Ilona

Hi everyone!

Touka, Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! pic by Santtu "Japsu" Pajukanta

My name is Maria, but in conventions and in the internet I'm more known by my second name Ilona. (there's a linguistic joke there; ”ilo” means ”joy” in Finnish and ”ilona” would mean ”being a joy to someone” My cosplayblog ”Ilona cosplay” could be translated ”Cosplay as a joy”). If I use nickname, it's usually Edeae (Yep, Edea from Final fantasy 8 and then because it's too common, I just put an extra e there) or crazy combination iloedeae. But Maria is just fine because it's generally easy to pronounce all over the world and easy to remember.

Giselle (me) with Captain Jack Sparrow, from Pirates of the Caribbean.

I'm 28 years old and live in the city of Kuopio, located in the middle of Finland. I studied in university and now I work as a teacher in small town near Kuopio, where I spend my days hoping to help at least a few teenagers to learn something about history. Being a teacher and a cosplayer is sometimes a bit funny, pupils aren't that used to seeing their teacher in funny or weird clothes or posting pictures of those costumes to internet.

My favorite hairpin, Nibutani Shinka from Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!

I've been cosplaying since 2008. My first attempt in cosplay though was in 2004 in the traditional graduation masquerade party as Queen Amidala from Star Wars. Nope, it wasn't that great of a costume, but I really liked making it. A few years later I did a replica of Polly Perkins outfit from the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow for a live-action roleplay event and then at the same year it was time for Vampire Princess Miyu and Edea in my first convention.

Proto-cosplay, Queen Amidala from Star Wars and Polly Perkins from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

And from there on I've been doing more than 70 cosplays so far. (You can find them here(year 2013 still missing, I've been super lazy and I promise to update all the costumes from this year really soon! :3)) 

Bellows form Suisei no Gargantia.

I love so many different genres both in Japanese and western pop-culture, that I'm sure I'll never have the problem of not having new cosplay ideas. I've been doing lots of Final Fantasy girls and my goal is to do all the (major) female character of FF8 at some point. I also love, love, love everything Joss Whedon has ever done and you can see that by the number of Buffy-cosplays I've made. So where as Heidi is a super anime fan, I'm balancing with both western and eastern pop culture, though for the past few years I've watched more and more anime. I guess being a close friend to Heidi has had it effect on me, love for anime has grown all the time.

Alto (my first and so far only crossplay!), Sheryl and Grace from Macross Frontier.

Adelle DeWitt for The Dollhouse

I'm not really good at sewing and pattern making is still a big mystery for me, nor am I the most organized costume maker, but I love new challenges. I do have the tendency of leaving many things to the last minute and sometimes it's hard for me to stick to the time lines, but luckily I have the most organized and effective partner and Heidi really can make me do things when they need to be done. I'd say I have good imagination and I love testing my creativity in new things. As a teacher I always say to my students that it's important to know both your strength and weaknesses so you can improve. And that's something I want to do with my cosplay, have fun, test myself and improve all the time.

Adel from Final Fantasy VIII

I love cosplay competitions and I've been doing them ever since my second convention. Doing skits and getting on stage in front of hundreds of people gives you a feeling you can't get otherwise. In 2012 I had the amazing change to represent Finland in the EuroCosplay Championships in London. The trip was amazing and meeting all the international cosplayers and making friends with them was most definitely one of the best experiences in my life. Now I'm super hyped about this opportunity to make even more cosplay friends from all over the world, I just can't wait to meet everybody!

Bayonetta. Picture by n8e photography

And can't wait to get started with next costumes! It's been a week now without making anything new! (I did buy some new fabrics though...)

 

Julia from Cowboy Bebop, picture by Niew photography

Random facts:

Favorite drink: (had to do this because Heidi has it as well) GT. From soft drinks I'd say I can drink just as much Pepsi Max as Heidi and it has less effect on me!

Special talent: Making stupid faces on stage. I think on stage you have to exaggerate everything, and it looks (most of the time) good on stage and on video. And not so good in a picture. And I love talking, even during photoshoots so usually my mouth is half open in at least half of the pictures. 

Blog life: I've had a cosplay blog Ilona Cosplay since year 2010, mainly in Finnish. You can find lots of WIP-pictures there. And learn Finnish at the same time.

I had super hard time to choose pictures for this post, I just wanted to show you gyus like EVERYTHING and ALL THE COSTUMES I've ever done. But if you're interested, you can find them here and I'm more than happy to answer, if you want to ask me anything about any of them.

And you can find me (or atleast my cosplay persona) on Facebook as well: facebook.com/IlonaCosplay