December 31, 2012

Year of Cosplay 2012

 Hi hi!
 For the last day of the year I figured I could do some kind of special blog post ~

First of a list I'll list all the cons that I've been to this year:

Desucon Frostbite - Lahti, Finland
Kitacon - Kemi, Finland
Chibicon - Oulu, Finland
Desucon - Lahti, Finland
Uppcon - Uppsala, Sweden
Animecon - Kuopio, Finland
Närcon - Linköping, Sweden
Oulun Animeseminaari - Oulu, Finland
Tracon - Tampere, Finland
Kemin Mangapäivä - Kemi, Finland
Skecon - Skellefteå, Sweden

A lot of cons this year, hahah. Mainly in Finland too. It's very hard to pick my favorite con for the year but if I do a top 3 it would probably look like this:

1. Närcon
2. Tracon
3. Uppcon

• Närcon first because it's.. well, awesome. It has so many activities no other cons offer and is like a huge 4 days con festival! The atmosphere is great, the locations are nice (although I get lost many times because of the maze-like corridors lol xD), great outside area, juice bar, laserdome/bouncy castle/whatever special attraction of the year, swimming pool etc. Närcon is shortly said a blast all congoers should visit at least once! Also the weather was great this year and didn't ruin my con weekend, hence the first place.
• Tracon is second because I'm in love with Tampere-talo as a location for hosting a con. It is very nice and feels luxury somehow haha. Also the park around Sorsalampi is amazing.. too bad I only noticed it at the very last minutes before I had to depart. Amazing photoshoot opportunities in nature. Oh, and Tracon is just overall very enjoyable and certainly my favorite con in Finland currently, mainly for its more than awesome locations.
• Uppcon was a blast too. Too bad this year was the last Uppcon in history and the rainy weather kinda ruined it on the later days, otherwise Uppcon wouldn't be third place for me. But the location is amazing and big, there is lots of stuff to do and I don't even need to mention the huge merchandise tent which is like a geek's treasure trove haha. Uppcon was the biggest (and most well-known I presume) con in Sweden and it's a shame it is no more.. but it seems there will be a successor.

And lastly here is all the cosplays of different characters I've worn this year. Ukitake is the only one of these which has already been worn 2011, the rest are 2012 debut cosplays. I only put a character once even though in some cases I did different variations of the same character.. like formalsuit!Ukitake, artbook!Saitou (Hakuouki) etc.


Upper row, left to right: Jushiro Ukitake (Bleach), Gin Ichimaru (Bleach), Byakuya Kuchiki (Bleach), Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi), Souji Okita (Hakuouki), Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki)
Lower row, left to right: Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki), Masamune Date (Sengoku Basara), Isami Kondou (Hakuouki), Sojun Kuchiki (Bleach), Hajime Saitou (Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi), Falkner (Pokémon)

My favorite cosplay of the year.. hmm.. very hard to just pick one because I love them all. xD But if I think about the overall con experience with said cosplay, how comfortable it was to wear, overall enjoyment and liking of the character etc I guess it's a tie between two Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan chars - Hajime Saitou and Isami Kondou. Saitou is a cosplay that fits me like a glove in the hand, my anime alter-ego and just everything about his design and personality is very much to my liking. Very comfortable to wear too except the scarf that's always planning to suffocate me lol. Isami Kondou was also very much fun to cosplay, especially during Tracon's Hakuouki group! Also very comfortable and fun and that wig is just too awesome not to like!


Happy New Year 2013 and Happy Cosplaying! ~

December 28, 2012

Cosplays for Närcon Vinter

I think I finally settled on what to cosplay at Närcon Vinter, 22-24 February 2013, my first con for the coming year. My Saturday cosplay has been decided for some weeks now but the Friday cosplay has been a question mark... until now. Here goes!


Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin
Character: Kenshin Himura


I finally started watching Rurouni Kenshin late yesterday and I'm already hooked after 5 episodes... I had expected nothing less haha. As you might know I got myself a (manga color) Kenshin wig not too long time ago and I already happen to have passable clothes, for a blue kimono version Kenshin, thanks to previous cosplays so... why the hell not? :'D Besides I'm itching for a new make-up/special effects challenge.. namely creating his cross-shaped scar. This will be fun.


Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata


The Hakuouki roll continues. I'll probably never get tired of cosplaying from this awesome series. <3 Why Hijikata? Because two of my new-ish Swedish con friends plan to cosplay Chizuru Yukimura and Kazama Chikage and they really wanted me to join in as Hijikata so that we would have the complete trio. I happily accepted!
and it seems we will have a few more characters too, a group yay!


What I will cosplay on Sunday, if anything at all, remains a mystery for now. The con ends pretty early on Sunday morning (as far as I remember) so maybe I can't even attend it the last day.. it will depend heavily on when I have to leave Linköping; after all I have a long journey home. We'll see.

December 7, 2012

Kenshin wig + Masamune chainmail brainstorming

Remember my Cosplay Challenge from earlier this year? 

Well, some few days ago I received the wig I ordered for a future Kenshin cosplay. I bought it because the site had a sale and I just couldn't pass it up.. and I already know pretty dang sure that I will end up wanting to cosplay Kenshin anyway after I've read the manga and/or watched the anime. It's just one of those series I've been highly interested in for years (I'm a samurai/history/kimono/sword geek.. how can I not be interested in Rurouni Kenshin when it's such a praised classic?) and.. I just need to start reading/watching it. I plan to do it soon enough. *looks at the 5 first volumes of the manga in my bookshelf that has been there for over a year now*

Kenshin Himura
The wig looks like this right out of the bag and I must say ME GUSTA MUCHO!! <3



Just looking at this wig makes me so excited to read/watch Rurouni Kenshin haha. I love how I pretty much already happen to have everything I need for a blue kimono version Kenshin cosplay except the reverse blade katana. You all can be pretty sure I will do it next year ~

And now over to Masamune. I've been wondering about one part of the costume for quite some time.. namely the chainmail.

Masamune Date reference
As you can see he has chainmail covering his arms. Well, I surely don't have the time, money, knowledge nor the dedication to make my own chainmail from scratch.. at least not right now. It would take months and be very tedious.. I don't have that much time to put on a single part of the costume which isn't even that noticeable. So I thought about cheaper, less heavy (chainmail weights a ton, no lie. lol) and faster options.. I read around on the internet and found that you could buy a knitted shirt and spraypaint it silver. It would only look believable from a distance though. Seemed like a good idea until I realized it would likely be way too hot to wear during the summer time (main con season) and probably too bulky too. Then I remembered seeing in mom's fabric attic this one fabric that looks like.. silvery netting or something; I don't know what its proper name is. But I thought maybe it could work if I backed it up with some silvergray-ish base. The problem was that mom's version of that fabric had too big "holes" so it wouldn't look right even if I folded/layered it double...
So uhm, today I went to Eurokangas after school. I saw that there was a 20% sale on all fabrics currently and there I found this same type of netting fabric although with smaller "holes", more dense. Bingo! Truth is, I had seen it before but didn't buy it because I wasn't sure back then...

the net fabric in question
I just hope that this idea will work and look as nice in reality as it seems to do in my head. I bought half a meter of it, I hope that's enough... I'm not good at calculating how much fabric I need. xD

That's all for today. I really need to progres further on Masamune the coming days.. I've planned to do a mock-up test of the coat's upper half to see how it sits before cutting the parts out of the real fabric.

Oh well, stay tuned for more updates!

December 5, 2012

Successful trip to Tositori..

I finished school early today and decided to take the bus home instead of waiting for mom to pick me up after job. I walked over to to this one shopping center, which I always pass by, and when I got there I noticed I had about one hour of time to kill before the bus would arrive. So I decided to go to Tositori, this one second-hand shop in town, just to see if there was anything I could use for some more casual clothes cosplays. I especially had in mind to see if I could find a light green shirt for Kureno Sohma from Fruits Basket.

