CosFriday – Cora Ven

CosFriday is here again Cosplay fans! This week we speak to Cora Ven, a Sydney-sider and cosplay community star!

What’s your name & how old are you? Cora Ven, 24 (But let’s face it, I act like a 5 year old). My name came from my two online gaming handles, I use the name Cora when I play as a female character and I use Ven on male characters! Eventually they just merged together.

How long have you been cosplaying? Too long. I started in 2006 and have been making costumes for about 5 years of that.  

What inspired you to start cosplaying? Do you want the truth? I fell in love with many male anime characters and decided that was the best way to express my love, and the badassery they stood for in most cases. I also wasn’t confident enough to dress as some of the female characters in the shows I liked so this seemed like a good alternative.

After some time I did eventually start dressing as female characters – That started with Asuna in 2014!

What was your First Cosplay? Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist. My first love <3 Also the first thing I ever sewed! I was really proud of it (I still have it somewhere…)

What is your most recent cosplay? I recently created a Milotic Gijinka from Pokémon. I had this idea in my head for 2 years – the best part about it is the scales on the dress change between the shiny and non-shiny version of the Pokémon (Blue and Gold)!

What cosplays are you currently working on? Quite a bit! I’m currently working on finishing Azura from Fire Emblem Fates and Crowe from FFXV: Kingsglaive

Who are your favourite cosplayers in the community? This is a cruel and unusual question – I can’t choose!!!!!!

Henchwench is an amazingly positive ball of Mei who has helped me through some of my biggest challenges in my more recent costumes, she’s one of the many people I sent multiple pictures of my costumes to and she yells positivity back at me.

Also Kirilee Cosplay and Artemis Costuming who also yell encouraging words at me when I’m making a costume and relate to my embellishment needs on an emotional level.

JusZ is my one true love when we are at events together and we make a stellar team in the world of cosplay. Not sure what I would do without her. 

(This is seriously a mean question, I have so many people I love!!)

Who else do you want to cosplay? EVERYTHING. I want to dress as Link in his Greudo getup from Breath of the Wild (Who doesn’t like a trap cosplay?), So much of the Hannah Alexander designs and really tempted to make another Gijinka!

Tell us an odd fact about yourself! I was a professional musician and a break-dancer at one point in time. I toured around singing, sharing hotel rooms – the whole deal.

If you want to see more of Cora’s excellent work, follow her Facebook and Instagram. AND if you want to be featured in a future cosplay spotlight, hit follow and slide into our DMs