Streets of Rage has been a classic gaming love since 1993. So many hours spending with both my dad and cousin playing this game! And I was always Blaze. Man, I miss good side scroller beat ’em up games. Katsucon 2012 had just ended and I was eating with some cosplay friends who were talking about MAGFest. I hadn’t heard of that con until their conversation, and Roger mentioned that Yuzo Koshiro would be a guest at the con. I remember tossing around the possibility of cosplaying as Blaze Fielding at MAGFest, but deciding it would be a cos free con. (So I could get the gaming in!!)
It was not to be. I later visited the MAGFest forums to find someone posted about cosplaying as Axel Stone! He mentioned doing both SoR2 and SoR3 versions on different days. After we talked a bit, I gave in and committed to making Blaze. The ‘most difficult’ part of the planning period was deciding which color variant to do. I grew up with, and loved silver Blaze, but red was her signature color. Unable to choose, I bought both red and silver (gun metal) vinyls from MJTrends, and waited to see the fabrics in person. There was no comparison; the gun metal vinyl was 100% more beautiful than the red. By far. So I happily went with silver variant.
Boots were another story; worst case scenario would have been boot covers, but I ended up finding a close enough color match at Plato’s Closet. They weren’t the exact styled boots I was hoping for, but after having so many issued finding any gun metal boots, I was stoked to find those.
MAGFest 2013 came and I was ready to go. Griffin (Axel) and I had planned a photo shoot with Dosik Lens for Saturday, and we were also excited to get Yuzo Koshiro’s autograph. Yuzo’s mother was there and took pictures of us; she was super sweet! She said I “looked just like Blaze”. What a huge honor!
All in all, everything was amazing. Loved MAGFest, loved cosplaying Blaze, loved meeting new people! Loved Monster Huntering. MAGFest is a con to keep. (Go there!!!)
MAGFest 2013 Photography by Dosik Lens
Axel cosplay by Griffin Tremeaine
