Showing posts with label Original Character. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Original Character. Show all posts

October 31, 2023

Matsucon 2023 – Gamer panic and gamer bliss

Hello geeks, spooks and cheeky pumpkins!
 
I was at Matsucon this past weekend and I'm here to tell you all about my latest con trip, woo! For those not in the know Matsucon is an annual anime convention in Oulu, northern Finland, and this year's edition was held on 28-29th October – which makes it coincide with Halloween. This mashup was visible in the decorations like a Gengar plush at the info desk, pumpkins on promotional material etc and added an extra layer of fun and festive atmosphere. After all, most people with a geeky bone in their body also tend to enjoy Halloween because of reasons (dressing up, dark/creepy aesthetics, supernatural stuff etc) so there's a lot of overlap and yeah, I personally find it a good call that Matsucon incorporated Halloween elements into their set this year.

But enough ramblings so let's go~

Matsucon information booklet.

I left for Oulu on Friday afternoon and my travel companion for the con was Firith. We had booked a Sokos hotel room for the weekend and that meant I didn't hijack my aunt's apartment this time lol. The hotel room was tar themed and quite nice and we spent Friday night just destressing and preparing for the con. Oh, and eating the dinner buffet at Itsudemo aka stuffing our faces way too full with sushi and honey cake.

Our tar themed hotel room. Me like.

I had applied for a con volunteer position prior which meant I was part of the work force and I just so happened to have the first morning shift so yeah, I had to be at the con 9:30 in the morning. My original plan was to cosplay on Saturday and go casual on Sunday. Yeah I know, I didn't do a cosplay plans post before the con and that's simply because I didn't decide until last minute on what to wear. ^^" Oh well, when Saturday morning came I felt quite uncomfortable with the idea of cosplaying because of practical, physical and mental reasons and so I ended up going casual.

Thanks to my phone's GPS flipping its shit around (and messing up my efforts to use Google Maps for navigation) I ended up taking detours through Oulu's centrum while I tried to waddle my way to Pohjankartano where Matsucon was held.
I found my way inside the building, claimed my worker's badge and scurried up the stairs for the work briefing before my shift would start at 10. I had applied to work at the gaming room, which meant my shifts consisted of a lot of nostalgy-fueled sounds Tetris music rentfree in your head anyone? and assisting willing gamers in any way needed – sometimes it was just inviting curious onlookers to come play, sometimes explaining how a game works or assisting in how to play 8-bit Super Mario and other times just being there for company or playing versus games with a lone gamer. It was a very nice, feel-good job and not too stressful.
 
The gaming room, my workplace.

My first shift ended at 12 and after that I was free to roam the con for four hours before my second shift for the day would start. Somewhere around this point I contacted Firith to ask if he was already at the con because there had just been an announcement that the Saturday tickets were sold out at the door. This surprised me because of how early it happened but yeah, thankfully Firith reminded me that he had pre-ordered his tickets already a long time ago so there was no panic.
 
My original plan was that I wanted to attend the Studio Ghibli concert that started at 12 but when I found the room that it was held in a few minutes past it was already locked. That was quite the bummer as I remember other cons where you could still enter if you were a bit late. Oh well, no can do.
I went back to buzz around the main area and quickly checked through the sellers and did a first run at the Artist's Alley by myself. I did run into Sallukka and their boyfriend Dongrieg and we swapped some words and after that I soon found Firith as well. Both friends were about to participate in the cosplay competition and were waiting for their turn with the judges so I left them to vibe together while I hurried over to the Green Room. I had gamer responsibilities to do.

Near entrance view of Matsucon. Dealer's Hall area.

Dealer's Hall.

More Dealer's Hall. There was this seller with only Genshin merch!

MION's booth, the Guest of Honor. There was always a line to meet her.

Dealer's Hall view from upstairs.

Before Matsucon I ran into a huge issue. A huge dilemma for a gamer. You see, I've been playing World of Warships: Legends almost since it launched (I'd call myself a better than average player, I currently hold the world record for highest damage game in premium battleship Nassau #flex) and these past 4 weeks there had been a daily event with simple tasks that you need to do and if you completed every day without missing any you'd get an exclusive new commander and of course I had put a fair share of effort into completing these tasks... until I realized that the final two days of the event fell on the Matsucon weekend and if I missed these two then I'd miss out on the main reward and would basically have wasted 4 weeks of effort. *insert panik meme here*
I tried to think of all kinds of solutions before the con but everything fell through last minute (and I can't exactly drive 100 km home every day to go do my dailies and then drive all the way back to Oulu, especially when I don't even have a driving license) and I was desperate. So desperate I asked in the discord if I could somehow borrow a monitor at Matsucon if I brought my own PS4 with me to do the dailies during my off-time. It looked bleak at first but then I was recommended to ask Marko privately if he could bring a small screen to the Green Room. And it turns out that besides being the main technician he is also the Guardian Angel of All Gamers in Distress™ and said it was no problem to bring a monitor as he lived close. Bless his heart!

