Smerd's Blog

Last October, at Archon 32, Mike Cole and I made the acquaintance of Wei He, a costume goddess who has had a four year career coming to Anime, Manga, and other conventions raising the bar on what is possible for amateur costuming. Her talents have brought to life many favorite Anime characters. Her portfolio photo gallery is very impressive.

Wei will be attending the University of Missouri-Kansas City this fall as a Costuming major in the Theater Department. She is always striving to outdo her past achievements. She has a passion for continuous improvement. This past Anime St. Louis, back in March, she told me she is working on mastering Hollywood quality wings for winged costumes.

Mike Cole thought she would be an excellent Black Lotus from the Smerdiverse. Wei and I went shopping together for costume pieces and parts. I had a wonderful time learning from her a tiny bit about the art of costuming.

At Anime St. Louis 2009, Wei/Black Lotus was a smash! Some of you may remember.

Since then, the idea has grown to make a series of Black Lotus webisodes that are currently slated to debut at Archon 33, just one year after Mike and I met Wei. The webisodes will be short, one to three minute vignettes that link together in a story arc that tells a tale of Black Lotus right before the beginning of the first Velocity Girl novel.

The webisode producer will be master craftsman Jeff Koziatek.

There are several friends I have invited to play various roles in the webisodes. The one confirmed so far is everyone’s favorite dark fantasy author Shane Moore!

The poster at the beginning of this post is the work of Mike Cole.

We will keep you posted on how the work is progressing.

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