Who is icosplay?
Roughly 96% of the convention coverage currently on icosplay.com is all from one person, Melissa Wilson, also known as Hikaruchan on the anime convention circuit. The other 4% has come from my sister or my handing my camera off to somebody if I was personally involved in the subject I am covering for the site.
I started attending anime cons starting with AWA 1997, the same anime con Kevin Lillard of Fansview started with. It was his work providing coverage of anime conventions that inspired me to also try to capture the spirit of the con through hall photography.
With over a decade covering cons, I have held many positions: costume contest judge, senior director, panelist, con Tshirt artist, masquerade director, video room staff, web press and general volunteer to name a few. Some people recognize my face, others my costumes, others my kitty bag that has made many a con trip.
I finally got around to making the jump to a domain in 2002. After tripod reduced free space from 50 to 20 megs I had to delete some of my cosplay photos and needed to find them a new home. I have had my convention pictures on the web for years before then, first on geocities then tripod and now here. Most of my convention pictures and costume contest masquerade video will be from anime conventions, but I have gone to several other genre conventions to add a bit of variety.
I have had a couple of inquiries from people asking if I would make them costumes or accessories - at this time I would have to decline as just trying to keep this website current eats up a lot of time. My personal costuming pages are always outdated, as convention coverage comes first.