A gamer's gotta do what a gamer's gotta do.

Once I got done with my dailies I packed away my console and left it at the Narikka (cloakroom) for storage for the rest of the day. I gotta say I really enjoy being a worker nowadays because it also gives you access to the Green Room where you can go whenever to have a quick bite, drink tea or coffee and such and it just helps to make sure I don't get nauseous during cons because yeah, I have a bad habit of forgetting to drink and eat sufficiently. >_< Besides, to me it's fulfilling to volunteer because it's meaningful and so important –  if no one was willing to donate their time to make the con run smoothly then we'd soon have no cons because usually the organizations behind them are non-profit and are reliant on the goodwill of people to function and well, I find it very important that these kinds of events are held because a lot of those who have an interest in this kind of pop culture also often deal with difficulties to fit in elsewhere and might be vulnerable – cons might be their only safe spaces and where they feel they belong as their geeky, most authentic and colorful selves. This is based on my observations and experiences over the years and, although I'm not here to generalize, it does seem to me that groups that are minorities in society are the majorities in these pop culture spaces; cons seem to attract certain types of people who often share life experiences.

Okay, enough deep thinking there. Back on track!
My second work shift started at 16 and that of course meant that I couldn't go watch my friends at the cosplay competition. I did make sure to check on Firith multiple times during the day to make sure that he was okay as I knew he has been in a rough patch lately. I did hear later that Sallukka had won some honorary mention award at the competition for best accessory (I think?) so congrats to that!
My shift ended at 18 and that's roughly when the con closed and the party moved over to the night club (tickets were sold separately). I didn't have the mental energy nor interest for the afterparty so once my workday was over I met up with Firith and we called a taxi back to the hotel. Once at the hotel Firith peeled himself out of his cosplay and then we just relaxed for a bit before we met up with Sallukka and Dongrieg for a cup of coffee at the nearby Coffee House.

Lemon meringue cake, yum.

I had a pumpkin spice latte (yeah I'm slowly starting to enjoy some sweet coffees but the ordinary stuff is still yuck as fuck lmao) and a yummy cake with lemon curd! We just hung around for a while and talked about the day and such, just the whole chilling with the bros vibe ya know? After the coffee we wanted something more spicy and so went to a nearby karaoke bar and had a few drinks. Something funny happened at the bar too! So we had a table near a more quiet corner and were just having fun chats when suddenly this middle-aged lady appears out of thin air on my right side. I'm quite shook by the time I register that she's way into my personal space and she's like bending down slightly and tilting her head in this very observing-but-drunk-granny way (it's almost comical I tell you) and then she suddenly says "I have no idea who you all are, I've never seen any of you here before but I love all of you" and then she just up and leaves and we're all just sitting there like "????". XD

After the bar episode Sallukka and Dongrieg left for their hotel while me and Firith raided the Hesburger around the corner. Or more like Firith activated his unquenchable thirst for nuggets and I just tagged along. Then again, he had not eaten anything warm since the hotel breakfast so I can't blame him. xD

Back at the hotel we played on our Nintendo Switches and leisurely watched a movie on TV; it was a Finnish movie about a blind man and it was quite unsettling at times but the way they implemented the reality of blindness throughout the whole movie was genial. It's called The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic in English, do look it up if you're intrigued.

Sunday morning came and I slept rather poorly. I was quite anxious on the morning and debated whether I wanted to cosplay at all but I managed to get my shit together and cosplayed anyway. My outfit for the day is actually one of my very first cosplays but just reimagined – it's my original character Yuuto. I kept the main colors of his outfit the same (white kimono and indigo hakama) but compared to the first version I added more pieces to his outfit and changed the wig from a white bob to this silver-blue gradient wig in a similar cut. I did look for the original wig but could not find it anywhere, I think I might have sold it years ago. Anyway, this was a comfortable and simple cosplay to wear and, although I want to tweak it a little before I wear it again, I'm quite happy with the overall look. During the con I didn't wear the correct shoes though because yeah, it had snowed and I did not want to wear geta clogs in the snow.

My Sunday cosplay, OC Yuuto.
(photo by Firith)

On Sunday I also had the early morning shift at 10 but this time me and Firith could leave for the con together as he would not have to wait in the cold for 30 minutes before the doors open in a sleeveless dress that isn't even full length, like the case would have been on Saturday if we left at the same time.

I headed straight for the video games room again while Firith went his own ways. It was quite nice that some visitors from the day before came over on Sunday to play some more. But overall I can say that Sunday was a much more quiet day in the room and our assortment of Nintendo consoles also decreased by one around midday as the NES left the building, leaving the gaming room with a Switch, SNES and Wii. So yeah, there was 100% Nintendo dominance this year. And for those curious the games that were played the most were the Wii and Switch versions of the Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart series along with Tetris on the retro consoles.

