I attended the Windblume Festival in Frisco, Texas this past weekend and as it was a second year con, decided to write up a report in case anyone else is interested attending in the future. I debated making a con report since they tend to be personal and not professional, so I just left out any single person references to keep it unbiased and informative lol. But first, my cosplay!
Since I learned about the festival a couple of weeks before the event from a flyer at Kinokuniya, I didn’t have a lot of time to work on a new cosplay, so I decided to cosplay smarter not harder and do a variation of a character I already cosplayed. That’s when I remembered the concert Xinyan I drew fanart of some time ago. The official artwork was of a relatively simple modern outfit, and because her guitar was hiding the bottom half of her outfit, I could make it up and no one would know if I was off-model or not. And as already mentioned, Xinyan is a punk and canonically good at making stuff on her own, so DIY it is.
Xinyan’s hair was still the same, as were all of the concert artwork of the characters so far, although a lot longer than my wig for some reason. All I had to work on was a crop top and jacket and gloves. I couldn’t tell what sort of belts or shorts/skirt she wore, but she seemed like a shorts person and there was a chain around the waist area and maybe a black thigh belt. I forgot to look at her shoes after downloading the concept art lol, I rewore my black lace combat boots; her combat boots seem to have red trim on the ankle and sole and red laces but apparently you shouldn’t wear red laces with boots (I ran out of time before I got to her boots anyway).
First, I went to the local Goodwill and found a large red t-shirt to make the top, a black faux leather jacket that was almost the exact style I needed and fit, and a pair of black denim shorts. Then I went to Michaels to get metal round studs to finish the jacket decor and thick gold chain for the belt. I made the top from old souvenir t-shirts in red and black which I cut out the design and sewed a mandarin style collar, so I didn’t use the red tee I bought. The top was decorated with a shaped wire buckle and black and red ribbons from my stash and a piece of white muslin. The collar fastens with a hair elastic threaded through the red ribbon tie to a button I sewed on the underside of the collar, very convenient to close and also offers some stretch so the collar didn’t feel like it was strangling me. I then hand-sewed red cotton cuffs to the jacket sleeves which I had rolled up to my elbows. For the longest time I struggled to use the stud setter for the sleeves and jacket. After wasting like 8 studs, I had to look up forum threads and I learned you have to have the right length of shaft on the studs, otherwise the stud will set into the fabric crookedly and fall out, so I had to trim and reshape the studs which was a huge pain. I messed up twice on the lapels but it’s not very noticeable. Then I made the gloves and wrist cuffs very simply from leftover t-shirt fabric and constructed 8 spikes for the cuffs from white leather and old pillow stuffing because I couldn’t think of any other way to make spikes. Kaeya’s cosplay cuffs had metal spike studs but I wasn’t going to spend money for something I had to rush order online (my local Joanns and Michaels did not have metal spike studs) when I already made spikes for her in-game outfit from leather, might as well continue. Then I debated how to attach her shoulder spikes to the jacket. I was reluctant to poke holes in the leather (thus rendering it no longer waterproof since leather holes are permanent) to sew the spikes in, but gluing would not be very secure and also potentially damage it even more than needle holes. In the end I just handsewed the three spikes in (2 were leftover from my hair spikes and I made a new third one from leather) and hoped no one would be looking at my costume that closely. I didn’t have to decorate the shorts, so I added a red sash and looped the gold chain into a belt that closed with a keychain ring commandeered from my many unused keychains. I did not make the black thigh belt that she seems to be wearing because past experience proved that a thigh belt is impossible to keep up on your leg on its own (also I ran out of time lol.)
Here is the final outfit!
Now for a brief review of the Windblume Festival con itself, not associated with Hoyoverse which runs official concerts and exhibits around the world. It was instead run by a relatively new (to me) company that organized fandom conventions in the region (including hentai 18+ cons lol), so this con was small and fairly organized and professional (well maybe not the hentai so much) for a new con. It took up half the convention center with a medium-sized center stage, 2 small panel rooms plus quiet room and maid cafe upstairs, a dealer’s room with the artist alley and registration in the lobby outside and a meetup room. The con ran 3 days from Friday to Sunday, featured several of the English voice actors and an overseas musician, with regular main events like celebrity panels and cosplay contest, plus a handful of pretty photo-op backgrounds and custom cocktails/mocktails that were on theme. I only went to one voice actor panel and the cosplay contest and the swap meet, I’m not sure how the other panels were like, I’m not really into gameshow panels as a participant and missed the costuming and trivia panels and region meetups. I did get Kaeya’s English VA autograph and the 2 main events I went to were full to standing room. Because I went by myself, I could go all out shopping the artist alley, most tables had at least 1/4 Genshin/Honkai stuff if not more, lots of cute/pretty/sexy art I hadn’t seen before. The dealer’s room had more artists, and shops that sold plushes, figures and the usual kawaii stuff and comics/hobby/fantasy merch seen at every fandom con. Saturday I wore Xinyan and Sunday because I was running late, I rewore a lolita coord as sailor lolita Barbara.
Overall, this con had a pleasant sociable atmosphere for the time I was there, fairly busy but not super crowded. There weren’t any long lines besides the big main events, though I suppose the main events room could be bigger. It was about as Genshin themed as possible while still allowing other weeb stuff for variety. I have been to the local Tales of con before and there’s only so much you can do about a big videogame franchise, new or old, before it gets restrictive or repetitive, Windblume Festival hit that balance as best as it could for a new con. I think the only thing they could have added is a dedicated game room for a game-centric con? Maybe that was the “tavern” meetup room, I didn’t look into it, but a room for games, board games, console/PC, card games that aren’t maid cafe games. That’s probably expensive though. Also I would have liked table maps with artist names for the artist alley, the website is not updated except for the schedule and celebrity guests and panel descriptions, but I’m an “artist” and my priority is art obviously. The instagram is updated consistently but didn’t have artist names either.
Was the ticket price worth it and would I go again? The ticket price for this small con is the same as a small to medium-sized con so it was not exactly cheap when including the parking garage price, but the experience was good, I wasn’t mad especially since I went 2 days and it was not too far of a drive. I don’t know if I would go again by myself, though. I was there to get Kaeya’s VA autograph and shop artist alley and look at the creative cosplays, which I did, so the only reason I would go again is to go with a friend and maybe buy the stuff that was sold out this year. I would assume next year there would be stuff for Fontaine and maybe the next region, so that’s something to look forward to. I guess we’ll see how the pandemic (still here!) progresses and how the world is like next summer. Even hotter. Lol. Lmao even.