Manchester MCM Comic Con 2018 Haul

Happy Wednesday! As if it's the start of August already! Where has this year gone, seriously!? The end of July means for me that it's a whole year until my local MCM Comic Con rolls around again! That makes me a little sad but at least I get to keep the memories alive for a while longer by sharing all about my day with you guys! I usually go to Comic Con with my best friend, but this year I went along with my mom and she thoroughly enjoyed her first convention! Just a disclaimer, I hope that this post doesn't come across like I'm bragging about what I bought... I save up my money for ages before the event so that I can treat myself, as there's no geeky merch stores anywhere around where I live. Anyhow, I hope you all like haul posts! Expect this to get pretty photo heavy, haha!! I was going to make this post a photo diary too, but I think I'll blog that separately :) Enjoy! 

I've been attending Comic Con for the last four years, and each time I don't really have a specific shopping list in mind. I just enjoy spotting things that take my tasty and buying them. However this time around, I wrote up a little checklist on my phone, and I had several items that I hoped to find. Most of them were Funko Pop! Vinyl; if you've been a regular reader of mine for a while now, you'll know that I collect these awesome figures. At the beginning of last month, after considering it for quite some time, I decided to set up an Instagram account entirely dedicated to my toy collecting hobby. If you're a fellow toy and vinyl figure lover, you can check out my IG here :) 

Finally finding a place were I could nerd out over my figures and share my photography with fellow enthusiasts helped to revive my passion for collecting, not that it was ever really gone, it just took a backburner with all of the stuff I've been dealing with so far this year. When you go through a long period of a particularly bad episode of depression, it can be super tough to get back into things that once brought you so much joy. So thankfully, I know have my toy collecting bug back and have managed to build up my wishlist again in a very short amount of time, since I keep seeing amazing Pop's that I immediately have a mighty need for! So, which figures did I buy?

I bought home five new Pop! Vinyl in total, and I am super happy with my finds! I have been after these characters ever since they were first brought to my attention, and so it is great to have them in my collection at long last! I have been very much wanting to expand the horror characters part of my collection in particular, and so I'm over the moon to now have the iconic Chucky from the Child's Play movie franchise, and also Beverly Marsh from Stephen King's IT (she's one of my favourite characters, and Sophie Lillis portrayed her so well in the 2017 movie). Just look how bright and eye-catching Chucky is!? He's so photogenic! f you know me well, you'll know that I have the hots for Tormund Giantsbane from the TV series, Game of Thrones. Kristofer Hivju is bearded, ginger and looks like he'd give a really good hug, so what's not to love!? *insert x10 heart eyes emojis here*. I really like the character himself, his personality, and he's definitely in my top 5 favourites from the show. 

I like how vibrant Funko have made his hair and beard, and I think the knife he's welding looks cool. It's an aim of mine to get as many of the dinosaur Pop's as possible because I just love dinosaurs! I actually spotted this Jurassic World Indoraptor figure when I was on my way to the train station to go home after the convention. I picked him up at HMV in the Manchester Arndale centre. I have three of the Jurassic Park/World dinosaurs now, yay! The other figure that I bought at Comic Con was this most recent version of Disney's Mulan, which I think is just gorgeous! Her eye makeup really pops (hahaha pops, get it? I think I'm funny :D) and her outfit from the matchmaker scene in the movie is really pretty. I can't stop saying 'FA, MULAN' in the matchmakers voice ever time I look at it though! Which is your favourite Pop! Vinyl that I bought?

Considering I'm basically addicted to Funko products, I couldn't just stop at Pop's! I also bought myself one of the Series 2 Harry Potter Mystery Mini's blind boxes, in fact it was the first thing I bought upon entering the con. It was only £5 at the Forbidden Planet stall, and I didn't even realise that they were the exclusive versions until I had already spent up. I wish I'd bought more now! If you follow me on either of my Instagram accounts, you might have seen my unboxing video for this awesome little guy. I am delighted to have unboxed the Hungarian Horntail dragon from Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire! I'm super impressed by how detailed he is, and I cannot wait to photograph him outside. The Mystery Minis figures are so cool! 

One of the reasons I love Comic Con so much, aside from all of the amazing cosplay and being surrounded by fellow nerds, is the opportunity to discover so many fabulous artists. Each year, my favourites always return and it's nice to be able to support them, but then there's also always new artwork to see, and this time I decided to focus on supporting them that extra bit more than I usually do. I was on the look out for new kawaii illustrations, and especially those who were selling stickers. Some of you will know that I am building up a vinyl sticker collection to cover my laptop with, and so Comic Con was the perfect place to stock up!

