Welcome a Guest Writer to the Blog ~ DC

I have always had an open invitation to anyone who wanted to be blogged here about themselves and what they cosplay. I have my first email from someone a couple days ago that wanted me to do a quick write up and spread the word for them. He has also offered to do some reporting on Cons and had some ideas as a guest blogger here. So you may be seeing more of DC in the weeks to come :)

Without further a-do, let get to the interview:

"What is your name and location?"

David C Rushton AKA: "Priest of Tao"
San Diego, Calif., USA

"What cause you to "Cosplay"?

Beginning at my first San Diego Comic of 2002 I was exposed to Cosplay.(the exception to that was back in my biker days riding to see at MIDNIGHT, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" I do a GREAT MEATLOAF) Each year until 2007 I never thought I would dress in a "Cosplay" costume. What Character, what series? It hit in 2007.


"What Characters have you "Cosplayed?"

In 2007, I decided on a "Historical" interpretation of the costume of a "Japanese Taoist Priest", 14th century EDO period Japan. My Priest of Tao, MK 1. After that year, a idea grew in my mind. It began with a "Bleach Soul Reaper Captain's Uniform". Then the idea of something from "Inuyasha", Priest Costume.

THEN, I asked myself: "Why not designed my own "Character + Costume"? A bit from many Anime Series combined into: "The Priest of Tao, MK 2", My standard Cosplay" uniform/costume. Each year a slight up-grades/changes. (MK 2 & MK 4). The MK 4 Priest of Tao is suitable for many Anime Series.

A "Harry Potter Wizard" group photo was being taken once as I was walking by. A Harry Potter cosplayer stopped me. "Good Wizard.", he addressed me, "Would you be so kind to join our gathering of Wizards? And how shall we properly address thee? Thy name please?"
In my standard "CONSTIPATED CONAN WIZARD" voice I answered: "I am The Priest of Tao." Then in a Jewish style of Mel Brooks: "OY! For you, call me the wizard, The Wizard of Tao!" The place died laughing! and that is WHAT I LIVE FOR!

"What conventions or shows have you Cosplayed at?"

So far only the San Diego Comic Cons. But I will soon be branching out to a few around the Southern Calif. area where I can drive to.

"For any aspiring cosplayers a little shy, what words of wisdom do you have?"

I must quote, NO! I SING! I sing that song from "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" ~ "Don't Dream It, BE IT!"

"What do you do when not cosplaying?"

I am a 100% Disabled Veteran of Viet Nam, as I received it in 2001. Worked as a crew chief on B-52 D's. AKA: "The BUFF", Worked for 25 years in the aircraft industries, and Navy aircraft. I found my "writer's voice in 2001. Now fully retired, I' m free from working, and can LIVE + DO what a writer of "Hard Science Fiction", does best. CREATE!

Here are some more awesome pictures that were also sent along for your enjoyment.

Poll Results for Ghost in the Shell

Decided to have some fun with my occasional poll on the Blog. It was decided to post one to see who your favorite Ghost in the Shell Character was.

Overall, it came as no real shock to me who would come out on top. I have to say however I also surprise but who also was picked. Major Motoko Kusanagi won over all with 9 votes while I did have a tie between Tosuga & Tachikoma with 3 votes each. I wished I had more voters, but you get what you get and have to live with it.

Since Motoko won, I did a my last cosplay on her character to acknowledge the winner of the poll. It seemed fitting as she is such a hot character to play in any of her roles in the anime.

To see how it all ran down, here are the numbers from Top to Bottom. I also tried to showcase their earlier and later versions of themselves from the Anime's. I did this for the characters that actually got a vote. Feel kind of bad for some of them as they got no love for the Internet :(

9 Votes - Major Motoko Kusanagi


4 Votes - Batou


3 Votes - Togusa


3 Votes - Tachikoma


3 Votes - Saito


1 Vote - Ishikawa


0 Votes - Borma


0 Votes - Daisuke Aramaki


0 Votes - Kubota (this was my wild card as he was buddies w/Aramaki)


0 Votes - Paz


Hope everyone had fun picking their favorite. I now have a new Poll up on the sidebar for ya to vote on. This time it is for you Favorite Hair Color for an Anime Character poll. I think I got all the colors I could think of and hope me no missed one.

Added some Cosplay Links

Finally finished adding my favorite Cosplay communities and Cosplayers to Blog Rolls -n- Links page. If I missed any community sites, please let me know. I have been trying to gather as many as I can to help me find great Cosplayers from around the world to showcase on my blog.

You will notice under the Cosplay Communities, I have listed some of my favorite Cosplayers. This list is extremely short right now and need to get my arse in gear and get it filled up. These lovely ladies are just a nano-fraction of the people out there that are doing a stunning a dreamy job for us.

I am also taking requests to be added to the list as well. If you are a Cosplayer with your own site, shoot me an email or comment here. I enjoy showcasing peoples talent and giving back to the blogger community I have come to enjoy hanging with.


