FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.. VERS1A COSPLAY
www.facebook.com/VerisaWindrunnerCosplay In our earlier edition we spoke to Russian based cosplayer, Ver1sa who comes from St Petersburg. We spoke to this amazing Russian cosplayer about what it’s like to cosplay in Russia and what the cosplay scene is like... Firstly tell us a bit about yourself, where are you from and how long have you been a cosplayer? Hello everyone! My name is Vera and nickname is Verisa (Ver1sa). I`am 20 years old and I live in Russia, St. Petersburg. My main activities is study, cosplay and video games. I started cosplay in 2008, it turns out that I have been doing cosplay for five years, so I`am really into it! How did you get into cosplay? What started your interest? My best friend and I like to watch anime and periodically we found on the Internet a variety of photographs of the people were dressed in costumes of the characters. We didn’t even know what it was called, but decided that it is really cool and fun, so we tried it too. We went to the usual clothing store and bought some clothes that looked like characters` costumes and went to a Christmas anime party where I met people who told me about cosplay.
What is the cosplay scene in Russia like? Are there many events or as we call them “Cons” you can go to? In Australia we have Comic Con and PAX, what do you have there? The level of cosplay in Russia has grown over time, we can say that our cosplayers went out on the world stage. Oh, and in general much more people get involved in cosplay. Most of our festivals are not like the foreign ones, they are held in a slightly different format. A lot of attention is paid to the stage program: performances, karaoke and K-POP dancing. But recently festivals appeared in a more cammon format like Comic Con, BlizzCon and etc, and this is awesome. What are your favourite characters to dress as? At the moment, I prefer to cosplay character from video games, but also I love the costumes from movies, they are very detailed, stylish and beautiful. But the main point for me is the love for the character. Do you make your own costumes? About 70% of costumes I do by myself, but sometimes this is hard work I have to get the help of a seamstress and my boyfriend.
Do you play video games and if so what are your favourites? I spend a lot of time playing video games and I have a lot of platforms - Wii, Xbox, PC and Nintendo 3DS. My favorite games are: Pokemons, The legend of Zelda, Fallout 1-2, Heroes of Might and Magic III, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Bioshock. Of the games 2012-2013 years I really like Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored and Metro: Last Light. I also spend a lot of time in DotA 2. Where can our readers go to see more of your cosplay? To see more of my cosplay you can visit my deviantart page: http://ver1sa.deviantart.com/ Read my blog on the tumblr: http://ver1sa.tumblr.com/ I can also give you my facebook cosplay page: www.facebook.com/ VerisaWindrunnerCosplay, but it`s not popular in Russia because we have our own social net: http://vk.com/ver1sa Thanks for your attention. From Russia with love :) P.S. Sorry for my English. Photographer: Envy the One | www.envytheone.devianart.com