Street Fighter II: Chun Li

March 19, 2006

"Hey," Dave said.

"What?," I said.

"I've never done a shoot of you--just you."

"Holy crap," I said, "you're right."

And thus a new shoot was born. Dave and I being the experimentalists we are, this had to incorporate as many "new" factors as possible. We chose my least photographed costumes, Chun Li and Tomoyo from Card Captor Sakura. We built another "studio" in my basement again, although this time instead of lining up formica slabs on the floor and taping sheets to the heating pipes, we had Dave's brand new portable backdrop and umbrella lights, though it was his first time working with them.

Part two was Chun Li, my all time favorite video game girl. I mentioned this on the costume page, but I can remember wanting to dress as Chun Li as early as the 8th grade, but at that time, I don't even think the word "cosplay" had hit America yet, and I thought that getting her costume would entail bringing her picture to an old German seamstress in the neighborhood, who would probably charge me a thousand dollars and end up making something that looked more like a party dress than it did a warrior's costume, so I put it out of my mind. It's only by the grace of God and JenyBean that I have the beautiful costume I do now.

View the rest of David Ng's photos here.