done in my hotel room. I managed to get everything done in time for my shoot with LiquidCocaine Photography. I had 2 hiccups getting ready: first my chain broke two seconds before leaving the room. Thankfully I had jewelry pliers handy. Second, my new silver eyeliner was the wrong shade and I had to use a mix of silver liquid glitter liner and eyeshadow to do my eyebrows.  Right afterwards I went back to my room for touchups and then it was straight to my next shoot, this time with Eleventhphotograph and with Mao-chan as Harime Nui. The shoots went well and I am excited to see the photos.

Later in the day I was judging craftsmanship at the masquerade. The quality of the costumes always amazes me. Since when do journeymen make fully boned corsets and full  body armour with a polished paint jobs? The judging took quite a bit of time and unfortunately we didn’t get to see any of the entries on stage. We wrapped up deliberation at about midnight and it wasn’t until 12:30 that I got out of costume. That was 11+ hours in Ragyo. It was uncomfortable but bearable.

Ragyo sneak peek

Sunday

I spent the most of the day at my table and I got to briefly browse the artist alley before heading out the award ceremony. I was happy to see many people show up to receive their awards. I am also excited that the masquerade is making an effort to get feedback to the participants to help them learn and grow. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Plaza lobby, followed by dinner at Jack Astor’s then the long drive home. I made it home at about 11pm ready to start the next day at work.

I caught up with so many people over the weekend which is one of the reasons why I love AN. See you next year!