Kureno Sohma
(I'm not going to have that black jacket because he mostly was without it)
Yes, Fruits Basket, don't ask me why I read a shoujo manga. xD Normally most shoujo manga don't catch my interest at all there are a few exceptions though.. but I've had some slight interest in Fruits Basket for some time because I thought the zodiac concept sounded cool. Oh well, when Angie (one of my Swedish con friends) told me I should cosplay as Kazuma and showed me a picture of him I went "looks cool" (mainly because he wore kimono. I love kimono trololo) and decided to start reading the manga some days after that, mainly just to find out about this character. Honestly, at the first 4 volumes I considered dropping it because I found all characters except Kyo, Tohru and Hatori (and occasionally Yuki and Shigure) extremely annoying. *coughwantedtopunchhiroandkagurainthefacesomanytimescough* But something still kept me reading it.. and when I then finished Furuba I must say I'm glad that I didn't drop it because the story sure got more interesting at the later volumes and the characters developed and stopped getting on my nerves as much, haha. Kazuma, Kureno, Hatori and Kyo were my favorites - in that order.

Oh well, back to the second-hand store trip.
I must say I got the jackpot! Found just what I was looking for; a perfect green shirt that fit me okay and best of all.. the price was..

EURON JUUSTO (1 €)
Super cheap. I love second-hand stores sometimes. xD This also means that now it's very likely I'll do Kureno Sohma for a con next year.. I just need black pants and a wig. I already have a bird plushie I could use as a prop bought years ago (I loved birds when young); I think carrying it around would maybe make it easier for people to recognize who I'm cosplaying because most characters in Fruits Basket have very.. generic clothing. I like Kureno and I'm also born on the year of the Rooster so double yay, this will be a comfy chill cosplay to do. Would be nice to have a Fruits Basket cosplay group next year though.. but I don't really know many people who would be interested to cosplay from it.

Oh, and lastly a photo of the shirt in question:

Aww yiss!
Oh, and I must tell you one thing that happened after I had bought the shirt and went to wait for the bus in the bus station. It's not cosplay related but it was rather awesome so I had to make a rage comic out of it. xD

http://chigami.deviantart.com/art/A-wild-money-bill-appears-341326128
 I guess that's it for today. Bye ~

December 1, 2012

Närcon Vinter, I'm coming for ya!

Ohohohooo ~
Look what I have! <3 <3 <3


I'm about to explode with excitement and fly away on a manly sparkly rainbow of awesome!! The tickets were released today 14:00 Swedish time and I sat refreshing vinter!Närcon's page like an idiot the last 5 minutes so that I would get myself one of those Early Bird tickets for sure! For those not in the know the Early Bird tickets are 100 SEK cheaper than the ordinary ones, aka 250 SEK instead of 350 SEK. Early Birds tickets are limited so you need to be, well, early to guarantee that you will get one.. especially seeing how popular Närcon is and only 1000 tickets were released in total for the convention. I'M SO EXCITED OHMEIGERD the first vinter!Närcon, it will be so much awesome!

This also means that I'm sadly not going to Desucon Frostbite next year because Frostbite is on 16-17 February 2013 and Närcon Vinter is on 22-24 February. Too close to each other so I have to sacrifice one. Oh, and this also means I can't go to Kitacon in Kemi on 23rd February either because it collides with Närcon.

My reasoning for choosing Närcon Vinter over these two other cons are following:

• It's cheaper for me to travel in Sweden than Finland. (except that Kitacon would have been close to me, but it's so small it can't really compete with Närcon and Desucon...)
• Närcon Vinter is one day more than Desucon Frostbite and 2 days longer than Kitacon. The more con time the better; mer för pengarna ~
 • I have a free sleeping place if I go to Närcon Vinter, opposed to Frostbite, because Närcon is in Linköping and my oldest sibling lives there. Me gusta.
• I've already been to Frostbite this year so I have already "experienced/seen" it in a way while Närcon Vinter will be a whole new experience because this is the first time it's arranged and it's also in a different building that the usual (summer) Närcon + new activities. Hotto Dorinku (warm drink) bar anyone? <3
• Närcon in overall I think is better than Desucon and Kitacon, sorry. Närcon (summer) and Tracon are my two top anime conventions I've been to (if we don't count Uppcon because it doesn't exist anymore..) and of course then of a higher priority to me.

