Rose City Comic Con 2025: Navi (Ocarina of Time)
**Best in Stage Presence**
I tried something that I haven’t done in a while with this cosplay: beauty. That sounds kinda silly when I say it out loud, but it’s true. Generally, I like the gritty, clever, morally ponderous, self-made characters. But when I picked Navi, I was ready for a change of pace. Additionally, I really wanted a project where I could make everything from scratch – starting with the designs. The color palette of this build is textbook Navi, but everything else comes from my own brain and vision.
Featured image by Mahau Photography
If you’re thirsty for all the details about how I made this cosplay, check out my competition book linked below. I’m a detailed record keeper, so this build book is full of WIP images, explanations, reference art, etc. This is probably my best build book to date, I did a lot of work to make it as pretty as the costume – and I created a pop-out for quick reference, also linked below.
I love the Zelda franchise. The OG nintendo game was the first video game I ever bought with my own money. Flash forward to my teen years and the release of the N64 – Ocarina of Time occupied my attention an entire summer break. I’ve cosplayed as Navi before: it was a fun, glitter-filled good time. So, for this go around, I aimed for something less “poofy” with higher craftsmanship aspirations.
Photo Credit: Aleksvuphotography
I aimed high on this build, from number of elements to the complexity of the special effects. I wanted (1) a lot of things, (2) each component to work reliably, and (3) it to look good. In the game Ocarina of Time, Navi is just a blue orb with wings who occasionally wails “Hey! Listen!” I kept as many of the on-paper details as I could, the blue ombre palette, the structure of the wings, etc. And for the rest, I had to imagine what this intrepid, adventuring, fairy creature might look like in Great Fairy form.
⋆✴︎˚Unpacking and organizing in the hotel beforehand˚✴︎⋆
I was accepted into the Rose City Comic Con cosplay contest; an achievement as exciting as it is scary. Stage presence has been my Achilles heel since I started competing in 2012. So, this time, backstage, while chatting with some other cosplayers, I decided that for my 30 second showcase I was going to pretend to be someone else. Not Navi…I actually don’t enjoy personifying characters (weird, right?); I wanted to be my great friend, AbbyCat Cosplay. Her stage presence is consistently phenomenal…like, stuff of legends it’s so good.
Photo Credit: Girl with the Blue Hair Photography
So I had fun with it. I interacted with the host, walked the stage, made some crazy faces…and then I won BEST STAGE PRESENCE. Here I am backstage, looking sweaty and unhinged.
⋆✴︎˚Backstage at the RCCC 2025 Cosplay Contest˚✴︎⋆
It took a year to build this cosplay. It was some of the most intense design, engineering, and iterative work I’ve ever done (really, you should read about it in my build book). It’s a big costume, so I don’t know how often it will hit the floor – but I really like the final product. By working through this cosplay, I’ve unlocked some skills that I plan on using A LOT in the future.
⋆✴︎˚Navi and Hans˚✴︎⋆
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. .⋆｡˚✴︎⋆
