Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Another ComicCon of the year, the MCM cosplay crew took a trip up to the Birmingham NEC, quite the small gallery this time but a nice relaxed weekend, so it’s all good!

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Always my official start to the convention year, MinamiCon rolls around once more in time-honoured tradition.  No other event is as much of an institution as turning up to that Novotel lobby to already see crowds of familiar faces like we never left it the previous year!

A much more relaxed event than most in recent memory, as if there was a collective LETS TAKE A BREAK FROM RIDICULOUS COSTUMES FOR ONCE and I think it was a good move, certainly meant I wasn’t running around like a headless chicken for once!  Still plenty of lovely costumes to take pictures of at leisure, and I think overall comfort levels were higher for it.   This year the convention started earlier and finished later, crammed a lot more events in, and ran a chillout kotatsu lounge after the closing ceremony, filled with makeshift kotatsus, duvets, pillows, and many, many games.  Probably one of my favourite Minamis to date.

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

My first venture towards the Telford venue for the newly rebranded MCM ComicCon, and a thoroughly good time it was.  Only a single day deal, but large enough and popular enough to be worth a visit, plenty of nice costumes on show, yet small enough to be cosy and relaxed as an event.  Perfect  way to start the 2013 con season.

It gives that extra bit of hope for the year to come, it’s easy to feel a lot of love for the things being cosplayed, it’s not done for attention or fame or anything other than dressing up as something ridiculous that you have a passion for!

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Taken some time but here’s some photos from the Expo weekend gone by, EuroCosplay had us caught up for the majority but there’s still the odd shot and the Sunday masquerade to go around!

A team effort this time around, with myself, Littlegeeky, Luki, Locke, InvisiGirl, Meltopian, Oz, Shenny, Drift, Yuka, Pounce and Foxy all pitching in the time and effort to cover ECC in full.

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Who would’ve thought moving home and starting a new job would eat so much time? Finally the time has been found to sit down and spend some quality time with a shuttle wheel. Here’s the third Cosplay Cascade video featuring cosplayers out and about the Keele University campus at AmeCon 2012! Due to the building works and general faff it’s not got the amazing scenery and variety I had planned but hey, at the end of the day it’s about people in brightly coloured costumes throwing things at each other. I think.

More lessons learned, and the steadicam had gained a loose screw which went mostly undetected but now has been found and severely punished, hopefully I won’t have the same troubles next time!

As an offshoot there’s a quickish video made entirely out of Avatar cosplay footage, that’s just how big the groups were over the weekend!  That can be found on YouTube here.

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

2012′s summer con has come and gone, AmeCon returned to the luscious Keele University for a second time, only to find it was vastly lest luscious due to a massive amount of building works running hideously over schedule. Duly crossing off about 80% of the locations from my photo map it was very difficult to find new places to get photos and video without background ugliness D:

On top of that, the main meeting point was a mess of rubble and industrial fencing so getting around and finding gaggles of cosplayers was a lot more difficult than usual. Kind of the same issue I had at Expo, the extra time taken to find people and drag them off to usable locations then ferry back and find more ate most of my day leaving not a whole lot for the actual photography part.. In other words, I’m not happy with the variety of costumes I caught again, I need to acquire more minions. Any volunteers?

Nonetheless! We all tried our best and the above issues – which I was ready to declare the ruination of the entire con when I found out – did not daunt congoers from making the most of it and enjoying the hell out of the weekend anyway. Sometimes all people need is an excuse to meet up and prat about in costume!

Thanks to all who did hunt me down, apologies to all who tried and failed, and a shoutout to the awesome Avatar groups formed on Friday and Sunday, it’s been a long time since I’ve had that much fun with a group and the numerous bending toys I came up with got a fair bit of use! Although I was so busy setting them up I think everyone ELSE got more shots of them in use than I did :p

Finally, congratulations to the lovely Refira for taking the second UK representative slot for EuroCosplay 2012 with her Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, she’s been making amazing costumes for as long as I’ve known her and it’s wonderful to see one getting some recognition, in the face of some fierce competition no less!

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Second CMV! This is  a much more relaxed attempt, it’s not the fast-paced sequel to the first video that I was aiming for due to lack of time, crowding and the outside area being absent most of the con, and me messing up a lot :P    So that will have to wait for AmeCon.

Instead I picked a different track and made the best I could – I still enjoyed making it in the end, there are some great moments I’m glad to have caught!

Expo is a different kettle of fish to a more close-knit con like Kita, and with the rather packed crowd it’s difficult to explain what you’re trying to capture and some pretty awkward video comes out of it – as a result the default is usually resorted to, as it’s hard to misunderstand the instruction: TWIRLING PEOPLE IN DRESSES EVERYWHERE, so there’s a somewhat large amount of that.  If you are allergic to twirling dresses I would have to offer the medical advice of giving this video a miss.

Thanks to all who got involved and hope to film plenty more of you at AmeCon!

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

New addition to the album list – London Film and Comic Con – taking place in a temporary venue due to the almighty Olympics.  It’s a far more Western media-focused event than I usually attend but as it’s not far from me thought I’d take a look-see.  Can’t pass up chances to take more pictures now, can I?

LFCC boasts a guest list the likes of which I’ve never seen before, including several people I’d have quite liked to meet which is rare!  Of course this is me so priority goes to people in daft outfits over actual celebrities.

Only attended for the Saturday so the gallery is a little light, it’s also not as cosplay-heavy as many events I cover, and the temporary venue has little in the way of photo-taking-space so apologies for that.

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

Did one for Aya so here’s one for the next summer con, AmeCon!  Set once more at the picturesque Keele University it has the most gorgeous location for cosplay photos and video out of any of our conventions so if you’ve got something special lined up – this is the event to show it off at!  To help, and possibly inspire, here’s a blatantly-thieved Google Maps image overlaid with the Keele Uni conference map and then covered with arrows  showing where I got all my photos last time, for people looking to find the perfect backdrop for their costumes.

Blue buildings should be the main areas of convention-happening (Keele Hall for breakfast, Student Union for evening events and the other two for panels and day events) – as I understand them anyways.

Green are other buildings, marked so you don’t try to walk through them I guess, thinking they’re on the map as some sort of squareish tree.

Purple are accomodation blocks, I don’t know which ones we’ve got access to but they’re the ones marked on the conference guide.  I was in Lindsay Halls last time hence why there’s plenty of reference shots from there ;)

Click here for a ridiculous-sized copy.

(Updated: 09/07 – swapped the top right image of the SU building as it’s under major works – thanks to @demonkeyz for the replacement and letting us know!)

Originally posted at ManyLemons, you can reply here or there.

I keep almost losing the one I’ve already made so I decided making a spare would be prudent; while I was at it, might as well document, right?  Also my site is kinda dead outside of convention times so might as well gap-fill!

So here’s a quick DIY project for a rotating bounce shield for flashguns – it’s a dead simple design and I figure could be adapted for most types – except those that don’t angle up I guess. It looks daft, it stands out, pro camera people will either mock you or acknowledge you with sage nods. Probably the former.

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