Florida Comic Con hosted the St. Petersburg Comic Convention at the Coliseum on Jan. 7 and 8. The convention featured many different events such as Anime Jeopardy, Lip Sync Battle, and a variety of photoshoots throughout the day. Anime and comic fans across the Tampa Bay area come to be with similar interests and have a good time with friends and family.

Many cosplayers attended to showcase their skills including 16-year-old Florida cosplayer @thestarcos, or Star, on Instagram and TikTok.

Her best friend dragged her into cosplay about a year ago initially not interested with the concept. Now they take passion for cosplaying obscure characters like Megamind, The Grinch and The Wendy’s mascot. At the event she went as Drag Ronald McDonald and Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony.

“My number one reason for cosplaying is being able to make people happy when they see my cosplays and see how excited they get,” Star said.

The anime convention not only brings about dressing up as your favorite characters and immersing yourself as them but meeting some of your favorite voice actors and comic artists. Guests like comic artist Christopher Jones and voice actor Chris Hackney made appearances both days to interact with eventgoers.

Jacob Hopkins, best known for the voice of Gumball Watterson in the Cartoon Network’s animated TV series The Amazing World of Gumball also made a guest appearance at the event. He has been in the business since the age of 4 years old. He had lots of training over the years, two months of voice training alone for Gumball. Hopkins holds Gumball dear to him as he describes it being “literally him” since both the character and him were both 11 years old.

At the end of the day, he has this to say for anyone inspired with any passion.

“Keep practicing the craft,” Hopkins said.