Twin Cities Con 2024: Heracross Cosplay

Collin Magner

The following is an interview with Collin Magner, a Heracross cosplayer I met at Twin Cities Con 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into cosplay?

I'm from a small town in Kandiyohi County, MN. I've been crafting costumes since I was teenager, starting with a game my friends and I would play called "cardboard gladiators". In this game we would beat each other with cardboard swords while wearing protective cardboard armor. Since then, I've fallen into cosplay using the tricks I learned warding off papercuts.

What made you choose Heracross for Twin Cities con?

I was inspired by some excellent Pokémon fan art to do an homage of my own, as I express my appreciation for the franchise through my wearable cardboard creations.

What was the process of making the costume like? 

I started by sourcing over 30 boxes from a local retailer of uniform shape, then after sculpting the shape I wanted. This involved a lot of listening to the material and feeling what shapes it would let me create naturally. That and several hot glue gun burns.  I mounted the eyes (made from a single dollar store strainer painted yellow) and painted everything with gesso and a pearlized acrylic. 

What other cosplays have you done recently?

I was a caricature of an NPC from the Dark Souls franchise at my local renaissance festival-that one was a lot of fun!

What else did you do at the convention this year?

I attended several panels, met other enthusiastic cosplayers and Pokémon fans, and met some of my favorite voice actors   like Wes Johnson from Elder Scrolls and Tom Kenny from Spongebob!

A press pass was provided for this event.

Twin Cities Con 2024: Marc Thompson-From Daria to Rhydon

At this year's Twin Cities Con in Minneapolis, I had a chance to interview Marc Thomson, a voice actor who's been working since the 90's. Hear about his journey from MTV to Pokémon:

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Twin Cities Con 2024-Smash Ultimate Tournament Winner

Luke Thao

The following is an interview with Luke Thao, winner of the Smash Ultimate tournament at Twin Cities Con 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into competitive Smash?

Minnesota native-born in Minneapolis and raised in the Twin Cities area! I started competing at convention tournaments when I was in high school. I was always really competitive when it came to gaming, and Smash was one of my favorite games growing up! Back then, I had dreams of being in the FGC (fighting game community), and also I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I became an adult so I invested a lot of time into video games and going to tournaments here in there while in college-but of course we have to make money and survive so now competing is just a hobby for me, and I just started competing again recently after a good four or five year hiatus.

You tend to play as Dr. Mario. What do you like about that character?

I love Doc's move set! I really enjoy his projectile pressure with Megavitamins and how hard he hits with his aggressive looking moves like down-air and back throw. I love being able to express myself with Doc, a very disrespectful and explosive character when he gets going. I also like being the underdog, and he's considered bad and a lot of people don't expect to see him in tournaments.

Any other characters you use?

I used to play Roy and Marth. Both are really strong characters but I just don't enjoy them as much as Doc-and you see them a lot in tourney, so I wanted a character that's different. There was a time when I was having a character crisis and dropped the game for a couple years of its life cycle, but I just picked up again last year because of Doc and wanting a hobby my little brother and I can bond with.

Before the finals, was there a anything that stood out in the tournament?

Actually, before the tournament started, I met a young man named Joseph and he was thinking about competing and new to the scene. He was apprehensive but I told him to give it a shot because he had nothing to lose and could only grow from the experience. Convinced, he finally signed up for the tournament. He reminded me of myself when I was his age (19), it reminded me of the fire I had when I was discovering things. I ran a set with Joseph and practically became his mentor throughout his tournament run, teaching him things about the game and tech, all that fun stuff.

How did the finals go?

Finals was a little rough for me since my opponent (Saint) had a good few matches before me during his losers climb so by comparison I wasn't fully warmed up. He 3-0ed me and made it to winners grands. I was eventually mostly up to speed but I do feel like I wasn't playing at my strongest. Fighting games are so weird because you can be so consistent at times and then sometimes you just hit a mental wall and you legitimately aren't playing well in the moment. That said, I adapted and prevailed in the end, and it's always a treat to be able to fight someone as strong as you.

What else did you do at the convention?

My girlfriend and her sisters have a business (8bit_ichigo) crafting and selling their crochets and art so we were in the exhibitors hall in the artist alley for the weekend! I met a couple of my voice actor heroes like Troy Baker and Josh Keaton and it was a blast overall. I have dreams of being a voice actor one day so being able to meet the people in the industry is a great way for me to do some studying and have fun.

A press pass was provided for this event.

Twin Cities Con 2024: Haven Paschall Interview

At this year's Twin Cities Con in Minneapolis, I had a chance to interview Haven Paschall, voice actor and musician from the Pokémon anime. She's had quite a career on stage and behind the mic:

A press pass was provided for this event. 

Poke Press Digest Podcast-Episode 74-Discussing the Music of "Rumble U" and "Battle Trozei"

Anne from Pikapi Podcast joins me to talk about the music of Pokémon Rumble U and Pokémon Battle Trozei. Both games are small, but we were able to pick out a few tunes and make some interesting observations. In our feedback section, we talk about the connections we’ve made in our musical research, as well as an unexpected entry in a recent miniseries. Still want more? There’s a double game discussion after the outro:

Links:

Pikapi Podcast 
Poke Casters Network

Slow Scan TV Information:
SSTV audio an be decoded by a variety of software:
Android
iOS
Windows

My Experience at MadEX 2024

Earlier this month, I attended the first MadEX convention at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI. While I was unable to schedule any one-on-one interviews, I did attend several panels and wanted to share some information:

Saturday, September 14^th

So You Want to Be a Pro Cosplayer?

