Hello everyone my name is Amber. (Mishikotoko..lol)

I would like to let you all know that I did see many cosplays which I liked, and I was really impressed with the ammount of cosplayers that we had attend the convention. I am a cosplayer myself, and for the ammount of people we had, cosplayers seems to have a upper hand here. Thanks for comming to the covention, and sharing your artistic abilities. (sp?)

I would like to thank every cosplayer, who was in the Cosplay's which we held. (both the main cosplay, and the swim suit cosplay.) How did all of you cosplayers like the "Suprise" we had for you? (too bad it wasn't raining at that point...lol just kidding) You all did a great Job.

For everyone who participated in the main cosplay, thank you. We had a great turn out. I would like to appologize though, I was a bit cranky, and stressed, so I doubt you all really liked dealing with me.
I can say the room with all of the Walk on cosplayers in it....Man...the thing I hated was getting through that room with my boots on... :lolguy:

Thanks everyone who participated, You all did a great job on your cosplays.
I was truely suprised by how many of you participated.
Here is an idea, I know about how many people there were. Lets try to break this years record, by bringing friends and family to the convention in 2007, and having them participate as well.

On another Note, if you have any suggestions, and was unable to make it to the closing ceremonies (sp?)/ con gripe, to let us know your thoughts. Please post any of them about the cosplay in here. ^_^

Thanks everyone!

Just a quick note for everyone that participated in cosplay, we're still working on getting the video of it online. Hang on and we'll have a link somewhere soon!!

(btw, this is Mike, the guy prepping you in the back hallway before you went on)

You and Amber did an awsome job trying to get everything done for cosplay. Great job~!

Thank you very much! It was both of our first times doing this, and we had a blast. It wouldn't have run well if everyone else wasn't extremely cooperative too :)

So, Minna-san! thank you for being so understanding!

Sorry my bladder was misbehaving and forced me to the bathroom on a few occasions. And you were wonderful and sweet hun :) Your crazy friends were the Nazi's :P

No love for the sound or tech crew setting up inside the cosplay room? *cries*

I'm curious... during the Cosplay Dance (for lack of a better description)... How many people enjoyed the music? It was mixed about two hours before the cosplay while I was practicing my m4d DJ sk1llZ.

other_mike:
I kind of thought it was you, due to your name. Thank you so much for helping me figure out what to do.

Kala:
Don't forget the Mike (^^) and all of the Tech crew, and staffers who helped.^_^

other_mike:
We should do it again at 07....lol

TehAna:
(If remember correctly) Were you the one who I said reminded me of the Strawberry Shortcake girls?

ODDJOB:
I myself liked the music. As for the "dance" thing, I was wondering how long it would take for the speakers to fall. (good thing some people started to lean against/ hold them a bit.....lol)

to mike: good memories made in that room, yo. under the table, ay? ;D! otherwise, instructions were good, even if loads of people seemed to just ditch the mikes (rofl, mikes)... but well, IT ROCKED ANYHOW. >]

anyhow. great job organizing, i thought it went really well (and the stalling was hilarious. god. i gotta get me some of those cadbury eggs. if only i weren't straight... >.>). :D i had an awesome time. x]

YAY FOR AMBER!! <33

:D I knew It'd come out great, even tho you were stressing SOOO much about it. ^^

Sorry I missed it, I fell asleep. x.x; As you would know when you came back up to your room. xD

ummm...I didn't stress so much, until we got the cosplayers, into the green room.

Then I started to stress, but that was more or less like..rush rush...lets not keep people waiting long...rush...make sure everyone is here...ect...rush...(lol)
I was calm friday, and saturday up until everyone was in the green room.(lol..I know wierd eh?) I had a nice system going, thanks to Other_Mike, who without him...lets just say....the con would have been very different.

I will be watching it as soon as it is on the site though. I loved doing it too...

(the sad thing is I love pressure.)to an extent

I have the video and will be sending the links out as soon as i re-encode/compress it since it's at about 23 gigs right now.

Sorry for any issues there might be with it, but about 3 minutes before cosplay started someone asked me... "You will be filming this right?", so yeah, with about that much notice i did what i could...

Stay tuned.

That was probally Chris, sine the cosplayers wanted seating, but we couldn't get enough chairs set up in time for it.

You cosplayers were the main reason why I volunteered to be the second judge. I have never cosplayed, but I am a big fan of it. The 11 1/2 hours of work were easily worth the opportunity to listen to the summaries of how the costumes were made and then to see the performances. Melissa was amazing at simultaneously cosplaying, judging, and making sure I didn't mess anything up.

This might have been the first convention where a pizza delivery guy had to stand in the middle of a cosplay prejudging session while delivering pizza to a hotel room without interrupting the session.

Yeeah... Thanks to those folks who held up my speakers while everyone was dancing. I would have liked it better if the cosplayers danced off of the stage... I was more concerned of the stage collapsing than my speakers falling over. (They weigh 90 pounds each.)