I bought the adorable Cardcaptor Sakura sticker you can see above is from a store called Tea No Sugar, and their products were just so so cute!! If you've a fan of all things kawaii like me, go check them out. I picked up both this epic dinosaur skull sticker and the I Heart Brain's zombie sticker from Bluefayt Art, and this artist seriously creates the most stunning fantasy character art!! I will definitely be buying some prints by her in the future! The tiny Bananya stickers were only 50p!? I love how they both have expressions of annoyance, but have different ways of showing it :) The artist who drew these is called Cataclysmic Tilde. 

I was walking past a stall with the loveliest anime-style artwork when I noticed that they had a basket filled with prints that were on offer for only £2 and I thought this was such an awesome deal that I couldn't pass up. It was really quite tough to choose just one print, but I finally settled on this one. I just adore the shocked expression on the girls face, as well as her blue/purple hair and a dress that reminds me of a traditional Bavarian style outfit. The flowers around her are what really made me fall in love with this print, they are just so pretty and bright! How sweet is the little thankyou note with the neko girl on it!? This was such a nice touch :) The artist who created this gorgeous print is called Evangeline Lelland. Another adorable addition to my sticker collection that I got at Manchester MCM was this chubby little shark! Chao Illustrations who designed this chibl sea creature might be my favourite new artist find of the day! Her artwork is just so eye-catching and colourful!! I can't wait to pop this shark onto my laptop :) 

How stunning is this 'Creepy Cute' girl!? It just appeals so much to the gothic side of my personality, plus green and black are my two favourite colours so it's perfect for me!  I also have green eyes and dark hair too :) I love the eyeball bows in the girl's hair as they remind me of the kind of hair accessories I used to wear in my teens! Creepy cute is how I would describe my personality, as someone who loves all things spooky and macabre, as well as everything cute and fluffy and pastel-coloured. And so this sticker just caught my eye and I had to have it! The store was called Illustration by Gaslight (which is a great name!). 

In addition to stickers and prints, I also purchased a couple of badges at Comic Con as well, although I completely forgot to photograph one for this post, oops! This brilliant Red Fox one is just fantastic! Foxes are one of my favourite animals and so I'm always likely to choose them, but this store had an array of other animals so it was hard to buy just one! I'm a geek when it comes to animals, I absolutely love them and so I am so happy to have discovered Lyndsey Green Illustrations who designs the most beautiful nature-themed artwork! I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to wear this badge much though as I don't want to have it fall off my bag or something, it's too pretty to risk it! 

YASSSS NEW BROGAN CORAL PRINTS!! I look forward to visiting Comic Con each year because I know Brogan Coral is going to be there, and she's my favourite artist! If you like what you see, go take a look at my post all about my mermaid prints by Brogan Coral! Before this weekend, I had five of her prints up on my art wall, so it was my aim to get three more to even out the number. However, there was a great deal of 4 prints so I got myself one of the new Spyro designs too! I can't really put into words how much I love these prints, they are so vibrant and unique! I love the fantasy and sci-fi themes, and I just adore the way that the artist designs the hair styles and backgrounds!! How cute is the Spyro print!? I really love that they've include the little dragonfly too. It's also such a nostalgic print for me as Spyro was one of my favourite games when I was a kid. I'm curious, which print would you choose out of the four I got? 

I can't go to a convention and not come back with some Pocky! I always get mine from the Tofu Cute stall for only £1.20 a box! The milk ones and the cookies & cream that you can see above are the best favourites in my opinion, but I decided earlier this year that I really wanted to try something matcha green tea flavoured since it's such a popular Japanese tea and I've never tried anything that tastes like matcha before. I'm curious to see what I think! Do you like matcha? Do you have a favourite flavour of Pocky? Just look how flippin' awesome the illustration on this bookmark is!! I couldn't walk by it and not buy it! I am a lover of dragons, and this one just looks epic. The artwork is by Collette J Ellis, another artist who designs the most gorgeous fantasy creatures. My books are going to be protected from damage by a fantastic fire dragon from now on!  