At 12 my first shift ended and I had a spontaneous idea to go check out the "Kiss, Marry, Abyss" Genshin Impact program. I watched for a while while the panelist explained the rules but there were quite a lot of people and the whole setup looked rather overwhelming and so I lost interest and left. It seemed like the rules was that the room were split in three halves, one for each option (kiss, marry and kill) and you had to go stand in the right spot according to what you would do to the multiple characters shown on the screen. I was expecting it to be done by like a phone app or something and you would just click on options and then have the results shown on screen what everyone voted. Moving around the room might have worked, I don't really know cuz I didn't stay to watch how it actually unfolded but to me it looked like it would quickly become chaotic cuz there was a ton of chairs and other furniture everywhere (the room was a lecture/auditorium style room). The game's idea seemed fun though!

Artist's Alley view.

This little tip jar amused me too much!

I now did a more proper Artist's Alley run and I was so excited to find that someone actually had somehow had time to do Neuvillette merch! He's my new favorite character in Genshin and I wasn't expecting to find anything featuring him and I just afjdsfdfs when I saw the charm. ;_; I'm posting a con loot photo at the end of this post~
Artist's Alley was located on the second floor and split into two halves, one on the left side of the building and the other on the right side. I felt like it worked decently well but there was quite a lot of crowding on Saturday, hence why I did most of my shopping on Sunday as it was easier to move around and browse the tables. I also gotta say that I liked the variety in sellers – there were both familiar and new faces to me. I wish I could have bought more and supported more artists but I don't have a lot of spending money right now as I'm still unemployed.

Of course I did my dailies in the Green Room again once my shift ended (and I got the final mission reward, yay!) and at some point me and Firith went outside quickly to take some photos of my cosplay. I mainly just wanted a proof picture for now but I will do a proper photoshoot later. :)

During my second shift I was witness to the tragic human tale of a man who bought too many mystery lootbags. I bet this was the best laughs of the whole con lmao. So there was this group of guys in the gaming room (I think they were friends of the other guy who was working at the same time as me, not sure) sitting around the table in the middle of the room and at first I didn't really pay attention to their conversation until I sat on the same table and they were talking about something that apparently caused hilarious regret. And I was curious and asked what they're talking about and apparently I had now pressed the cursed button because one of them said something like "now you have to do it because you asked about it" and I was like "oh no what have I gotten myself into" and this guy then pulls out this tiny rotating fish game for kids where you have to fish up the fishies with a magnetic rod while they open and close their mouths and I just had no way to back out. I had to accept the challenge like a man. And so I fished up like half the fishes and some I got real fast, which earned me some impressed 'oohs' and 'aahs' and then I had integrated myself into the group. They then kept talking about the lootbags and how shit they were and the conversation got wilder and wilder (somehow Rovaniemi's tax money was relevant to this, I guess bro's unemployed too and that's what the sponsor joke referred to xD) and it was absolutely hilariously unhinged crylaughter-fueled regret and the guy who was the one cheated out of his $$$ was laughing like a human siren with his face turning bright red – you ever have that thing where you feel sorry for the poor soul but you just fucking can't stop laughing because he's laughing too? That was how I felt, basically schadenfreude with consent. x) At least he could see the humor and laugh at the whole situation (although it was on his expense) because yeah, not everyone is a champ like that and someone else might just have broken down in a corner because of the huge waste of precious money.

After my second and final work shift ended at 16 (it started at 14, I worked 4h/day so 8h in total) I went to find Firith again and we did a final Artist's Alley round together before we were satisfied with our con experience and then we headed back to the hotel to rest our legs and wind down. Our budgets were almost used up so once we got back to our hotel room we had to brainstorm a bit on the topic of dinner. I happened to check Burger King's website and there was a really affordable campaign and what's even better is that the restaurant was located almost just around the corner from our hotel!

Läskeillään koska soli halp. :)))

And that about wraps up my summary of Matsucon. After the burgers we just returned to our room for the night and on Monday we parted ways and our Oulu trip was officially over; Firith went back to the south and I continued back up north.
Overall I had a great time at Matsucon and would definitely visit it again. I've been to Matsucon twice before (2017 and 2019) and I've always felt that it's quite well organized and an inviting anime con to attend for anyone even moderately interested in what it has to offer. I would say it's worth your time if you live in the north and why not if you live further away as well because yeah, Pohjankartano is a solid building for this type of events and Oulu is a lovely city well worth a visit!

Here's a photo of my con haul:

Square magnets by SaQe-Art, dragon charm by Sysirauta, Beidou
by si3art. I don't know who Neuvillette was from sorry. ;-;


Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!
~ Shiro Samurai

April 17, 2022

Lens review: I-Codi Funcle F207

 Hello ninjas and geeks~

It's time for another Sharingan contact lens review and yes, this one is also from the Funcle series! Today I will share with you a review of the I-Codi Funcle F207 and without further ramenblings let's get started!
 


Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.2 mm
Water content: 55%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)


 
This lens design is very clearly styled to look like Sharingan (lit. Copy Wheel Eye) from the popular Naruto anime series. I can't guarantee these being 100% accurate or canon as there's a lot of different evolved and advanced forms of Sharingan eyes throughout the Naruto manga and each character tends to have their own Sharingan designs too. Oh and yeah, for those unfamiliar with the Naruto series Sharingan is one of the Three Great Eye Techniques (the other two being Byakugan and Rinnegan) and it's a special type of doujutsu (pupil technique) that is most famous for being what makes the Uchiha clan renowned. The Sharingan's main ability is to copy any ninja technique that it sees the opponent using. It's pretty cool if you ask me!

One lens in.
 
This is a very eye-catching lens when worn, it's impossible not to notice! It's a bold print, similar in design to how a Mangekyou Sharingan might appear in Naruto it has the signature red and black color and pinwheel design that is typical for the look. 
There is a medium thick black rim around the edges of the lens which brings added intensity to the design. The color coverage is very opaque, my real gray-blue eye color doesn't show through the red at all! Of course it shows a little bit at the pupil hole in the middle but it's honestly not distracting at all as the opening is smaller than on your average circle lenses anyway.
Oh and yeah, these lenses have this curious little thing that despite being animation lenses they appear to almost 'glow' in certain bright lights, when not worn, due to the red color letting a tiny tiny bit of sunlight or such pass through it! It's really hard to describe but as someone who has worn a lot of super opaque crazy lenses over the years I just noticed it. It's like there's this ever-so-slight transparency that shows up in specific light conditions and yes, it's one of those things that you see with your naked eye but it's almost impossible to catch on camera lol.

One thing that I should also mention is that these lenses do spin a little (as most lenses do, although it's much more noticeable on lenses with certain designs) although, in my opinion, it's not as obvious as on the F105s I reviewed earlier. Could be just me but I felt like the F207s were less prone to spinning overall and if they spun I didn't notice it as much.
 
Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during an afternoon with a mostly clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.
 
Natural room light, indoors.

Bathroom light.

Facing a window, backyard view (not sun side).

Flash photo indoors.

Outdoors, back against the sun (facing wall).

Outdoors, facing the sun while under the roof's shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun directly.
 
Just like with most lenses I've reviewed lately these were part of the set that I had tucked away and forgotten about years ago. The sad thing is that I only found the lenses a while back and by then they had all expired in their unopened packaging. But instead of just throwing everything away I wanted to at least do reviews, in case it helps someone out there. This means that I only wore these lenses for the time necessary to take the review photos and then immediately discarded them, regardless of how comfortable they felt to wear. Please do not wear expired lenses for anime conventions etc because you want to save money or whatever, it's not worth the risks.
Based on my first and only time wearing these cool cosplay lenses (which was about 10-20 minutes) I can say that they were especially comfortable. I mean so comfortable that I literally did not feel that I even had lenses on! They were thin and so comfy and much better than I expected. Of course there were the typical red corners at the edges of my vision, which is pretty much always the case with this type of lenses (due to the pupil hole being smaller than on your average circle lens). In my opinion it's not particularly disturbing or anything and you honestly get accustomed to it rather fast. Of course if you move your gaze around a lot, especially in places with poorer light conditions, it can make you feel a bit nauseous with the "red tunnel" effect at the edges of your field of vision, especially if you're not used to wearing lenses that do this.
Summa summarum is that I wouldn't be all that surprised if I could wear these lenses for at least 4-5 hours (without eyedrops) if they had been fresh; it might not sound like much but that's a long time in my book, considering my eyes are naturally really dry and quite sensitive.
 
Bonus! Comparison of F207 (viewer's left) with F105 (viewer's right)
 
I personally think that these Sharingan inspired lenses are really cool and I would totally repurchase them if I could find them somewhere; ifairycon used to sell them back in the days but don't anymore. I think these are great for Naruto cosplayers and especially for original characters where it's not crucial that your Sharingan lenses have to look a really certain way (as is the case with existing characters). These are honestly really badass and if you're a nerd like me you won't be disappointed with the effect!

Distance photo!

Unnamed Naruto OC for review purposes, yay. :D

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 
Great red color and overall vibrancy, gives the desired effect.
Design: 9/10 
Might not be 100% accurate to existing Naruto Sharingan designs but very recognizable and awesome regardless!
Opacity: 10/10
I have no complaints, great coverage and does its job.
Enlargement: 3/10 
There's a slight enlargement effect but it's not much, really.
Comfort: 8/10 
Very comfortable it seems, thin and I don't even feel that I have lenses on.. except for the red corners.
Naturalness: 0/10 
Don't even try to convince me that you were born with Mangekyou Sharingan in this mortal world.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this review!

