ATTENTION, EVERYONE! ATTENTION!
There's something special to announce today! I feel very honoured to be allowed to give away 6 DAY TICKETS for the Role Play Convention (RPC) in Cologne on June 1st and 2nd!!

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK!!!

The winners will be chosen and annouced on SUNDAY, May 26 2013 - 11:00 AM CET on my FACEBOOK PAGE. I will send out the tickets on Monday, May 27th, to make sure the lucky winners will get them in time!

PS: Participants must be at least 18 years old and should -ideally - be from Germany or other European countries. I cannot keep anybody from entering in this sweepstake, but I'd prefer to give the tickets away to people who have the firm intention to attend the convention. It would be a shame to let these tickets go to waste.

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen!

How are you and how have your past months been? I wish I had uploaded more picture here, but I my bachelor thesis, my job and Gala Nocturna have been keeping me rather busy lately. I hope I will find the time to do a proper photo shooting with some of my costumes soon..! Preferably Margaery Tyrell, Princess Leia or Lucrezia Borgia.

➡ As some of you might have heard already I spent past weekend in Antwerp, Belgium where I attended a costume ball called Gala Nocturna. The ball is hosted by the beautiful and talented Belgian costume designer Viona. It took place for the 7th time and his year's motto was "The Pope's Daughter" - Hence my Borgia clothing.

We (Naraku, Talchy, Karina and I) arrived in Antwerp on Saturday afternoon, explored the city for a while, had late lunch and got ready for the ball later.
Entering the facilities of the ball was like stepping through the doors to another world - I am not kidding. After crossing two soldiers of the Papal Swiss Guard one entered a high church-like room whiches walls and ceilings were decorated with beautiful golden mosaics. Many beautifully dressed people were already queuing to get their drinks. The light was dimmed and music out of the Italian Renaissance was playing... The atmosphere at the ball was simply overwhelming. There is absolutely no way to put this experience into words. The whole evening truly felt like a travel back in time.
My highlight of the evening was definitely the Renaissance dance lesson with dancing master Lieven Baert. I would have never thought dancing such dances would be both so much fun and so exhausting. I really hope I'll get the chance to do it again in the future.
Besides the dance lesson we enjoyed the different performances on stage, got pictures taken in the beautiful photo corner, got to know many amazing people from all over Europe and even bought pieces of beautiful neo-romantic designer jewellery as souvenirs.
The next morning we did some sightseeing in Antwerp (A truly beautiful city!) and had delicous Belgian waffles for breakfast. Depending on the motto of next year's Gala Nocturna I might attend the ball again next year. The people I met there were absolutely right - This type of event is a lot of fun and very addictive.

Here are a couple of pictures of Gala Nocturna:

I don't have that many news to write about, but I bring a couple of WIP pictures, previews of finished costumes and a finalized costume schedule for London Super Comic Con next weekend!

➡  First of all: Here's my finalized costume schedule for London Super Comic Con which takes place from February 23rd to 24th! Who else will be there? Let me know! I'd love to meet all of you!

I'm very excited to debute my Princess Leia costume there. I'm very happy about the way the costume turned out. It was a good decision to buy new fabric and to let TheLupin style it! Scroll further down, if you like! There's another picture of my finished Leia costume below. You can also find some silly GIFs on my Tumblr.



And here are a couple of pictures of my Margaery Tyrell outfit as well... I'll take further pictures of this costume as soon as my wig and my shoes arrive!




➡ I'm always happy to receive constructive criticism! I really hope you like the costumes so far!

Hey Folks! How are you?
➡ I just came across my dA journal and noticed that I hadn't updated it for more than a month. I'm terribly sorry. I should definitely publish journal entries more often. Gosh. Anyway, how has your New Years Eve been? What was your January and year of 2013 like so far?
I have to admit that I have been rather unproductive - at least when it comes to costume making. I had to take another exam at university and hand in a couple of papers. Now I'm struggling with the registration of my Bachelor Thesis... bureaucracy is surely annoying.

