Appearances: Cherry Blossom Festival Parade 2005, Anime Expo 2005, Ani-Magic 2005, Anime Los Angeles 2006, FanimeCon 2006 What I Love: The necklace's shine, the bright colors and floofy sleeves, the old-school KOF recognition, and just getting to wear this old dream costume of mine and knowing I did so much work on it myself~ What I Don't: Not much, actually. *^^* I want to make the necklace look better, and I still need more accurate shoes. @_@ But they're not a huge deal. Status: On Hiatus
Inspiration and Etc.: KOF '96 was the first game in the series I played, way back in early 1998 at an arcade in Reno. I had been introduced to anime the year before, and was into series like Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon and Magic Knight Rayearth at the time. Because of this, the magical school girl thing was something I really liked. Athena starting every fight in her uniform appealed to me, and her fun cuteness instantly made her my favorite. I can't tell you how many quarters I spent on that machine, but I was definitely hooked. KOF's bright character designs appealed to me way more than Street Fighter had when I first played it years before! Unfortunately, it was on a trip with my uncle that I had discovered the game and I didn't really remember the names of everything after I got home. If I had, my nickname would have probably been Athena instead of Michi. :P In 2000 I was re-introduced to The King of Fighters series and remembered how much I had enjoyed the game before. I wasn't so much of an Athena fan my second time into it, but that weekend those years ago was still something fond to me. ^^ I had plans to make this costume of hers since late 2003 when I ended up doing the '99 version, so I'm very glad to finally have it in my closet! :D
Construction / Costume Notes: Starting from the top~! The wig was bought from WowWigs.com (in 2003!) and is just a regular Kelly wig in dark purple. Someday I'd really like to get a wig that's a bit longer, but the color of this one is perfect and it fits fairly well anyway! I've had the headband since early 2003 as it was originally bought with a Yuri Sakazaki costume in mind. o_o The stars were cut out of foam by Daichan and originally spray-painted and then later painted gold. ^^; The necklace is made of plastic clear craft ornaments that I painted purple. The effect really matches Athena's real necklace nicely since the plastic reflects so well, so it makes me happy. ^_^! The only thing I'd want to fix is that I would really like them to be closer together like hers; right now they are all just tied together. As for the main outfit, the red is just a plain cotton fabric but I honestly forget what the pink was. It's very thin and almost transparent. I picked it because its shade worked well with the red and didn't clash. ^^ Athena's actual design has the pink shirt underneath a red jumper. That was my original intent with the costume too, but it was a lot easier to just sew on the pink parts to the main red outfit and make it look like it could be an undershirt. :X There are buttons on the bottoms of the sleeves that were just handsewn on. The bottom half of the red outfit is a skort like she wore that year, which was ... um, different to make. :P The gloves were made of the same fabric as the main uniform. My loose socks were actually given to me years ago as a birthday gift, and after dying them pink with RIT dye (that was an interesting experience) I've gotten a lot more wear out of them because of this costume. XD The red tops to the socks are just pieces of fabric from the main outfit attached on. The shoes were picked up from a thrift store and aren't accurate, but I was in a rush for the parade and haven't really got around to getting new ones. Soooo maybe some other time! ^_^;; The brooch on the belt was bought from Tap Plastics, painted by me, and was finally added for Ani-Magic. :D This is the first SEWN costume I have that was made nearly completely on my own. I'm very proud of it, and it's really just about time I got around to really sewing a costume together. :F Oh, and please note! In the CBF pics, I had forgotten my earrings. ^^; It's a minor detail, but I'm a perfectionist sometimes! I also didn't have the right earrings at ALA, but at least I had some stand-ins. XD
Photos: Cherry Blossom Festival 2005
Anime Expo 2005
Ani-Magic 2005
Anime Los Angeles 2006
FanimeCon 2006
First Created: April 2005 (rush job for CBF parade...) Last Tweaked: April 2006 (new earrings~) Created by: Michi Special Thanks: Daichan and Kagomechan for overseeing my sewing, and Yoshi for making the earrings carried over from the '99 version until I replaced them XD Photo Credits:Victoria, Agent Sakur9 Entertainment, Eurobeat King, Hofuzz, Ohmi, Asian School Boy, Lionel Lum, and Moogleborg
Character Background: One of the few SNK fighting characters to have NOT originated in a fighter, Athena is a pop idol character that has been around video games longer than most of her teammates. She has been SNK's female mascot for quite some time, with her cheery cuteness gaining many fans. Her first games were side-scrollers called Athena and Psycho Soldier (the latter of which co-starred Kensou, later seen in KOF), and she's been in every The King of Fighters game since '94. Nearly every year she shows up in a different costume. This costume was used in The King of Fighters '96, and Athena also wore it when she hosted Neo Geo's sticker photo booth NeoPrint. (I used to joke that if people didn't recognize me from KOF, I could tell them I was "the NeoPrint girl". XD)
