Blog: http://www.kamuicosplay.com/
FB : http://www.facebook.com/KamuiCos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KamuiCosplay
Our first Cosplayer hails from Germany, is called Svetlana (AKA Kamui) and has some of the best looking costumes I have ever seen; all made by her fair hand no less. Mostly Blizzard inspired, they are detailed, well crafted and simply look fantastic!
But that’s not what impresses me most about Svetlana, no sir. Yes her costumes and work ethic are second to none but her finest quality, apart from being super nice, is the fact that she is extremely helpful in aiding others achieve similar results, through in-depth blogs and video tutorials.
(its in German but you get the point)
Now some people, and I think I would be the same, would hide away such top secret information and just parade around in their awesome new armour, but Svetlana is not a selfish creature, far from it. Her gift to other cosplayers is her talents and she is more than happy to share these with everyone.
Her blogs and videos are created with every facet of the hobby in mind and give you step by step guides on how to make everything; from armour, to glowing gemstones and all are done with greatest care and attention.
With such ability, Svetlana was an obvious choice as one of Geek Prides first Cosplay interviews, and so, without further ado, I give to you….
KAMUI
[box_dark]If you have trouble viewing this gallery in IE9 try refreshing the page or try compatibility mode in your address bar . Failing that try Google Chrome[/box_dark]
[nggallery id=15 template=dop-thumbnail-gallery]
The Gal behind the costume
So tell us a bit about yourself. We know you are from Germany and know English better than some of the English people I work with, but what do you work as when you aren’t cosplaying? Got any pets? A boyfriend? What do you do for fun? You into Gaming, music, movies?
[quote]
My name is Svetlana Quindt and I’m a Cosplayer from Germany. Since I’m pretty bad in sewing and love bulky and huge costumes, I specialized in armour cosplay. As a big fan of Blizzard games, so I mainly create costumes from World of Warcraft or Diablo III, but also other video games like Aion for example. Luckily cosplay is also a huge part of my job: I perform as Vanessa VanCleef for Cryptozoic Enteratainment at all official events in Europe.
I like to spend my free time with some of these Blizzard games, enjoy a nice movie with my husband or just hang out with my friends. Cosplay is pretty much my main hobby and since I’m still a student I have enough free time for my very time consuming costumes.
[/quote]
A lot of your costumes are WoW costumes, do you play it still? Im guessing you are a PC gamer then?
Yeah, after a pretty long break I’m playing again and already really looking forward to the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria. At the moment I don’t have so much stress with my costumes anymore, so MoP will just release at the best time.
You study “technical journalism,” sounds awesome, what does that consist of?
It’s a combination of journalism and many technical aspects of different engineering studies. So we have a wide range of topics to learn and it’s pretty varied. However, I don’t think that I want to write for a technical publication in my future. I want to do something creative and hope for a job, where I can use the skills I learned in my hobby already.
I am guessing with a degree such as the above you will not be cosplaying /modelling all your life; what plans have you got for the future? Any goals or ideas that you would like to bring to life?
No, surely not. Despite of that I would love to get a job in a special effect studio, work for movies or theatres and just be able to keep being creative and bring something to live. But that’s just a wish and I still have no idea, what I will do in one year. I will fight for my dreams, but at the moment just everything can happen.
You are the first of our European Cosplayers (gratz) is it (cosplay) big in Germany?
Ha ha, thanks! Well, compared to the US, cosplay is still pretty young in Germany. The community is already pretty big and most people at a convention a wearing a costume. However this hobby is pretty unknown to most population in Germany and many people are pretty surprised and curious when they notice a Cosplayer.
How long have you been Cosplaying for and what go you into it?
I started with cosplay 2003 but did it just because I wanted to visit my very first convention and a costume was just a must have. Wearing the costume itself was fun, but not really interesting enough to develop a passion for it. I tried it some further times and almost wanted to stop. Then World of Warcraft was published and I just fell complete in love in this game. My cosplay partner for years, Selina, also played it and we had this crazy idea to create the armour sets of our WoW characters. Creating a costume and wearing it together was so much fun, that I finally found the true love for this hobby and many armour sets and costumes later and I’m still very thankful to Blizzard for giving me such a passion for this hobby.
What is your favourite costume and what one was the hardest to make?
It’s my Barbarian from Diablo III, which I finished only two months ago. It was a lot of fun to create this costume, despite of its armour design it’s very comfortable and I just love its cool and badass design. My main character in Diablo III is also a female Barbarian and so it was just awesome to bring a part of this amazing game to live.
Do you just go to Conventions in Germany or have you been to others around the world?
Well, I just love to travel and when I have the opportunity I really enjoy leaving Germany and visit some conventions abroad. Some of the conventions I already visited out of Germany were Blizzcon, DragonCon, MCMExpo or JapanExpo and it’s always awesome to see differences of the cosplay community in every country. I’m not able to effort this a lot and it’s always a great honour for me, if I will get the change to be invited. So I just hope to see many, many further conventions in future.
What is your favourite convention and why?
It’s definitely Blizzcon in Anaheim. Despite of the distance I became friends with many Blizzard cosplayers and it’s always an awesome experience to see all these wonderful people again. I also just love to see all their costumes and enjoy a convention, which has so many topics I’m a fan of. Blizzcon is really one of the biggest highlights every year!
You are an extremely industrious cosplay with some of the most impressive costumes I have seen to date, are there any costumes you would love to do but think you couldn’t pull it off properly?
I always try to choose costumes which fit me and my body shape. So there are surely some costumes I would like to do, but don’t because I am not able to look as good in this costume as I would like to look. In addition I’m not afraid of challenges. I know my skills and my possibilities and I like to grow with my projects. It’s always awesome to start with a costume and have no idea how to pull it off and then, some months later, to wear the costume the first time and just know that I made it.
You make a lot of ‘How to’ videos and step by step guides on how you make your armour and weapons, do you not get a bit paranoid that someone will use your powers against you?!
No, not really. I always try to help people and love to see the results they made with the support of my tutorials. I’m also pretty curious about their progress and often I also learn new techniques and methods from them. There are also some people, who “copy” my work or improve it, but their costumes just make me very proud. They show that it’s worth what I do and all of their feedback motivates me to help them even better.
General Questions
What does Geek Pride (not the awesome website and FB page, but the way of life) mean to you?
“Being different” was always a big part of my life and I often had some problems because of my special hobbies or interests. Sometimes it was really not easy, but now I’m really proud to be different and to do something I can be proud of. I don’t care anymore what people say about me. I just like my work, my life and my creations, and well, just being different.
StarWars or Lord of the Rings?
Back to the Future!
Talking about StarWars, are you going to the big convention in 2013 in Messe Essen?
No, not really. I’m not really interested in this stuff. I like comics and games more.
Anything else you’d like to say?
Cosplay is just an amazing hobby, which teach you a lot of skills and let your creativity grow. It’s something that is really worth to try. On my page www.kamuicosplay.com you’ll find a lot of help for your first steps and I hope I was able to inspire and motivate you for your very first costumes.