➡ But let's talk about nicer and more interesting subjects. I haven't worked on many costumes, but I haven't been completely inactive either. In the past weeks I made my first corset and ordered quite a lot of material for my Lucrezia Borgia and Margaery Tyrell costumes. I hope I can show you proper WIP pictures soon. For now have a picture of the finished corset and my new wig!




Edit: Margaery's underdress is finished as well..!


➡ Oh, I don't think I mentioned that the cosplay season of 2013 is going to start earlier than usual for me! Instead of Animuc the next convention I'm going to attend is London Super Comic Con from February 23rd to 24th!
Besides that I'm excited to announce that I'm allowed to work together with the amazing photographers of Sexy Cosplay Girls UK for a photo shooting on Friday, February 22nd! Gosh, I hope I'll be able to live up to their expectations!
Costumes I'm going to take with me to London are Robin, Princess Leia and Leah of Hel from Journey Into Mystery!

➡ Oh, and last but not least... I love travelling! After visiting conventions in Denmark and the UK last year, I'd love to attend a convention in Norway in 2013! Are there any particular conventions you could recommend? I'd be grateful if you could name a few. Or is there some kind of convention schedule for Norwegian conventions? That would be even better! Thanks a lot in advance!

PS: Thank you so much, NerdTitan for an amazing interview! Everybody who is interested in reading it - you can find it right HERE!
PPS: There are still a couple of prints FOR SALE!

➡ Days are passing by and Christmas is almost here! Are you excited already? And have you already gathered all presents you need?
I just love Christmas. It's my favourite holiday of the year... I just love all the lights, decorating the Christmas tree, baking Christmas biscuits, etc. I think I have never looked this forward to Christmas Eve before! My brother and I are going to cook Christmas dinner for our family for the first time! It's going to be a blast! And an extremely delicious one at that! <3

➡ For some funny reason the week before Christmas is always the busiest. All my friends return home from the cities they study in, everybody wants to go out for dinner... and many, many deadlines at university are approaching as well. I still managed to work on my Princess Leia costume a bit! Took me long enough. The dress, the belt and the boots are finished! Only the wig is missing! Here's what it looks like so far! I'm really, really happy with the result!



➡ I also created some kind of.. costume idea-/moodboard for 2013 including costumes I'd like to make, could imagine making, etc. I was bold enough to assume that some of you might be interested in it. I doubt that I'll be able to make all the costumes the mood board shows though. Except for Leia, Margaery and Lucrezia none of these costumes are certain. I just know myself too well... Anyhow, let me know what you think about it!



➡ And that's it! Off to one of my last lectures in 2012!

PS: There are still a couple of prints FOR SALE!

➡ Hey guys! Do you remember my costume schedule for 2013 I posted a while ago? One of the costumes I planned to make is almost finished already! It's Princess Leia's senatorial gown from Star Wars Ep. IV!
I had already started to work on this costume back in May but stopped due to approaching deadlines and exams at university. Since I didn't like the fabric I had bought in May anyway I spontaneously bought another which was a very, very good decision. The new jersey I used to make this dress was so soft and nice to work with. Besides that it's so comfortable to wear. You can see the finished dress below.



As you can see I didn't bother to style my hair correctly. The boots I'm wearing in this picture are provisional as well. I ordered a proper pair of flat boots yesterday. The wig I'm going to use for Leia arrived today as well. I hope I can finish this costume until next weekend. I already have another costume in mind which I'd like to finish in December before I'm going to start working on Margaery and Lucrezia. I hope you like it! :3

➡ Besides that I decided to give selling prints of my work a try. I could sell them on deviantArt as well, but since I want to equally share the profit with my photographers I decided to do it differently. The most important aspect, however, that it's up to you to decide how much you would like to pay for the pictures. Gotten interested? For details CLICK HERE!

