Podcast about Comic Flying and my blog!

This is my first podcast about our Comic-Con named Comic Flying.

Hope you enjoy it!

And it is the last post of this semester. In the future, I will continue!

podcast about Comic Flying and my blog

Differences Between China's and America's Comic-Cons

Hi, see you again! Today, the topic of my post is differences between China's and America's Comic-Cons.

I have a cosplay group in Chian named Fashion 1943(风尚1943). As a cosplay team, we not only take cosplay photos and join some cosplay competitions, but also host a small Comic-Con named Comic Flying. We host this Comic-Con for 3 years. It is hard to host a Comic-Con, it needs enough money and time, but we still enjoy it.
Comic-Cons always make ACG fans feel warm and sweet, you can easily find many people who have the same hobby with you, and you can also make many friends from
a Comic-Con.

Today, I want to make a comparison between China's and America's Comic-Cons.Even if all of those Comic-Cons will make people happy, but because of different culture, there are still some differences between them.

First of all,the contents are different. Comic-Cons of China always show some China's and Japan's animation, Comic and Games. We can call them Asia ACG. But in the U.S., Comic-Cons always full of America's native animations and some of Japan's animation. I have to say, American persons do a better job in animation than Chinese do. American has more creative ability than Chinese has.

The second difference between two countries Comic-Cons is that even if there is a Comic-Con called "International Comic-Con" in China, they still have a lot of native animations. I think those people who work on animation in China show learn more things from another country and they cannot just copy something but not create anything.

In my opinion, the last part is that in China's Comic-Cons, they not always invite comic artists from other countries, but American's are not. In America's Comic-Cons we can find multi-culture.

China's Comic-Con: Comic Flying
Cosplayer Name: Inofan
I took this picture in Comic Flying 1, this a character from China's native animation.

  

America's Comic-Con: San Diego Comic-Con International
Image from: http://www.ithome.com/html/game/49401.htm
We can find different characters such as Batman, Captain America. All of them are from America's native animations.

How to take cosplay photo shoot in the night？

In Halloween season, cosplayers want to take cosplay photo shoot in the night, it is a kind of amazing experience, so do I. Today, I'd like to introduce you how to use speedlite in night photo shoot.

First of all, we need two speedlites and one DRL camera.(My stuff are YN560-III, YN560-II and Canon 60D with 50mm 1:1:8 II and 16-35mm)

 YN560-ii Image from:http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=FOScKf-0xniwAM&tbnid=4SgDikKwAGKhcM:&ved=0CAgQjRwwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clickbd.com%2Fbangladesh%2F966674-yongnuo-flash-yn-560-ii-with-warenty.html&ei=ZOBxUsz3JLDesAS8toFI&psig=AFQjCNFNEVWpzlHRXCGT3NCsDOsAisLNog&ust=1383281124679395

YN560-III Image from: http://plazakamera.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/jual-flash-yongnuo-yn560iii-pk-01.jpg

Canon 60D Image from： http://i3.sinaimg.cn/IT/digi/digi_dc/document/2010-08-27/U803P297T7D51758F2353DT20111216161237.jpg

Arrangement of the light source as this picture show you.

I made this picture

Use 4 Channels Wireless/ Radio Flash Trigger Set With 2 Receivers, then you will have a picture like this:

I took this picture.

By using this way, you can take cosplay photo shoot in the night~
I hope you will enjoy it~

Best places to take cosplay photos!【part 1-CHINA】

As a cosplayer, I must say, I always look for nice places to take awesome cosplay photos, when I arrive in a new place, the first thought in my mind is:”I think it is an awesome place to take cosplay photos! This place just likes where I saw from the comic book.”

Make a right choice to the place where we can take cosplay photos is an important part of cosplay shooting. I will show you some places that I had been to, or where I took pictures, I hope that would be helpful.

Let's start with China, my hometown.

photo by：Xinyue Gao（Alex）

This is Shanghai, I took this picture in Tianzifang. You can take some soft cosplay here, such as 君に届け

photo by：Xinyue Gao（Alex）

I took this picture in Jiayuguan，a beautiful city near my hometown. There is a beautiful place after raining.

photo by：Xinyue Gao（Alex）

photo by：Xinyue Gao（Alex）

These two pictures took in Dunhuang, a part of silk way. In there, you can play the character from comic books like MAGI and ONE PIECE.

Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2560603264

All of them took in Beijing Dashanzi Art District，there are so many abandoned factory, if you want to play the character from DRRR, you can choice this place

Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2560603264

We took those picture in Hengdian, a city belongs to Hangzhou province. Hengdian Movie and Television City is a place so-called East Hollywood. Many famous movies and TV series were born here. It has so many different part such as Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, Hong Kong street, Guangzhou street, and so on.

image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2560603264

We took those picture in Lanzhou. Because I live in Lanzhou,so I am familiar with this beautiful city.

Cosplay just like a travel,finally，we will reach the place we want to go.

Next post will talk about beautiful place in Korea and America, all of them are great to take cosplay photos!

Wasting of time? No,it is valuable!

Because of that cosplay appears more and more frequently in people’s eyes, some people might questioned what is the value of cosplay?

So many people think that cosplay is a waste of time, on the contrary, cosplay is a valuable activity. Animation and game industry hope cosplay activities to promote the development of the industry. Thus, costume play developed as business promotion activities. Cosplay is not only a subsidiary cultural of animation and game culture, but also a cultural promotes the development of animation and game industry business promotional activities. 

Image from：http://acg.178.com/201205/130122215552.html
This is a Comic-Con in China. Comic-Con make a huge economic value.

We have heard someone said: I love it, I experience it, after I experience it, I love it more. From this statement and cosplayers’ behavior, advertisers extract the value of advertising value of cosplay, namely, the feeling mode in advertising.

Image from：http://www.zcool.com.cn/work/ZODg2Nzk2.html
cosplay elements in Ads.

As if that were not enough, I know you all have your own idol, if your idol plays a role from a game which you never played before, are you curious about that? I am sure you want to try that game. Because of public figures join in cosplay, social media will pay more attention to those people and cosplay. That makes another value of cosplay, the propaganda value.

Image from:http://games.sina.com.cn/o/n/2010-04-20/1604393020.shtml
She is a Chinese star named Bingbing Fan, she was play a character from a video game named Wan wang zhi wang III

As you see, cosplay is a valuable activity, there are not only the value of economic world but also in our life.

We can learn so many things from cosplay. for me, I learned how to makeup in different styles, I learned how to use Photoshop and SAI, I learned how to make friends with the people all over the world(cosplay is a sociable activity), I learned how to take good pictures in different light, if I could tell you all of the value that cosplay have, I can speak whole day! And now, I'm still learning something from it!

Cosplay is awesome, I wish all of you can join us! We can create value, we can make cosplay better and better!

History of cosplay

Who do you think is the most popular people in Disneyland? The person who in Micky’s body! Play a role as Micky actually is the behavior of early cosplay.

Cosplay is a word short of costume play, which created by a Japanese animator named Nobuyuki Takahashi in a meeting of World Science Fiction in Los Angeles in 1984.Cosplay is an activity in which people wear costumes, wigs and other accessories to play a character from a fiction book,a movie, a mystery story, a history story, idol groups or a game,it is a kind of Non-mainstream culture. People who have this activity are called cosplayer, I am a cosplayer, for this opportunity, I would like to let all of you know what is cosplay, who is playing cosplay and how fun of it!

Everything has its own history, cosplay is no exception. In fact, there is just about 30 years that contemporary costume play appeared. But if we focus on the past time and retrospectively, we can find many information in the Internet, indeed, cosplay has a long history. In an article we can learned that the earliest cosplay activities appeared several centuries ago, like the Troubadour in Ancient Greek, they advertised Odyssey and Iliad by play a role from those Epic. In contemporary cosplay, the first cosplay character is Micky Mouse in Disneyland. Micky born in 1928 and when he successed ,he became a part of childhood in most people’s life. A host of Disneyland thought that: ”why don’t we let Micky become a real person that kids can touch them and play with them?” then, we have the guy in Micky’s body! Thereafter Micky of cosplay’s appeared, it gave Disneyland huge economic benefits. With the success of Micky, people found costume play was interesting. With the flow of information, we know so many excellent comic books, mystery movies, novels all over the world, messages from social media, as a consequence，costume play onto the world’s stage.

