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  Other - Copslay : December 2001


Goldenquartz - The many facets of Tristen Citrine
Creator: Tristen Citrine
General Info: Cosplay website featuring various anime/video game costumes, con reports, costume commissions (closed), links, message board and spin-off cosplay site (not covered in this review).
Reviewed By: Mara K.

Comments:

Mara K.

Browsers used to view site:
Netscape 4.77 (Mac), Internet Explorer 5.0 (2022; Mac), Netscape 6.2 (Mac), Opera 5.0b (Mac)

The first time I ever saw this website was probably about a year ago. I was checking out cosplay websites as I am often wont to do when I get bored at work. I thought hey wow, Sailor Moon costumes, let's have a look. Really, I wasn't expecting to be so impressed. I wasn't expecting to sit at my desk oohing and aahing over every blessed cosplay picture that I found, making several return trips week after week to see what Tristen Citrine, a designer of costumes for Las Vegas showgirls and formerly of the cosplay squadron Sailor Jamboree, had created this week. The main course here is cosplay and conventions, and it doesn't stray. No drama, no nonsense.

Less is More
The design isn't oversaturated with the latest and greatest from Bratta.com, like a lot of cosplay sites I've seen, but instead of hurting this page, it helps. Tristen Citrine has strong enough content that stands on its own two feet without the use of gimmicks and filler. Viewing this site on all the browsers mentioned above yields the same results with no suprises. From a nerd angle alone, this is indeed a "gold mine" (lame pun intended). The simple golden accents against the stark white background are as easy on your eyes as they will be on even the slowest old Pentium boxes. Plain and simple third-gen HTML makes this site stand out over just about every cosplay website I've seen to date because no, you don't have to overdesign your site for it to be good, and I pray that she doesn't ever feel the need to do otherwise.

Clarity of purpose
The convention reports are well-written, clearly delineated, and make me wish that I'd been there. Whoever takes her photographs obviously knows what they're doing; you won't find any of the open-mouthed suprise shots here. Something as simple as a few good photographs also help this page retain its high-quality look and feel; she doesn't put stuff up for the sake of putting it up. While there aren't many of them, I do have a couple of complaints on the site, which I'll go through one at a time.

Less pictures needed
I like the format a lot, and I'm glad that she actually goes and gives some details on the construction process of each individual costume... that's really cool. I'd like to see a couple of things, if possible: I'd like to see the costumes on the dress forms to illustrate costume details, and I'd say that she really only needs to have maybe four or five pictures of each costume per page from various angles and settings. I did notice that a couple pages had more than five pictures of a costume (Cutey Honey and Leona pages, I'm looking in your direction!) per page. Anything more than 5 or 6 is a tad excessive; I'd either get rid of them or put them in a "For more pictures, click here" page.

Pictures say a thousand words when only one is needed
The text buttons that she created for navigating the site... those aren't really necessary, especially on the main page and on the cosplay page. All they do is take up space; she should take those out and simply leave the text links. Thanks to the power of the mighty tag, she could either kill the text links on the "Events" and "Conventions" pages and leave the image buttons, or she could do it the other way around.

Rating: Four out of five tacos

Why?
Minus my two big problems with this site, I love it. I really do! Like I said, you've got absolutely stunning pages on a good, clean, simple page. The author comes off as taking her hobby very seriously, but doesn't take herself too seriously at all... which is exactly how it ought to be.



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