For nearly a decade, Yaya Han has traveled to conventions all over the world, adorned in some of the most intricate costumes ever designed. Yaya was able to spare some time from her busy schedule to share with us some insight to the brains behind the beauty.
To give a bit of background, Yaya Han has lived in all corners of the world: China, Germany, and various parts of the US. Growing up, she’d always had an affection for anime and manga. It wasn’t until one fateful con that she was introduced to cosplay and has since built an extensive career of realizing her favorite characters. Every year, she attends several events around the world, posing for photo shoots in fantastic, sexy outfits.
Best of all, she’s truly one of us–a genuine geek.
Omi Gibson is the cover girl for this site’s Cosplay of the Week feature. Omi has an infamous love of Metal Gear Solid, which would explain why more than half of her 100+ costume gallery consists of Hideo Kojima characters. In fact, she’s been given special recognition from various news sites for the MGS4 Raiden costume she wore for the 2008 Tokyo Game Show in Japan.
Omi was very generous to agree to a Q&A interview with me, so that those who admire her work may better get to know the woman who’s made so many men’s fantasies a reality.
Last week, following my article on GotGame.com regarding Scribblenauts’ EULA, I assembled another article here exploring the Entertainment Consumer Association. In that article, I noted my suspicions that the ECA might be in cahoots with retailers; looking out for their best interests over those of the consumer.
Shortly after it’s posting, I received an email from Jason Anderson, the public relations director for the ECA.
I did an awesome interview with Phoenix Kasai last night… It will be up on GotGame either this Friday or next.
After the interview, I added her as a friend on MySpace so I could see when she uploads new photos and because that’s currently her primary homepage. She returned the befriending, adding the following comment to my page:
Hey it was great chatting with you tonight! I forgot to mention during the interview.. I will never look at my C Viper figure the same way after your piece a couple weeks/months ago on her “flaw”. I’m now obsessed with showing people my figure when they come over b/c they just don’t believe how bad it really is. ^__^;
The “flaw” she’s referring to is the one that I’d mentioned in an article she’d seen about the Crimson Viper action figure. Knowing this, I clicked the “Comment Back” link to send this reply:
I’m usually in favor of a little camel toe, but holy cow! There are limits! O_o
When I looked again at my MySpace homepage, I was confused to not find my reply underneath her comment. I’d assumed that replying to comments was like any other thread, but apparently this is not the case for MySpace.
It then occurred to me to look at her homepage, finding my response with no context connecting it to her original message to me. I thought, “Well, that’s going to look inappropriate.” Thus, I quickly composed a second comment, clarifying my true meaning from the first.
I fail at MySpace. Good thing I don’t use it much.
Though thankfully, I’m not as careless, I was reminded of this recent post of FaceBook fail (under the break):
My interview with Lindze Merritt went up last Friday and as far as I can tell, it’s been well-received. It’s since undergone some editing, in case anyone has not yet given it a read.
Before publishing my final draft, I sent a copy of the text to Lindze for approval. I always like to give my subject the final say over my copy in case something didn’t translate well during the initial editing process. By the time it was scheduled to go live, I hadn’t gotten a response, so I assumed no news was good news.
Unfortunately, the reason why I hadn’t heard from Lindze is because she doesn’t often check the email address that she’d given me to contact her. As a result, I got an email just yesterday from her thanking me for the great article, but with regret in some parts of our conversation that she didn’t intend to be made public. Specifically, details about her past relationship with comic book artist Jason Pearson.
I apologized for the slip and offered to revise it; omitting any details she was uncomfortable with. She sent me her notes and I made the changes immediately. This way–at the very least–future readers that discover the article won’t get that nose-deep into Lindze’s personal business.
To some, this may lose me some journalistic integrity, but I see it differently. My attitude toward every interview that I conduct is that the purpose of the piece is to make my subject look good, not me. The whole reason why I pitch these interviews is because I want to share with my readers how fascinating I think these people are. It also does me no good to exploit my subjects in the long run, since (God willing) I’d like to work with them again in the future.
