Our little group has been pretty fluid due to having "members" and friends from both sides coast. We realize that our dynamic's are not that of a standard group but more of the y-theory type. (yeah gbright1 took a business class!)
There is a few things we've learned about cosplaying in groups and trying to keep a group together. Having memberships and being exclusive to those people forces group cosplay to be hard. First off, not everyone wants to cosplay the same anime/game. So when the "leaders" dictates that a certain cosplay will be done the group often falls apart because the interest is not there in everyone. It also puts a lot of strain to stay together at all times and to do all your cosplays together. It excludes the people in the group from their other friends and to cosplay with other people. It also puts constraints to the number of people you would ever pull together. Keeping a list of members who are part of "the team" just doesn't entirely make sense. The fun of group cosplay is when you find other people interested in the same thing as you. Of course sometimes you have to bite the bullet and do a cosplay one of your friend's want to do. But they will return the favor for you! Instead what has been working with our group is to make temporary groups. I tend to call them "crews" in my head.
We tend to have organizers who work with our group of friends to bring a group cosplay together, but the same cosplayers hardly ever show up for all of the cosplays. We have our core cosplayers,
and
but the rest of the crew are fair game from anywhere.
We find this to be a great an open system. People come and go and it makes the cosplay all about fun and not about business.
Group history:
EpiCosplay started with a cosplay alliance between
and
. They both wanted to form some kind of "cosplay group." Their friendship started by sharing a roomed together at Sakura con 2008 after being introduced to each other at the San Francisco Dickens' festival 2007.
had moved cross the country shortly after, but after her first Katsucon took a liking to cons and was willing to fly cross country to try another one out. This worked out pretty well for
since all her other friends bailed from the room. They both had a fabulous time and decided to keep cosplaying together as they came up with epic ideas like CANDYLAND! Unfortunately,
is still in school and we all know how rough that gets on finances. We totally missed her in the cosplay this year at Fanime.
The first official "group" activity took place at Yaoi-con 2008 where we cosplayed various Naruto things. During that time the group targeted a Kakashi cosplayer and made it their goal to remove his mask. On one attack :iconwiggaddict: was there and took pics of the event/after the event. Later she and ~gbright1 found each other at Zenkaicon and bonded over the events of yaoi thus creating the back bone of EpiCosplay.
core members:
Cosplay start: Belldandy
First Convention: JTAF5
Cosplay expertise: Sewing and design
Cosplay start: Itachi
First Convention: SuperNova
Cosplay expertise: Wigs and Painting
Cosplay starts: L officially, but Ginko was the 1st I made myself
First Convention: AX
Cosplay expertise: wooden props
Crew members/collaborators
Forming a crew, somethings are under the EpiCosplay group officially, but other things that happen are temporary groups, or collaboration with other groups. It could be the Air Gear crew, the Candyland crew, the Naruto crew, The Bleach duo, the Edwardian Lolita crew organized through EpiCosplay or the other cosplayers group.
Kakashi Raver, Nick(left 4 dead), Kazu, Grandma Nut
Watari
Raver Tsunade, Nurse Tsunade
Lolita Sasuke, Sasuke kitty, Hisoka, Raver Sasuke
Sasuke, Sasuke Anbu
Ino Lolita, Ino raver, Ino pimp, Ino bloody(future)
SNJ Naruto
John-Kakashi
Skank Sakura, Beach Sakura, SNJ Naruto, Raver Sakura
Hooker Itachi
Ikki(Air gear)
Sakura Raver, Gaara Raver(future), Simca(Airgear)
Airgear
Raver Itachi
future collaborators:
photographers:
jlinto EBK asianschoolboy