➡ TiCon - also known as the last German convention of 2012 - is over! I had a lot of fun there, met more friends and amazing people than I expected to meet and had a great photoshooting there! The location around the convention building is just incredibly beautiful! (Check out "Residenz Würzburg" on Google!) I'm so glad I decided to bring Belle. The weather could have been better though. It was overcast and bitterly cold all day. But it's November, so what did I expect..?
I already uploaded the first picture of the photoshoot a few days ago. I hope I can put up more tonight! ♥

All in all the past convention season has been a blast! I was able to attend so many different conventions in so many different countries and cities. I gathered experience with hosting workshops and panels and judging cosplay competitions. And I also got to know many amazing people from all over the world! I'm curious what 2013 will bring - 2012 will be very hard to top though! During the months of winter I will focus on writing my thesis and graduating from university. But...

➡ ... there are also a few costumes to work on, of course! I already have a couple of ideas and plans. The costumes I'm going to start working on next are:



► Princess Leia from Star Wars - Ep. IV: I started working on this costume in May 2012 already and stopped due to approaching deadlines and exams at university. Since the fabric I bought first simply doesn't look right I ordered new fabric which I received today. I really hope I can finish the dress and the belt this weekend. I am really excited to wear it! I grew up with the Star Wars trilogy and Leia was one of the main heroines of my childhood! Haha! I hope I can make her weapon as well! I should practise working with other materials besides fabric anyway!

► Margaery Tyrell from Game of Thrones: Many people told me that I looked more like Margaery than like Daenerys... and since I came to love Margaery and House Tyrell in the books I decided to go for one of her outfits as well! It will teach me a lot about embroidery and about the proper shaping of garments. I mean, look at that top... I'm excited about my brother joining me as Ser Loras too! Siblings cosplaying as actual siblings is just too cool!

► Lucrezia Borgia from The Borgias: Lucrezia is most likely one of the most challenging and most detailed costumes I have ever done. It'll be the first time for me to make a boned corsett as well. I'm going to wear this costume at Gala Nocturna in Belgium which is a costume ball with a very strict dress-code. Next year's topic is "The Pope's Daughter"!

Further costume ideas for 2013 are Astrid from "How to Train Your Dragon", Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled and Golden Glider from DC's The Flash. Conventions I'm planning to attend are London Super Comic Con in February, Gala Nocturna in Belgium in March, Animuc and Hanami in April, Kapow! Comic Convention, London MCM Expo and YOU! Berlin in May, Connichi in Kassel in September and - hopefully - New York Comic Con in October. Let's see to which conventions I can actually make it! Haha!

➡ Alright, folks! I'm back from London / MCM Expo / London Comic Con, etc! And it was a blast! It was absolutely worth the exhausting bus, plane and tube rides with my 18kg suitcase! It was also the biggest convention (70.000+ people) I have ever been to!
We did some sightseeing on Thursday. On Friday I wore my Belle costume which was very comfortable to wear, not too cold and not too hot and incredibly successful with the children. On Saturday I dressed up as Daenerys which wasn't a too good idea - temperature- and movement-vise. I have never seen such a crowded convention building before. It was crazy. One of the positive aspects of Saturday, however, was that I met Miltos Yeromelou who plays Syrio Forel at the convention! We chatted a bit, I also took a picture with him. He's such a nice and hearty person! On Sunday I wore my Spoiler / Stephanie Brown costume. Nobody recognized me, but that was alright. We had to leave soon to catch our flight back to Germany anyways.
THANKS A LOT to all the amazing people I got to meet and to spend time with at MCM Expo. You know who you are! I really enjoyed my stay and hope that I can attend another convention in the UK again soon! ♥

A few quick impressions of Friday and Saturday...



➡ Now that MCM Expo is over there's only once convention in 2012 left I'm going to attend which will beTiCon 2012 in Würzburg in November. Since I have to focus on project work at university at the moment I won't make a new costume for this convention. So I'll simply bring...

TiCon 2012, Würzburg
Belle from Disney's The Beauty and the Beast

I hope we'll be able to take a few pictures in the small park and around the castle close-by. The location suits Belle pretty well.

➡ And last but not least check out the lastest interview/feature of my costumes at Geek-Pride.co.uk! Mark did an amazing job! The questions were really well thought-through.

