Shana (Legend of Dragoon) – Cosplay of the Week

We're paying tribute to a classic video game character in the Cosplay of the Week. Brush up on your role-playing game history and check out Legend of Dragoon's Shana. How she fits those wings through doorways, we just don't know.

Shana is the childhood friend of Legend of Dragoon's main character, Dart Feld. She's the adopted daughter of the mayor of a town called Celes. At one point in the game, she becomes the Dragoon of the White-Silver Dragon and joins up with Dart and the crew. As you could probably tell from her color scheme and disposition, Shana's all about restorative powers and works to heal her allies during combat.

Cosplaying Shana is Tali, a cosplayer from Canada. Tali describes herself as a lifelong gamer and chose to cosplay Shana because Legend of Dragoon reminds her of her childhood. She actually acquired the outfit from Momocosplay, even traveling outside of Canada and into the US to pick up the costume. Tali bought the outfit without having ever seen pictures of it, so she didn't know what kind of condition it would be in once she got it. According to Tali, it was in pretty bad shape. She said, "When I saw it I didn't want to take it home. It had a lot of work to be done with it."

So for the next couple of months, Tali spent a lot of time and money repainting, gluing, recreating parts out of Worbla and generally reconstructing the seemingly battle-damaged costume. All of the hard work and dedication paid off, since Tali won the Fan Favorite award at the Canadian anime convention, Anime Revolution. But for Tali, it wasn't about the award or praise that made the experience worth it.

"I love having fun and showing love for who you WANT to be. I never entered a cosplay contest and even if I didn't win the fan/audience favorite award i wouldn't care... as long as I showed Shana and had one of my dreams come true," said Tali. "I was so happy that I had what it took to be Shana. I love her! I love my childhood and I'm grateful that momocosplay gave me a chance to work on my skills and recreate a masterpiece."

You can follow Tali on deviantART, where you can see all of her outfits and awesome video game tattoos. All photos were shot by Edge Photographer and Undiscovered Photography. You can check out Edge Photographer on Facebook and their own personal website. Undiscovered Photography can be reached on Facebook as well. Take a look at their work and show them some love!

Addy Davies