I have also added a cool cosplay site to my Bloggers list also. When you get the chance, check out Cosplayer Studio run by cosplayer mimay. She does some great updates, especially about Alodia Gosiengfiao.

Sankaku Complex - something seems different

Been a bit offline recently so not too much blogging on my part - sorry :(

I am not sure, but I feel that Sankaku Complex seems to have taken steps in the wrong direction.


I know you are thinking - WTF is wrong with me and why complain about the best site to get sexy anime girl pics from.

Well, I mean their content seems to be different and not as much posting of late. They do have some interesting things, but sometimes seems to repeat the same stuff a few days later. It just does not seem to be the same site as before. I actually use it on occasion as a resource of sorts for my blogging. It now seems to be overrun with ads every step of the way. Maybe I just never noticed it before. It is still one of the best sites to get pics for you blogs and to keep you "other hand" busy.

I have however found similar sites that offer the same pics as well. One in particular is called 3dbooru. When I needed pics for my recent Cosplay post about I-No from Guilty Gear, I found eerie similarities on both sites:

3dbooru

Sankaku Complex

What are your thoughts on this and do you actually check out either of these?

Updated Blog Header and Added Page

I have been wanting to update my blog header for a while since the big change a while ago. I wanted to do something with Gurren Lagann that would really be cool. It took me about an hour tonight to do the research, make the banner and then upload it.

I had a couple ideas with using a group shot, but could not crop it. I kept either loosing Yoko or Nia in the shot.

The other idea was kind of a "family" shot with Kamina, Yoko and Simon. But once again, I had the issue of cutting off a head (Simons to be exact). But don't tell me that wallpaper is not a totally awesome shot!

I finally decided on Kamina as he was kind of a father figure in the show. I used an add-in for Photoshop CS3 to make the cool design you see above from this. make a change to the lettering to make it pop and wa-la, new header.

It is still kind of big, but I wanted it to stretch the entire length of the blog. What do you think of the change? Is it too bright for the blog as I have such a dark theme?

UPDATE: I made the header darker - it was too bright as Kluxorious said

I almost forgot, this past weekend I was a bit busy adding another page to the layout. You can now see all my reviews under one page header called Reviews (of course). I have it broken down by Anime, Figures, Manga & Movies in alpha order for ya.

Site Update & Other Crazy Shit

Some quick updates and then back to the show:

1. Did some design changes using the new Template Designer. Had to tweak it a bit to give it a personal flavor. Kept with the dark theme as it is more my tastes anyway.

2. Finally got finished with getting everyone over to my Blog Rolls -n- Links page. I created my last several banner links for everyone and now it is up and fully operational. If you do not see your site, drop me a line to do a link exchange.

3. My son tried to burn down the kitchen yesterday morning. He did his normal microwaving of a Sausage wrapped in Pancake batter on a stick. Except this time he placed it in for some unknown large number of minutes. After I did not hear it go off (getting dressed myself), I asked him to check on it and all I heard was "DAD!". I can running to see the kitchen filled with smoke. Needless to say all the windows were opened to ventilate and pulled down the smoke alarms as not to scare the hell out of the neighbors.

Now our apartment now smells like someone was having an open fire cookout in it. As for the food he made - lets just say it was charcoaled. This was all due to the fact that his face was glued to the morning cartoon and not on what he should of been watching.

As punishment, my wife took a picture of him sleeping last night on her iPhone. He had crashed in our bed as he does each night until we head for bed. I have no idea how in the hell he could sleep like this, but he was sound asleep.

300th BLOG + Manga Review + Giveaway

Holy Blog-O-Sphere, I never thought I would make it this far. But here I am doing my 300th blog and still cranking more out. I should do something cool for this post, so here is a Manga review & Giveaway!

Manga Review:

Manga: WaqWaq
Story: Ryu Fujisaki
Art: Ryu Fujisaki
Distributor: VIZ Media
Number Volumes: 4
Price Point: $9.99/volume USD

Ryu Fujisaki is better known for his work under the Manga title Hoshin Engi. I remember reading WaqWaq in a recent issue of my son's Shonen Jump and thought it was interesting enough to pickup.

General Plot (from the back of the 1st volume):

In the ultimate battle of man vs. machine, all hope lies with a teenage girl. Living in constant fear of attack from machines, mankind depends on the cyborg corps known as the Guardians to keep them from harm as they await the arrival of the Kami, a godlike savior with mystical red blood who can grant only one wish to one person. Now, Shio, son of a Guardian, thinks he's found the Kami - and all the Guardians are at war to get that wish!

SPOILER ALERT

Let me start off by saying I like and dislike these short series volumes. The good part is that I am not waiting years to complete the series. On the other hand they usually leave parts out that would be interesting (like back fill on the characters).

The easy part of this review is that the artwork. It is stunning, highly detailed and a joy to view. I like his style a lot and will probably be checking out Hoshin Engi soon. I love his color work as he is not afraid to drop every color in the rainbow into the art. A great example is the cover to Volume 1. This differences in the Guardian is well orchestrated and shows deep thought to what was needed. I love how he drew the machines as he gave them some nice depth and detail to each one. The smaller machines are "cute" and ad a softer touch to the devastating killer machines.

