About
Online Alias: Pikmin Link or PikminLink (ピクミン リンク)
Name: Li (リー)
Birthday: November 7 (11月7日)
Height: 5′ 4″ (162.56 cm)
Eyes: Blueish/Greenish (青 / 緑)
Occupation: Costume Designer/Costume Model, Artist, Game Design student, 3D Modeler, Texture Artist. (衣装デザイナー/ 衣装モデル, アーチスト, ゲームデザインの学生, 3Dモデラー, テクスチャアーティスト)
Location: Bay Area, California (カリフォルニア州)
Favorite Color: Green. (緑)
Hobbies: Sewing, Cosplay, Video games, Photography, Drawing, Web design, Traveling, Camping, Exploring the outdoors, Making things, Manga, Anime, Modeling, Costume design.
Favorite Video Games: The Legend of Zelda series, Mario games, Animal Crossing, Assassins Creed, Gears of War 1 & 2, Metroid series, Fable Series, Star Fox 64, Tetris, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, Dead Space, Final Fantasy VII, Rockman, Phoenix Wright, Metal Gear Solid, Pokemon, Super Smash Bros series, and anything from Nintendo plus so much more! I love video games!
Favorite Anime: Record of Lodoss War, Code Geass, Saiyuki, Galaxy Express 999, Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, Sailor Moon.
Favorite Foods: Sushi, Rice, Almonds, Pizza, Salmon, Tuna, Chocolate, Canned peaches, Pineapples.
Favorite Drinks: Orange Fanta, Sprite, Chamomile Tea, Green Tea, Torani Strawberry. Anything with no ice.
About Li:
I’m from Hungary, Europe but now live in northern California. I love art and trying new techniques to expand my portfolio. I love building things and also taking things apart to see how they work. I mostly enjoy doing 3D modeling, texturing, lighting, photography, costume design, and digital painting. I love forests, redwood trees, mountains and the wild outdoors. I love Elves (can I be one?), faeries, mythical creatures, magic, medieval and fantasy related things.
I’m also a video game nerd. A huge Legend of Zelda fan and I collect pretty much everything I can from that series. My friends call my room a museum. I loved the series since it first came out when I was very little and made sure I would have “perfect files” when I played the games – having all of the items, completing all of the quests, etc. It’s become such a huge part of me that I want to show my love for the game by making my costumes from the games as accurate as possible and finding the perfect locations to take photos in. I’m also a huge gamer geek. I love playing video games and challenging myself. I always carry my Nintendo DS around. I also enjoy collecting game systems and Nintendo consoles. I also am collecting the Gameboy family history (GB, GBC, GBP, GBA, DS and so on, and their different styles) ever since the first original GAMEBOY came out. I still have my original packaging!
I’m usually a very quiet person and I don’t talk much but once I open up, I’m just a fun kid at heart who loves to have fun, laugh and enjoy life.
Li & PikminLink:
I started making costumes in 1998. I made a Link costume for Halloween but after that day I decided to make them all year round. I looked up more costumes on the internet and that’s when I found out about cosplay. I found websites where I was able to post my pictures. I then came up with the online alias – “PikminLink” in 2001. The name originated from the two Nintendo games ‘Pikmin’ and ‘Legend of Zelda’. Link being my favorite character, I wanted his name in mine. I also really loved Pikmin and still hope that one day I’ll walk into my backyard and see them walking around on the ground. Pikmin grew a special place in me. So I played around with the two and then came up with “PikminLink”. I use the name both as two words and as one, if it’s one word then I capitalize the letter L in Link. I’ve used the name ever since.
It wasn’t until 2003 that I went to my first costume event. I was contacted and hired by G4 TV to be the Link character model from The Legend of Zelda: “Ocarina of Time” for their costume fashion show during the G-phoria Video Games Award Show. For this being my first event, it was a lot of fun. After that I went to my first convention. Later on I started doing costume character modeling in 2006 for many gaming related events, and have been featured and interviewed in multiple gaming and cosplay magazines all around the world and also played two costume character parts in the TV show of Entourage. I model and perform as both Male and Female characters and pull them off very convincingly, when I get into a costume not only do I want to pull off the look of the character, but I want to create a convincing image of the character and when I perform in costume, I have to be the character. I have also been to acting school for two years aside from my normal schooling. During my whole cosplay career I have been invited to 3 different countries as a cosplay guest to host panels discussing costume making related subjects and to judge costumes during the contests.
I’m currently attending the Academy of Art University to earn my bachelors in 3D Game Design. Ever since I was very little I always had a passion for animation and voice acting but I’ve moved on to 3D modeling for games both low and high res and being a Texture Artist.
I am a huge Legend of Zelda fan, and I’ve grown up playing the games. Link is my favorite character and always related to him. I’ve known him since I was very little and we’ve both grown up strong together.
“As long as Nintendo keeps making Zelda games or keeps bringing Link back in any way, I will create that version as a cosplay.”
~Li
Personal Photos
Li out of cosplay. I’m just a geek who loves to have fun!