Next door to where I bought the fabulous dragon bookmark was the stall of another of my favourite illustrators. I picked up a print from them at a previous Comic Con, a fantastic eagle wearing a Ravenclaw scarf, and the bird is just so well detailed! I love it! It makes a change from seeing Ravenclaw artwork and merch with a bird that looks more like a raven than an eagle >.< which just makes me adore this print even more! I have been falling more in love with this artist's work over time because I follow them on Instagram, and this just made me so excited to go get some more of their products at the convention. This time from Sushi Studios, I choose this gorgeous bookmark and two stickers, which are just so beautiful. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! I'm gonna have the best decorated laptop of all time :p I need one of Sushi Studios pin badges in my life too! 

Talking about pins, I was really happy when I discovered that Magical Maidens was going to be at my local Comic Con. I am currently collecting her Ditto X Studio Ghibli pins, and so I knew before I got there that I would be picking up some more of these! There was a deal on that meant I got all three of these pins for only £20!! It was such a challenge to choose who to get, but I was driven by girl power vibes, and thus got Kiki, Ponyo & Mononoke. Princess Mononoke is my favourite Ghibli movie so I'm super glad that I now have this pin! I know that I'm linking to a lot of my posts today, but I want to share more products by these wonderful artists with you all so if you like these pins, check out more of them in this post I wrote back in May. Her pins are great quality and so noticeable, I've been complimented on them a few times! 

The final things that I purchased leaving the convention and heading for a very much needed KFC at the Arndale food court was their figural keyring blind bags. I've have been desperate to get my hands on some of these for what feels like forever, and I watched every 'unboxing' video of them on YouTube that I could find. I was super sad when I couldn't get them easily in the UK, and each time I went to Comic Con I found some, but never the Horror Properties versions. I got these at a stall, that I'm gutted I can't remember the name of, for only £5 a bag. I regret not buying more now! Keep scrolling to find out which ones I got inside...

Two Pamela Voorhes (Jason's mom from the Friday 13th movies)! It's so typical that I would get a character that I wasn't hoping for, (I would have loved to get Pennywise, David from The Lost Boys, Freddy or Lydia!) and then get a duplicate of her! I was having a good rummage through the box too, but to be honest when I was picking the second one the stall owner came over to watch me, which always makes me feel super awkward so I didn't have a good root around, and ended up with another Pamela. Even though she's not one of the characters I most wanted, she's grown on me. Her angry expression is cute, and I like the textured detailing on her jumper. Her knife is awesome too, so I'm not too disappointed that I got one of her. To get another on the other hand.. I admit I'm gutted about that, but this is something that happens a lot when you collect blind box/bag figures. If only else collects these and wants to trade, or just interested in buying this keyring off me, let me know :) 

So that's my entire haul from Manchester MCM Comic Con 2018! I got such brilliant nerdy goodies, and had a wonderful day out. It felt weird not cosplaying, but I still had lots of fun noseying around the stalls and checking out everyone else's cosplay! As usual, there were some absolutely amazing cosplays, and I'm happy that my mom finally got to see them in person instead of just on all of the YouTube videos I show her. I'm surprised I managed to leave without a new plushie, haha... It's a miracle! I hope you all enjoyed checking out what I bought; I know that I love a good haul post myself :) 

Thankyou for reading! 

I hope this month is filled with awesomeness for you!

♥ 

Have you ever been to a convention before? 

Or any  other kind of hobbyist event?

Comic Con Haul

Hey everyone! I wish it was Saturday all over again! I had such a fabulous time at the Manchester MCM expo and it was over way too quickly. I would love to go for the entire weekend and stay over in Manchester, plan two different cosplays too. Hopefully next year will be the year I can make that happen! If you didn't see my (very amateur) cosplay, check out this post :) Anyhow, as promised, here is my haul post; I purchased some awesome things! If you're a fellow nerd or kawaii lover, or you just enjoy nosying at what people have been buying (I know I do!), then read on. Enjoy! 

My aim before I went to Comic Con was to come home with a new Funko Pop figure for my collection, a plushie and some prints from Brogan Coral, as it's a tradition of mine now to get some new prints from this amazing artist every year that I've been to the Manchester expo. I was very happy to tick off all of the items on my list, plus get some other wonderful items! Here's what I got...

