I finally did my first cosplay! As April O’Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Cosplay was something I’d been wanting to try because it combines my love of sewing with my love of dressing up. My friend and experienced cosplayer David Volko was going to FanimeCon. Knowing that I had expressed interest in cosplay, he told me his group was dressing up as the Turtles and he was going as Shredder so they could totally use an April. I said I’d be willing to give it a try. This seemed like a reasonable one without too many complicated pieces. I grew up watching April on TMNT in the mornings while eating cereal before school and I’ve always liked her character despite the fact that the only purpose she serves in the cartoon is someone for the Turtles to save. But at least she was spunky. 🙂
Here’s a look at the costume. I’m really happy with how it turned out in the end! I think I make a decent April. And below are some of the screens grabs from episodes that I used as reference:
This was my first time going to a Cosplay convention (well, since the only other time when I was 10 or so and my parents took me to something that was sorta a fan convention but also just sorta weird). It was a ton of fun. I loved seeing everyone dressed up. Some people really went all out on some crazy costumes. Costumes ranged from classic 80’s like me and Jem below to modern day League of Legends to anime characters, of course, although most of those I didn’t recognize since I’ve only seen bits of anime here and there.
Here are some photos from the day.
Love this chick’s Jem outfit. Microphone ladies unite!
The reporter got interviewed! This guy liked my outfit and asked me a few questions.
I interviewed an adorable corgi. Because corgis are awesome.
And my friend and I had fun doing photos. It was fun to play with some of my old acting skills 🙂
We also grabbed some photos with the whole group that I went with, good guys vs. bad guys style. In addition to April and Shredder, Samurai Kiss (left) went as Sasami and Pocky Princess Darcy went as Pixy Misa, both from Magical Girl Pretty Sammy.
Over the next couple of posts I’ll show details on how I made my costume from a modified 70’s jumpsuit pattern and toss in a couple more photos of April and Shredder for kicks.
April and Shredder hanging out, like they do.
