This was actually the first costume I decided I wanted, and the first my mother and I started working on. At the time, my father was playing Final Fantasy VII, and his favorite character was Aeris. Even though I had not played the game myself, it seemed an obvious character to choose. My sister's first costume was Tifa.

Before I started cosplaying, I'd never touched any sort of makeup or hair-styling products. This costume gave me my first experience in trying to style hair, and boy was it an experience. The pictures I have of this costume are pretty terrible, too. I've always wanted to redo the costume, just to see how much I've changed since I first started cosplaying. But instead of redoing it, I just re-wore it in 2007. Good enough!

The costume was made by myself and my mother.