The meat of the story itself is intriguing as we have black blooded "humans" who see anyone with red blood as gods. There are no red bloods here on this world, so when Kami shows up, all hell breaks loose. The only bad part for me is how a she shows up in the story. It is often over done in stories now a days - teenager girl is kidnapped and taken to another world/dimension/time to help people. The interesting part of this however, is how she actually needs to spill all her blood to make things right again - ouch.

We have the young (thrown into everything) hero named Shio as he takes over his father Guardian because he gets killed in action. It seems that Machines on this world are out to kill all humans. Each Guardian has the ability to take all the dreams and memories of the other suitors it had and impress them into there new suitor. Talk about a mind dump - damn! SO what has to happen is that each Guardian must battle and assume the loosing Guardian - until there is only One (is this HIghlander?). Then the remaining Suitor of the Guardian can make one wish that will be granted by the almighty machine (no matter what it is). No pressure on our hero here.

Of course we have some sinister people behind all this that cause distress on our characters through out the series. How can you not have a evil villain (or three) in a series to cause heart ache to our hero and damsel in distress. I have to say there is some drama shown in the dialog between the characters. Kind of corny to me at times, but I managed through it. There is come comic relief by a ninja wanna-be named Fran when you get to Volume 2.

Needless to say after some very epic battles between everyone, we finally have a wish fulfilled and the world is a better place or is it??? You need to read it to find out.

Page Inserts

Giveaway:

I am going to be giving away the entire 4 volume series of the Manga I just reviewed of WaqWaq. I have also decided to open this up internationally, so everyone has a chance no matter where in the world they live.

Giveaway Rules:

1. Leave a comment > Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into the drawing
2. Only 1 comment post per person will be allowed (so no leaving 10 comments to stuff the ballot)
   
3. See above as it is really that simple
4. On May 31st, I will announce the winner
   

btw: I want to thank the girls for holding those lovely numbers up for me :)

Added a New Widget

I got a nice comment from Rayneholde on my Misa Amane (Death Note) Cosplayers blog. I have a habit of dropping over at the blogs of people who comment. I noticed she had a cool little widget of a Japanese Wind Chime. As crazy as I am, I decided to add the little to my site as well. You can check them out over at KuraKura Parts (in Japanese).


Now you can either have the chime at the upper right of your blog (as you see on mine) of you can have it in a box that sits with your other widgets. Like the one you see here on the right. The main difference I can see is that the boxed widget has the ability to turn the chime off. The large one at the top does not (but can be closed by pressing the black "X".

My main question to all of you is:

Which would you rather prefer?

Other questions:

• Does the Chime annoy you or is it just a nice distraction while reading?
• Would you rather have the ability to turn off the chime sound instead?

"Chime" in to let me know your thoughts and a big thanks to Rayenholde for dropping me a line so I could find this neat bell.

New Blog Addition

I have decided to add my son as a fellow blogger to this site. He is only 8.5 years old, but sometimes he amazes me with what he has in his head.

I have been his mentor for some time now with school and other things. I can't say I have been the best as I try to push him (sometimes too hard) to be the best he can be. His grades were pretty bad when I was not here, but have improved immensely now. He still has been having a bit of issues with Reading Comprehension. We have been getting some extra work from school, but who wants more home work.


Since my issues with my Dad, it got me thinking more about my son. I need to change up my approach and get him more involved by doing stuff he likes. I asked him if he wanted to help me with my blog and he of course said "yes". He is a Gemini, so he may change his mind, but we will give it a whirl now. I plan on doing this on Saturdays and will be calling the blog "Kids Corner". I do not know too many collaborations like this, so it may prove to be a interesting change for both of us.

He loves to read Manga (Pokemon), watch Anime (he has a larger collection than me now) and toys (Bakugan, Dragon Quest). I will probably setup the questions for him, but all the answers will be his alone. This will probably also help with his spelling as a side benefit.

Get ready World for the next Gen of bloggers!

Will be part of Staff at Finally Anime!

Before we get started, this could be classified as NSFW if you hit some of the other sites mentioned here.

Like I mentioned in my previous Blog, I will be part of the staff at Finally Anime. For some of you, you will remember it used to previously be called Final Anime Stop's Blog. Currently it is staffed by FaS, Andrew L Budny (AnimeFullCircle) and Dennis (animebullet). These are all other great sites that you have to check out.

My hope is to keep with the theme they have (ecchi) and do some fun figure reviews. I have figures from Queen's Blade and Tandem Twin that have "clothes optional" views. I may have reviewed these figures here, but not to the extent I will at Finally Anime. As I will have much more freedoms there on the nekid figures, I will get a bit naughty with the photos - heeheehee. To give you the a sneak peak at the figures (clothed of course), here they are:

Tandem Twins


Queen's Blade

Now they are crazy busy getting the site upgraded, so please be patient. I am not sure how soon I will be posting, but I already have pics of Risty in all her glory ready to go.