I'm not sure what I will cosplay there yet, but I have some loose ideas, so stay tuned for a cosplay plan revelation later! Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet Närcon Vinter will be the next con I go to. Sorry, I won't be going to Wapanese Night 3 in Umeå because I'd rather save my money for Närcon Vinter and mom thinks I've been to too many cons this year already + December and Christmas stress...

Nothing else to say, bye!

November 27, 2012

Absol gijinka redesigned

First some background information. Absol is one of my absol-ute haha favorite Pokémon and I've been wanting and meaning to do a gijinka (human version) of it since 2010.

Official art of Absol
I drew my first gijinka version of Absol back in the start of 2010. It was basically a kimono style shirt with a fluffy collar, black gloves, a black sash tied in a ribbon at the back and white pants and generic black shoes. The hair was white and short (neck length) and layered with medium long bangs. Red eyes of course. Pretty boring right? Not so interesting although it wasn't really terribly bad either.
At the end of 2010 I redesigned it slightly; the pants, gloves and sash were the same and the shoes were pretty similar too. But I changed the kimono style shirt into a keikogi (with the tie at the chest) but the collar was still fluffy. Also added a black headband and the white hair was slightly past the shoulders and smoother, medium bangs still. I had planned to make this second design for a long time until last week when I started thinking about redesigning my Absol gijinka for the third and hopefully last time because it still felt.. lacking and bland... and just not so interesting.

So today I sat down and redesigned it. I kept some of the earlier elements but instead of black I decided to go with dark blue because I read somewhere long time ago that it's body is actually dark blue but commonly mistaken for black by fans. I also added some details and stuff and I must say I'm very pleased with this new design. Now it certainly has some attitude and looks much more interesting than before. I won't show how it looks surprise surprise~! but I really want to cosplay it next year, if possible. Masamune will take a fair chunk of next year to complete. If I start working on it I will post the progress here and you all can guess what the final product will look like while I work ~

November 25, 2012

Masamune Date - upper half coat patterns

Hi guys!

I drew and cut out the patterns for Masamune's coat today, the upper half of it. Mom has been inspired to sew clothes for herself the last few weeks (she's a former fabric store owner and sewer after all~) and now she had been planning to make some kind of vest-like garment and after she had cut out her patterns I went and looked at it and thought "hey this could maybe work for Masamune if I modify it a bit!" - BOOM, said and done!

Good reference for the coat's upper half
So I first took mom's back piece pattern, went to get the pattern paper roll and pinned it in place. After some thinking and staring at references I figured that it's mostly the shoulder part that will need modifying on the back piece. So I curved the shoulder upwards and then cut it out.

Modifying shoulders
Back piece pattern cut out
Then I took the newly cut out back pattern, pinned it in place and drew out the front pattern with the same shoulders and width and stuff. I just modified the front to have a curved V-shape in the middle.

After I had drawn out the lines and was about to cut out the front piece
Front piece pattern cut out
I will need to use interfacing fabric to get the shoulders to stay up like that as well as the collar.. which I haven't made the pattern for yet. I tried the patterns on and it seems like they will work quite well. I lucked out on the measurements too because that lower half's pattern (aka spiky buttcape) is 100 cm wide from tip to tip and this coat pattern was by default 25 cm wide on the front and the back of course 50 cm because it will be cut from the fabric's fold. Perfect. I didn't even plan to get them to match up like this when I started planning out the lower half's pattern some days ago. xD Voittajafiilis!!