April 5, 2022

Lens review: I-Codi Funcle F105

 Hello nerds!

It's once again time for another circle lens review but this time it's gonna be something a bit different from the usual. I will be reviewing a Funcle lens, which is an animation lens series made by I-Codi. This particular lens is inspired by the style of the well-known Sharingan (lit. Copy Wheel Eye) eyes from the Naruto anime! Review of I-Codi Funcle F105 coming through, let's go!



Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.2 mm
Water content: 55%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)
 


This is very obviously a Sharingan styled lens although it's not mentioned in the marketing it's simply known under the number F105 in Funcle's series. I can't vouch for these being 100% accurate or canon as there's several different evolved forms of Sharingan eyes throughout the Naruto manga and each character tends to have their unique Sharingan designs too.
For those not familiar with the Naruto series Sharingan is one of the Three Great Eye Techniques (the other two being Byakugan and Rinnegan) and it's a special type of doujutsu (pupil technique) that is most known from the Uchiha clan. The Sharingan's best known ability is to copy any ninja technique that it sees the opponent using. It's pretty dope!

One lens in.

This is a very opaque lens, as is to be expected by any colored contact lenses that dabble into the crazy lens territory. It has a simple but thin black rim around the edges, a very red color with great color coverage and a Mangekyou Sharingan inspired print with lines and those pinwheel points at the center. And before you ask, yes they do spin in your eyes somewhat so you might want to keep a small pocket mirror around if you wear this type of lens to an anime convention and don't want to look cross-eyed lol. I noticed that, for some reason, the lens on my right eye spun more eagerly than the one on my left eye which mostly stayed put; it's possibly explained by the fact that I normally wear glasses with prisms to correct my tendency for double vision and my right eye "slips away" a lot easier than my left when I'm not wearing glasses.

But anygays, this is not a very enlarging lens so it's not gonna make your eyes look huge or anything. There is a small size increase but it's not all that noticeable and honestly, every person out there will notice that your eyes are bright red before noticing that they're a tad bigger than normal lmao. I want to mention one thing and that's the interesting little tidbit that, despite these lenses being super opaque when worn, they do have a slight hint of transparency (when compared to other crazy/animation lenses of other brands) that is quite peculiar! You don't really notice it at first but in certain bright lights like sunshine and such you can see that the red part of the lens actually lets through a miniscule amount of light which makes it look like they 'glow' a bit. It's really hard to describe but I couldn't help but notice it when I've worn so many other ultra compact crazy lenses before that block out all light!

Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during an afternoon with a mostly clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Natural room light indoors.

Bathroom light.

Facing a window, backyard view (not sun side).

Flash photo indoors.

Outdoors, back against the sun (facing wall).

Outdoors, facing the sun while standing under the roof's shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun directly.

Sadly these lenses were part of those that I had completely forgotten about so yeah, they had expired by the time I (re)found them and got around to do this review. This means I can't grade comfort properly as I only wore them for the time necessary to take the review photos and then discarded them. Do not wear expired lenses for a con because you want to save money or whatnot, just please don't. It's not worth the risks!
What little I can say from my first and only time wearing these bad boys (which was about 10-20 minutes) regarding comfort was that these lenses were absurdly comfortable. I mean really, I almost find it funny that out of all possible lenses it's the fucking Sharingans that are the comfiest lenses I've tried in literal ages? xD Of course there were the red corners at the edges of my vision, which is to be expected with this type of lenses (as the pupil hole is generally smaller than on your average circle lens) although it wasn't particularly disturbing or anything, in fact you get used to it really quickly. There is the risk though that if you move your gaze around a lot quickly it can make you feel a bit nauseous with the bright red flashing at the edges of your vision, especially if you're not used to the effect.
All in all I wouldn't be surprised at all if I could wear these for at least 4-5 hours if they hadn't been expired, and that's a long time considering my eyes are naturally really dry (I have to spam eyedrops periodically and that's without lenses, so yeah).

I would honestly recommend these Sharingan inspired lenses if you can find them somewhere, especially if you aren't on the lookout for any super specific Sharingan style for a certain existing character like Madara or Sasuke. Apparently ifairycon doesn't carry these anymore sadly, that's where I bought mine years ago. Regardless these get thumbs up from me and a parrot sticker.

Distance photo!

Yes, I totally did a random Naruto OC for this review. :D

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 
Very bright and clearly red color, it works for its intended purpose.
Design: 8/10 
A bit simplified, when compared to other Sharingan-styled lenses, but it's still obviously recognizable as one.
Opacity: 10/10
No qualms here, it's very covering as this style of lenses should be.
Enlargement: 3/10 
There's a slight enlargement effect but it's not really all that noticeable.
Comfort: 9/10 
Appears to be hilariously comfortable. Thin and invisible to wear, I literally didn't feel them at all! Red corners in vision, as expected.
Naturalness: 0/10 
No, don't even come at me claiming otherwise. No Uchihas in this world.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions then leave a comment! ^.^

January 22, 2022

Monster Hunter World cosplay makeup test

Hello everyone!

