Not Interested Entertainment

Sorry every­one that this one is so late, but here is our Hot Cos­player of the Month for Feb­ru­ary 2010, Shiya.

1. What is your name, and where do you hail from?
My real name is Shantel, but I go by Shiya a lot more! From South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (Fontana) mid­dle of no where.

2. Tell us a lit­tle about your­self. Do you have any inter­est­ing hob­bies out­side of cos­play?
Out­side of cos­play? I really love pho­tog­ra­phy, mod­el­ing, and draw­ing, but I’m not really good at any of those! haha. I do love spend­ing time with my boyfriend and clos­est friends. When I’m not at school or sewing,  I feel so relaxed around them.

3. How long have you been cos­play­ing?
Since early 2005, but with so lit­tle inex­pe­ri­ence and a lot of frustration.

4. What ini­tially drew you to cos­play?
My best friend men­tioned it when I was going to plan a trip to visit her in Penn­syl­va­nia. She also asked me to make a cos­tume, so I had a lady make one for me. This was for Otakon 2004, and I had no idea what con­ven­tions were like or any­thing, but I didn’t really start sewing on my own until 05.

5. What was the first char­ac­ter that you cos­played?
Gun­ner Yuna from Final Fan­tasy X-2. That cos­tume no longer exists.

6. What is your favorite thing about cos­play?
I love how much of a reward it feels to have worked so hard on some­thing and get praise for it. I also use con­ven­tions to hang out with all of my friends (most of them I don’t get to see through­out the year).

7. What is your least favorite thing?
Drama. I don’t like to hear it. It makes peo­ple have mis­er­able times.;

8. What was your most enjoy­able cos­play expe­ri­ence?
It’s so hard to say. I’ve enjoyed so many, but he best con­ven­tions I went to hap­pened to be with my best friend. She really is awesome!

9. And your least?
Lat­est would be Kat­su­con 2009. I had such a mis­er­able time, and I tried not to think about it while I was there.

10. What is the last event at which you cos­played, and what did you cos­play?
Anime LA, I cos­played as Princess Kairi from King­dom Hearts 2. It was an orig­i­nal design, and the only cos­tume I really had time to make for this con­ven­tion. I orig­i­nally planned 3 total, but hol­i­days were slow­ing me down.

11. What is the next event at which you plan to cos­play?
I think So. Cal Spring Gath­er­ing and Fanime

12 What do you have in the works for upcom­ing con­ven­tions or events?
I’m try­ing to fig­ure it out. School kind of makes things hard for me! For sure, I have TouHou Flan­dre Scar­lett, Mega­man Zero– Ciel, Misao from Pretty Sammy, and one more Card­Cap­tor Sakura out­fit. Every­thing else will come when­ever I have more time.

Thank you so much for talk­ing to us!

Here are two last part­ing shots for every­one to look at in awe of Shiya’s incred­i­ble abilities.