We are continuing our talent hunt and this time we present you our colleague from Brasov, Marilena Ghita. Working at CGS since 2011, Marilena impressed us with the creativity, originality and artistry of her hobby – cosplay.
The term cosplayis an abbreviation from the English expression `costume play` that represents a form of art-performance originating in Japan, in which participants put on costumes of cartoon characters, anime, mangacomic strips or video games.
Marilena told us about the moment in which, one year after being hired by CGS, she attended her first show: `I needed a lot of years to realize what hobby defines me best, then I found out about Japan Play Transylvania (the event that preceded Comic Con Romania). I knew of cosplay but I hadn’t heard about this type of events in Romania (in spite of Nijikon – one of the largest pop culture convention in Romania, addressed to fans of the Japanese culture, manga and anime, comics video games, movies etc). I went there alone and came back with beautiful impressions. I wore the costume of Soi Fon (Bleach).`
It is not simple at all to create costumes for cosplay. Marilena’s first experiences were truly difficult and the first challenge was to participate in the first edition of East European Comic Con in 2013: `I chose a Harry Potter costume (Bellatrix Lestrange) and I said to myself, if I am to participate, I might as well do it with a complicated costume. I used to sew in hiding at work, too (:P), I used borrowed fimo, I filled the house with bad odors by making holes with an inflamed iron into the corset”.
By participating to this large scale event, much to her surprise, Marilena won the cosplay competition! ”I had practiced the play the night before, I painted my nails on the train, I scared some people on the subway practicing the crazy look of the character.” As a result, Oana, the friend that accompanied her, became a fan of ”geek stuff”, too, according to Marilena.
In 2014 with another friend, Andreea, a fan of ”fantasy/SF/geeky stuff in general”, she participated once again to the Comic Con festival, being costumed in two original and difficult to create characters: Astrid from How to train your dragon(Marilena) and Tauriel from the Hobbit(Andreea). This time too, preparations for the competition were very challenging: `We made 50% of the costumes on the night before the festival. Once more, the weekend went by too fast…We won a mention from the jury for ‹special materials and the ingeniosity of the technique› (we had made the axe from massive wood, cardboard and putty)`.
Participation to Comic Con has become a tradition, and Marilena attended it again with Andreea in the 2016 edition, this time too, she impersonated Deena from Legend of the Seekera vinyl costume, not really comfortable, given that the event took place in Bucharest in May, when temperatures are already quite high. The things a true passionate fan gets to do for his/her hobby?! 🙂
Marilena made friends this time around as well and upon the suggestion of an Israeli performer, they created a group on Facebook for all cosplay fansin Eastern Europe and Marilena was responsible for posting in the ”Cosplayer of the week” rubric.
She enjoys her passion at work too, because more and more colleagues are becoming interested in cosplay and she even participated in the Nijikon festival of 2015 with other four colleagues. Half of Marilena’s department is going this year to Comic Con and the theme of her costume is very original and provocative: ‘This year I’m building a Dalek (Dr. Who). the heat will kill me once again….`
Good luck, Marilena!
Good luck, Marilena!