In 1947, God of Comic----Japan cartoonist Osamu Tezuka’s comic book, " New Treasure Island" hard-edged, set off a hot wave of contemporary comics. Thus creating the Japanese ACG market boom. Just at that moment, the kind of activities that Disney made, have been introduced to Japan. And now, cosplay become a norm activity in Japan.

In Japan, the earliest Cosplay appeared in about 1955, when many children are dressed costumes from characters from " Moonlight Mask " and " Youth Jeter ”. They made their costumes by themselves, or drew costumes on a paper and asked tailors help them to make it. Because that time, Japan did not have 

companies do those things.

This situation has continued for nearly 20 years, until the late 1970s to the early 1980s, after exploring and growing, Japan’s ACG became bigger and bigger.

The general Cosplay including animation, comics, games , video games, novels, movies, TV series , tokusatsu(like a superman fight with a monster, both of those character are player by a real person), idol group , occupation, historical stories, social stories. People want to play a role, want to act the character, so they dress in some similar costumes, have make-ups, build body language, wear wigs, and so on.

 This is a short video from YouTube，it shows some interesting cosplay photos.

COSPLAY & COSPLAYERS’ A to Z

Welcome to the cosplay world! Cosplay is actually a world language. When you come to another country, you maybe feel like a fish out of water, but if you have a friend who have the same hobby with you, you would not feel lonely anymore, everything would be changed, you will adapt your new life and enjoy it，hobbies are world language！For me，cosplay is a world language，even if I am living in a country which has different culture with my hometown，when I am a cosplayer，I already have friends！

The meaning of costumeplay is，you can play a role from ANIME, COMIC or GAMES which you love！Then I would like to tell you something about cosplay. If you finish this article，and would

Like to join us, I would say :”Come on buddy! Just do it! Let’s have a party!”

A-DVENTUROUS

Some cosplayers believe that cosplay is an adventure， so do I. Cosplay is like a person from the real world into the animation world, we understand the emotions  of the role, we have experienced the growth of the role, we treat the role which we do love like a real man, and someday，you make a determination , cosplay the role which you love！ Such a decision is risky, because maybe there are thousands of in this world people do love that role, once you can not get everyone's interpretation of recognition, there is the risk of being criticized, there will be violent language against your self-confidence, but even encountered such a situation, you could not stop your steps in the cosplay world, and you should become better and better to prove that you are a awesome cosplayer！

ONE PIECE    character：luffy     cosplayer name：CHANA（From CHINA）
Image from:http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2536670385?pid=38418528507&cid=0#38418528507

B-RAVE

Cosplayers also need to be brave, cosplay adventures experienced while being a cosplayer, you need the courage to accept the challenge, you need courage to face your family (after all, some families are not supported), you need the courage to meet new friend. Cosplayer’s courage comes from the infection of the role, you want to get to know from friends with common interests eagerness, and it is the courage, contributed many excellent cosplay works and excellent cosplayer appearance.

C-HEERFUL

Don’t you think cosplay is a cheerful thing？when I have been a cosplayer， I feel very cheerful to play roles with my friends，we take coaplay photos，upload them to the Internet， share our emotions to our friends all over the world.  cosplay is a sharing process, we share our cosplay skills, we share our interesting encountered in the process of cosplay, we share our love for the role…We feel cheerful when wet share something in the cosplay world.

MAGI   character：Alaji   cosplayer name：HUOTUO（From CHINA）
Image from:http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2531290447?pid=37310725997&cid=37468490230#37468490230

D-EVOTED

When we cosplay，we devote ourselves to do something. Like make-up, make clothes which the role dress, do props by ourselves, take photos. When we do those things, we have been focused on it. Because of we are absorbed in cosplay, we do well in it and have so much fun.

BRAVE10   character：Yuri Kamanosuke cosplayer name：Asami-Mio(From CHINA)
Image from:http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1974141819?pid=26756333789&cid=26767047696#26767047696

E-NERGETIC

The fact is ，all the cosplayers have the endless energy！When we have energy，we could do everything we want！we can play the role from a comic book anytime！we have energy，we have enthusiasm，even if some people do not understand us，we always use our energy beat them，we just do what we love to do.

