Kazuki Vinca, The Perfect Embodiment Of A Cosplayer

DANIAL ISWADI: We all know that cosplaying is fun because not only are you able to cosplay as your favourite characters but you also get to wear beautiful and unique costumes. Out of curiosity, what got you into cosplaying?

KAZUKI VINCA: I have always loved art and crafts since I was a child. Being an art graduate herself, my mum encouraged me to venture into a lot of creative stuff including drawing, painting, building mini-house-props, lego, clay, etc. You can say that art is in my blood. I also love to watch anime, cartoons and always dreamt to be like those characters. We all have those chiIdhood characters that we love so much, right? I figured that maybe I can finally channel my love for art and crafts  into prop making. I also studied art & design back then, earning both a diploma and degree in the field. In short, cosplay is part of my venture into the world of art.

DANIAL ISWADI: Since you have been cosplaying for quite a while, I have noticed that you always came out with different kinds of amazing props that were truly amazing and realistic. I am just wondering are those props made by you or did you buy them elsewhere?

KAZUKI VINCA: We have a fair share of buying our costumes and props, but most of the time we would prefer to do it ourselves – a little bit of DIY won’t hurt us. Reason is sometimes the costume of the character that we wanted is not available in the market. Sometimes even if it was available, getting a really good quality one is kind of hard. Commissioning a prop maker would be very costly, not to mention the quality issue. There’s also a lot of fraud cases where customers didn’t get their order on time or the quality is poor. To avoid all the issues, we decided to learn and DIY. Basically, I would study the props/costume and make a shortlist of the materials. Then, we would divide the job scope and do it together as a team. It saves a lot of time and is very pocket-friendly. Basically, your wallet won’t cry and look at you as a disappointment if you did the job well.

DANIAL ISWADI: Throughout your journey as a senior cosplayer, could you share with us what was the best experience you ever had? 

KAZUKI VINCA: The best experience we had was in 2014, where my team came out as champions of the first Cosplay Invitational at Comic Fiesta. The contestants can only compete when they get an official invitation by Comic Fiesta. How to be invited? There are two ways; one, is by winning an affiliate event, and another is by online voting. Only eight teams were invited. We won RM2,500 and also an invitation to perform a cosplay skit at Fancy Frontier, Taiwan. Flight tickets, hotel accommodation, transport and tour guide was fully sponsored by Comic Fiesta. It was the first time we went to Taiwan and we were really excited to exchange our knowledge with their ACG culture.