Today we’d like to introduce you to Allyson Ardison.
Hi Allyson , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been a Cosplayer for 7 years now starting at the age of 12, alongside my older sister Michaela, what got us into the hobby was stumbling across an Undertale Cosplayer (one of our favorite games at the time) on a social media platform called “Musical.ly” sparking an idea of “we can do that tooo!,” so we started our cosplay journey with whatever we had in hand and boy did we have to get real creative! After a year of us having this hobby and our parents loving how cool it was, they go us our first real cosplay for Christmas and it was for one of our newest interests My Hero Academia, that started our shift from skeletons and video game characters to Anime and Anime related games. I embraced my love for the hobby everywhere I went which led to me being bullied throughout school but I wore there words with pride and would even bring my cosplays to school with me having worn them on Picture Day, Spirit Week, and even just normal school days. We eventually got into an Anime called Love Live! through its mobile beat game Love Live School Idol Festival where we found the concept of being a Cosplay Idol, dragging my best friend Cherri alongside with me we spent countless hours learning the dances to our favorite songs and performed like we were the seiyuus (the real life idols that performed as the characters) opening the world of cosplay to more than just making videos in my room with my sister. Also around this time is when I started going to Anime conventions my first one being Vision Con right after Covid-19 started to slow down and we were able to go into open spaces more freely, I performed my first live with my own cosplay idol group that I ran Kawaii Kandi Idols which has now since been disbanded in 2024, after that I joined an idol group called Sugar Starz in which I went on and did a few lives with them at cons ACEN and a duo project with my best friend at ASTL! As of right now I’m focusing on more solo projects and still going to cons with my most recent one being Anime Magic I try to spread the love for creativity through my journey and be kind to the people I meet who also have the same interests, the world of cosplay is such an amazing place and it’s a good workout for your brain as well!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are plenty of struggles with being a cosplayer, one of the biggest one is comparing and believing there is competition in the media, we tend to compare ourselves to the people we see on social media because of what they have wether it’s looks, likes, or even followers, which it’s not hard to and I still do it to this day but we must understand that this hobby is meant for fun and to share our creative minds with one another not as a competition to be the most popular. Another good struggle is the crafting that comes alongside it, it takes a lot of learning and skill to even just cut a wig and make props and accessories that hopefully won’t fall apart after a few uses
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a cosplayer I make characters I love come to life whether it’s as close to the characters as possible or just truly what resonates with the character and what suits them the best I am mainly known for my cosplays of characters from Love Live! and its franchises but I cosplay from various other medias as well! I’m really good at making accessories and wigs for my cosplays with them having a little bit of my own flare to them! One of the things i am most proud of is my makeup journey and one of the best examples of that is my Nico Yazawa cosplay from Love Live! I have been cosplaying her for well over 5 years now and the progress throughout the years of cosplaying her is very evident
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
One thing most people don’t know about me is that I absolutely adore cleaning when I’m not crafting for a cosplay or cosplaying myself I’m cleaning my house top to bottom to make sure I get every nook and cranny which is very helpful with my cosplay cuz that means everything stays organized. Oh how I love a nice clean and organized place <3
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/h3ll.nokitty
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@hell.nokitty
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hell.nokitty
