The CosplayDream @the-cosplay-dream - Tumblr Blog

Leaving Las Vegas

It's safe to say, I've had my fill of LV. Ready to go home! Yesterday, we took a walk on the Strip. The Strip is full of cosplayers (most of them not very good) hanging out trying to get people to pay to take pictures with them. I call this one - Hello Kitty says Talk to the Hand.

Day 3 - AVN - Still Having Fun! Cosplayers Are Here!

Yesterday I went to the Cossplay Crossover session and learned that lots of adult actresses are secret nerds who go to the cons as themselves just to have fun. Here's the cosplay panel shot.

And then I met these lovely ladies on the show floor.

And then I talked to my neighbor about her foot fetish videos.

It was a big day!

#cosplay

sharemycosplay

#Cosplayer @KannonKosplay with an awesome armored Shimei Ryomou! #cosplay #Anime

http://www.facebook.com/kannonkosplay

Photographer- CClazer Jan 2015

Interviews, features and more. Visit http://www.sharemycosplay.com Sharing the cosplay for you!

the-cosplay-dream

Love this! So sexy cute!

superscifigals

comicbookcosplay

Supergirl

the-cosplay-dream

Super Cute Super Girl!

AVN Day 1

Made it through Day 1 - We're in the joint - row 1 - about half way down right by the Handy (I'll get a pic) and the Foot guys. There are a fair number of cosplayers here - and it's been a lot of fun so far. Meeting some fun people and doing a lot of people watching. I'l be posting a lot of pictures of my people watching.

XOXO

#cosplay #avn #sexy cosplay #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

CosplayDream is at AVN!

Come visit us at AVN in the Joint! I'll post the booth number as soon as I have it. Our rep contacted us and said he had an even better location for us - so not sure exactly where we'll be yet - but I'll know later today. If you're there - or even thinking about being there - come on by and say hi!

www.cosplaydream.com

Until then! XOXO

#cosplaydream #cosplay #sexy cosplay #avn #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

25 posts! I'm quite a talker. :)

#25 posts #tumblr milestone #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

They say that “money don’t buy taste,” but if you can afford to live at N°15 RENWICK, one would assume you’ve at least got the cash for a “style consultant” to tell you how fucking corny you are. The luxury development (whose logo is an obvious homage to CHANEL N°5) is trying what may be the lamest of all marketing angles to attract a wealthy and “creative” clientele—they’re making it steampunk. Their advertising is an utterly confusing photo-spread of classically influenced modern architecture inhabited by Victorian-ish “characters”—it can only be described as real estate cosplay… From the website: The Characters of 15 Renwick pay homage to the Victorian era in which the street’s namesake, James Renwick and his son, lived (1790-1895). Renwick was a pioneering author, engineer and professor at Columbia University while his son, James Jr., was one of the most celebrated architects of his generation. The Characters also embody the creative persona of today’s Hudson Square resident and the insider nature of the single-block Renwick Street. Look, pining for “Olde New York” is a rite of passage no matter what year you moved here, but these people are paying an insane...

So... this is interesting... would you buy a place bc of this? Here, people are trying to make money off of cosplay art and aesthetic, and just yesterday I read and article about grumbly Batman writer Pat Broderick complaining how cosplay was taking money out of his pockets. From his FB post...

todays heads up. If you're a Cosplay personality, please don't send me a friend request. If you're a convention promoter and you're building your show around cosplay events and mega multiple media guest don't invite me....You bring nothing of value to the shows, and if you're a promoter pushing cosplay as your main attraction you're not helping the industry or comics market..Thank you..

I find it hard to even begin to understand this point of view. This blog does a good job of summing up a lot of my feelings... but in general - how in the world does a whole community of people diving heart and soul into your characters not help the industry or the market?

It's lost on me.

Don't forget to enter our cosplay photo contest on CosplayDream.com. We love the community!

#cosplaydream #cosplay ladies #cosplay contest #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

How Do You Determine What to Pay for Content?

(via toosexyformybra-deactivated2014)

Determining what to pay for content has been a real topic for discussion around Cosplaydream. We believe art, creativity, and sexiness should be compensated - but what's the right number?

Here's how we looked at it and arrived at our first prize payout.

1. We're building a community, and that comes first. So we're investing heavily into that technolgy and getting that in place. Paying for good content is a big part of that community building - but there are other parts too.

