conventions | Jennifer Awesome v5.0

Tag Archive for conventions

Tasty Peach Studios – Halloween 2014 Re-release and More

August 5, 2016 Jen Ný Figures and Toys No comments

I’ve posted about Tasty Peach Studios and their awesome plushies before. They have recently hit a patch of bad luck. Their van and containing a lot of equipment and merchandise was stolen while attending a convention in Florida, and to raise extra funds in order to keep their business going, they will be re-releasing two of their retired limited edition Halloween Meowchis. The original black bat and candy corn will be available to preorder starting today. They will also reopen a limited number of preorders for the limited edition white tiger Meowchi that was originally only available at Colossalcon at the same time (there will be an unlimited preorder for him one last time at a later date).

I’m excited for the black bat and original colored candy corn since I only managed to get he recolored variants. I was lucky enough to get the white tiger at Colossalcon. He was the main reason I wanted to go to Colossalcon this year. He is super cute and definitely worth adding to your collection! Look how fierce he is!

Tasty Peach Studios will also be offering a number of new products for preorder this month. The sea bunnies and mint chocolate chip Nomwhal will be available for preorder starting 8/15, and a Kickstarter for giant Meowchis is scheduled to go live on 8/20. I’m hoping to get the strawberry lemonade sea bunny and both giant Meowchis, depending on the price. The nomwhals and sea bunnies will be permanent store-staples, I believe, while the giant Meowchis will likely only be available from Kickstarter.

I just wanted to help promote this awesome company and help them be able to continue to bring us new kawaii plushies. If you have been debating purchasing a Meowchi or other plush from them, now is the time!

Pumpkaboo Cosplay and Nyancon 2015

October 5, 2015 Jen Ný Cosplay No comments

We went to Nyancon this past weekend. Nyancon is a free one-day local convention at Lakeland Community College. Even though it is small, only lasts one day, and has free admission, Nyancon is still better than some paid multi-day conventions I’ve been to (I’m looking at you, Shinbokucon!).

There were a lot of different panels going on at any given time, so there was almost always something interesting going on. There were also several different screening rooms, though we didn’t check any of them out (I’d rather spend convention time doing other things, and watch anime at home). The only thing I didn’t like was how crowded the dealer’s room got. The aisles were way too narrow for the amount of people there.

My favorite panel that we went to was Pixlbot’s Retro Game Challenge. It started off with the contestants playing Super Mario Bros. 1-1 with a dance mat instead of a controller. After that challenge, they had to play through several pretty evil Mario Maker levels created by the panelists.

During the week leading up to Nyancon, I decided to put together a Pumpkaboo cosplay to wear to the con and for whatever Halloween events I end up going to. The only new thing I made just for this costume was the headband. I also used the cape I made for my Dragon’s Crown elf cosplay, the boots I got for my Skyrim cosplay, a brown skirt and vaguely medieval-looking belt I already had, an orange dress I bought just for this cosplay, a belt, and two potion bottles filled with yellow sand tied to the belt. I thought potion bottles would be the coolest looking thing to use to represent the yellow circles on Pumpkaboo’s body for a human version of Pumpkaboo. It’s sort of like a Pumpkaboo-themed witch! I also got a pumpkin basket and tied to amber potion bottles too it and brought my Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist plushies that I made last year for Halloween. I thought it turned out pretty good for being mostly a closet cosplay.

Lately I’ve been enjoying gijinka types of cosplay (well… just Pokemon) more than regular cosplay. It’s fun to think of how to design a human outfit for plant- or animal-like characters than to just try to match what a character is wearing.

Anyway, Nyancon was really fun, despite being so small. I think I like smaller conventions better than the larger ones anyway. Smaller cons are less crowded, more relaxed, and have much shorter lines. They tend to be more fun, as long as there is enough interesting programming to keep everyone entertained.

Midoricon 2015

September 29, 2015 Jen Ný Cosplay No comments

We went to Midoricon over the weekend. This was Midoricon’s fourth year, as well as the fourth year Hans and I attended. This year we cosplayed as Inklings from Splatoon on Friday and part of Saturday and Pokemon for the Pokemon events on Saturday. I was Sylveon and Hans was Lucario again.

I didn’t bother making a whole new cosplay for this con this year. I adapted my Sylveon cosplay a bit to be more weather-appropriate. With as many layers as my Sylveon costume was, I didn’t want to overheat in September. I didn’t use the top layer of the costume, and attached the bow and tail to the under layer. I think it still looks cute this way!

For the Inkling, I just used my Inkling hat that I bought on Etsy and a pink polo shirt and workout shorts with a pink stripe. I brought my Splatoon squid plushie to the con so that I’d at least have omething I made myself for this costume!

Midoricon is a lot different than most other conventions. It takes place at a lodge in a state park. For the past two years it has been at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio. It is a lot less crowded and more relaxed than other conventions and there are a lot of outdoor events. Midoricon is my favorite convention that I’ve been to, and if I had to pick on con to go to a year, this would be it.

That said, I think it was better last year. It seemed like there were less people there this year, which makes me worry that the organizers might decide to stop doing this convention. They pushed the date back a few weeks this year, so it might have conflicted with people going back to school.

We got there Friday night, so we missed the Live Action Mario Kart event, which was earlier in the day. We did get to do the Live Action Pokemon Snap on Saturday, though.

I think there were fewer Pokemon cosplayers at the Pokemon photoshoot and Pokemon Snap event this year. It was still fun, though. It’s hard to not have fun being a Pokemon in a game of Live Action Pokemon Snap!