I'm super happy with my haul!I picked up the Funko Pop figure and the Funko Mystery Minis Blind Box from the Forbidden Planet stall, and I was impressed that the prices were standard as it's typical to find that stalls will charge so much more at a expo. I bought the pin badge and Pocky snacks from Tofu Cute, which is a store that I like to buy from every year since they are one of my favourite UK suppliers of kawaii products. I couldn't find business cards on the stalls were I purchased the keyring or plushie though, sorry guys! My post is going to be pretty picture heavy from this point on :) 

I was over the moon when I spotted this figure on the Forbidden Planet stall at the expo! This Rick & Morty Pop figure is one of the new figures that were just released as exclusives for the San Diego Comic Con event, so it was a surprise to see it with other exclusives on the stall. I couldn't not buy it! It's so adorable, bright and colourful. Really kawaii and eye-catching, and I'm so glad to add it to my ever-growing Pop collection. The RRP of Pop's is around £12 and I got this SDCC Exclusive for £15 which was a fantastic price, becasue it would have cost me so much more with the cost of shipping and such to order it online! The figure is in perfect condition too. 

I've been watching a lot of blind box unboxing videos lately with my niece and my mom (I've gotten my family obsessed with blind boxes too, haha!) since we figured out how to watch youtube on our firestick, so I had blind boxes on the brain when I went to Comic Con. I spotted a few blind boxes for things that I'm not really into and I had given up that I would come home with a blind box, until my best friend & I were taking our last walk around the convention centre. The Forbidden Planet stall had two sides and I hadn't looked much at the other side, the one that didn't have all the Funko Pop figures. I spotted the Game of Thrones series 1 & 2 blind boxes on the other side of the stall, and these were only £5! I was so happy. 

I was hoping to get one of my favourite characters, Tyrion or Arya, or Rhaegal (the green and bronze dragon), and I would have been glad to get Daenerys, Khal Drogo, any of the dragons or the direwolves, or Jon Snow. I got Ned Stark, nevermind! I'm still impressed with the figure. It's in great condition and has lots of details for a small figure. I have a mighty need to collect all of Ned's children to go with this figure now :) Have you ever gotten one of these figures before?

I wanted to get a new Amuse plushie from Tofu Cute. I was looking for a 'character' that I didn't already have or one that I immediately fell in love with, but I didn't find any this time unfortunately. I did however see the Tofu Cute pin badge collection, that I'd totally forgotten they'd released so that was a wonderful surprise. It was tough to choose which one to buy but I decided on this adorable panda pin. I love how adorable it is! All the pins were £5 each and are all available on the store's website. I really like the presentation of the item too, each comes on a cute card which on the back has a little character description. Oh, and the back of the pin is pink plastic which is cool.

As you can see, I couldn't resist opening the cookies & cream Pocky that I bought on Saturday! I wanted a snack to take to my dad's house on Monday night to munch whilst watching the latest Game of Thrones episode. They were delicious! I picked up some milk flavoured Pocky as well, since that's my favourite flavour. I wanted to try Matcha flavour but they were more expensive so I decided to pick some up next year. 

I really like things that are made from hama beads because they remind me of my childhood. I made some hama bead things when I was younger at a summer youth club place that I went to. I came across a stall with some really awesome hama bead creations and I would have loved to buy one, however I couldn't think where to put it. I saw a pot of keyrings for £1 at the front of the stall so I just had to get myself this little mushroom. It's cute and I like the bold colours. I wish I'd seen a business card so I knew the name of the shop. 

LOOK HOW ADORABLE THIS IS!! I spotted an awesome stall towards the back of the convention centre that was selling various plushies, including quite a few Tokidoki ones. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I'm pretty obsessed with the Italian kawaii brand, Tokidoki so you can imagine my excitement when I saw Tokidoki merch at Comic Con. I chose the 'Biscottino' plushie because I've never seen any merch of her before, plus who doesn't want a sweet donut kitty!? This keyring plushie is so so soft and made from such good quality material. I love the different colours and the overall design. I paid £7 for her, and I'll never be able to bring myself to put her on a bag or something because I don't want to spoil her.  

Something I love about going to Comic Con is that nestled within the nerdy merch stalls and other displays, they have an artist section which is fabulous to browse and see all of the artwork of various artists and comic illustrators and so many different styles and media of art. Each year, I visit the Brogan Coral stall and take advantage of the two prints for £6 offer. The prints I choose this year are just so gorgeous! 

