Known as Kapalaka, Orlando cosplayer Christine is making a name for herself with her attention to detail and uber realistic recreations of great characters. To make her even more awesome, she’ll be at Metrocon this weekend so we get to actually hang out with her! Let’s pester her until she agrees to wear a Beaver shirt!
From her bio:
My cosplay alias “Kapalaka” came from two sources: Golduck (one of my favorite Pokémon and it is a kappa), and gibberish my high school best friend used to attach to my first name. We would come up with silly names added onto each other’s first names. The more ridiculous, the better. He called me Cristini, Ku-ristana, etc, the most elaborate of which was Cristanalakakanatini. This was around the time I was looking to create a committable and unique screenname and “Kapalaka” was the natural choice. No regrets thus far, so it’s a winner!
My love for video games and anime led me to the cosplay community in 2005. It was my senior year of high school and I thought the regular “vote for me” signs were lame when I ran for Homecoming Court. In response to this thought, I pursued a different type of campaign by making silly ads with my face over the bodies of my favorite Final Fantasy girls. I wondered if people actually make these outfits and wore them. When I saw people cosplaying online, I immediately started researching upcoming conventions and looking up cosplay photos of my favorite characters. CosplayLab was particularly helpful and I still look up to a lot of the cosplayers that were featured in the CosplayLab Spotlights and Look-Alikes. Also, just in case you are wondering, the campaign was very successful and I made it onto Court.
Outside of cosplay I am pursuing my master’s degree in architecture. Before I was accepted to architecture grad school I majored in theatre, specifically, set and costume design. My experience in the art, theatre, AND architecture wood shops certainly helped in my prop craftsmanship. Most of my sewing was self-taught until 2009 where I took a course under Marilyn Bertch, the former head of the Costume Department at Busch Gardens. I truly feel that my craftsmanship took off after my time under her and for that I am forever grateful.
To see more of Kapalaka’s work, check out her facebook page. And she will be a guest at MetroCon this weekend, so come out and say hi!
