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DENNIS: Before we talk about cosplaying, let's get to know a little bit about both of you and also tell me where you were born and raised.
WAYNE: Anaheim, California
TIFFANY: I was born and raised in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area! I moved down to Los Angeles for a few years during college, but I have now moved back up to SF.

DENNIS:  If a friend traveled to your area to spend several hours with you, where would you take them or what would you do for fun?  TIFFANY:  Well, this would depend on the friend, I suppose, and what they like to do as well, but I know for sure that I would take them to one of my favorite restaurants to eat.  The food is absolutely scrumptious up here and I have a lot of places that I like to go.  Some other things I might do is take them to Japantown in San Francisco, lots of good food there, or we could head on over to eat somewhere on Irving Street (also in SF) and have boba at my favorite little teahouse.

I also like to go to Golden Gate Park and go to the Japanese Tea Garden or the Botanical Gardens, walk around, relax, and chill there. There are lots of good places to go shopping, or we could always swing by an arcade.  And then of course there is karaoke, either in private rooms or a bar!  And then plenty of clubs and bars to go to at night!  There are many, many possibilities, so it's really hard to list them all.  If I were showing someone around LA I'd probably have an even *longer* list, but up here in the Bay Area it's so much more beautiful that pretty much anything you can do will be fun if it's a nice day!
WAYNE:  I'd take them to the Disneyland Resort. It's what Anaheim is known for. Total tourist trap that everyone wants to see. The Anaheim resort is practically designed for hours upon hours of mindless entertainment and it's all concentrated now with theatres, restaurants, sight seeing. Everything you'd want in a few square blocks. The locals here even use the resort as a "babysitter" of sorts so that their families have a way to pass the time.

DENNIS:  So, if I was to be a passenger in your car, what kind of music would I expect to be listening to?
WAYNE:  You'd be stuck listening to the radio. And what's usually on the radio is American Top 40. I wouldn't mind too much if you didn't like what was on the radio and changed the station unless it was on a song that I liked. Of which I would politely ask that you change it back. Since I am driving and should keep my eyes on the road and not the radio. If I have CD's then it will be JPOP or Anime themed music and 80's. The Jpop includes Morning Musume and I also like the Bust a Move soundtrack as well as other Anime soundtracks like Ranma 1/2 and Mononoke Hime. 
TIFFANY:  If you were the passenger in my car I have no idea what kind of music you might hear!  I am truly one of those people who listens to many, many, many types of music!  Right now I've been listening to the radio a lot because I'm bored of most of my CDs, but I must say I'm starting to get pretty sick of hearing the same songs over and over on the radio!  I used to listen to a lot of JROCK and JPOP, but I don't really listen to it as much anymore.  I still do listen to some stuff occasionally, mostly JPOP, like Morning Musume, go figure!  Actually I listen to Morning Musume quite a lot now!  After I started listening to less JPOP, I got into Korean pop for a while, and then there was a time when I listened to tons of Eurobeat but I like to switch around so that I don't get bored.  I'll listen to something new then go back to the old stuff because it's like new!  Who knows what you'll hear!  You may even hear some random opera or some show tunes. 

DENNIS:  What kind of students were you two back in high school?  Were you the cheerleader, jock, computer person, library person, band person or perhaps the stoners?
TIFFANY:  Hmmm....I don't think I ever really belonged in a group in High School.  For the most part I was an outcast or a loner.  Most of my close friends, with the exception of one or two, didn't even go to my school!   It's always sort of been like that for me, almost as if I didn't even really go to the school at all.  But I guess some people could say I was a drama freak, since I was very much into the theatre department.  Maybe some people might have classified me as that, but I think I was referred to most as "that crazy girl with the really long hair and the outrageous fashion who always wears red."
WAYNE:  I was a gunner student.  All honors and AP, grades, grades, grades type person.  Active on campus, involved in a lot of the student clubs.  It’s supposed to look good for college you know?

DENNIS:  If there was one word to describe you as a person now, what word would that be and why?
WAYNE:  Perfectionist.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  It sort of makes me obsessive compulsive since I have to have everything just right, and sometimes it will take me a long time to do so.
TIFFANY:  This is a hard one!  I have a hard time thinking of just one word that describes my whole character, so I'll just go with the one that comes to mind right now -- Perfectionist.  I could easily predict this would be Wayne's answer too. I am a complete and total perfectionist!  I think this is both one of my strong points and one of my weak points.  It is good because I try very hard at everything I do, and am always giving it my all and trying to do the best job possible.  I never shortchange anything.  I am constantly working on improving and perfecting both the things that I do and the person that I am.  So in that way, my perfectionism is a good thing.  It can, however, have its drawbacks.  Because I am so focused on perfecting, I can take things too seriously at times.  I also tend to be too hard on myself because I am rarely if ever satisfied with what I do.  My perfectionist attitude can drive both myself and people around me crazy at times.  But luckily, because I am such a die-hard perfectionist, I am working on perfecting my perfectionism so that it is more positive than negative.

Photo: Tiffany cosplaying as Umi from the anime series "Magical Knight Rayearth".

