By Sherif Badr

With 50 interviews shot from Anime North 2013, this vid amped with tons of special effects has been a long time coming. We hope you enjoy!

click below to play!

DONT MISS: Goku's Kamehameha, FFVII Materia, Bioshock Lutece Twins opening tears in time,  Ahri Orb of deception (League of Legends), No Face gold, Zelda fairy, Samus Aran's metroid detecting suit, or Madoka Magika's magic. Domo, "The Maid", Harley Quinn, poison ivy, and LoL's Garen Crownguard are also fantastic.

There are 3 basic things I asked everyone in this video: who are you dressed as, how long did it take to make the costume, and "what does cosplay mean for you?".

I think the idea of adding special effects to cosplays started with the Goku I shot. Back then I had no idea where to even start but I knew I'd do it one day because I've always wanted to be able to make a Kamehameha effect! So I timidly asked the Goku I met if she'd act out a kamehameha for me, and saved it until now.

I know it's childish, but lets face it, making it happen is not (the technical part anyways). After Effects CS6 and Trapcode Particular was quintessential in getting started. Once you get over the intimidating interface and start throwing in numbers, it gets fun. A little bit of adjusting to gravity, the track and the actual particles produced (colour, opacity), as well as a legit voice over of "kamehameha" from the original Japanese Dragon Ball Z, and we're good.

Sound can make a world of difference. Here's the original voice with the first Kamehameha rendered:

But then I thought, why stop at Goku?

With a real fireball and Ahri's orb of deception, the other cosplays looked a little dull. Madoka Magika's Mami Tomoe could use magic, I thought, and Samus Aran could have a smart metroid detecting suit, right? RIGHT?

A cosplay that's near to my heart from Anime North was the Bioshock Infinite's Lutece Twins I happened to meet. I didn't even play Bioshock Infinite at the time of the interview, and I think I had to before I could see how well done cosplayer Rea's creations really were. I threw in a tear in time behind them for good measure.

#seemslegit, no?

if you watched Spirited Away there's a particular scene where No Face begins to tempt desires by creating gold and then eating the greedy people that give in. I don't know whether the cosplayer was legitimately stuck or not, but the way the costume moved reminded me of those scenes. The gold was done by taking one image of a gold nugget, removing the background and inputting it into particular. Once I realized that the particle type had to be a "textured polygon" for rotation to be enabled, we could make randomly sized spinning nuggets of gold fall out of No Face's mouth. A little gold dust also goes a long way for realism.

The music was generously provided by With Ether and Gee Soropia. The cosplayers worked very hard (some longer than others) to deliver the goods and the Culture Toronto team also gave ample input every step of the way.

We hope this made someone happy.