Bye bye!

November 23, 2012

Plastic for armor making

So some month or so ago I ordered a white matte polystyrene sheet from Etra store in town. I went and picked it up today when I finally got the chance to. I can't remember its measures or thickness right now but it's pretty thin, not super thin though. I've never worked with plastic before but I decided to give it a go now.. I hope that after all the research I've done that it will work for making Masamune Date's armor. At least based on what I found it seems like a material with good qualities for armor making.. but we'll see when I start working with it.

The polystyrene is rolled up inside this blue protection thingy.
Just to show how big it is
(yes, I'm wearing kimono just because I can. Yes, mirror photo)
That's it for today. Hopefully I will do some Masamune cosplay progress this weekend.

November 22, 2012

Masamune Date - lower half coat pattern

 Hi!

Decided to start working on my Masamune Date cosplay for real, my big "projektarbete" for school. I already have the wig and eyepatch but now I need to start making the costume itself. Again, this will be the default armor version and currently I plan to do the game version, which is slightly more detailed than the anime counterpart, but I might end up doing some kind of game-anime hybrid version. We'll see. xD

I didn't get so much done today but I managed to draw and cut out the pattern for the lower half of the coat.  I did it all by myself after a lot of measuring and planning. It took me pretty much 2 hours.. It looked surprisingly good after I test-wrapped it around my waist. I was pretty sure at one point I would screw it up but luckily it seems like I didn't.

Lower half coat pattern cut out
I'm going to make it in an upper and lower part with a seam that will likely be hidden by the belt. Me and mom figured it might be easier that way and I wouldn't get any side seams on the "buttcape" part. lol buttcape~

Oh, and I used this as a reference:

It's from some kind of reference sheet for the anime.
A godsend for cosplayers haha ~
I know it's the anime version but it's much easier to find good references from the anime..
As I said I will aim on doing the game version when it comes to those finer details and colors and stuff. I will probably use the base references from what is easily available (aka anime references) and then, when working, compare the game and anime versions with each other and then modify accordingly so that my costume looks more like the game variant when finished.

I hope that now when I started working on this cosplay that I will keep the fire burning until it's finished because I have just about half a year of time left to finish it, document the progress and show my project supervisor what I've done. I should have started this earlier but I'm a procrastinator and had some other issues and I know that this is quite the challenge so I can't sit still and do nothing with the time I have left. Neither can I take on any other cosplay project (unless it's super-mega-easy or some wafuku cosplay..) alongside this now until I've progressed a lot further.

See ya!

November 9, 2012

A new wig + fabric for Masamune

So today I went to the post office after school and picked up two packages. It was a white juban and a new wig I will use for season 2 (aka short hair version) Hijikata from Hakuouki. Funny thing is I was searching for a Hijikata specific wig but didn't find anything I thought looked just right so I wondered "what other characters have a similar hairstyle as Hijikata?" and BOOM instantly Sebastian Michaelis from Kuroshitsuji popped into my mind.

Sebastian Michaelis - Kuroshitsuji (aka Black Butler)
I found a Sebastian wig I thought looked really nice and it wasn't very expensive either so I bought it for Hijikata. Now I must admit there is something about Kuroshitsuji which captures my interest; I've been feeling for quite some time now that  I want to watch it even though it's rather mainstream. Also I heard from Sairu-chan not so long ago that she already has a Ciel cosplay and a Kuroshitsuji cosplay group planned with her friends who live around northern Finland. Group cosplays are always great so that is even more a reason to watch Kuroshitsuji so I could hang around with them in some northern con.. not to mention I've always liked Sebastian's design - red eyes me gusta mucho!!, hairstyle, "penguin coat" lol (seriously I want a coat like that.. if I do him a get a reason to make one hohoho~) and yeah, there just is something interesting about him. If I now watch Kuroshitsuji and end up liking Sebastian I will do him, I would already have the wig too and I need to buy red contacts anyway *coughrasetsucough* so I would get more use out of them also. XD We will see ~

I tried the wig on quickly (read: no cosplay make-up) after I got home. At first I was all "not sure if gusta" but after I arranged the fibers around a bit it was rather awesome.



