Cosplay Panel Presenters Need Help!

Exaggeration17A

Some of you may have already seen this Mass Effect 2 cosplay from Comic-Con... Holly Conrad and friends made some pretty amazing costumes for Commander Shepard, Tali'Zorah and best of all, a fully animatronic Grunt. For those who didn't see it, though, here's a courtesy link: http://kotaku.com/5600329/im-commander-shepard-and-this-is-my-favorite-cosplay-in-the-entire-universe

The good news is, these guys are planning on attending PAX and presenting a panel on cosplay. The bad news is, they used all their money on Comic-Con... so they've started asking for donations.

They've also set up an Etsy store where you can buy a "Tali Band" to support them, but I'm guessing those will only be available in limited quantities. Anyway, they made this video to present all the relevant details: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lrmq0t0Su8

If you think it'd be as awesome to have this crew at PAX as I do, please check them out!

itasha

what do you need for help? im in if i can. that vid was awsome! i cried and laught and cried again my sides hurt

Exaggeration17A

So far, all they're asking for is donations... there's a straight-up PayPal link on her blog: http://www.sorceryandglue.blogspot.com/

And the place to buy a headband that has the same print as the cloth Tali'Zorah wears is here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Crabcat

I should also mention that I'm not affiliated with Holly Conrad or Crabcat Industries in any way. I just saw that they needed help getting to PAX, and wanted to do my part in helping them to get there!

aquaone

From what I understand, they spent money at a con they were not presenting at and failed to save funding for a con where they were. If this is true, it would seem responsible to own the mistake and either find means of borrowing sufficient money to attend PAX on their own and present the panel they pledged themselves to _or_ forfeit their panel to parties who planned properly.

By giving money to someone who failed to plan, you enable them to continue irresponsible behavior. Expecting others to take responsibility for and fix your mistakes seems wrong to me. People willingly doing so seems even more wrong to me.

itasha

its sucks but cant withhold the goodness of pax from people can we. they are trying to sell stuff to so i say give a chance and make alot of people happy i know cosplay wise this could be awsome.

Exaggeration17A

Of course, there's an alternate interpretation as well:

They knew when they started their project that they would have to invest a significant amount of money in it, but they decided to quite literally "go for broke" because they wanted to do the best cosplay possible. To say that this was a mistake would therefore be erroneous-- they accomplished exactly what they set out to do in that regard. As a result, they're not asking anyone to take responsibility for them. The intended message is instead, "if you like what you saw, please help us go to this convention so we can share what we've learned with others."

Nope

aquaone wrote: »

From what I understand, they spent money at a con they were not presenting at and failed to save funding for a con where they were. If this is true, it would seem responsible to own the mistake and either find means of borrowing sufficient money to attend PAX on their own and present the panel they pledged themselves to _or_ forfeit their panel to parties who planned properly.

By giving money to someone who failed to plan, you enable them to continue irresponsible behavior. Expecting others to take responsibility for and fix your mistakes seems wrong to me. People willingly doing so seems even more wrong to me.

Yikes...I felt some of the heat from that burn.

Part of me thinks that one of them is going but they want to try and get everybody to come, hence asking for donations. I could be wrong though, in which case I am kinda of the same mind.

BrokenAngel

Alternately, you can also use the money you would have donated to encourage irresponsibility and poor planning skills far more wisely and donate it to Childs Play instead.

HollyConrad

Hey everyone! This is Holly from the before mentioned group!

Please don't think we're taking your money and giving it to Tali to buy new Ray Ban's. We're actually using this money to get us ALL to PAX, not just me. I'm all payed up and ready to go, so the panel is going to happen. But do you want just me standing there in Shepard armor or do you want to have some awesomeness Tali and Krogan action? I thought so.

We actually didn't know we'd be getting a panel at PAX until last month, so go figure! We're all really excited to go, we're asking our fans to chip in if they can, and if they do then we're as surprised as you but much more flattered.

So again, we appreciate EVERYTHING! And you can always get stuff from our Etsy store, people are donating on their own free will. If you want to donate to the Gulf of Mexico or Child's Play or anything that's much more legitimate, but they're not going to PAX. Unless you want PAX to be super no fun times with sad pelicans.

Anyway, thanks again everyone for posting this!! We love you, and we'll see you at PAX if all goes well!!

~Holly and Crabcat Industries

HollyConrad

Also, we didn't spend money at Comic Con because we were too busy getting filmed for the Morgan Spurlock documentary and not seeing any of it. We spent money on the costumes. The costumesssss!

BrokenAngel

HollyConrad wrote: »

If you want to donate to the Gulf of Mexico or Child's Play or anything that's much more legitimate, but they're not going to PAX. Unless you want PAX to be super no fun times with sad pelicans.

Actually Child's play IS at PAX, considering it's run by Penny Arcade itself. And I find your assumption that PAX will be in any way less fun without your presence quite assuming and haughty. There are tons of brilliant cosplayers every year that take the time and forethought to be a responsible adult. Maybe you should learn from their example.

HollyConrad

We want people to see our Animatronic costume which is rare amongst cosplayers and is very expensive to make!!

That's it! I'm not turning this into another hate thread!

WHAAA!

Let your haters be your motivators. It's like handing a dollar to a guitar player on the street. If you enjoy their music you give them a dollar, you don't kick them in the face and call them irresponsible and get a real job. OR DO YOU?!

Please, let's all get along, if you don't like us you're entitled to your opinion and we're sorry we've offended you.

Tube

This isn't really an appropriate venue for begging letters.