I've been a huge MonHun fan for close to 10 years now and, while I plan to eventually cosplay some of the established characters like the Ace Commander from MH4U, the idea to cosplay my own character has been growing on me over the years. I'll get back to this soon but first I just wanna explain a bit about Monster Hunter if anyone is unfamiliar with this game franchise. Monster Hunter games are known for having a character creation process where you get to choose how the player character, also known as the protagonist or simply "hunter", looks.
Anyways, over the years I've played several installments of the series (sinking thousands of hours into the games) but I don't think anything had such a strong impact on me as the first time I started up MonHun World on PS4 back on 9th August 2018. One needs to know here that World was my first PS4 game and I did the jump directly from PS2 to PS4 so the upgrade in graphics etc was insanely noticeable. I remember the first time I saw my own character in the first cutscenes onboard that ship that gets wrecked by Zorah Magdaros emerging from the sea and later when you explore the Ancient Forest for the first time. I was floored, couldn't believe what I was seeing! I was absolutely blown away and I've been glued to my PS4 ever since.

Character creator view of my MHW hunter.

When I created my player character back in 2018 he was simply an avatar for me, yet another one of my handful of hunters on other MonHun games that all shared some traits between them, like silver-white long hair (thanks InuYasha for this childhood obsession lol). Sure I had put several hours into designing him to please my eyes because I'm one of those people who will quite literally spend five hours on any game with detailed character customization send help.
Oh well, it wasn't until sometime in 2021 that something happened. My player character on World, whom I had named Vindulf for no particular reason, suddenly became more than just a mute self-insert through which I experienced the game. I was coaxed into roleplaying one day with a friend online, I didn't think much of it (I enjoy roleplaying in general) at first. But that roleplay just kept growing and growing. As a result Vindulf slowly evolved to get a distinct personality, a deep background story that stretched outside the bounds of the established storyline in World and so on and so on...
This character ended up becoming so much more to me than just pixels in a game.
 
And that's when I realized that I really want to cosplay him one day. Maybe a few years from now on (yes, I'm early with this post) because truth be told I have not even decided yet on what armor or weapon I want to make for this cosplay, possibly a mixed set or one of those event layered armors.
The reason I'm doing this makeup test now is because I happened to have fitting colored lenses lying around and figured yolo! No but really, this is mostly just for fun and for overall practice and well, kind of to give myself a general idea on what I gotta work on more. It could be a lot better but I need to invest into nicer makeup brushes (I have some cheapo ones from eBay that lowkey suck lolol) etc as I've been using the same shit for years and I sometimes feel like it's time to expand and maybe invest more into quality brands... I've been holding off on doing it though cuz whenever I try to do research I get so overwhelmed. ;_;
Oh and yeah, I did the scars very hastily (just eyeshadow and eyeliner combo #lazyaf) although I know I have Rigid Collodion lying around somewhere unless it dried up after these 10 years but yeah, didn't really have time to go looking for it with the sun going down and all. 
The wig is borrowed and it's way off in both color and style (I definitely want a lacefront for the real thing) but it was the closest I could get my hands on, in a hurry, as I literally don't own a single wavy wig myself.


 
I obviously don't have the typical MonHun undies either so I just had to take something random from my wardrobe that is as inconspicuous as possible lol. I'm leaning towards making an Insect Glaive (already have a Hunting Horn made for another MonHun cosplay) but I'm not sure yet, it's either that or Dual Blades. Probably the bug stick. And yes, I still play this game periodically, including the Iceborne Expansion.

This is probably going to be one of those "half eternity" projects, that I'm gonna work on very slowly, so don't expect any proper updates or progress in at least a year as I'm hopefully gonna try to wrap up some unfinished projects out of the way first. But this one will happen, that's for sure.
 

And that's it for the first post of the year, thanks for reading!

February 1, 2015

Towards the frost! – Desucon Frostbite 2015 cosplay plans!

Hello!

So it happens to be that I've gotten myself a ticket for Desucon Frostbite at least they didn't sell out in three minutes like Yukicon did and the train has been booked as well, wohooo!
Frostbite is held on 13-15 February in Lahti, in the same building as the usual summer Desucon. I haven't attended Frostbite since 2012 aka since the very first one. It will be really interesting to see if it has changed! :D The thing with Frostbite though is that last year, as well as this year, there is an age limit you need to be 18 years old or above to attend, heh. I assume that means that more people will do cosplays that reveal skin and/or are from not-exactly-child-friendly series..

But hey, this post was meant for me to reveal my cosplay plans! Here goes!

