Interview with MillyAuditore

It’s time for another interview, this time with MillyAuditore! She’s a talented cosplayer from Puerto Rico, who has quite the costume collection!

MillyAuditore out of costume

What’s your cosplay alias and why did you choose it?
My cosplay alias is MillyAuditore. Milly is my nickname given by my Dad and that’s how everyone in the conventions knows me; Auditore is the last name of one of my favorite characters, who is Ezio Auditore from the Assassin’s Creed series.

How many years have you been cosplaying and what got you started?
I started in cosplay 3 and a half years ago. In 2008, my friend Jamie and I found out that we have anime conventions in our country. We got a flyer of the activity and I notice a word that I never heard of, “cosplay”. I did some research and I liked the idea of “dressing up” as a character. So, I had like 2 months to do my costume and with the help of my family and two friends, I did it. I did Seras Victoria and since that costume, I fell in love with cosplay.

MillyAuditore as Seras from Hellsing, photo by Ricardo Oliveras

What has been some of your favorite things to work with when constructing costumes and why?
The armors. Since I started to do some Assassin’s Creed cosplay, I started to love doing armors. Craft foam is the essential material to make them. It allows me to use my imagination to its full potential and create the armor pieces that I thought that was impossible to do.

What are you excited to be working with in the future and why?
I have some projects that I’m looking forward to, like Seras Victoria’s Vladimir Halconnen Cannons, the rest of Ezio Auditore’s costumes, Link’s Magic Armor, Snow Villers’ costumes and motorcycle, among others. All of these projects represent a challenge and is a way to acquire more knowledge to my cosplay skills.

What are some of the traits you like to see in other costumes and who do you think does well in them?
I have had the opportunity to be a judge in cosplay competitions and what I look at in a cosplayer is the representation of their characters. The outfit is important but when a cosplayer doesn’t know how to represent his/her character, their outfit won’t stand out.

What is your view of the “cosplay scene”?
Here in Puerto Rico, most of the cosplayers enjoy their cosplays and do them because they like them. But, people criticize other people in a negative way instead of helping them on their costumes, also. It’s something very serious and very sad.

MillyAuditore as Sakura from Tsubasa, photo by Ricardo Oliveras

What are some of the things you want to see change in the scene?
Cosplayers can share their techniques and find a way to be close to other cosplayers. Cosplay is an activity to have fun and share things with other people, cosplayers and not cosplayers.

What is some advice you could give people starting to get into cosplay?
Cosplay is a way to get off the daily stress caused by work, studies, etc. and to enjoy bringing our favorite characters to life. There are always people who like to hurt others with their comments, but that is not a reason to stop cosplaying. Cosplay doesn’t mark how a character should be; it shows the perspective of a cosplayer toward a character. Be always proud of your costume and live it to the fullest.

What are some of your favorite conventions you’ve attended and why?
In Puerto Rico, we have many conventions around the island in different moments in the year. My favorite ones are Central Fan Fest and Ragnarok. Both of them make me feel in a familiar environment and the level of competition is not so marked like in other activities.

Give a random fact about one of your costumes that you’re proud of!
Make up transformations! XD For Ezio, it was a challenge! Since I have a baby face, I had to figure out a makeup to make me look very manly. When I did Ezio’s costume for the cosplay convention, my friends were confused because they couldn’t recognize me. The magic of my makeup went down when I started to talk. XD If I don’t talk I could trick a person into that I was a man. Same for my Yusuf Tazim cosplay.