I love love love all of the colours and the magical theme of the each of Brogan Coral's prints! I opted for sci-fi style designs this year as they are something different to my previous buys from the store. How stunning are the details of these two prints though!? Words can't describe how much I love them. I've written a review about the prints I purchased from Brogan Coral at last year's Comic Con, if you're interested you can read here. 

At last year's Manchester expo, I bought a print from SushiStudios and I lost it before I got home! It was a really awesome Ravenclaw house sigil design; I was gutted :( I found the stall again this year but they were only selling postcard versions of the prints. I obviously had to get one, and I kind of wish that I'd picked up one for each of the houses and not just my own. 

The detail of the Ravenclaw eagle is amazing! I love how each of the animal mascots were wearing a scarf in the colours of their house. Whenever I look for Ravenclaw merch, I usually prefer sigils with a raven design rather than opting for the traditional eagle of the house because I normally don't like the way the eagle is drawn or whatever. That's definitely not the case when it comes to SushiStudios design, because I absolutely love the eagle and I can't wait to put this postcard up on my art wall to display my house sigil with pride!

What I love most about browsing the artwork at Comic Con is finding new artists who's work I absolutely love. I discovered a new store called PearlesquedCreations and bought this gorgeous Elf illustration. Elves have always been one of my favourite mythological/fantasy creatures and I'm really impressed that this A5 print was only £2. I couldn't resist buying it! I didn't get a business card for the stall where I picked up this adorable sticker, which I'm sad about because they had so many other cool designs. I thought this kitty with an ice-cream smushed onto it's head was too cute to not buy, and I'm planning to stick it to the front of my new laptop when I finally get one. 

I hope you all enjoyed reading my Manchester Comic Con 2017 haul post! Let me know which was your favourite item that I bought in the comments. I had a brilliant time, even though it was exhausting. To get to the event, we have to catch two trains which are always crowded at the time we head over to Manchester. This is super hard on my anxiety so I am thankful for the twenty minute wait for our connecting train at Bolton station. It's all worth it once we get to Manchester though, and we see everyone else in their cosplay walking around the Oxford Road station area. 

The event this year was lovely and there were so many friendly people commenting on my Totoro cosplay. One girl asked to take a photograph of me which was really sweet (even though I felt so shy! I wish I was better at social interaction) and I ended up in a photograph with a group of cosplayers when I was waiting for my best friend outside the toilets, haha! The highlight of the day was getting to 'spy on' Manu Bennett! Any of my fellow Spartacus fans will know that this beautiful man played Crixus on the show. *insert all the heart-eyed emojis* 

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥

Have you ever been to a Comic Con event? 

Did you cosplay or buy anything nice? Tell me all about it :) 

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What I bought at Manchester Comic Con

Hey everyone! This is going to the last Comic Con related post that I write until next year, and that actually makes me a little sad. I had such a wonderful time this year and whenever I share a post with you all about it, I get to re-live it in my head, to reminisce about the highlights of the day. In the weeks leading up to Comic Con, I'd been having a hard time with my mental health and the event came at just the right time, cheering me up and reminding me that I can do something I really want to, despite my anxiety. Today, I'm going to share with you all my Comic Con haul :) I hope you all enjoy reading!

How cute is this Totoro Plushie!? If you've read my recent post about why I love Cosplay, I'll know that for the Manchester MCM Comic Con this year, I dressed as Totoro. My Neighbour Totoro is one of my favourite Studio Ghibli movies, and I just think Totoro is one of the most adorable characters I've ever seen. Since I was cosplaying as this adorable grey forest troll, I obviously had to purchase a plushie of him. I can't believe that I didn't have one already to be honest! Although he's adorable, I didn't notice until I got home that the pattern on his tummy is really messy and poorly done. I definitely regret not looking for an official Studio Ghibli version now. Who else loves Studio Ghibli movies? Who's your favourite Ghibli character?

From the same stall, I also picked up this little chubby cat thing, I'm really not sure what it's supposed to be but I thought it was really cute nonetheless haha. There were a few different colours available and I was looking for a cheap plush charm to put on my backpack so that I wouldn't be too worried about it getting all worn and dirty. 

I literally have an internal radar when it comes to finding postcards, and as usual I spotted these literally as soon as we had got into the event. These cute postcards are from Genki Gear and I couldn't resist adding them to my postcard collection. I collect postcards because I love them and also because one of my hobbies is postcrossing (swapping postcards with people all over the world). They are really comical and quirky, and instantly reminded me of Dory from Finding Nemo and her hilarious whale impression. My best friend & I had a good giggle trying to read the speech bubbles when we were standing in line to pay! 