Friday

Series: Original
Character: Taregard Frir


Taregard was debuted at Kemi's manga day last year but he really needs a photoshoot *coughnopicscough* so what is better than photoshooting him on Frostbite's Friday? :'D Also a quick 'n easy cosplay to put on which is always appreciated on the first con day, especially considering that Friday is a short day that starts fairly late anyway.

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Hajime Saitou

Saitou is the violet-haired guy to the left.
Well, what do I say? Originally I had planned to do an OC for Saturday too but then when it was almost too late to change cosplay plans I got a horrible "oh gawd no, I want to have a totally different design!" dilemma in the middle of the night which ended up with me deciding on recycling an old cosplay instead because duh, Frostbite is way too soon for me to have time to order/make something new...
So yeah, I was thinking that I wanted something with some relation to snow and so the idea to cosplay Saitou in his casual (aka swordless) form feat. snow bunny was born! :'D Yep, instead of doing the usual Saitou cosplay which I tend to do with the shinsengumi haori and the swords I'll do his "chilling at the headquarters" version with a snow bunny prop instead, as seen on his Sekkaroku OVA episode! I'll still bring with me the haori in case it gets cold...

Sunday

Series: Attack on Titan
Character: Levi (suit version)


Yep, it's time to run after titans! or have titans run after me... D:
Levi is one of my favorites from the Attack on Titan world aka Shingeki no Kyojin and so of course I decided to cosplay him! But I really don't have time right now to do his usual soldier uniform so I'll roll with his casual suit version instead!
I will have a cosplay group with Hasakitsuki and Jäätynyt Enkeli because hey, the more the merries! Unless we're talking about titan stomach filling...


I guess that's it for this time. See you!

January 15, 2015

Turn a toy gun into a cosplay prop!

Hiya peeps!

On 8th October I went on a mission, as some might remember. Basically plowing through all four second-hand stores in town, in hopes of finding a toy gun to modify for Taregard Frir.
Luck was on my side and one of the shops had toy guns; luckily they were cheap, in fair condition and there was a bag with two and one with three. The bag with two guns had identical ones and the one with three had three different ones. I bought the bag with three because it had one with the style I wanted.

Gun bag! :D
The following day I took out the one I planned to use (for now) and went to spray paint it. I wanted to have some details in red so I first sprayed a part of the gun red.

Toy gun before modifications..
After getting a dose of metallic red spray paint.
It was fairly windy and around 0 °C so yeah, I was freezing my fingers off. When I deemed that it had dried enough I went back inside my apartment and put it very carefully on the newspapers I had been spraying on. What I didn't think about was that the paint wasn't 100% dry and so of course after a few hours when I moved it the newspaper had stuck to a small part of the gun and glued itself to it. FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUU-
I carefully peeled it off with my nail but of course some of the paint went with it. Blegh. :C So I had to go back out and fix that spot. And yeah, when I came back inside I was wiser than last time...

HANG THE FUCKER TO DRY!! >8D Boahaha!
(excuse my extremely dusty fan.. it collects dust so fast it's not even funny)
On 10th October I had planned to finish spray painting the gun, but... *gritting teeth* THE WEATHER DIDN'T WANT TO COOPERATE!! 8C Yeah, it was super cloudy and snowing/raining all day. All day. Not to mention that it was so moist outside that it wasn't even funny! D: I couldn't go outside spraying because there was no outside area close-by with a roof or anything to protect from the snow and rain and I know from previous experience that spray painting when it snows is horrible because the snow will stick to your newly painted surface while you wait for it to dry and make this kind of "cracked snowflakes" on it and well, it looks fugly and might ruin your work. :C I couldn't spray outside and then run with the gun back inside either because my apartment is so horribly small and has shitty air circulation so yeah, I would probably have gotten poisoned from the paint fumes lingering around for the following month. xD Needless to say no painting was done that day and that also meant that I didn't get my gun prop done in time for Taregard's debut. Meh. Oh well, rather that than potentially risk ruining it as well as endangering my health...

Some days later I went ahead to put masking tape on the areas of the gun that I wanted to keep red the rest was to be painted silver. It took a while to get the tape strips to be just the right width and shape that I needed; it's tedious to cut tape with such precision. xD
By this time it had started going below zero outside quite frequently too, which also meant that I had given up on getting the spray painting done. Yeah, I've had previous experience with spray painting outside in the cold and have the paint ending up looking fugly on the surface of the item because it kinda froze before drying properly. Not amused. >_>

Fast forward to somewhere very soon after Christmas 24th I was at mom's place and had taken the toy gun with me. I had been thinking about finding something to fill the two holes in the gun where the screws were placed; if I didn't fill them in I would constantly have to be aware of what side of the gun I was showing to the camera because the side with the holes just looked shittier. I went to my stepdad and asked him if he happened to have any stuff that could work for this purpose and he told me that he had some brown silicone lying around that would do the trick. I left the gun in his care and a few days later when I went back home the holes were filled with brown wonder and it had dried too!

