Igromir has passed and brought a lot of impressions, which are still shared by the authors and ordinary users of the site. I had the opportunity to talk about the exhibition and other interesting topics with the best cosplayer of Kazakhstan – Alena Simonenko.
– I’m trying. But I don’t quite agree with your last statement. I know two or three more people from Kazakhstan who make very high-quality suits. In fact, it was me who started the trips of our cosplayers to Igromir. When they found out I was there in 2012, everyone flocked there in subsequent years. So I can be said to be the main promoter of trips to Igromir for our Kazakh children.
Did you like Igromir this year??
— I always like it because I’m in cosplay, people come up to me, take pictures and I always have a free pass for all four days.
Let’s start with this then. Tell us about how you got to Igromir this year.
— For the third time I applied to participate in Igromir. That is, every year they hold a small competition to select high-quality cosplay for the exhibition. The advantage of this option is that they give you a pass and you visit it for free and do whatever you want there, but be sure to wear a suit. Of course I passed, I was accredited. But a week before Igromir, a girl from an agency contacted me, which is looking for cosplayers with a suitable costume and arranges them for stands. She offered me a job dressed as Celine from the new part of the film “Underworld.”. Blood Wars". I found out what the conditions were, I was generally satisfied with them and I decided to try. After all, I’ll be working on Igromir for the first time, my favorite hobby will finally earn me something, not only attention, but also some kind of finances. As a result, the customer who was looking for Celine approved my costume and… they made me a fur coat, in which I looked like a pimp! (laughs)
Well, it’s approximately clear why you were in the image of Celine, but you love the films themselves, you’re a fan of “Another World”?
-No, no, I’m not a fan, I just liked the image itself, the costume. I generally like to repeat something either complex or interesting, and I got into the character without any problems, it came easily to me. Initially I liked the corset, and at that time I was learning how to sew corsets and everything went from there.
-Yes, I have several of them. And I really liked the embroidery on the corset itself. I even repeated it three times, somewhere there are these two unfinished corsets.
Even Kate Beckinsale herself appreciated your cosplay this year. You were so happy.
— Of course I was happy, she commented on someone’s photo with me on Instagram*. Many would be happy with such recognition.
How do you feel about her as an actress? Have you seen any other films with her participation??
– I only saw where she was younger – it’s called “Emma”, based on the classics; "Van Helsing". Well, I don’t know, I like her as a woman, and only in the image of Celine. You can’t perceive it anymore or something?. In “Another World” she plays only with her eyes, there are no other emotions. It’s this skill of playing with the eyes that I like.
You can also play with your eyes?
-Well, they say I’m similar (laughs), which means I can.
Are you going to see the new film??
– Definitely, you have to watch it. And go to the premiere in the same cosplay. I hope this film is the end of this franchise, where else to shoot??
Fine. Let’s return to the exhibition. You said that you really liked the attention from the public. How do you like the audience itself? Were there any annoying personalities??
— The public is our reflection and the majority were delighted, they came up, shared their opinions, took pictures, and I was quite pleased that I was able to get into character like that and play it so believably that everyone simply squealed with admiration, asking to bite and shoot them.
What are your impressions https://magic-red-casino.uk/games/ of Moscow itself?? It’s not the first time you’ve been there, but what can you say about this trip??
— I like to visit places where I haven’t been before, so this time I liked Serebryany Bor, I really love nature. I would love to visit Serebryany Bor again. In general, I don’t so much want to go to Moscow again, but to go to beautiful places. To beautiful places in Moscow.
You can now remember your impressions of the first Igromir, of Moscow and that trip in general, and of the next Igromirs, respectively?
— What I remember most is that I managed to get there myself and get accredited. It was 2012, then I had my Bloodrain costume and Celine, I then made the costume for the first part of the film. But in 2012, few people recognized her. I changed costumes every other day: on the first day Bloodrain was there, he was received quite well, at that time on the Internet he was considered the highest quality. And this year, by the way, many people recognized Celine without even hearing that a new film would be released soon.
It turns out that the next Igromir you went to was the 2014 exhibition?
— I missed a year, I went for a year. Yes, it’s coming out in 2014. I got there the same way as the last one – for free. I went with two costumes: my cosplay of the siren Mai and my partner, who played Handsome Jack from the game Borderlands. But that year, one might say, I didn’t see the exhibition itself at all, because I spent half the day in the dressing room. You could say I was the main makeup artist for our team for the Borderlands game. First I painted everyone, then they painted me. And then there was no time for stands – we walked around, caught photographers, because we wanted high-quality photos, or did something else.
Are you planning to go next year, or will you miss another year??
— We’ll see according to our means, in general I’m planning, but it’s still unknown where I’ll be in a year.
And in what way do you plan to please the people if you go??
— Actually, I’m planning Leliana from Dragon Age Origins. The material is on the balcony, you will need to craft it.
Tell us about the images that were not included in any exhibitions: the Gray Guardian, your fairy-tale little mermaid and others.
— As for the mermaid, origin (origin is an image that was invented and made by you personally) is very difficult to push into any competition. Because it should be very bright and memorable, and in general, I took the little mermaid with me to do a photo shoot. To catch some photographer or to be caught by some photographer. And I started making the Gray Guardian back in the spring, I planned to go to Moscow for a Dragon Age role-playing game in it, but it didn’t work out in the end. At that moment, I posted the process of creating a costume online and following these steps the guys from Almaty came to me. They were planning a skit at the summer festival and they just needed a gray guard. I had never been there before, so I went, bought a ticket and gave my consent to participate.
In general, you are often invited to travel around Kazakhstan and take part in something similar?