➡ Just a quick note! I'll spend the upcoming weekend in London to attend MCM Expo.
Is anybody of you going as well? Would you like to meet up? Send me a message and let me know! My flight depards on Thursday morning!

Here are my costume schedule and a quick preview of my Belle costume from Disney's The Beauty and the Beast! I hope you like it!





And now: Off to bed! I have to get up in 5 1/2 hours!

I promised to update my journal more regularly - so here we go!

➡ I spent the past weekend at Calssara's in Ludwigshafen! On Saturday we attended Ring*Con 2012 in Bonn. Ring*Con is the biggest fantasy convention in Europe. They have plenty of guests every year. This year they had - sort of - focused on actors from the series Game of Thrones which I love... so I absolutely had to go there. We watched the panels of Miltos Yeromelou who plays Sirio Forel and Iain Glen who plays Ser Jorah Mormont in the series. We also watched a panel about the special effects of Game of Thrones which was really interesting.
Besides that we saw Finn Jones (Ser Loras Tyrell), Natalia Tena (Osha/Tonks [HP]), Joe Dempsie (Gendry) and Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee [LotR]) and Billy Boyd (Peregrin Took [LotR]).
I also got an autograph of Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo) and look what he wrote! "Moon of my life"! That's so cool! I'm also really happy about the way the picture with Iain Glen turned out! Ser Jorah is one of my favourite characters of the series and I was so excited to get a picture with him in my Daenerys costume! This was one of my highlights of the day! You can see a couple of pictures Bell took right HERE!



➡ As some of you might already know I will also attend MCM Expo in London in a couple of weeks! I'll arrive in London on Thursday and will do a little bit of sightseeing and shopping with a friend who'll go with me. I'm looking forward to seeing London again. It's such a beautiful city and I wish I could live there for a few months again.
Costume-vise I'm not 100% sure what to bring yet. Here's a rough draft of my costume schedule:

MCM Expo 2012; London (UK)
Friday: ???
Saturday: Daenerys Targaryen [Qarth] from Game of Thrones
Sunday: The Spoiler [Stephanie Brown] from DC's Detective Comics

I'm currently working on Belle's blue dress from Disney's The Beauty and the Beast. In case that I'm able to finish it in time I'll most likely bring this costume to MCM Expo as well and wear it on Friday. What do you think?
Besides that is anybody else planning to go to MCM Expo? Let me know! I'd love to meet up with you!

➡ And just in case you haven't seen it yet: Please take a look at my first official video interview with CosLive TV I gave at GenkiCon 2012 in Denmark in August! Thanks a lot for having me! ♥

I'm so sorry! It's been almost 3 weeks since I posted something here for the last time. I should update my journal more regularly. I'd also like to apologize to all people who are still waiting for me to reply to their messages and/or comments. I'll try to answer them as soon as possible after all preperations for my last semester at university are made!

But now on to more interesting topics...
➡ Just like every German cosplayer I attended Connichi 2012 in Kassel a couple of weeks ago. It's Germany's biggest convention and I had been looking forward to it for months! As some of you might have noticed I spontaneously threw over my whole costume schedule. In the end I wore all costumes I had announced to wear - one costume more even. It was stressful but fun and definitely worth it. I was happy about how many people recognized my Leah costume on Friday, enjoyed wearing Daenerys together with Vivi as Joffrey Baratheon on Saturday, I was excited that Y-o-s-s-i and I succeeded to take a couple of pictures as Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl on Saturday evening, happy to wear Hungary together with LucilleSmiles as Prussia on Sunday again and thrilled to bits about finnaly being able to wear wear Korra together with TheLupin as Mako! ♥ We took a lot of pictures and I'm still waiting for some of them to come. I'll make sure to post them as soon as I get hold of them. Besides that I was very excited to attend Yaya Han's panel at Connichi and to chat with her for a bit. She's a great cosplayer and really inspiring personality!

➡ I also spend some days in Munich at Glasmond's for a couple of photo and video shootings together with Sakenoi as Kon-Elle / Superbabe. I had an amazing time and the results of the days simply blew me away! You can find pictures right HERE! There's also a video of my Daenerys Targaryen costume which you can find HERE! Check it out! It's nice to see the costume and all its details in motion!