You guys did a good job with the technical aspect of running the cosplay! ^_^

Howeveeeerrr.....I *really* think you need to do a bit more planning ahead regarding the actual judging process. I know that the judges felt out of the loop and wasn't sure of a few things. Judges need to be kept in the know of things too. ^_^

I only really heard people complain about how when they signed up for the cosplay that they weren't given a time to show up. I mentioned a numbered time sheet on the Constructive Criticism thread..check it out. ^_^

Also please take time to get other qualified judges in regards to judging craftsmanship. It's not fair to the cosplayers to have someone who's never cosplayed or made a costume before judging their work. (no offense to the poor guy who ended up doing it at the last second..I know it's definately not your fault! ^_^)

Okay, enough negatives...let me squeal over the positives:

The prizes you guys gave out to the winners were awesome! It was great seeing people get swag from series that people actually know!

Having so many categories was a terrific idea! It enabled a lot of people to be recognized on a lot of different aspects.

I was amazed over the amount of people that entered the cosplay! That totally rocked! I love long masquerades and having a lot of entrants always makes it a blast. ^_^

A few snags aside (what con doesn't have them though? lol) it was an awesome job for your second year guys! Keep up the good work! :-D

As someone who competed in both the swimsuit and regular cosplays, I'm going to echo Chrno's sentiments here. (Sorry if it's long)

The good:

The staff did a wonderful job!! I know most of them were kept out of the loop, so the way the handled everything with the disorganization behind the scenes was amazing. You guys did a good job of trying to keep everything run smoothly, and it was really great of the tech guys to bring in a show for us to watch while we waited, and to videotape what we missed. This includes the judges. I know they were all sorta thrown in last minute, and some of them had no experience cosplaying, and even those who did had little communication about what was going on. They still did a fantastic job, and we kind to those who missed their pre-judging times. While waiting for my own judging, I was able to watch the judges work with some cosplayers who missed their times, so I know the judges did a good job :) Thanks!

The awards. It's nice to see a con recognize so many people. Too often only a few cosplayers are selected, and many good costumes are left without recognition. I thought it was great that so many people were awarded for their good work :)

Swimsuit cosplay. I think it was a great idea! Despite the problems, it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I decided to do it!! I hope you do it again next year.

The stuff to work on:

Organization. Honestly, it seemed that no one knew what was going on. The judges were kept out of the loop, the staff was, so were the cosplayers. It was unnerving to keep checking for our pre-judging time, and to never see it posted. Worse, my cosplay partner and I woke up to find out we were likely going to miss our judging time because it had never been posted until that morning! Luckily the judges were laid-back and let us switch times with a friend. The judging itself was out in the lobby... I wish we had gotten a room for this. The lobby is really not the best place to examine a costume or converse with the judges.

The Greenroom. While the staff was amazing...they couldn't make that wait any better. We were told to be there at 6, that's fine. But when we are made to wait in that room for about two hours...and told we can't watch the skits and can't even leave?? That's just ridiculous. It really needs to be planned out better. Get the cosplayers there an hour early or something...try and start things on time. Set time limits for the skits. I understand that the con was supposed to be laid back, but disorganization just turns people away.

Swimsuit cosplay. Nothing much you guys could have done because of those parents... Just maybe next year, talk to the hotel about reserving the pool for an hour? Post notices?


I guess that's it....long-winded rant, I know. Again, I want to commend the staff, tech crew, and judges. You did a great job!!! I just hope that things are better planned next year (I totally understand that a lot of the staff, like poor Mishitoko I believe? joined up to help last minute, and therefore, I'm not blaming you at all). Overall, I was happy with the cosplay, I just wish there had been more organization and communication. Get some more rules and plans set, and you'll have an extremely well-run cosplay event with your awsome staff!

I actually volunteered to be a cosplay judge 3 weeks before the convention. I thought it would be okay to have one inexperienced judge since most of the people who see the costumes at the convention aren't cosplayers.

Stuff to work on: When placing a joke cosplayer in with the real cosplayers to stand in the back of the room and miss the masquerade, then making him watch the /slayers/ dub, be sure not to ruin the timing of the april fools joke by announcing it before anyone realizes how absurd it is for a Waldo cosplayer to win best overall costume.

Well, I can understand your reasoning behind that and all, but in judging for craftsmanship, they want to win for how they MADE the costume...not how they look in it.

The things that are ususally looked at when judging a cosplay costume are accuracy and how well made the costume itself is. (ex: are the edges finished? is it fitted well? etc)

If you want to make the cosplay more of a look-alike contest instead of craftsmanship you need to make sure that it's known that's what the main objective of the contest is. ^_^

The skits had no time limit, Although I do not think any skits lasted over 3 minutes. We got through the skits fairly quickly, for the ammount we had.

