Oh dear, poor Mai Sheri has fallen down a hole in the past month, only crawling out to Save Hyrule and cause mayhem. but I promised I would post my Frost Con photos eventually, and here we are. 

I spent the weekend working the booth for Cosplay for a Cure which kept me fairly well occupied so I didn't take a lot of photos or do a lot of wandering around. I did, however, chat with most of the people manning the guest/club tables in the room during slower times though, and that was nice to see old friends and meet new people! I did manage to squeeze in a mini shoot for Holtzmann with Dream Land Photography and got some shots at the booth in my bassist Alice, but those pics will be posted a bit later.

So here are my photos:

... and of course some lovely hall shots that I've found:

Bonus! Maximum Khaos snuck me into his convention video!

First things first: sending mad props to all my friends in the last stretch of the Katsu Krunch (and there are an awful lot of you...) even though they are all too busy finishing their amazing new costumes to be spending time reading my blog. I've been watching my friends' (and my roommate's) costumes come together through progress photos, blog posts, and almost daily Google Hangout sessions over the last couple of months, and they are all going to look amazing. On one hand, watching everyone work so hard makes me feel like a bit of a bum since I'm just la-dee-dah-ing through casual costumes with no deadline at the moment, but seeing everyone else working so hard is also doing wonders for my motivation! ... adding more vitamin D to my diet is probably helping with that though too ^_^

Anyways, it's time for a photo-post!!!! Izabel has finally been upgraded with a new wig and other "invisible" upgrades - basically fixing some of the bits that were not up to Mai Sheri quality standards; a.k.a. parts that were rushed for the Snailoween party. I was hoping to do two shoots at FrostCon but unfortunately one had to be cancelled. Luckily for me, Elemental's set from the Cosplay for a Cure booth turned out really awesome! I love getting to shoot with Amanda (which might be obvious looking through my gallery - she has literally photographed two thirds of the costumes I've worn since we met). My Saga gallery page has been updated with the full set.

I took the opportunity of being dressed in Izabel to also squeeze in a costume spotlight video with Dan the Video Ninja. I've missed doing all this stuff, and I'm really looking forward to making, wearing, and having fun in more new costumes in the coming year!

It's been snowing pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours or so here in Toronto, so what better time to talk about cosplay skating and FrostCon?

I'll be honest - I didn't really feel like dressing up and ice skating outdoors on the day of the X-Men of Toronto's cosplay skate. Not only was the weather an awful mix of mist and snow and chill wind, but I was just having one of those days when I don't want to go out into the world. I procrastinated as long as I could, then tossed on my Dragonite hoodie anyways and headed downtown since I had a bag of hats and scarves to deliver to the clothing drive portion of the event. I Pretty much said "hi" to the XMOT group, dropped off my donation and left, but I'm glad I at least made the attempt. Here's to trying again next year! (and if you're interested in more info about the event, here's a clip from Space Channel:

As for FrostCon... well, it was much better than last time, which is to say it was held in a space large enough to accommodate the number of attendees that they had, which for the most part means that there was a lot of available space in the lobby and food courts attached to the hotel via the underground PATH system. The convention space itself (exhibitor and panel rooms) was still quite compact, but because there was room for cosplayers and photographers to expand out beyond the con area for just socializing or mini shoots, I thought it served well. Can't comment on the programming as I didn't participate or go to anything, and I'm glad I didn't have to worry about travel or hotel space (a lot of my friends had significant issues there). Also, didn't bother with the coat check because *shudder*... what a disaster.

So what did I do? Mostly socialized: chatting with friends and meeting other Saga fans. Did a tiny bit of shopping (Pokemon for myself and KW Iron man *heavy hint at new cosplay plans*) and of course I had to take photos with my favourite photo booth/fundraiser Cosplay For A Cure. Izabel turned out to be a great hit; not only was I happy with how my makeup turned out for the day, and happy with all the "invisible" (and visible) upgrades since Halloween, but I got a lot more recognition from Saga readers than I had expected I would! So much love for the wonderful fans of the series <3

My next convention is Kitchener Comic Con on Feb 28 at Kitchener City Hall. It's a free event, so I suggest checking it out! After that, I'm sneaking in one more local con in April before heading to C2E2 - Ad-Astra has made it back onto my convention calender! 
Photo posts will be coming up in the mean-time since I recently got some straggler photos from last year, and I'm also really excited to share Elemental's shots from FrostCon! (And there may be a new Video Ninja collab video coming soon too...)

I'm going to hold off on progress updates for now - most of what I'm doing is too small to be interesting, or worth posting about. But a couple of new outfits should be finished this month, if things keep going smoothly! (mostly depending on when supplies I've ordered arrive XD)
Izabel: 100% (unless I decide to add a nose prosthetic after all)
Mai: 55%
Zuko: 40%
Pepper: 20%
Hawkeye: 35%
Midna: 40%  
Nightingale: 45%
AN back-up: 20%

My goodness, it's been a long time since I made a blog post, hasn't it? Even though I had thought I would have a lot of free time in the Autumn to work on cosplay and to update the site, I ended up spending pretty much all of September and most of October working non-stop on costumes for New York Comic Con, and then Unplugged and Halloween happened. I thought I was free and clear for November - February, but then this weird "social life" thing crept up on me, and there was the last-minute decision to check out Frost Con, and an invitation to KW Tri-Con, which has all added up to doing lots of stuff and cosplaying and making things... but little to no updates to my poor site. Even my other social media/gallery type places (Facebook, DeviantArt, and Coscom) haven't been properly updated in ages. 

So how about starting with the most recent? This past Saturday was Frost Con in downtown Toronto. I hadn't been planning to go, but Iron Man talked me into checking it out by bribing me with a Gravity Falls costume. 

We made it to the con later than planned, and I was fairly overwhelmed by the crowding when we did get there. They definitely got more people attending than there was room for. So Elemental, Iron Man and I found a quiet room in the lower level of the hotel and had a really silly, fun private shoot; we said hi to the friends we had there, and got a couple really mushy shots with my friends over at Cosplay for a Cure. Photos from all those shoots (as well as the big set from Centre Island in the summer) will get posted when I get them. In the mean-time, here's a typical teenage selfie teaser XD. There are some minor changes/additions we want to make to Robbie's costume, so next time we do the group he'll be perfect LOL. 

We didn't end up going to the comic con which Hobbystar was running on Sunday, because I was doing a thing for Dr Holocaust and Captain Awesome. Watch the Doctor's YouTube channel, Facebook page or Twitter feed for it to come out within the next week or so. We all suffered out in the cold for this video, so everyone better watch it! ^_^

Back to the subject of new photos being posted though, I have started on posting the backlog I have sitting around. I pulled together a brand new costume for NYCC at the last minute: Sally Impossible from Venture Bros. The whole story and photo gallery are in my VB gallery. 





And in non-cosplay-related news, I've been playing LEGO Marvel Heroes. I'm absolutely addicted to the LEGO video games and the MCU has done a very good job of getting me more and more interested in Marvel, so I leaped at the chance when The Video Ninja invited me to do a "let's play" series with him. So if you're interested in hearing me geek out (mostly over Iron Man - PEW! PEW! PEW!) and basically just make it harder for Dan to play the game, here's all the episodes which have come out to date, and the first one is embedded below.