➡ Besides that I'm happy to announce that I'll be at Ring*Con in Bonn next weekend!

I'm really excited, because quite a lot of actors of the Game of Thrones cast will be there. These include Iain Glen who plays Ser Jorah Mormont and Jason Momoa who plays Khal Drogo. I hope I can attend their panel and get an autograph from them! I'm looking so forward to it I can barely put it into words..! Aaah!
Further conventions I'm planning to attend in 2012 are MCM Expo in London and TiCon in Würzburg in November. Maybe I'll also be at the bookfair in Frankfurt, but I'm not sure about that yet. We'll see... ♥

➡ EDIT: Please take a look at my first official video interview with CosLive TV I gave at GenkiCon 2012 in Denmark in August! Thanks a lot for having me!

Good afternoon, guys! How are you doing? ♥

My past two weeks have been pretty relaxing. I was finally able to properly focus on costume making again. I had completely forgotten how good it feels to work on a costume of a character you really, really like and you really, really want to dress up as.
Besides that was totally overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedbaack I received on further pictures of my Robin [Stephanie Brown] costume! I had no idea you liked this costume so much! Thanks a lot!  
Hereby I'd alsoo like to thanks all people who started watching me in the past days! Welcome to my deviantArt Cosplay Portfolio! I hope you like what you can find here!

➡ Anyways, on to other topics! Here's my costume schedule for Connichi 2012 in Kassel next weekend!



➡ And a tiny PREVIEW of my finished Daenerys Targaryen costume I have been working on in the past week! I hope you like it! I'm really happy about the way it turned out and I'm looking forward to start working on another outfit of hers already!



➡ And since I still have to finish some minor parts of my Connichi costumes I'm off again! Au revoir! ♥

➡ Firstly: Thank you so much for all these lovely birthday wishes! ♥

➡Secondly: I'll spend the weekend in Denmark attending GenkiCon 2012 in Roskilde. I'll be there to judge costumes for various contests and host a workshop there on how to make kimonos. It's going to be pretty cool! So if you'll attend GenkiCon too, drop by and say hello! I love to get to know new people and to meet friends!
I have already posted my costume schedule for said convention on Facebook, I had to make small changes though. Actually I wanted to debut my Korra costume from The Legend of Korra. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish the wig in time. The weather forecast also said that it's going to be pretty warm on Saturday and I don't think body paint and hot weather are a good idea… So here's my schedule:

GenkiCon 2012, Roskilde
Robin [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)
Ranka Lee (Macross Frontier)

It's been months since I dressed up as an anime character. I hope I'll be able to do her justice.
Anyways I'll be back home on Sunday evening. Things to expect after I'm home? I'll finally upload a Korra Preview, I'm also planning to do a photo shooting with the costume soon. I'll also upload WIP pictures of my Daenerys Targaryen and Hungary costume and I'll answer all messages and comments I haven't replied to so far! So stay tuned!

Good Evening, Guys! How are you? ♥
I'm just here to leave a quick note before I'll have to go back to studying!

➡ Just as I mentioned in my last journal entry I have been working on my Wonder Girl costume from Young Justice: Invasion and I'm glad to tell you that it's finally finished! You can see a preview picture below! I really hope you like it.
Proper shoes are still missing and I also have to revise the wig a little bit. I would also like to prepare Cassie's lasso as a prop. Would be pretty cool to have something to pose with.



➡ Besides that I prepared a temporary costume schedule for the next events I'm going to attend. All information within this schedule is temporary for the time being. I don't know if I can manage to get hold of all materials and wigs in time, I profoundly hope it though.

Superhero Walk, Stuttgart
Sat: Robin [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)

GenkiCon, Roskilde
Sat: Korra (The Legend of Korra)
Sun: Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)

Whohoo! Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen! How are you?

➡ This week I both reached 1.500+ Watchers/Followers and 60.000 Page Views! I still cannot believe this happened so fast! THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!!! You are the best! ♥ I'm really happy you like my work and I really appreciate your support! On to the next 60.000 PVs..!