DENNIS:  So, tell me how you got involved with cosplays? TIFFANY:  I actually really like this story!  I feel like I've told it a million times already, but I think it's a pretty good one.   The first time I ever cosplayed I actually had no idea that I was cosplaying, or that such a thing as cosplay even existed!  It all began on a long eight-hour car ride home from Disneyland.  My two very close friends and I were speculating on what costumes we wanted to wear for Halloween.  Anime was still fairly new to us at this point, and we had just recently fallen in love with the series "Magic Knights Rayearth."  One of my friends expressed how she really wanted to be Fuu for Halloween, and so we all each decided to be our favorite characters from the series.  Thus we made our costumes and we were the three Magical Knights for Halloween 1996.  It wasn't till almost a year later that we attended our first convention, Anime Expo (AX) 1997, and realized that people dressed up in costume at the convention!  I was totally surprised about this but immediately became very excited!  I wished that we had known so that we could have worn our own costumes as well.  The next convention we went to, Fanime 1998, we made sure to wear our Rayearth costumes from Halloween!  We had a blast wearing our costumes around the con, and from that moment on I think we were hooked, though we hadn't even realized it yet!  We planned to make new costumes for AX 98, and the rest is history.

Although, I love dressing up in costume and it is one of my favorite parts of cosplaying, the real reason why I began cosplaying and have continued to do so for so long is because of my two very close friends, whom I share the cosplay group "Ah! My Cosplay" with.  We started out making the costumes together, and the process of brainstorming costume ideas, making the costumes, and wearing them has been something that we always did together, as a team.  Cosplay was our time to bond and spend time together, so for me, cosplay has always been about our friendship and represents the great friendship we have!   Since I began cosplaying, I have been lucky enough to make many more wonderful friends and I feel like things have expanded from being only about the friendship within my trio to being about the great friendships I have with many other people as well.
WAYNE:  I'd say I got into cosplay in 1995. But that is the term cosplay. I guess previous to that we were costumers or masqueraders. I got into it via science fiction conventions, namely San Diego Comic Con, where they have costume masquerades. In 1994, a few of my friends costumed from a now defunct comic book publisher Valiant, who used to award fans who would make costumes of their characters. We thought it was extremely fun, and one of the convention staff pulled us aside and told us that we should try for the costume masquerade which was held on Saturdays of the convention. In 1995, a bunch of my friends and I formed the Anything Goes School of Masquerade Arts cosplay group and since Anime was getting more and more acceptance at the comic conventions, we decided to make costumes and get into the masquerade ourselves. We chose Ranma 1/2 as the costume theme for that year since we all liked that series and hence the cosplay group name is related to Ranma 1/2. The masquerade itself was sort of like a variety show, and so we organized the group to get most the main characters and did a little skit in about 2 minutes. We were well recieved by the audience that year as well as by fans around the convention. That was enough encouragement for us to keep on cosplaying and in fact try harder and keep on getting better, acquiring new techniques on costuming and performance.    

DENNIS:  What was the first costume that you cosplayed and how was that experience? WAYNE:  Mousse from Ranma ½. It was a costume that I had some help on, getting tips on sewing and the like. I did everything by the book and used patterns. And I finished that costume 1 week early. Absolutely amazing! The Mousse costume also came with some props. I ended up using metal bars with nice pointy tips and managed to attach it to my right arm with some difficulty. The metal added about 10 lbs to that right arm and so you can imagine that it was sore after the cosplay was done. When I completed that costume, Ranma 1/2 was in vogue and cosplay was still pretty new and got many compliments on the costume. I think my favorite experience was a costumer of Wolverine had come across me and my friends and he bared his claws which looked like they were made out of wood and about 6 inches long. So I quietly responded with claws of my own which were metal, sharp and about 14 inches. He left us alone. TIFFANY:  The first costume I cosplayed was Umi from Magic Knights Rayearth.  This was a great experience!  I had so much fun!  When I look back on the process of making those Rayearth costumes I can't help but laugh.  We had no idea what we were doing.  I think this was the first costume I had ever made in my life.  I had no idea how to sew.  The best part about the costumes was the crude and unusual methods we used and the fact that they actually worked!

Photo: Wayne cosplaying as "Mousse" from the anime, "Ranma 1/2".

I think very few people would be able to guess that our armor was made out of old cardboard oatmeal boxes, masking tape.  We hadn't even discovered duct tape yet! And coat hangers that I bent with my bare hands. (Laughing) It is absolutely hilarious.  I remember I even made Umi's sword out of coat hangers, tape, and paper mache!  My hands were aching after I was done!  I can't believe I never even thought to bother to use pliers!  Most of the funcame in making those costumes though!  Figuring out crazy ways to make the stuff without having a clue what we were doing was great! Especially when our ideas actually worked!  There were many structural flaws in those costumes, (laughing) but they are still beloved to me!

DENNIS:  Do you spend a lot on your costumes?
WAYNE:  Time yes. Money, depends. Only two of my costumes have broke $100 in frank materials costs simply because I'm patient and shop around. Most costumes will average $30 to $50 in materials costs. I like to think of myself as a frugal cosplayer, getting only enough fabric as is needed and when it's on sale. That does require alot of planning and shopping! So I tend not to spend too much on costumes. Time however is a different matter.  
TIFFANY:  A lot is a relative term, but the answer is no.  I do not.  Cosplay in itself is an expensive hobby but in comparison to other cosplayers, I think the amount I spend is low.  Of course, this definitely varies from costume to costume, but I try my hardest to keep my costs as low as possible.  The truth of the matter is I'm a total cheapskate when it comes down to it!  I hunt and search for bargains and cut cost corners wherever I can.  I think I spend a lot of extra time trying to save money, but I have my special places that I searched very hard for and finally found where I can get really good prices on different things.  I think for me the bargain hunting is part of the fun of it.  I pride myself on being able to keep the costs down.  And I must admit that it does make me grin a bit when I come across a cosplayer who has done the exact same costume as me, but spent over twice as much.  Who wouldn't be happy about that?

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