Her cosplay and convention alias is Kenshin Kyo.

Kenshin comes from Rurouni Kenshin her favorite anime character, and Kyo comes from Samurai DeeperKyo, also an anime character she very much like. (Cosplay is a portmanteau of costume and play. Anime is Japanese animation.)

she entered the world of cosplay in 2005 when she learned of anime conventions. Her first convention was Tekkoshocon 2005 in Pittsburgh, where she dressed as Kenshin Himura, in his assassin form also known as Hitokiri Battōsai.

Then the years following her family would return and compete in the costume contests and bring home minor awards. Her son was singled out in 2006 for best child costume as the Dark Magician. Then 2008, she received a novice award in Craftsmanship for her son’s costume as Yami Yugi in Blue Eyes White Dragon Armor.

Then 2009 they took the stage alone dressed as ninjas from Naruto. Again, she made their costumes and they won awards for being the cutest ninjas. We haven’t competed for a few years, but we still attend a few conventions each year. she still makes all our costumes as well, and she has started accepting commissions to makecostumes for others.

Primarily, she is an artist/craftswoman. she creates many items from paintings tocostumes, so you could say her skills make me a “Jill of all trades”. she drawsmany things, and animals and fantasy figures seem easiest for me. she also hand fashion Native American craftslike dreamcatchers and seed beaded designs. she sews costumes from just studying images of characters then draft herown patterns by drawing how she think the pieces should fit together. she also doesbasic woodworking to make props like swords, and small figures.

Many of her skillsare self-taught. Others came from her mom showing me methods and techniques as shewas growing up and even now. Some of her great art teachers taught me skills aswell.

Beyond her highschool diploma, she holds two specialty diplomas: one in Web Design and theother in Computer Art. she also earnedan Associate degree in Digital Design and Multimedia Editing.

she lives inPennsylvania with her husband and three children on her parents’ farm, withmany pets and horses.