➡ Besides that I decided which costumes to start working on next. I know, I've been a bit all over the place lately and all like: "Woah! I want to cosplay A! And B! And C! And X, Y and Z!" But the following plans are a 100 per cent set. I promise.

Wondergirl / Cassie Sandsmark from Young Justice: Invasion
Because I needed something to compensate university work with I started working on Cassie from Young Justice: Invasion. Some of you might have seen the WIP pictures of this costume on Tumblr already... This costume will be entirely made from left-over fabrics of other costumes. It's nothing special. I just wanted something nice and easy in between...


Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones
I love Game of Thrones and I wanted to make a costume from a live-action series for quite a while now. I'll debut this costume at GenkiCon in Denmark in August. At the moment I'm doing research to find proper fabrics which is rather difficult. I ordered a wig last week and will take some pictures with it as soon as I get it.

Alright! Back to my third term-paper...

I promised to write a Kapow! Comic Convention report - here it comes!

Friday, May 18th 2012
We (MonkeysCanDance and I) left for London on Friday evening. (It would have been lovely to spend all Friday in the city, but there was another lecture at university I had to attend. The lecture got cancelled in the end… but well.) Both our car ride to the airport, our flight to London and our train/tube ride to the city center went well and without incidents.
At King's Cross St. Pancras we met up with Vivi and moved into our hotel room at Wardonia Hotel which was  an approximately 2-minute-walk away from the train station. We had dinner at a lovely Indian restaurant and hit the pillow early.

Saturday, May 19th 2012
The next day we got up at 6:00 AM to get ready for the convention. I wore Leah from Marvel's Journey Into Mystery that day.
A friend of mine had informed me that the queues in front of UK conventions are always pretty long. Therefore we left the hotel at 8:30 AM to be at London Business Design Centre at 9:00 AM – the time the convention opened.
Unfortunately the queue was already 2 ½ blocks long the time we arrived at the convention center. We were shocked. We had never seen a queue this long! (In Germany you hardly ever have to queue to get into the the convention building.) I tried to make good use of the time, put on my long skirt and got my costume ready. While queuing we also met Lilistprince  and KingIsAmused for the first time! ♥

It was about 9:30 AM the time we made it into the convention center. I also met my friend Johanna there. We both did an internship at the fashion label Saloni in London two years ago. It was amazing to meet her again!

The first person we decided to see was Kieron Gillen who is the writer of Marvel's Journey Into Mystery -  the comic I was cosplaying from that day. Luckily Boa, Vivi and I had brought comics for signing along.
We were all really excited to meet him. He was so incredibly nice! He signed my book and we took a picture together. He even told me that he had traced the production progress of my costume!! He also took an Instagram picture of Lilistprince  and me as Loki and Leah.



Later on we also met Dough Braithwaite who is the penciller of Journey Into Mystery in the artist's alley! I didn't even know he was at Kapow!. We took a picture together and he sketched a tiny Loki into my first volume of JiM. He complimented me on my costume and said that I looked exactly what he imagined Leah to look like. I had absolutely no words! To get such amazing feedback from the writer and the penciller of a series is an incredibly big honor and I really, really appreciate it. I would have generally never expected that my Leah costume would be received so well.



I also stopped by at AmanoJyaku's table in the artist's alley. He's a professional comic pin-up artists from the US. We had talked on deviantArt before and he had asked me if he'd be allowed to use one of my Batgirl photographs as a reference for one of his new projects. Have gave me two signed prints for me and my photographer.
I was blown away by his work! I would have never expected this picture to turn out that well! I absolutely love and I'll get a proper frame for it as soon as possible!



After getting an autograph from JOCK for a friend (Sidenote: Jock was so incredibly nice was well! I have no words!) we started queuing to see Scott Snyder. We wanted to line up, like, 1 hour before the signing started, but by the time we reached the end of the queue somebody was already holding the the "End of Signing Queue Here" sign. We were a bit frustrated at first, decided to stay in line though. We were in second place behind the boy with the sign. There were only a father and his 10-year-old son in front of us.
A few minutes later one of the staff members informed us that our hadn't been in vain and that they would try to get all people in line to see Mr. Snyder. We were relieved. He was the reason we attended the convention for. Haha.