 

F-AITHFUL

When we cosplay,we always faithful to the original，even if your cosplay is a built on your own design，you also need to be faithful to your role.If you do that，you would be commended，and feel good about that.If you do not faithful to the original,maybe you will in a doghouse.

those are one cosplayer play the same role in different year.When she has a different mind，she does a better job.She lost her weight,had a make-up study,so she can do well in this job(CHANGANHUANYE   character:Shiyeguang   cosplayer name:Asami-Mio)
Image from:http://photo.renren.com/photo/354668418/album-645390348#page3

G-ENEROUS

Cosplayers love to share other people with their skills, knowledges, experiences.We can find many gorgeous cosplay tutorials, they will tell us about how to fit the role of make-up, how to cut paper patterns, how to make an awesome stage property. When we find those tutorials and learn something from them, we deeply appreciated their sharing.

H-ARD-WORKING

When we are just getting into this field，the cosplay field，we need to learn a lot of different things.Because of that, most of cosplayers are  hard-working persons. When we learn more things, we will get better and better.

I-NDEPENDENT

Cosplay needs ability that we can do all the things by ourselves, we cannot expect that there always have someone to help you accomplish something, so cosplayers need to be independent.On the other hand, cosplay is a huge overhead hobbies, in real life, we should have the ability to live independently and can afford this cost themselves, or through our own labor to get something which plays a role we need.

J-UDICIOUS 

Sometimes we need to face our ture life. When your study, work, life and your hobbies have some conflicts (if your hobbies is your life or work, you need not to worry about the conflict between your hobbies and life), we must make a choice, after all, we live in a real world, when we only play a good role in real life, we can play a good role in the virtual world. Many cosplayers have a good performance and stable income which prove when they face their lives and interests they make a judicious decision.

K-NOWLEDGEABLE

As a nice cosplayer, we need to learn so many things, such as we need to know how to make better use of some building materials to make a props, we need to know how to use the body structure to shot a better photo of this character , we also need to know how use natural light and reflector light to make your face looks like the character.

MAGI   Character：Morugiana   cosplayer name：ECHO（From CHINA）Image from： http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2531290447?pid=37310725997&cid=37468490230#37468490230

L-IKEABLE

Most of cosplayers are cute people.How can you say someone who love animation, comics, games, are not cute people ? We have a childlike innocence heart, we have a desire to learn, we believe that the world is as good as comic books where have full of friendship, strength, courage and never give up.

M-OTIVATED

Cosplay is a stimulating and challenging hobbies. Whenever we completed a seemingly impossible task, we will have a deep sense of satisfaction, and accomplish this one task in the process is very exciting, we often need to break the routine, empathy, in order to obtain the most satisfactory results.

N-AMELESS

In the cosplay world, we do not always use our ture name.We will call ourselves a unique name, that means, in the cosplay world we are all people with no name. Sometimes some of the cosplayer's family or friends will think when two guys communicate with each other and understand each other without real name, there is no way to become a true friend, and sometimes people do not have a real name is malicious. But what I want to say is that the vast majority of cosplayers are holding sincere heart to make friends, maybe the cosplay world  have a traditional--- without real name, but time will tell, no name will not hinder us to become friends, and friend is not deceive each other.

O-PTIMISTIC

The ACG world has taught us so many optimistic things.As mentioned above, such as friendship, passion, dreams, convention,and so on.We have learned these things  from ACG, and we will bring the spirit of optimism to the real world, so that our life better, let our joy infect more people.

MAGI   Character：Jaafaru  cosplayer name：Inofan（From CHINA）Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2531290447?pid=37310725997&cid=37468490230#37468490230

P-ERSISTENT

When people who love anime met cosplay , they fall in love. Cosplayers love cosplay deeply, so we can stick to it, do not care about other people's eyes, I think when we prove our worth and at the same time we feel well, that is enough. Cosplay is just what I want to do.

Q-UICK

Cosplayers are often making ​​decisions quickly. When we have plenty of time, plenty of experience, we will put effort into cosplay, we will  complete our work quickly and efficiently , and in a  short period of time we will present our ideas in front of the other who have the same hobby with us.