As someone who’s been dabbling in cosplay recently (even if I have no plans to do it as a job), this was a panel I definitely wanted to see. All three panelists brought impressive costumes, and did a great job talking about their work and answering questions from the audience. One panelist (rightmost in the picture) had a particularly interesting story where they had used cosplay as an activity at the VA hospital in their area (the panelist was a veteran themselves) to help returning soldiers re-adjust to civilian life.

Mike McFarland

One Piece Q&A

While this was a panel primarily about One Piece, one of the panelists happened to be Mike McFarland, who had a few small roles in the Pokémon anime. During the Q&A portion (FYI, I generally tried to make sure I was towards the back of the line on these sessions so fans of the series could get their questions in first), I was able to ask him how the Pokémon roles came about, and it basically ended up being a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Ray Chase

X-Men ’97 Showcase

Another panel covering a hot show, this one featured Ray Chase, best known as Professor Cerise in Journeys. As it turns out, there was actually some overlap between his work on the two series, owing in part to Pokémon being a dub and X-Men being a pre-lay. The bulk of the panel was, of course, a discussion of the hit streaming series, and it was great to hear about the VAs experiences with the X-Men franchise and working on the show.

Sunday, September 15^th

Elizabeth Maxwell

How to Become a Hero

This My Hero Academia panel featured Elizabeth Maxwell, who dedicated Masters EX fans will recognize as the voice of Dana. I asked her about the role, and she mentioned how it was interesting to play a character with both an acting and non-acting side. She also implied some things were under NDA, suggesting this might not be her only character in the game, or that Dana might be featured in some future events. Regardless, it was good to hear about the ongoing production of MHA.

Robbie Daymond

LAVA: Loud, Annoying, and Very Annoying

This panel was primarily focused on some outrageously funny improv, but it did also have a Q&A portion, which gave me the opportunity to ask panelist Robbie Daymond about voicing Professor Willow in various Go-related media. He didn’t have a ton to say about it, other than he enjoyed the opportunity. At the very least, I expect it was more fun than when he was forced to hold water in his mouth while the other panelists tried to make him laugh.

Cosplay:

As usual, there was a variety of cosplay outfits on display at the event, as well as a cosplay contest for each day. Compliments to the many great attendees who put in the work to put them together!

Other Thoughts:

-I really enjoyed the panels that I went to this weekend (and I missed a few due to conflicts). There were some absolutely wonderful stories, including a voice actor who did some of their work from the hospital where a family member was a patient during the pandemic.
-The shopping was a bit limited, in part due to the size of the venue, and given that next year’s event is planned for August 2025, I hope they can attract/accommodate more vendors.
-Having some sort of dedicated open gaming area would be nice, even though there was a designated tournament area.

A press pass was provided for this event.

MadEX 2024: Smash Ultimate 1v1 Tournament Winner

Ahmet Kurter

The following is an interview with Ahmet Kurter, winner of the Smash Ultimate 1v1 tournament at MadEX 2024.

Where are you from, and how did you get into competitive Smash?

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! I got into competitive smash when Brawl came out because my cousins were obsessed with it, and entered my first tournament in 2014.

You tend to play as a fair number of different characters. Who are some of the more common ones and what do you like about them?

I have used over dozens of characters in my local smash scene. But some of my favorites are Sonic, Aegis (Pyra/Mythra), Joker, Wolf, Dark Pit, and much more! I use most of these characters because I like how they feel to play, or are from my favorite series (Sonic, Persona, and Xenoblade.) Of course, the characters my opponents are playing also tend to influence who I pick in bracket.

What happened in the earlier parts of the tournament?

My bracket run was pretty funny to me, because in winner's semi-finals, I fought Fatalis, who I knew from my local scene, and I knew that would be my hardest matchup for sure. After I won the first set we basically told each other "See you in grands" which was funny, and correct!

Fatalis uses Sheik from the Zelda series. How did that affect your overall strategy?

It affected my strategy a lot, to be honest. I like to rush in a lot, but Sheik is really scary for a lot of different reasons. Her frame data (timing) is so unbelievably fast and has very little cooldown so I often had a lot of trouble figuring out what I could punish. She is also very quick so running from her does not work that well, plus she has a projectile that is very quick and goes very far. Eventually my strategy consisted of me trying to kill Sheik earlier than she could kill me and beat out her hitboxes with bigger and more active moves.

After losing the first game in grand finals [against Fatalis], you switched over to Wolf from the Star Fox games. Why did you choose that?

That was a result of the experience my opponent had-they already fought two of my characters in winners’, specifically Sonic, and Aegis. I won game one there with Sonic, lost game two, then switched to Aegis which allowed me to win game three (with a convincing two-stock). But even after I won that first set it felt very stressful because I felt like I was not hitting him enough, and making a lot of incorrect decisions in advantage.

In the first game of grand finals I started with Aegis, but I lost (he two-stocked me this time), so I decided to try Wolf because I was not feeling comfortable in the matchup. Wolf having a projectile is already a huge change to the pace for the matchup, with Sheik having an incredible projectile in needles I also wanted a strong projectile to bait him into making mistakes when approaching me. Wolf also has very consistent and active hitboxes which allowed me to get combos more consistently than my other characters. The MVP move for the set for me was Wolf's neutral air. I used it a lot to punish his unsafe hits on my shield and to use when he is jumping at me from the ledge, so I could knock him back offstage again to reset the situation.

Technically, your opponent could have switched characters for later matches, but didn't. Did that surprise you?

Nope! Not at all. I have only seen him pick Sheik at locals, so I knew I was only going to fight his Sheik.

What else did you do at MadEX this year?

This was actually my first con, so when I first got there I walked around the whole convention to see everything, met up with my friends, talked with them the whole time, and talked to my GOAT Max Mittleman. For the whole tourney, I rocked Ryuji's codename Skull for my in-game name, so shout-outs to Max Mittleman for indirectly powering me up.

A press pass was provided for this event.