A month has passed since the EuroCosplay Championship Finals at the MCM London Comic Con!
This year, Cyprus Comic Con’s Cosplay Competition was officially named as the national preliminary of EuroCosplay and our first place winner, Nyree Hapetian (Manic Crafts) was selected to represent Cyprus in the EuroCosplay Championships.
We are thrilled to get to have a chat with Nyree after the competition to get the insight on what it’s like to participate in one of Europe’s largest cosplay events, as well as to compete amongst some of the most incredibly talented cosplayers from every corner of the world!
On Sunday November 20th, Cypriot Constantinos ‘SuperNinja’ Evdokimou was crowned as UK’s National champion at the Red Bull ESports 5G Hearthstone Finals!
This achievement marks a significant milestone in the history of Cyprus gaming and we couldn’t be more proud of Constantinos for winning his very first tournament.
The Qualifiers
After many hours of online qualifying and a regional, Northern Qualifiers Final at Manchester’s Play Expo last October, Constantinos who owns the nickname SuperNinja, won over player Blackout in a best-of-five match and was selected to represent Team North at the Red Bull 5G Finals that took place in Birmingham.
Funnily enough, when asked how it feels to be on Team North, Constantinos admitted that it was actually a mistake, as he was living in North London at the time and thought he was supposed to enter for the North! He quickly realised he was representing the wrong region, but in the end it didn’t really matter and he focused on beating the South!
The Hearthstone UK National Finals
We asked Constantinos about the tournament and whether he had any expectations of winning, to which he replied that he first joined the tournament because of his friend Charalambos Rotsas, who convinced him to give it a try and supported him through the whole experience.
“ I didn’t really join the tournament to win, I just wanted to see on which level I am and if I can really compete with high-skilled players. I’ve been playing Hearthstone for the last one and a half year but only took it to the level I’m now last summer, with hours of practicing which really paid off. It feels really good beating UK’s best Hearthstone players! ”
SuperNinja and Blackout had an epic battle for the crown of the Northern King.
He described the tournament experience as “absolutely amazing” and that he was not expecting so many preparations!
“ It was like a dream – playing against so many professional players on such a huge stage and most importantly going live on Twitch for the first time. ”
When asked about how familiar he is with the Hearthstone scene here in Cyprus, Constantinos admitted that he is not particularly active in it and that he hasn’t heard about any Cypriot Hearthstone players aiming to take it to the next level or compete in international tournaments.
Having said that, he wants to send a message to all the gamers that have been working hard in order to achieve something big:
“ Never give up on your dreams, eventually all that hard work and dedication really does pay off! All you have to do is believe in yourself and continue trying to get better and better. ”
Lastly, we asked Constantinos if he is part of any team just yet, to which he replied that unfortunately he is not, however he is currently looking for one and aspires to go even further and “why not, compete in world class tournaments!”
He sends out a huge thank you to all his friends for their great support throughout the tournament and generally for the entire journey!
While Team North didn’t win Red Bull 5G, Constantinos managed to win the Hearthstone Finals tournament against his opponent HelloLeeroy from Team South with the final score of 3-2.
You can watch Constantinos’ final match against HelloLeeroy on the official Red Bull ESports Twitch channel.
On Saturday the 3rd of September, the con filled with hundreds of colourful cosplayers out of which 83 took part in our two category competition: 38 Fully Handmade and 45 Partly Handmade costumes. It’s mind-boggling to see so many talented local cosplayers when 3 years ago the closest most of us have been to dressing up as our favourite characters was at Karnavalia. All of them were amazing and the best competing ones are as follows:
Nyree will be representing Cyprus at the EuroCosplay Championship Final in London MCM Expo on the 29th of October 2016.
It took her 3 months of non-stop work to handcraft every inch of this costume. Here’s the process in her own words:
I designed and made the patterns myself. All the armour pieces consist of 3-5 separate pieces of EVA foam that I then stuck together using cement glue to make the thickness of a full piece. The foam has been shaped using heat, cleaned up with a rotary tool and sealed the with Gesso that I made myself using plaster, paint and white glue, before spray painting it. The armour detailing was hand-crafted from craft foam and hot glue and then accentuated with black acrylic paint to replicate the worn out metallic look. The armour straps are made out of faux leather and metal rings and all fabric parts are made out of thick cotton which was patterned by myself on a prototype cloth.
In order to give myself the shape of the character (broad shoulders and narrow waist) I heavily padded the shoulder pieces, so they will actually sit up and out of my shoulders as opposed to directly on it, to give myself the appearance of that body shape. I also had to build half stilts in order to appear taller.
For the two weapons I cut MDF boards for the base shape, which were then built up and detailed using more EVA foam.
The Cyprus Comic Con team would like to thank every single one of you awesome geeks that attended our convention last weekend, on the 3rd and 4th of September!
We are thrilled to announce that during the Comic Con weekend, an impressive number of 13800 visitors came to Filoxenia Conference Centre, setting a new record of attendance for the three years of Cyprus Comic Con, thus making the event one of the most successful on the island!
We would like to extend our thanks to our esteemed Special Guests, Julian Glover, George Georgiou, Stephen B. Scott, Kairi, Shirobon, Luca Pizzari, Gilbert Simon, Yannis ‘Rubus’ Rubulias, Michael Dialynas, Dani, Manos Lagouvardos, 2J and Cat Von K, for honouring us with their presence at the best geeky event in Cyprus!
Furthermore, we would like to thank our kind Sponsors, Somersby, Pizza Hut, K-Cineplex, ANT1, ANT1 Radio, Synergia Media, Cablenet, Bionic, PlayStation Cyprus, G3 Great Games, Arnold’s Digital Printers, Gamers’ Boulevard, Shark, Cyprus.com, Digital Tree and Geekotopos, as well as all the artists, participants, shops, cosplayers, tournament organisers and exhibitors that contributed to the event’s success!
Lastly, a huge thank you goes out to all our amazing volunteers for their dedication and hard work! We couldn’t have done this without you guys!
Until next year then, see you at CCC’17! Thank you everyone for coming!
the choice of structural materials such as foam, worbla, wood or cardboard and the way they were treated
the detail put into crafting the decorations and trimmings
the overall techniques used and the originality of ideas applied in the costume
the quality of the wigs, wig-styling, props, customised shoes and makeup
A costume which was not fully handmade will have its customised elements scored as per the above list while the rest of it will get marked according to how much effort was put into collecting the appropriate parts and pieces.
Accuracy – 40%
The judges will be checking how faithful your costume, hair, make-up and props are to the character you’re cosplaying as.
Important things to look for are:
Dimensions
Material and textures
Colours
Detailing
Presentation – 20%
The goal of cosplay is to look as much like your cosplay character as possible, this includes body motions, poses and phrases you say. Those who act in character will score higher than those who do not.
The Cyprus Comic Con team would like to thank every single one of you awesome geeks that attended our convention last weekend, on the 3rd and 4th of September!
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