So I saw you two’s outfits at AWA and had to photograph y’all. Can you tell me who you and your fiance are cosplaying as ?
I’m pretty famous for my original designs although i do cosplay official ones as well. I am known for taking a certain pokemon and turning them into royalty kinda like Disney Meets Pokemon Kinda thing. I was Shaymin a legendary type hedgehog pokemon so when I designed the costume it had to be more regal and glorified then my other 32 gowns.My fiance was a pokeon known as Floatzel a water type pokemon so I designed it with the pokemons colors and as a added insight I used one of those floatie pool tubes as his shoulder harnis.
These are a few designs I sketched out and then I make them into reality:
http://pikabellechu.deviantart.com/gallery/#PokewomonPrincesses-Concept-Art
This is the concept sketch before it’s production
http://pikabellechu.deviantart.com/art/Poke-Princess-Shaymin-122619441
This was his concept sketch
http://www.cosplaylab.com/cosplayers/costumes/details.asp?costumeid=204713
I’ve always like doing my own original designs cause they are unique and done by my own imagination something that noone else at a con would be wearing, you could see many of one character but there can only be one original and i find that unique.
Your outfits seems so detail-oriented – can you tell me the process of putting it all together ?
What I do first is choose which pokemon I think would make a great design I mean there’s only 494 now to choose from now…(o~_^o) I always sketch them out first on paper and color scheme them as I look at the pokemon and use there color patterns within the cosplays plus I take in account which moves they now like pikachu for example knows alot of electric attacks therefore you will see in my pikachu cosplays I add lightning bolt earrings and other type jewelery for the effect or use lace and jewels of that design or color of lightning, take my jigglypuff gown she’s known for singing and putting people to sleep therefore my gown had musical notes all over it and my microphone I carry around has a hidden marker underneath it cause when people fall asleep on the puff she gets mad and writes all over there faces. Just little minor details like that I really look into and place that upon my designs in some way.I pay alot of attention to detail and just let my imagination flow with it.It’s always fun to see a artwork of mine turn into a reality
Hmmm….I guess I better not fall asleep then ! Can you tell me how you got started in collecting pikachu and how it managed to get so far that Guinness World Record had to include you in their books ? ^^
I started to collect pikachu back in 2000 where my very first pikachu was one that I won at a carnival style game at Universal Studios, after that I started to think how cute pikachu was and reminded me so much of a cute and cudley hamster of which are my favorite pets and I have had them all my life.
Then family and friends just started buying me pikachu’s and everytime I hit flea markets I picked some up, then at this one flea market in Daytona beach I was told that there was a Pikachu Volkswagon on display at the Klassix Car museum, a museum that housed cars like the batmobile, flintstones car, Kit from knight rider and so on, so my family and I went there too see it but it was rented out for some wedding over at Ormond Beach well that was only like 20 minutes away and the manager of the museum called over to the guy who was driving it that day and told him we were coming to see it, once there the guy was nice enough to give me a ride in it and told me that this particular pikachu car was sold to some guy in Hollywood but they were looking for someone else to sponser pokemon with one last one they had the rights to make.
So I bought myself a yellow VW and they turnied it into the last PikaBug in existance. After I got the Pikachu Car is when I found out about anime conventions I had no clue that something that cool existed. I found out about them cause somehow a con found out I had a pikachu car and they wanted to have it on display at there con so I was called up and every since then I have been hooked on going to cons. In recent years cons have asked me to be a special guest, host panels and of course have the car at them too. I also do kids birthday parties with it, official pokemon events, other kid related events, parades and car shows so my PikaBug gets around.
After the Pikachu Car is when my collecting of Pikachu went insane plus at the time I was an Assistant manager at KB Toys so I had instant access to all the new poke stuff coming out back in the day plus all the displays and stuff.It was’nt till 2 years ago everyone was like you have got to go for the Guinness Book of World Records your collection is INSANE and needs to go down in history. So I applied for it and it was such a long and drawn out process and ALOT of legal paperwork to do. I had to count every single item one by one and log it into a book, I had to take pictures of every thing, have media cover it, and I had to have two witnesses write a letter and notorize them to say how legit my collection was. I had the mayor of my town as one and an owner of a card collectables store as the other witness. After about 5 months getting everything prepared I sent it off to the UK where Guinness is and still waited about 4 months for the results if they wanted my record or not. I finally heard word and I got my certificate but just cause you got the certificate does’nt mean they put you in the book being featured they say like only 30% of people actually get into the book.
Well 2009 the Guinness Book of World Records Gamers Edition came out and I was featured and a few days ago the MAIN book Guinness Book of World Records came out for 2010 and I was also featured in it which is a really really high honor to be chosen for the main book.So pokemon is pretty much my life everyone knows who I am and it can be crazy sometimes it’s funny when kids recognize me at Walmart or something and they whisper to there parents hey mom there’s pikachu’s wife or thats the pikachu lady. it’s so cute.
When I went to New York a few years ago when it was still the Pokemon Center I walked in and in an instant everyone knew who I was and I ended up staying there for 4 hours signing autographs and stuff. So Pokemon is pretty much my life and without it I would not have met so many fans and got to go to so many places doing such awesome events through the years.
So I believe I photograph y’all on Saturday and later on YouTube I found a video about you that took place on Sunday at an event you were running, can you tell me what happen ? ^^
Well I hosted my Pokemon Panel on Sunday which my boyfriend helps me with and at this panel I do trivia, raffles, Q & A, Battles and give out tons of prizes. When at the end my boyfriend announced there would be this grand prize, which is usually a rare shiny pokemon you can download into your pokemon games and it would be awarded to the person in the room with a Togepi sticker under their seat,we do this alot so I thought nothing of it but everyone was surprised that nobody had the sticker. He then said that every seat was able to win, and eventually told me to look under my seat. When I saw tha tI had the sticker, he pulled me to the front of the tabel in front of everyone there and pulled out a pokeball with a engagement ring inside.Jason the con owner knew all about this and had his camera crew film our entire panel and came in after to congradulate us, and after the panel the whole room congradulated us and can’t wait to see our future pokemon wedding.
awwww… Were you totally taken by surprise or did you have some idea before hand ? lol !
I actually had no clue it was coming until no one had that sticker under there chair and I did, other then that my finace had this planned for quite awile and alot of other people knew and were in on it.
Well everyone seems to be thrilled by the proposal. The YouTube vid I saw had the girl holding the camera just screaming so loud it actually hurt my ears. lol ! So what’s next for you ? Got any plans for the future ?
Well now that con season is kinda dwindling down and Fall is here, now is the time I do alot of Car Shows and Kids events for charity, I’ve already been asked to do several events coming up and my next anime convention will be in a few weeks I’ll be a guest at with the car and all once again.In the meantime I keep myself busy by teaching kids art classes at local craft stores and paint murals in homes and businnesses. As far as future plans we will be having that pokemon wedding everyone knows we will have and when the time gets closer I will be making plans with Nintendo and Pokemon USA to make this one interesting wedding to say the least Pokemon Style.
Well, thanks again and congrats again !!!