The stall for the shop Super Cute Awesome Stuff had the most adorable, eye-catching stickers, however my eyes were drawn immediately to this one. There was no question that I was going to get it. It's so adorable and it looks really similar to a brooch that I've been after buying for months now. I love this sticker for so many reasons. One because I'm really likin' the play-on-words. Two because it's so flippin' cute. Three because I like things that show female anatomy to help end the taboo surrounding discussion of female reproductive anatomy in society. I'll display this sticker with pride! 

I always look forward to visiting the Tofu Cute stall at Comic Con, as it's one of my favourite kawaii shops :) It's my dream stall and as soon as I walked over, I spotted this gorgeous, adorable bunny and my heart melted. I wasn't the only one who was freaking out over how cute it was; there were quite a few people crowded around the stand admiring them. It reminds me of a lionhead bunny and since my babies are all lionheads, I was of course compelled to buy it. It's super cute and it's made by the Japanese company, Amuse, which are always great quality. I am very happy to have bought this little cutie home and to add him to my now pretty big Amuse plush collection. 

When LoveJoJo announced that they were coming to Comic Con, I was so excited! I've been following them for a while on instagram now, and I couldn't wait to finally buy something kawaii from them. It was so lovely that as soon as we approached the stall, we were greeted and offered a massive plushie to have a cuddle of! I thought it was a really sweet gesture. I knew that I wanted to get another Amuse plushie but I ended up getting two since there was an offer on charm plushies, 2 for £7, that I couldn't resist. I have wanted to get my hands on one of these lovely rams for ages so I'm really pleased that they had a few different ones to choose from. I chose the blue one because his facial expression was my favourite of the bunch. He looks kind of sad and I just think it looks adorable. I also liked his pink gingham bow. I picked the lilac sheep because of how soft it is! If only technology had advanced enough for you to be able to feel textures through your screens, you'd understand why I chose this one.  

Funny Sticker World is a brand that I really like. Clinton Cards sell some of their range and everytime I go there, I have to come out of the store with some of their stickers. They always have a lovely variety, so if you haven't seen them, go and check them out. I've never seen the Korean range before and oh my gosh, the Disney/Fairytale ones that I found at Comic Con were so gorgeous! I was difficult to choose just one sticker sheet, but I finally went for this 'Snow White' one. Seriously wish I'd bought all of the other Fairytale ones now though. 

I love finding new independent artists and Comic Con is the perfect place for it. There's a section just full of stalls displaying artwork and I always find lots of amazing art that I want, so it makes me sad that I don't have my own place yet. I guess that it's also a good thing, because I'd end up spending so much money! I bought some awesome prints from a stall that I also shopped at last year (I'm going to be giving them a post all to themselves) and then this adorable cat pin badge made by artist Rachael Smith. How could I say no to this sweet little 'Flimsy Cat'!? Especially with a presentation card saying 'Please Take Me Home'. The final items that I bought were these button badges from SilviaDoesDrawings, who makes an awesome comic called Feminist Cat. I can't wait to put them on my backpack. 

I came home from the Manchester MCM Comic Con expo with so many fabulous, kawaii items and had a really fun time shopping, spending the day with my best friend and observing everyone's cosplay in awe of their skill and creativity. Bring on next year!

Thankyou for reading!

♥

What's your favourite item that I bought? Have you ever been to Comic Con or a similar nerdy expo? 

Enjoy haul posts? Check out these posts:
| What I bought in Sweden | Bomb Cosmetics Haul | World Stationary Day |

Why I love Cosplay

It's been over a week since I went to Manchester Comic Con and  still can't stop thinking about it. I wish I was going again this weekend! It's such an awesome experience. The atmosphere is incredibly fun, everyone is so cheerful and friendly and lovin' life in their cosplay. When you put on cosplay, it's easy to feel like someone else, to take on the persona of your favourite character. It's lovely to see people in full costume, acting the way that their character does, imitating their signature moves, and giving their best impression of their voice/sound. The intricacy of some of the cosplays you see at Comic Cons is truly amazing! You can see that so much time, energy and passion has gone into creating their fantastic cosplay. I walk around the convention in awe of everyone's hard work. Some people resemble their characters so much that it's hard not to stare at them, it's mermerising. Other people's cosplay is really comical and creative too: giant robots, full-body My Little Pony suits, Roman statuettes. Imaginations run wild at Comic Con! Today, I thought I'd share with you the reasons why I enjoy cosplay so much. I hope you enjoy reading :)