By the time we reached the signing table we were really excited. You don't meed a world-famous comicbook author every day - especially not when you live in Germany. Famous artists hardly ever attend German conventions.
The father with his 10-yeard-old son were up first. The father wanted to take a picture of his son and Mr. Snyder, but I stepped in quickly and offered them to take a picture of the three of them together.
Father and son were happy, Mr. Snyder shook my hand. We started to chat a bit, he signed my first volume of "Gates of Gotham" and I told him that I'd be at the convention as Stephanie Brown the next day and he was all like: "I love Stephanie. I'd love to bring her back in the New 52, but I'm not allowed to. Come along tomorrow and we'll take some pictures together." It was amazing to meet him. I mean, I hardly ever blush when I meet people I admire, but this time...

Afterwards I changed clothes and Boa, Vivi, Johanna, Ne0Nic0 and her friend Rachel we went to a fish & chips restaurant to have dinner. We later also met up with LucilleSmiles who happened to be in London as well. We had coffee and cake and chocolate and sandwiches.

Sunday, May 20th 2012
On Sunday we got up at 6:00 AM again and got ready for the convention. I wore Stephanie Brown's Robin outfit that day and I was really excited to see whether people would recognize the character or not. We had breakfast at Prêt-à-Manger and went into the convention building at 10:00 AM. We didn't really know what to do, so we went to see DC's The New 52 panel with Dan Didio, Scott Snyder, etc. It was pretty interesting, Dan DiDio came across pretty unsympathetically though. To me it felt like he didn't take his fans and customers seriously. When one of the fans asked him when DC would bring Wally West back Mr. DiDio was all like: "Haha. Who's Wally West?" Besides a few series I'm not a fan of the New 52 and this panel definitely didn't change opinion for the better.
A good thing about the panel was that we met a French comicfan called Bruno who told us about a French comic convention which takes place in Paris in July.  Rafael Albuquerque will be at the convention and I'd love to see him! But let's see…

After the panel we queued to see Scott Snyder again. It was amazing that he remembered who we were and we took pictures together – just as promised.



I also met an amazing Batfamily cosplay group from UK that day!
Anna, Claire and Spider were so nice! It was a pleasure to meet them! I hope I'll see them again the next time I visit a British convention.

Later that day I also took my chance in the cosplay competition, I didn't win anything though. Right afterwards I changed clothes and we had late lunch at Pizza Express and did some sightseeing.

➡ All in all Kapow! Comic Convention was a blast, worth every cent I spent and one of the best events I have ever been to! I'd love to go there again next year!

I know I had promised a Kapow! Comic Convention review, but there are things which need to be said first...

    "(Cosplay) Fotografien sind kein Freiwild."
    = „(Cosplay) Photographies are no unprotected game."

This is a remarkable quote Amapola – a great cosplayer and photographer I really admire – puts into every comment and every caption below all photographs or galleries she publishes. And she is right. (Cosplay) Photographies are no unprotected game.

I finished my Stephanie Brown Batgirl costume in September 2011 and have been featured on various websites and in various forums since then.
Some features, reviews and comments truly honored me, but in 99% of cases there was always one aspect that irked me. Nobody had ever asked for my permission. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Today I even found a forum which had shamelessly added its own watermark to my cosplay pictures.  You cannot imagine how angry I was when I saw it.

I know that the majority of people who shares cosplay pictures on forums, etc. has no ill intend, but posting a picture without the cosplayer's permission is just like stealing a fan artist's painting.

     Cosplayers are artists too!

Cosplayers are artists too and you cannot simply upload their work on any website you like. You wouldn't want a holiday snap of yourself to get posted in various forums without your permission either, would you?

      I want my (and any other cosplayer's) work to be treated with respect.