Yesh! I R the imitation Strawberry Shortcake!

I thought a lot of the cosplays were good. Especially the CLAMP cosplayers, Kenshin, One Piece, Princess Ai, Trigun...so many to list.

I hate look alike contests. I think it should be judged on the quality of the cosplay, not how close to the charater you are.

I love how smoothly cosplay went, that is after Mike (Other_Mike) helped get it organized and prepped everyone in the halls. Timing was great, and dancing on the stage with other cosplayers was fun! :D

I am definately going to attend Anime Punch Next Year.

OH and PLEASE KEEP THE SWIMSUIT COSPLAY!! XD I hope to compete next year!

We'll definatly have to have the swim-cosplay again next year!

Oh, and in regards to having a cosplay noob' as a judge, there was good reason for that! We had Hikaru, who was as veteran a cosplayer as anyone could be, someone who knows cosplay inside and out, a real pro (and a class-act at that). For the other judge I wanted to have someone with next to no experience, someone who could come in with a completely objective eye.

Hikaru is able to look at things with an expert eye, and Brian can look at them as a total outsider, someone who can judge it for what it is, outside the context of the show it came from, or what not. Originally there would have been a third person, someone with moderate cosplay experience to keep the ballance, but she had other priorities to deal with and had to bail on judging.

Anyhow, I think judging went great, and I personally agree with almost all the judges decisions. As some of you know, the judges were a little out of the loop on a few things, which is my fault. I meant to talk to them before hand, but didn't get a chance until just before the final contest. Even still, I think they did a remarkable job and managed to do their job in line with our vision, which is always impressive because we're confusing people!

That's why cosplaying should be about the art.

Tehanna:
you did a good job. I thought you looke so cute in the costume. ^_^

Yeah, one of our biggest things is judging the cosplays for what they are, not for what they arn't. We consider it an art-form, and in our awards try to stay as far away from the notion that this is a "Contest". Art can't compete against art, and we try to make sure that the awards are going to the costumes that really stand out, not out in some hierarchical "First, second, third" assortment. We create awards FOR costumes, not FIND costumes for an award.
At least that is the theory. Next year we hope to keep the judges more informed of what is going on so there is less confusion about what to do. Even still, they did an excellent job on adapting to our ways!

I was thinking while at work, and I think it would be nice if you had a form to fill out or something like the cosplay contest for the swimsuit also. I don't think you'll actually need to have seperate judging, but it would still be nice to have people's names for things. Also, I think people should be required to tell how they made their costumes. I know there isn't a big competition thing when it comes to AP, but I think it would be a good idea to have a seperate thing like "Best craftsman" and best use of modification to a suit, because I know the amount of people who bought theirs and modified and those that made theirs from scratch was kind of split.

I also wanted to add that I DO think having three different judges with different experience is a nice idea (though at the same time I think it might not be at the same time. I think someone slightly experienced in a little more about cosplaying is necicary). I just think next year you need to make sure there's actually three that are going to be commited to doing it. While the judges were both great and I think did an excelent job, there's not a good balance with two, especially when you have one who knows so little, and one who knows a hell of a lot.

sleeping in cupboards ish fun :nyan:

yes and if I can make a domo-kun swimsuit cosplay I think I want to work on that along with a domo-kun ninja don't knwo if I can do it but I am going ot try

We actually did have that. The cosplay prejudging was the competition you described. In addition to "best craftsmanship," there were categorical prizes like "best prop" and "best mask."

Because I'm feeling saucy... Here's a link to the file that was played during the cosplay walk-ons as well as cosplay "dance"... heh... For those of you interested, the track list goes:

House Divas - Life
Echo Motel - Give It
Freemasons Feat. Amanda Wilson - Watchin' (Club Mix)
Kelly Osbourne vs. Chris Cox - One World
Seawind - Free
Purple Haze - Eden

All audio was mixed by me about three hours before the cosplay. It was done as a practice session and a general "f--- around". For the record, turntables or CDJ decks were not used.

Enjoy~

Sorry, I should have specified. But I was talking about the swimsuit contest still there. The swimuit costume did have seperate categories, but none to exacly tell the difference between made completely on their own and bought and modified. While I bought and modified mine, I can tell other people did too and at the same time I had friend's who completely made theirs. No one was never asked exacly "How did you make your costume?" Which is why, if anyone was there or heard, NyaoNyaoNeko for her Jam costume she made sure to say that she made hers completely.

I think a decent domo-kun swimsuit would be worthy of a prize!

Hey as for me, i loved the cosplay lol .anime punch was one of the best cons iv'e gone to all year lol even though next year i hope we have microphones when we do skits >_< lol but other than that i think that punch was awsome and i hope to be able to go again next year :D ;)

We will see what we can do reguarding that. And I am glad to see you want to come back...So come back!! ^_~