Interview: Its Raining Neon aka DeAnna Davis

This week, I had this great opportunity to chat with Its Raining Neon aka DeAnna Davis, a master of martial arts & crafts, designer, creator and artist. She’s well known for her wonderful cosplaying, her passion for designing props, and mostly importantly her original costume designs. It’s amazing how she is experienced in various fields as a costumer, makeup artist, model, stylist, animator, illustrator, photographer, and prop. Besides cosplaying, DeAnna is most passionate about video games and comics. Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy to any story based or puzzle game can bring smile on her face. Even with her busy schedule, she managed to take some time and join us for an interview. Let’s not wait any more and see what she had to say.

Ron: It’s amazing that you’ve been cosplaying since 2008 and produced over 100 costumes. How did you get into cosplay?

DeAnna: I kinda tripped and fell into the hobby. I've been playing dress up ever since I was a little girl and even as characters from shows and games as I became a little older, one of the seven dwarves once, beard n all. When I was somewhere around 12 I had picked up drawing and designing characters for the games I loved playing and I wanted to try and make the outfits I was seeing in my favorite games. When I was about 13 my Cousins told me that was called cosplay. Few years later I tackled my first full cosplay and attended my first convention. Been married to the hobby ever since.

Ron: You’ve received countless awards for cosplaying such as Best Group Cosplay 2010 in MAGFest's, EZ Cosplay's 2013 Costume Contest, College Humor's 2012 Costume Contest etc. What is the secret behind your success? Where there any hurdles that you initially came across when first starting out? 

DeAnna: I just play dress up and love doing it, only real hurdle was learning how to draft a proper pattern the math side of sewing is less than fun.

Ron: Who is your favorite character to dress up as? How do you decide what character to cosplay as? Is your choice of cosplay made purely on your personal preference, or do your fans influence your decision?

DeAnna: Currently my gender bent female Salvador is still my favorite since it is comfortable and fun to wear.

I pick from my favorite games and what I'm playing, reading, or watching at the time. And, I fund my craft 100% by myself so I pick from the games, animes, mangas, comics and shows that I LOVE and inspire me. I don't have all the money to cosplay everything I would like to so I have to really pick and choose carefully. This said I don't take cosplay requests, or demands unless I am hired to do so by a company.

Ron: You attend many conventions and events, which has the best Cosplay? Are there any cosplayers that have stuck out to you at these events? What made them so unique? 

DeAnna: I wouldn't say there is one event that holds the “best cosplay”, that's what's great about costuming, great cosplay can happen anywhere. I always love spotting self-made cosplay, no matter what the crafter's level is, new or super advanced, and seeing someone put that effort in to portray a character they love is still amazing to me.

Ron: As a female cosplayer do you run into sexism? What's the worst you've had to deal with? How do you handle this?

DeAnna: I have been pretty fortunate to not run into it too often. I just keep a cool head when dealing with it.

Ron:Do you think developers/publishers will start to use official cosplayers more often to promote video games? What do you think the potential benefits of these promotions would be?

DeAnna: Absolutely and many big companies like, Capcom, Blizzard, and Gearbox already have. It creates a better bond between businesses and consumer seeing these franchises reaches out to their fans in such a way and helps the business raise sales.

Ron: What made you a fan of video games? What is your favorite game and moment in a game?

DeAnna: I've been gaming since I was 5, on my mom's Atari wreaking some havoc on some Dig Dug and Pac Man. My whole family games, and I played everything from Sega, Nintendo and old school PC Doom to Bucky O'Hare so it was engrained in me very young. I'd always loves the stories, puzzles, and challenge of games, it was just kinda a bonus when graphics became amazing years later with Nintendo 64 and the ps1.

Favorite game is possibly the hardest question, Metal Gear Solid is the favorite continuing series , Borderlands is the favorite Fps , Probably Final Fantasy x-2, most people hear that and go “UGH WHYYY “ hahah and I understand since I played a lot of the older FF's before I found “x-2”. But because of how different it was it set itself apart for me, in design, game play style, engaging characters, the best FF fighting system, fresh character/ costume designs, and the smoothness of the upgrade system compared to the nightmare of the sphere grid system in “x” made it not only an amazing game but very inspiring to a young designer and illustrator on the rise.

Ron: If you could live in any game universe, which would it be, and why?

DeAnna: Man there are a lot of games I'd love to live in, but most of them are in some sort of mortal peril for the main character to be there in the first place. So I'll go with my childhood dream here and say Pokémon, all the adventure, Pokémon, traveling, and not a whole ton of end of the world on a semi frequent basis.

Ron: What game are you looking forward to play the most?

DeAnna: I can't freeking wait for the new Borderlands Pre-Sequel and Destiny, which looks like halo, borderlands, and mass effect's love child.

Ron: Do you have any interesting upcoming plans, and what can fans expect to see from you in the near future?

DeAnna: More Borderlands and more armor cosplays on the horizon but I'm finally finishing up my first Metal Gear costumes for the near future.

Ron: How has your quest for the ultimate cup of coffee been so far? What happens when you finally taste it?

DeAnna: Disappointing, the quest continues! Honestly I’m not sure, maybe I explode and launch back to space to whatever planet I came from?

Ron: You have some fans here at NoobFeed. Anything you would like to say to them? How about a photo for your fans here?

DeAnna: Thanks for fallowing and supporting my art ya'll <3 ;u;

^{All Photo credit: DeAnna's Facebook Page}

BIG thanks to DeAnna for taking the time to talk with us! We look forward to hearing about your upcoming projects and wish you continued success! Keep up with DeAnna Davis on her website, and give her a like on Facebook.

Sarwar Ron, NoobFeed
Twitter | +SarwarRon