They had the Pokemon Gym Leader Challenge event again this year, but it was on Sunday. We didn’t participate because it was after we checked out from our room and we didn’t want to have to change into regular clothes in the bathroom. I feel like they really should have had all of the Pokemon cosplay events on the same day, so that people could just stay in costume for all of them.

The dealer’s room was awesome, as always. I got a Kyubey plushie, a pink sheep plushie, and a rainbow narwhal plushie. The dealer’s room was smaller than at other cons, but it still had plenty of cool stuff. I managed to find two of the specific things I was looking for (Kyubey and the Amuse sheep plushie). Like at all cons, there were some good deals and some overpriced items. Luckily, my phone reception was good enough to compare prices online!

I’m hoping that next year they take everyone’s feedback into account and make Midoricon even better. I would really hate to see such an awesome convention go down hill. I hope to be able to attend Midoricon for years to come!

We’re going to be a Nyancon this weekend too. It’s a free one-day convention at Lakeland Community College. I will be there as Pumpkaboo if I can get my last-minute cosplay ready by this weekend.

Bellossom Cosplay

August 22, 2014 Jen Ný Cosplay, Sewing No comments

I haven’t had time to make a new cosplay in quite a while, but I just finished a Bellossom cosplay for Midoricon. They are doing Live Action Pokemon Snap this year, and I wanted to be a part of it. Bellossom was always one of my favorite Pokemon from Pokemon Gold and Silver. As lame as it might sound, Bellossom was one of the new Pokemon I was most excited about for that generation. I remember seeing a picture of it in a magazine before the games came out, and thinking it was super cute. I even made my own plush doll of Bellossom (it didn’t turn out too great – I was a kid! I’ll see if I can find it at my parents’ house sometime). Plus the hula-dancer inspired Bellossom seemed like the perfect Pokemon to cosplay as at a beach convention!

I the flowers are stuffed with Poly-Fil stuffing to make them poofier. I used a stiff red fabric I found in the remnants bin. I couldn’t think of a good way to make the yellow center part, until I was looking around JoAnn’s and saw the big yellow buttons. I thought they were just perfect! For the skirt, I made eight big leaf shapes – four green and four yellow, and sewed them together. There’s a little bit of elastic inside to keep it more secured. I just bought a green tank top because I’m lazy.

I also made an Oddish plushie to go with my costume. I actually made him before I started my cosplay to test out my new sewing machine. He’s made from left over fabric from two other costumes. I used a pattern for a round ball I found on image search, and just used the exact same pattern to make the leaves (as I said early, I’m lazy). I’m going to carry him around with me at Midoricon.

I just have one more thing to finish making for my costume: a leaf shaped bag to keep my phone, wallet, and 3DS in. I ordered a pair of green a yellow shorts to wear under my skirt specifically because they had pockets. It turns out, however, that like most clothing designed for women, the pockets are too small for even an iPhone. I think I’m about to start making all of my own clothes so that I can at least have decent pockets!

Anyway, if you see me walking around at Midoricon, please say “hi!” I’ll be there with my boyfriend, who’s going as Lucario. I hope to meet lots of other Pokemon there!

Dragon’s Crown Elf Cosplay and Midoricon 2013

September 17, 2013 Jen Ný Cosplay, Sewing No comments

Midoricon was a couple weeks ago, and my boyfriend and I decided to go in Dragon’s Crown cosplay. We just finished our costumes the day before the convention. I was the Elf and he was the Wizard.

I didn’t get any pictures of my costume before I got tired of my wig and took it off. It started getting messed up under my hood and it was too hot outside for wigs, so I stopped wearing it halfway through Saturday and just braided my actual hair. Plus, my elf ears didn’t really work with the hood up and the wig on, and I wanted to wear my elf ears at some point during the convention. I didn’t get any pictures of my boyfriend as the Wizard either, because he wants to improve some things on his costume as well (his wig ended up looking completely different from the picture on Amazon, so he stopped wearing his too).

Here’s some pictures of me as a brown-haired version of the Elf. We’re probably going to do these costumes again sometime if we can get better wigs.

Midoricon was pretty awesome overall. There was live-action Mario Kart (which unfortunately filled up before we could register to compete, but we still got to see it) with a crazy banana running around. There were also some outdoor panels, which we didn’t really check out. I did learn how to make chain-mail at a chain-mail panel that Link was presenting, which was pretty awesome! We only had time to make a small bit of chain-mail at the panel, but Link let everyone take home a cup of chain links to make more later.

This was Midoricon’s second year. Last year we just went for one day since we had just gotten back from Matsuricon. We chose Midoricon over Matsuricon this year, since last year Midoricon was better, even though Matsuricon is bigger. (In the con world, bigger isn’t always bigger, which we learned from Ohayocon this year, which was overcrowded to the point of not being enjoyable and I can’t even remember what panels or events were there. Even though it was the biggest con I’ve been to, it was also the least memorable.)

Anyway, aside from some immature idiots pulling the fire alarm repeatedly (I doubt this con will be invited back to Shawnee State Park Lodge next year), and several of the employees treating us like we’re a bunch of weirdos for wearing costumes, Midoricon was definitely one of the best cons I’ve been to.

The only things I’d like to see next year are more vendors and an actual gaming room. They only had tabletop gaming, which I’m not really into.

Anyway, I recommend Midoricon for anyone in the Ohio area who enjoys going to conventions, especially if you’re tired of the bigger, more crowded conventions. It’s more laid back than other cons, and even though it’s small, there is still plenty to do.