TO CUT  A LONG STORY SHORT:
- Ask COSPLAYERS for PERMISSION before posting their pictures ANYWHERE!
- In case that they give you the permission to post their work ADD a SOURCE. CREDIT the COSPLAYER AND the PHOTOGRAPHER!
- NEVER REMOVE their WATERMARK or simply add YOUR WATERMARK to THEIR WORK!

I am serious about this. If I ever find pictures of me in a forum again which has not asked for my permission I will make them remove my pictures immediately – no matter how nice the feature, review or comment might be. I will also add watermarks to all of my cosplay pictures in future.

Mesdames et Mesieurs - Good evening! How are you? I hope you're all doing well!
I'm really sorry for not updating this journal/account on a regular basis, but university still keeps me busy! I have to write so many term papers and to prepare so many presentations this semester - its absolutely insane. Accordingly I'm just here to drop some quick news!

As I have mentioned before I'm going to attend Kapow! Comic Convention in London, UK from May 19th - May 20th and I was wondering who else is going?
In case that you're going to attend Kapow! as well - Want to meet up? I'll be there on both Saturday and Sunday and I would love to meet deviantArt folk! In case that you're interested just leave a comment below or send me a PM!

And here's what my Costume Schedule for Kapow! looks like...

Kapow! Comic Convention (London)
Sat: Leah (Journey Into Mystery) with Fix-Chan as Loki
Sun: Robin [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)

As you can see on the preview picture below myRobin costume is finished already. (I still can't believe there are no further outfits of Stephanie Brown left to cosplay...)
I will start working on Leah as soon as my fabric arrives.



UPDATE: Leah's dress from Journey Into Mystery is finished as well! Now on to shaping the bones for the wig!



➡ Interested in WIP pictures of my costumes (such as Leah, etc.)? Check out my accounts on Tumblr and/or Facebook!

When I looked at my deviantArt profile page this morning I noticed that I hadn't posted a journal entry since the middle of February! Here are some news..!

➡ During the past weeks of inactivity I finished my 30-page term paper for university and worked on my costumes for the Leipzig bookfair which took part last weekend. I debuted my Ion Fortuna costume from Trinity Blood and my Catwoman / Selina Kyle costume there.
Although the bookfair is no real convention it (kind of) represents the start of the new cosplay season in Germany each year.
Since Leipzig is 550 kilometres away from the place I live I had never attended the bookfair before. It was great to see the fairground and the different booths for the first time though. I had a lot of fun watching the ECG (= European Cosplay Gathering) preliminaries and cosplaying Catwoman together with an amazing Gotham City Sirens group!
(At this point once again CONGRATULATIONS to Calssara who won the ECG preliminaries [Solo Skit]!)

➡ Unfortunately there are also bad news to announce. Due to the immense university workload I have to get over with this semester I won't be able to make more than two new costumes until August. Consequently my costume line-up looks rather sparse. I'm still unsure whether I can attend Dokomi in Düsseldorf or not.

Animuc 2012 (Munich)
Ion Fortuna (Trinity Blood) or Batgirl [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)

Hanami 2012 (Ludwigshafen)
Robin [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)  or Susukihotaru (Otome Youkai Zakuro)

Kapow! Con 2012 (London)
Robin [Stephanie Brown] (Batman)
Stephanie Brown [School Uniform] (Batman Inc. – Leviathan Strikes)

As soon as all my exams are over and all term papers handed in I'll start to work on my Princess Leia (Star Wars) costume for GenkiCon in Denkmark.

➡ Besides these costumes I'm also working on various cosplay tutorials. I'll upload a tutorial on how to make superhero masks out of Wonderflex or Worbla's Finest Art shortly. I'm also planning to upload a tutorial on how to make Catwoman's googles and her cowl. The pattern for the cowl will be available for purchase as well.

P.S.: Check out my OFFICIAL FACEBOOK COSPLAY PAGE as well! ♥

➡ I hereby proudly announce that my OFFICIAL FACEBOOK COSPLAY PAGE is finally online! Feel free to check it out and to press the "I Like!" button if you want to! Thank you! ♥