2. We respect talent. We're not paying nothing, and we'll pay as much as we can as often as we can.

3. We're bootstrapping this project. We didn't do Kickstarter or any crowdfunding, we're not funded by some big adult site that tells us what to do or tells our user community what to do... we're just two ladies spending all our spare cash to get this thing off the ground. We love this community - it's by the people for the people.

4. We want amateurs and seflies! We're not a photography site for professionals models and photographers - we're a cosplay site for the cosplay community - with a strong NSFW vibe. So.... you don't need to pay zillions of dollars for fancy sets and professional photography to win our contests. We like selfies - and we want the models who have the biggest following - and participate most on the site - to win the contests. That's being *part* of the community. This isn't a photography contest - it's a cosplay contest. Very different stuff.

I looked around at a lot of sites to determine who was paying what for what type of content - and realized that the bar was pretty low. That's not cool, and we want to do more - and we will do more and more as we grow. Hopefully, our prize money can help our models get the next cosplay going, or help them get to the next con and have some more fun. CosplayDream is all about fun!

http://www.cosplaydream.com/model

#cosplaydream #cosplay ladies #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

hotcosplaychicks

Thir13en Ghosts - The angry princess by NicciFett

Check out http://hotcosplaychicks.tumblr.com for more awesome cosplay

kittycosplaydream

That Angry Princess was all sorts of spooky and this really captures that. Her eyes, man. And the blood and the knife and the lighting. I really love the veins on her arm, too! And man that wound on her face looks so real! Awesome make up and pose. Great collaboration!

xoxo,

Kitty Hardwould

www.cosplaydream.com

the-cosplay-dream

Ah, I love this one. Kitty... you do have such good taste. Those big eyes, that scary knife... the blood... naked cosplay at its finest (and scariest). Hats off.

www.cosplaydream.com

#cosplay ladies

comicbookcosplay

Catwoman: Kristen Wish Cosplay @ Facebook, DeviantArt, Tumblr

Submitted by kristen-wish

the-cosplay-dream

Catwoman - my all time favorite.

miss-ella-page

Turned my self into mystique for the night! my favourite X-men! would really appreciate if you reblog as I am trying to get out there!!

http://miss-ella-page.tumblr.com/

the-cosplay-dream

Love this cosplay. This is what we would love to see in our cosplay contest! www.cosplaydream.com/model. So sexy. (Win money for more cosplay!)

Secrets of Social Engine: AKA Saving You Time I Will Never Get Back

CosplayDream is an adult cosplay online community, so the community platform is a vital piece of our infrastructure. That being said, we are just starting out, and we don't have a lot of money. We chose Social Engine's PHP version for our community platform, and we've been very pleased.

This post isn't a review of the product - it's more a "problems I spent a lot of time on, that had a pretty easy solution in the end" sort of post. Hopefully, this post can save you the time I will never get back. It's targeted at novice users - but not beginners. Their documentation can be a little thin - so feel free to ask me questions and I'll answer them if I can.

The Pesky Problems in Our Past

1. User profile pictures automatically show up as an album. So do forum and group pictures. This might not bother you, but it did bother us. Albums are supposed to be specifically uploaded as albums! I asked SE how to fix this and their reply was essentially "you have to get into the PHP and customize it." There is an easier way and it's no where in the documentation.

1. Go to the album and choose "Edit Settings"

2. Uncheck "Show this album in search results" and click "Save."

There you go. I've had pictures show up again from time to time, so I just go and edit the settings again - and they disappear. If, for some reason, you ever want to come back - you can go to the admins Albums->My Albums tab and change it back.

2. First and Last Name Fields show up as the Display Name in the Profile no matter what their settings. This seems like a major design flaw - because even if you set the first and last name *not* to show up, and the username *to* show up, the system still uses the first and last name as the display name in the user's profile. Watch out for this as it's a major privacy issue. Luckily - this one was documented. Here are the instructions, but you might want to check the link just in case.

You can still capture the first and last name fields using this technique, but they don't show up in the admin's view. They are in your database, so if you had to get to them, you probably could.

3. How to turn off that mobile site/mobile plug in. The mobile plug in isn't very good in Social Engine - and we bought a responsive design theme that supersedes the need for it. Make sure the theme you buy is a responsive design! We ended up wasting $85 because our first one wasn't and we had to trash it .

