I’ve been going to all kinds of conventions for some time now, but recently, I’ve taken up a really fun new hobby - cosplaying as some of my favorite characters. While I’ve only gone twice so far, it’s been a great experience walking around, talking with people and taking a frankly surprising number of pictures.

UniCon, January 2023, Riga, Latvia⌗

The first character that I went as was Chito, from Girls' Last tour. It’s no secret that she’s my favorite character by far, and also the one I use as my profile picture basically everywhere.

Chito’s character design. By Tsukumizu

It probably wouldn’t have been too hard to make it myself, but considering my lack of skill at sewing, I decided to look for a premade one first. Surprisingly enough, I managed to find an obscure manufacturer somewhere that already had prepared designs and was willing to put the base clothes together for me.

2 months and $100 later, the costume arrived. I originally planned to use it at a different convention which still hasn’t happened as I’m writing this, but about a week prior to this one taking place, I found out about it and decided that it would be fun to go earlier. The helmet wasn’t part of what the cosplay store sent, I found a fairly close looking one in a shop with used army things. Surprisingly, that was also by far the cheapest way to go.

Me wearing the Chito cosplay

While it’s not nearly as cute as the original, I’m quite happy with how it turned out - especially considering the fact that, as you may have guessed by now, I am very much a male.

By the end of the convention, I even managed to gather up to courage for getting up on stage and showing the cosplay off. Of course, it being my first ever time doing that, things only went decently… but, still, I’m quite happy that I did that.

Me waving at a crowd of people, while on stage

AnimeSHOW, March 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia⌗

After my first ever cosplay having gone pretty well, and another nearby convention coming up, I decided to cosplay again. I quite enjoy going as female characters, but, seeing as my body isn’t exactly made for that, I tried to find a fairly feminine looking one that still covers up a lot of skin. The conclusion I arrived to was Senko.

Senko, cover art for Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san

A significantly more popular character this time. Even waiting in line before having shown my ticket, I had a girl come running at me all excited about seeing her favorite character show up, which understandably made me quite happy.

Me standing in a box, wearing the Senko cosplay

One thing I realized is that I don’t know how to do fancy cosplay poses. That’s something I need to learn for next time, which will be in about a month.

Overall, I think I enjoyed this convention even more. Whilst Senko is slightly less of a favorite character to me in comparison to Chito, it was really fun having people be excited about seeing a character they like and asking to take pictures. I even made some new friends.

A fluffy tail and ears that I made

I made the tail myself, too. I ended up not using the ears as the premade ones looked a lot better, but I want to make better ones myself once I have more time.