– At your own expense, of course, they call you everywhere.
But in general, how are things going with cosplay compared to Russia??
— Compared to Russia, they are still a little behind, not even in quality, but in scale. Quite a few people do this. In Almaty, for example, they don’t experience any special problems in terms of organization, they have four festivals a year, they just lack scale, usually the same people participate and come to watch. Although, in the summer for the first time there was a large cash prize, about 40 thousand rubles, this is quite a lot for a person who does this kind of thing.
By the way, since the conversation has turned to the financial sphere, cosplay is expensive for you in terms of money?
— It’s quite difficult to say, because it all depends on the image. But, let’s say, starting from four thousand rubles and to infinity. Because this is the consumption of fabric, consumption of materials, paints, glue, wigs, lenses, shoes, cosmetics, makeup and a bunch of other things. In addition, costumes tend to wear out and sometimes you have to tint, hem, or even completely replace some parts. Of course, all this is not visible to the naked eye, cosplay is and is, but how much is put into it – no one sees it. This is all handmade – real cosplay, which is valued all over the world, and not that factory costume that is made anyhow and sold for $30 somewhere on AliExpress.
Tell us what the customer required of you and what your work at Igromir generally consisted of?
— I worked from the Sony Pictures stand and participated in a quest, there were several characters: Alice from Resident Evil, Celine and Spider-Man. The quest was like this – you had to find us in designated places to take a selfie, put it into a collage, post it on Instagram and earn likes. And on October 5, the results were summed up as to who would get free tickets to the premiere of these films.
Someone got them in the end?
– I don’t know, I didn’t follow. There were few people who understood the conditions of this quest and who participated. I think there were too many tasks and the flyers had no pictures, it’s not clear who to look for.
Which trip did you like best in the end?? This work trip or when Igromir itself invited you?
— Both have their pros and cons, so I can’t say that I liked some more and some less. I would work one year, go to the exhibition another year, and then work again. In the conditions in which I worked this year, I don’t see any disadvantages, there was only one minus – I couldn’t eat normally, mainly because of my teeth.
They really bothered you?
— It’s not that they interfered, it’s just that I stood every day for 15 minutes with my mouth open so that the glue would set and dry, and then while I was walking, I was afraid to even touch them with my tongue. How did I avoid those moments so that they wouldn’t come up to me for an interview?. I just agreed to participate in the video, but it was already problematic to say anything. I told a couple of people who did catch me not to ask long questions.
What can you say about Liliana Vamp, who was invited as an honored guest to Igromir?
— She was introduced as a popular cosplayer on the Internet, but in the end I had a question: where did she actually have her cosplay?? There was a model-looking girl with a tailored suit. And the fact is that in Moscow few people knew her at all, few people took pictures with her. And the volunteers then ran around Igromir and asked cosplayers to take pictures with her for free for the report.
What do you remember, besides your work, because there is an exhibition around, stands with games, Comic Con is taking place somewhere nearby?
— Comic Con has grown. Compared to the first one, which took place in 2014, instead of one pavilion there were already two. Convenient rules have appeared. Last time, when they brought Misha Collins, naturally, no one expected such an influx of fans who simply rushed into the queue, tearing everyone apart to at least touch him, get to his autograph session, and in the end they demolished the cosplayers’ dressing room, someone’s costumes were wrinkled. This time we took everything into account: we did paid photos and autograph sessions with famous people. But Igromir is passing more and more quietly. Previously, there was a crowd of people standing near each stand, there were a lot of freebies everywhere, but now there are continuous queues. I think it was more fun last time. What else I remember was the free popsicles. Near the virtual reality stand there was a man who made ice cream from fruit puree for free; he was constantly mixing something, freezing it, putting it in cups and handing it out to people.
What do you think about virtual reality itself, as a person who has observed people in these helmets from the outside?? Do you share the idea that this is the future of the gaming industry??
— It was funny. People climbed onto this stand with interest and curiosity. But this future has already arrived, and there will certainly be demand for it.
And if we’re already talking about games, then tell people about your preferences in terms of games.
– Oh, I can’t even remember the last time I played. In general, Fahrenheit is my favorite game. Also, I’ll quit soon and will probably go through all the parts of Dreamfall that are installed on the computer and have been waiting for their fate for a long time. I also remember the game Faery: Legends of Avalon for its style and references to Celtic mythology. And I would love to play The path again. I like those games in which there is a certain psychologism, in which the characters are interestingly revealed, or in which you yourself somehow try to reveal for yourself different facets of the character.
To generalize, interactive movies, detective quests and rpgs with a good plot are the type of games that you like?
What else besides cosplay takes up your free time??
— I love reading books, being spiritually enlightened, I recently started reading “Thais of Athens” by Ivan Efremov. I also love the literature of Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells, and Russian classics. I also love the anime “Ghost in the Shell”, I like to explore the symbolism and messages embedded in it. By the way, for the ghost, I’m still thinking about doing a cosplay for the premiere of the film, in the image of Kusanagi from the anime Ghost in the Shell: Arise. I even found a canonical Bato in Almaty. And I also really love mermaids, and everything connected with them, especially freediving. This is when you swim in the pool with a fish tail.
What do you know about Stopgame.ru for whom this interview is being done?
— Not so much, one day I saw a photo of myself online from Igromir 2012, where I was in the guise of Bloodrain, and went to the site. I wanted to get my hands on the original and Maxim Kulakov sent it to me. And this is, perhaps, all my acquaintance with him, because there is not much time for games.
Any last words for the people who will read this interview?.
— Come to Igromir next year, catch me, catch the author of this article, let’s take a photo, chat. And most importantly, do what you like and develop yourself.