Gun with the masking tape and silicone-filled holes.
Close-up of the silicone.
The thing with silicone is that seemingly when it dries it sinks in a little and so the surface wasn't completely flat. I don't know if my explanation makes sense so I'll just draw you a crappy Paint picture instead to make sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. xD


So yeah, instead of having the desired B finish I had the A one. This meant that I still needed to put something on top of the silicone so that it would even out I thought that white glue would do the trick.

Glue recently added.
So I basically just put some Erikeeper white glue on top of the silicone and played the waiting game. I had waited a few days between applying the glue to make sure that the silicone was 100% dry. After this was done I waited for the weather to be "warm", aka around 0 °C or above so that I could go out and try my luck at spray painting again.
On 7th January the weather seemed to be kinda okay (I couldn't check temperature anywhere so I had to guess) so I took my gun, the silver spray can, some rope to hang the gun from and went outside. As soon as I got outside and started spraying it seemed to be okay.. until about one half of the gun was painted and the spray can died. 8C Okay, it didn't die because there was still obviously paint left in it but the presser just stopped responding altogether; I kept pressing it down, twisting and turning it and I even took it off to check if anything was wrong but it looked fine! Dafuq man. :S
I ragequited after a while and went back inside; inside I thought that maybe if I took the black spray releaser thingy from my other spray can (a dark red one) and put it on the silver one then maybe it would work. I quickly tried it inside and it seemed to work like a charm and so I hurried back outside again! :'D As soon as I got outside I pressed the sprayer down and OH MY GOD IT WORKED!! 8DD ................. for one second. Fuck. 8C I noticed that the exact same thing happened again, except that this time the presser made this kind of slight air-is-coming-out sounds but no paint came with it. I looked closer in the "mouth hole" of the thing and noticed that the paint was slowly seeping out in its liquid form; I also took off the whole presser thingy and noticed that some more liquid paint had flowed up under it!

Presser taken off just to illustrate, but on this pic I had already
wiped off the liquid build-up. (Hasakitsuki holding it)
I went back inside, wiped off all the paint that had bubbled up from the can and decided to see if the presser would return to normal if I waited a few minutes and then painted indoors. After some minutes of furiously hammering pressing the black button down it suddenly came back from the dead and it even sprayed to boot! Ohmaiglab! What wasn't so wonderful was that the spray ended up on the apartment's bathroom wall, oops. Let's keep that a secret... *innocent whistling*
I went to fetch some old newspapers to protect the shower/bathroom floor and then I could FINALLY paint the rest of the gun. I just did one thick layer (should have done thinner layers but I was too impatient for that shit lol) and hung it from the string to dry in the shower curtain holder thingy. I then exited the apartment to go do some other stuff because I swear my apartment has the most horrible air circulation/ventilation/whatever and the paint fumes were so strong that I felt sick. I opened the air vent to maximum and left for some hours; when I came back the gun was still sticky but it was at least dry enough so that I could spray the areas that I had missed previously. I left it to dry again and went to squat at Jäätynyt Enkeli's place to wait out the paint fumes.

Painted gun hanging to dry in the shower...
A few days later I came back to check up on the gun it had dried completely. I took off the masking tape and crossed my fingers that the silver spray paint hadn't bled in under the tape and on the area that was to remain red. Luckily it had stayed red almost completely and only some minor touch-ups were needed.

Just showing the spots that need some touch-ups...
So since the whole gun was already silver I couldn't be bothered to tape the whole shit so I just took a pencil, the red spray paint, Hasakitsuki's hands and a plastic bottle. So she sprayed very little and veeery close on the bottle and meanwhile I quickly dipped my pencil in the spray liquid while it was still wet and painted the spots red.

To finish it off I borrowed some black hobby paint from Jäätynyt Enkeli and painted some other areas black to make it 20% cooler.

Waiting for black paint to dry.. (it took approx. 40 min)
I painted both sides black and it was really tedious. The paint didn't act like the paints I'm used to it felt thicker and well, much more rubbery. I had to paint very slowly (dip the brush in the paint after each time I painted a dot the size of the brush tip) and use much paint to get a nice result or all the brush strokes would show, even though the surface remained kinda bumpy. It was seemingly some akrylat-latex (that's in Swedish) paint.

I left the gun to dry over the night hung it from the kitchen lamp and on the morning it was all done! Looks much cooler than when it was just all black and it wasn't even hard except annoying with the spray can derps to give it a make-over! :D

LOOK AT MY GUN, MY GUN IS AMAZING ~~
You might have noticed that on the last photos there's still two holes at the red part of the gun I didn't remember them, because I put the tape over long before I thought of filling them up, and so I forgot that they were even there during the whole remake process; a little miss on my side. I plan to cover them up later.

Taregard's gun is finally done, w00p w00p! o/
Shiro Samurai out.