I asked SE how to turn off the mobile plug in so all browsers would use our shiny new responsive theme - and they told me I'd have to extend my support contract to get an answer (it's not in the documentation). Turns out, this is also very easy. Just go to: http://yoursite/install/manage, scroll down, and toggle to "disable" the Mobi plugin.

Our theme developer helped up with that one (at no extra charge). I highly recommend these folks: Social Engine Solutions.

That's it for now. I'm sure we'll have more on this topic later on.

#cosplay #cosplaydream #social engine #online community #cosplay community #cosplay chat #cosplay share

2257 - Do I Need it or Not?

I’m going to start this post by saying - I’m not a lawyer. I didn’t run this post by a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

And now - let the post begin.

2257 - I never thought much of those numbers until I started researching the details of adult sites in preparation for starting www.cosplaydream.com. We didn’t want to burden our models with a lot of unnecessary paperwork, but we did want to do the right thing.

2257 - The Law - Attempt at Dissection

I sat down and tried to read the regulation. It’s actually not that bad, once you get into the flow.

Here’s the lead:

Whoever produces any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, digital image, digitally- or computer-manipulated image of an actual human being, picture, or other matter which—

(1) contains one or more visual depictions made after November 1, 1990 of actual sexually explicit conduct; and

(2) is produced in whole or in part with materials which have been mailed or shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, or is shipped or transported or is intended for shipment or transportation in interstate or foreign commerce;

shall create and maintain individually identifiable records pertaining to every performer portrayed in such a visual depiction.

And then then it goes on to specify what kinds of records you need to keep for every performer and every visual depiction. They are pretty specific, but somehow still vague in the specificity. I got a service to handle this for us (fwiw). Ok, back to the post.

Am I a Producer?

The regulation clarifies “producer” to mean (there we are in iii):

(2) the term “produces”—

(A) means—

(i) actually filming, videotaping, photographing, creating a picture, digital image, or digitally- or computer-manipulated image of an actual human being;

(ii) digitizing an image, of a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct; or, assembling, manufacturing, publishing, duplicating, reproducing, or reissuing a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, digital image, or picture, or other matter intended for commercial distribution, that contains a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct; or

(iii) inserting on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise managing the sexually explicit content, [1] of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of, sexually explicit conduct; and

And here’s who it doesn’t apply to:

(B) does not include activities that are limited to—

(i) photo or film processing, including digitization of previously existing visual depictions, as part of a commercial enterprise, with no other commercial interest in the sexually explicit material, printing, and video duplication;

(ii) distribution;

(iii) any activity, other than those activities identified in subparagraph (A), that does not involve the hiring, contracting for, managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the depicted performers;

(iv) the provision of a telecommunications service, or of an Internet access service or Internet information location tool (as those terms are defined in section 231 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 231)); or

(v) the transmission, storage, retrieval, hosting, formatting, or translation (or any combination thereof) of a communication, without selection or alteration of the content of the communication, except that deletion of a particular communication or material made by another person in a manner consistent with section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230 (c)) shall not constitute such selection or alteration of the content of the communication;

But take a close look who needs to keep these records and who doesn’t:

If you are basically doing anything to create, manufacture or publish a book or film full of images that someone else took (and they supposedly have the records), the law applies to you (A)(ii).

But, if you’re in distribution - the regulation does not apply (B)(ii).

And then

(A)(ii) says the law applies if you are: digitizing an image, of a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct,

But then in (B)(i) we learn that it… does not include activities that are limited to—(i) photo or film processing, including digitization of previously existing visual depictions,

I think the reason they are saying that in 2a & 2b is that the law only applies to content created after a certain date - so if the content was pre-existing, and all you’re doing is digitizing it, it is sort of like processing film. I get it, but still, I had to think about it a while. I think the reason distributors got off easy is that distributors must have lobbyists.

What is Explicit?

Ok - so what is “sexually explicit conduct” as defined in (1)? Well - they were kind of enough to define that for us as well.

(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), “sexually explicit conduct” means actual or simulated—

(i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;

(ii) bestiality;

(iii) masturbation;

(iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or

(v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person;

So the way I read that - if our lovely naked cosplay models are just naked and not showing the goods in a lascivious manner - no 2257 paperwork is required. Lascivious. Giggles. However, if they are touching themselves or each other - we’re going to need paperwork.