 

R-ARE

Many people think that cosplayers are rare persons, do you think so? In my opinion， maybe in 10 years ago, cosplay is not the mainstream hobby, but a decade later, today, cosplay culture has been integrated into the mainstream culture, more and more people begin to understand, people who wearing strange clothes , strange wigs,strange make-up are cosplayers, the reason why they look strange is because they play a role in the anime!

ONE PIECE  Character：Ace  Ccosplayer name：conerlia（From CHINA）Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2536670385?pid=38418528507&cid=0#38418528507

 

S-OCIABLE

Cosplayers are not traditional OTAKU（is a Japanese term that refers to people with obsessive interests, commonly the anime and manga fandom--FROM WIKIPEDIA）.We do not regard ourselves everyday in the second element of the world, we also carried out extensive social activities! In my experience, cosplay gives me more oppotunities to interact with others and more courage to communicate with others. Cosplayers sometimes have stronger social skills than other people, because the people involved in cosplay activities have great age differences, with people of different ages exchanges, we can better enhance social skills.

T-ALENTED

As mentioned above! cosplayers are genius! We can change waste into treasure, for example, PVC, plastic beverage bottles, wire, cardboard, bicycle handlebar make excellent props.

U-NUSUAL

Many people ask us what the point of cosplay？Play a characters in the game or anime will make your life, learning, working become better? I think cosplay may not change our lives, but make us happy, and this is the meaning of cosplay

V-IVID

One of the goals to cosplay is in real life vividly shows your role. We need to draw the right makeup, choose the appropriate scene, make the appropriate adjustments of Photoshop, and then with the appropriate expression, only by that we can restore our role vividly.

GINTAMA   Character:Takasugi Shinsuke  Cosplayer name：Asami-Mio    Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2230059047?pid=31082658597&cid=0#31082658597

 

W-ISE

We will not say people who are good at learning are not a wise person.Cosplayers are the group  consisting of  people who are good at learning. Through our own exploration, learning from others, many of us have mastered the techniques of taking pictures, making-up,using image editing software, and we are applied those things to the actual life. 

“X”-NUMBER

Cosplay is full of unknowns and is full of x-numbers.In the cosplay process, we will encounter unknown challenges and unknown knowledge, but as long as we insist on learning, insist on exploring, we will have unlimited possibilities.

Y-OUTHFUL

Someone once said this: "The people have hobbies forever young." Cosplay is such a hobby that makes people forever young .In China, Taiwan's first generation cosplayers have now entered the fourth decade, they still continue the not old legend with this hobby of their own, representatives are Xizhen, Dengdeng, some of them who have married and have a nice job now, but because of the same hobbies, the same dreams, their heart are as young as ours.

PILI   Character:Beigou  cosplayer name:Xizhen(From CHINA)  Image from:http://ww1.sinaimg.cn/bmiddle/71e524dfgw1e87nepjgezj20rs2acb29.jpg

Z-EALOUS

Cosplayers are warm-hearted persons. We are very happy to help people who just entering the field, as long as you have a thirst for knowledge, we'll do our best to help you improve your cosplay skills. After this blog post, I will share  you with some make-up, photoshop and photography skills, and I am looking forward to the exchange!

INTRODUCTION

Hey guys!

My name is Xinyue Gao, you can call me Alex, because this name is easy to pronounce.I come from China ,and now I'm majoring Mass Media in Washburn University as a exchange student for one year. This blog is going to be about the cosplay world.You would see something like: cosplay all over the world, cosplay skills, leagues of cosplay, cosplay culture，social media&cosplay，and so on.
Cosplay actually from ACG（Animation，Comic，Game）world which teach us the importance of to be brave，to be honest and never give up.

If you have the same hobby with me，and want to be a cosplayer or you already are a cosplayer but you want to make more friends around the world ，follow my blog“COSPLAY IS A WORLD LANGUAGE”，I would never let you down！I would be appreciate If you like my blog.

THX~XD 

LUCKY DOG1（Image from：http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2560603264?pid=38423208771&cid=0#38423208771）