On a humorous note, I do like to joke that I doubt my interviews ever do as well as I hope since I don’t exactly cater to GotGame’s core audience. I like to ask heady, humanizing questions like, “How do you maneuver yourself so you can wear that costume and breathe?” instead of what the readers would like to ask, “Ain’t you got some sweeeeet titties?” The interview would be over before it began and bridges would be forever burned.
I’m going to take a little bit of a break from cosplay interviews, just because I bit off more than I could chew with the last two. When I do jump back into the ring, I plan to work on my editing skills. Even if every line is gold, I need to learn what content to cut in order to keep the article from overwhelming the reader.
As I’ve been interviewing various popular cosplay models, I’ve been joyed by each experience interacting and getting to know these fine ladies. Every one of them has been a delight–I find them sharp, approachable, and quite professional.
My current subject, Lindze Merritt, has been no exception.
I’ve tried something a little different with this interview in that I wanted to create as much of an organic experience as possible for the reader. I wanted to create content that was more engaging to read, instead of something that comes off like a simple FAQ. So rather than simply sending out a questionnaire and waiting for the responses, I asked Lindze to join me in an online chat. That way I could derive the material for my article from that conversation. This turned out to be the best idea I’ve ever had.
The one challenge I had with interviewing Lindze was doing my homework in order to prepare. Since Lindze started a family not too long ago, she’s kinda withdrawn her online presence. Thankfully, she was very open with me on providing some bio information beforehand, though there was still plenty to expand upon and discover during the live interview. This allowed for very genuine responses on both our ends.
One of the biggest surprises to me was that she has strong connections with Cartoon Network. When she’d told me in her bio info prior to the interview that she’d worked on some on-air Adult Swim promos, I assumed she meant working on the make-up, costumes, or other visual designs behind the camera. It turns out that (along with those things) she’s appeared in several of these spots, including a few I’d seen myself.
Here’s an example; one for Aqua Teen Hunger Force (that’s her in the background):
There are other promos that feature Lindze more visibly, but I’m saving those for when the interview is published.
We’ve had to split our interview session into two parts, since the first round went into unexpected overtime. We’ll be meeting again on Wednesday and then the interview should be up on GotGame.com by July 24th.
Of course, just before we parted after the first meeting, she dropped a heavy bomb on me that I then needed to be scraped off the floor with a paint stripper. You’ll get no spoilers of that here… You’ll just have to tune in this upcoming Friday for those details.
GotGame published my interview with Yaya Han today. My experience with her was such a treat! She’s very sweet and quite sharp. I can only hope that the comments that proceed the interview’s publishing are respectful. Heh, but that’s asking a lot of the typical gamer…
I’ve been thinking about some other people I’d like to interview in the future. Especially now that I know that all I usually have to do is ask.
One thing I do know is that I want to change how I do the interviews. To be honest, I don’t imagine that the past two interviews I’ve done (Omi and Yaya) will be as successful as I’m probably not catering to my audience properly. I like to ask very informative questions because I’m genuinely curious about my subject and their crafts. Unfortunately, the target audience for most gaming sites like GotGame are young people who don’t want to learn about people…they want to be entertained. The questions that I’m sure that they’d prefer I’d ask are closer to, “Are her tits real?” or “Does she fuck in costume?”
While these are what the masses demand, I’m not that crude. And I don’t think the people I interview would be as willing to participate if that’s the approach I took with them. So I think that one of my goals is to find fun questions that both my subjects and audience will find engaging.
Also, I feel a little lazy with simply sending out a questionnaire–it doesn’t feel like a real interview. For the moment, it’s just what feels most convenient for both myself and the (often busy) person I want to interview. What I may do is work out a 2-3 round chat session or email conversation so I can dig a little deeper and do some follow-ups with the person. From there, I’d write about the person as a short biography, using quotes from our conversations.
With that plan, I may yet fool the world into thinking that I’m a professional writer. Mwahaha…
