Matsuricon!

Matsuricon was awesome! I figure I am now an official cosplayer.

Me in my Soldier A cosplay outfit, dwarfed by the very cool voice actor Travis Willingham, at Matsuricon 2013.

Some may have been a bit confused by my outfit. One fellow con-goer asked if I was a cosplayer or just wearing my old clothes. Both, I said. Travis up there, towering over me, he said something like, "Ah, 'Soldier A.' We've all done that." He got it, at least.
But my confused fellow cosplayer and everyone else treated this newcomer exceptionally well. I was called out by name ("Soldier A") within the first hour. I got a pose request for a photo, which is indeed a most excellent thing to happen to a cosplayer. I hope he didn't delete it! Another recognized me from this blog (Nicholas?) - thanks very much! And yet another, a Call-of-Duty player I think he said, wanted to see what it was I was toting about - not an airsoft, he knew that much.

It was this, my convention-scarred rubber training rifle.

I let him try it out. A fellow closer to my age knew exactly what it - probably a vet.
My highest compliments to all the Matsuricon organizers and staff. Those folks put in a ton of work and I appreciate all of it. This was my first multi-day convention, attendance-wise, I mean. My previous conventions, I'd consider five hours a long time. Added onto four-hour drives from and to home, it still made for a long day. I spent no fewer than 12 hours at Matsuricon on Saturday, with another five on Sunday. And there were more than a few times I wanted extra hours thrown in there, cause there were two or more events I wanted to go to at the same time. The convention was too awesome - a good problem to have!
A lot of time was in line for autographs. My first response on Matsursicon's Facebook page was to compliment them on their guest lineup. It was truly outstanding, and included these "Soul Eater" voice actors.

Boom.

Also from "Fullmetal Alchemist" (minus the furface).

Which of these two characters would you say is the Fullmetal Alchemist? Nope, it's the other one.

I'd say those are a lot of autographs for one convention! Got my picture with a couple other voice actors, besides Travis up there.

Me and Micah Solusod, who plays Soul Evans in "Soul Eater." He eats souls, but he's a good guy. He eats only bad souls. He also draws the webcomic "Ties that Bind," with Ayu Sakata. A webcomic creator - his stock just went up with me!

I'm with Stephanie Young, who plays the villainous and sexy Arachne in "Soul Eater" and the heroic and sexy Mira Armstrong in "Fullmetal Alchemist." This was on Sunday and my cosplay uniform was all bagged up.

Probably at least one more posting on Matsuricon to come, especially on the other cosplayers and what I learned from those folks (you can make a Transformers Starscream costume by hand? Yes, yes you can).