One of the reasons why I love cosplay is the passion and effort that goes into it. You can really tell how much people love their chosen characters by all of the work they've put into their costumes, and even if they are not as intricate or well-made as some of the cosplay pros, people are just so cheerful being dressed up as their favourite characters and it's awesome to see. They feel badass in their cosplay and that's all that matters. Everyone is so happy, and the overall atmosphere is fabulous! Another thing that I love so much about cosplay is that you can dress as any character you like! There's so much imagination that goes into people's cosplay. This year at Manchester Comic Con, a girl dressed as a unicorn and she looked so amazing. 

The main thing that I love about cosplay events like Comic Con is the community spirit, the friendliness... it's wonderful! I'm not sure if this is the case for everyone, but I get a real sense of belonging when I'm at Comic Con. I mean, there's always a few people in every community that are not the nicest, but in general everyone admires each others cosplay and shares the love. People want to take photographs of your cosplay or compliment you. When I first walked into the main hall of the event last Saturday, a girl who was also cosplaying as Totoro ran over to me excitedly, saying I was the first person she'd seen all day also dressed as Totoro :) She was super nice and asked if she could take a photo with me. It was really sweet and if I wasn't so socially awkward and anxious when meeting new people, I would have remembered to ask her name! But instead, I stood there giggling and chirping the odd word out >.< So on the chance that my Totoro buddy reads this, hey! 

I love how people will organise meet up's with their cosplay counterparts, and make facebook groups for them to join to chat about their love of the characters. One of my absolute favourite moments of the day was seeing a huge group of Disney cosplayers meeting up outside the front of the convention building and having photos taken together ^.^

Another highlight of Comic Con is when instead of saying hi to you, people will say a random phrase or make the sound of the character you are dressed as XD It's just brilliant to be around fellow nerds!! At my first Comic Con, I dressed as Pichu and a few people just made a Pichu sound at me! It was kind of surreal, I don't know how to explain it :D I've been considered the weird one (affectionately, of course) in my friendship groups in the past because I do things like this, haha! So to be surrounded by people who are just as dorky as me feels epic. Comic Con is one of the only places I know I won't get weird looks walking around making random squeaks, etc. It's like my home from home :) 

I wish I'd taken more photographs of people's cosplay but I'm still working on my ability to approach people and ask if I can take their picture. I'll hopefully be better next year but here are the couple of photos I took: 

How gorgeous is this Disney Princess cosplay!? Her dress was absolutely stunning and  so eye-catching! It must have cost so much to make/buy :O I asked to take her photograph to show my nieces and nephew that people dressed as Princesses at Comic Con; I know that they will be very impressed! There was a guy cosplaying as a Pokestop! It was AMAZING! I just had to capture this photo of him following Pikachu around. What a creative idea for a cosplay though! The final photograph I took this year was one of my favourites of the entire day. I absolutely adore Cats The Musical! It's one of my all time favourite musicals; I've even been to watch it live TWICE (and would never say no to going again & again). This girl's cosplay of Mr. Mistoffelees is so pretty and sparkly. I absolutely loved it!! *insert all the heart-eyed emojis here*. 

Here are some more photographs of amazing cosplay. I took these at last year's Comic Con, as one of my friends was an absolute star and asked everyone if we could take their photo so I didn't have to. Yay! :D

Finally, I wanted to show you all the cosplay outfits that my best friend & I have worn so far, firstly for Manchester Comic Con 2015 when we were Misty & Pichu, and this year when we were a Hufflepuff student and Totoro. I'm already planning who I'm gonna cosplay next year!

I just have an absolutely fabulous time at Comic Con, and I can't wait to go to more in the future. Cosplaying is so much fun and if you've never done it before, I can't recommnd it enough. You'll be able to release your inner child and play fancy dress but in a room full of hundreds of other people joining in too. How can you say no to that!? :)

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥ 

Have you ever been to Comic Con? Did you cosplay? Tell me all about it.

I'd also love to know who you'd dress as if you've never been to Comic Con before!

 Like this post? Check out my other Comic Con posts:

| Dealing with Anxiety at Comic Con | Manchester Comic Con Photo Diary |