Cosplayer of the Week: Schrei205

Ladies and gentlemen I hope you have had a fantastic week! I wanted to bring you one of my all time favorite cosplayers and friends by the name of Schrei205! Now, we interviewed her once before but I felt that it wasn’t good enough and that I should take the time to do another feature on this wonderful human being in order to showcase her hard work and dedication!

I originally met Schrei at a small convention here in Arizona during a photo shoot she had with Deegan Marie Photography. She came as a World of Warcraft Warrior in Tier 8 armor. While the outfit was insanely cool, she had to ask her boyfriend for help in getting her gear on. It was the sweetest sight in the world to see this badass warrior woman be unable to put on her own helmet. They giggled and made jokes at the situation before triple checking if she looked photo ready.

In between the set changes, the three of us chatted about our love for World of Warcraft. Little did I know that this one encounter would lead into one of my best friendships! Since that day we became great friends. We now play together in World of Warcraft with her as the raid leader of our guild <Emerald Templars> (which is recruiting!), and then she even went above and beyond to help out at conventions. She became so comfortable with me that she forced me to commit in my goal to attend Blizzcon 2017!

All the while she busts her ass to draft up various cosplay designs before jumping in, bringing these outlines to life and refusing to stop until they are at their best. I know this for a fact because she streams a majority of her build to the sounds of intense heavy German metal and then will randomly swap to light-hearted K-Pop. During her streams, she praises her fans and friends alike and when she is not streaming she actively supports other streamers in the cosplay community.

And here’s the interview we did with her at the start of 2016!

The Geek Lyfe: Although I am a fan of yours, there may be a few readers who have not seen your work before, would you be alright introducing yourself?

Schrei: Yup, of course! I’m Ana, or more commonly on the interwebz, Schrei. I’m 26, and I’ve lived around Phoenix all my life. I’ve been playing video games the whole time too! I’m a huge fan of World of Warcraft and League of Legends. I’m really into anime as well, with my favorites being Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist (both series!), Code Geass, and Psycho Pass.

TGL: I’ve followed you for sometime yet never learned the origin story! Could you tell us how you got into cosplay and what led you to where you are now?

S: Ever since I was little, my mom would always make me and my brother Halloween costumes. I think one of my earliest ones was Alice in Wonderland. She did such a great job! It was natural progression that when I wanted to create a costume of Sherwood Forest Ashe from League of Legends, I asked her to help me. The first iteration of Ashe was super rushed, super stressful, and not very good. I wore it to the League of Legends Season 2 finals, and the reaction I got despite it not being great was amazing. Everywhere I walked people recognized me, asked for pictures, and lots of “dat Ashe!” was yelled out. I was hooked. Since then, I’ve become more independent on making my costumes, but all of the sewing done for Ashe is still by my mom.

TGL: When you aren’t doing awesome cosplays, what do you do?

S: In my free time, I play lots of games! Mostly WoW and LoL, but I’ve been trying to branch off into other stuff too. A big part of my free time is also devoted to my stream,twitch.tv/schrei205, where I broadcast all my gaming as well as a lot of the cosplay work I do. I did many 8+ hour streams of work on my warrior t8 costume on there!

TGL: What geek medium (Video Games, Cosplay, books, movies etc.) would you say has impacted the most and why?

S: Video games have definitely impacted me the most. They were always there for me, regardless of how chaotic life was at the time. I spent tons of time on my N64 playing Ocarina of Time. I played a bunch of random stuff on the Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn that were given to me when I was really young. A lot of my time in World of Warcraft got me through some tough stuff. It’s just so wonderfully therapeutic to escape reality sometimes and be a pretty blood elf, or a pink haired kitty girl on a unicorn, or a badass Spartan.

TGL: What has been your favorite moment in your cosplay career?

S: It’s really hard to pick just one, but I have to say a big defining moment happened for me at Blizzcon 2013. I chose a project that was really ambitious for what was my first “real” costume ever, priest tier 13. I ended up having my mom overnight some sewn pieces to my hotel, and the first time I had everything on and assembled was noon on Friday of the convention. It was crazy. I was basically on my own, too! No handler! But, I got into the walk (non-competing) list for the contest. I was so nervous. That moment when I walked out on stage and heard real, genuine, thunderous applause and excitement for my costume that I struggled so hard with made it all so worth it. I love looking back at the recording of it and seeing the big grin on my face.

TGL: What was one major conflict you have faced or do face and how did you resolve it?

S: Something that every cosplayer will tell you they struggle with is time. For some reason, we just all procrastinate SO HARD. So much sleep lost scrambling to finish a costume! This time for Blizzcon, I put myself into cosplay crunch time mode way early, and I actually had time to test stuff out and be comfortable the night before the convention. I’m getting better!

TGL: A zombie apocalypse occurs and you are able to put on one cosplay and take the power of that character and make it your own. Which cosplay do you choose and why?

S: I definitely think that Nidalee would be the best choice here. She’s a ferocious jungle cat-woman, so all I’d have to do is escape away into the wild and I’d be perfectly fine!

TGL: Do you have any projects in the near future that we’d be excited to see?

S: I’m actually about to get started on my female Graves from League of Legends! I’ve been putting this one off for literally years. I’ve got tentative plans for Goth Annie, and Winry Rockbell from FMA as well. I’ll be doing something for next Blizzcon too, but not sure what it’ll be yet!

TGL: I see you’ve made some amazing League of legends cosplayers and World of Warcraft cosplays, what would you say is your all time favorite moment from either game is?

S: It’s so hard to pick one moment since I’ve played both games for so long, WoW since 2006 and LoL since 2009. The moment where I was probably the happiest was in WoW when I got my Invincible from heroic Lich King. We worked so hard on this boss, and I adored the model and story of Invincible so much that I just knew I had to have that mount. He’s my pony, and I love him very much. If I ever have a horse in real life, I’ll probably make an Invincible cosplay for it!

TGL: What advice do you have for any aspiring cosplayers out there?

S: Cosplay is hard, there’s no doubt about it. But don’t be discouraged! Keep going! Do your research, reach out for help, and you can do anything!

I can not even begin to stress to you just how wonderful of a person Schrei205 is! You absolutely should follow her and check out all of her content on Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, and Twitter! She is one of the shining examples of an incredible cosplayer and person. She works hard, she helps others, she constantly works to improve herself, she is kind hearted, and just fantastic in every way!

Jandice Barov by Tony Julius
Warrior by some photographer at Warcraft Movie Premiere