I also went to Eurokangas with mom before getting home and she bought me some fabric for Sengoku Basara's Masamune Date cosplay. I will use this fabric for the coat and pants.

Masamune reference
The fabric is some kind of denim with 5% elastane and it has this.. interesting touch to the surface; a bit like it would have a thin coat of some kind of plastic on it. It is also a bit heavier and drapes rather well. I think it will be great for Masamune's coat especially. I just really need to start working on this cosplay for real; it needs to be done and documented before next summer vacation I'm going to die. If you remember it was a school project so it's really important I get this done in time before I graduate.

November 8, 2012

Skecon 2012 - Metapods, hamburgers and Buttman


I attended Skecon in Skellefteå last weekend, 2-4 November. It was a small convention (they had 200 tickets) held for the first time and I must say it was very successfully arranged. Despite being small it was a very enjoyable con experience and I'm certainly looking forward for the next time it is held.

I'm sorry I didn't write this earlier, I've been a bit lazy and I've also been waiting to see if I could find some photos of one thing during the convention..
Oh well, now on to the con summary.

Okay so me, my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan started our trip to Skellefteå on Friday morning. We woke up 07:00 Swedish time and put on our traveling clothes, took all our suitcases and shit with us and mom drove us to Haparanda town where she dropped us at the bus station while herself heading for work. We three sat and waited inside for the bus, which came 08:30. It was a Norrlandskusten bus, it's a nice dark blue double-decker. I think the trip took around 4,5 hours.
My new friend Sebastian got on the same bus further down but I wasn't sure it was him until we were in Skellefteå bus station and I saw him wearing the Hajime Saitou (from Hakuouki) wig and had two swords wrapped in fabric. xD We all four then found our way to the Skecon building, aka the Efyran.


We got our con bands and soon decided it would be better if we went to the sleeping accommodation place (which was on a class room floor of the nearby school) to dump our luggage and shit. Everyone of us four changed into cosplays there. I cosplayed Falkner, Sairu-chan cosplayed Erika and Jäätynyt Enkeli cosplayed Silver, all from Pokémon. Sebastian cosplayed a hakama version of Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan.
We walked back to the con building and walked around a bit. Soon our "original trio" -aka me, my twin and Sairu-chan- found a nice blue painted wall so we decided to take turns and have a photoshoot of our Pokémon cosplays.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli



We mostly just chilled around and hung together and derped the whole Friday. The con atmosphere was relaxed, cozy and friendly and everyone seemed to have a good time. My favorite chilling place at the con was, without question, the bean bag chairs!! <3

"Life's tough being a Pokémon trainer" lol
I tried to take some self-photos just for fun but the (red) lighting was rather bad...
At one point we three went on a building exploration. We wound up in the Shimbukan dojo's "backside", aka changing-room-private-shower-and-sauna place where I noticed this sign someone had.. edited..

"såskopp" xD
It reads in Swedish:

"Please!
No shoes in the changing rooms.
It's easier to clean that way."

But someone added "-skopp" to the last word which changed its meaning to:

"It's easier to clean sauce cup"

I found it funny. Even though I think it was made before the convention.
Oh well, we went back to the more main-ish part of the convention and derped some more. Walked around and stuff.. and of course I drank some coke.

COCA(INE) COLA :'DD
When we three started to get tired we headed back to the sleeping place. Sebastian stayed behind at Skecon and came to sleep later. Our trio went back seemingly rather early because we were the only ones in the class room we had picked. Well, good for us because I think I was on some sugar high thanks to the coke drinking combined with con excitement so that when we pulled out our sleeping bags.. well.. as soon as I got into my green sleeping bag...  

METAPOD RAMPAGE!!

I don't even
My sleeping bag was named Metapod because.. duh, it's green. Sairu-chan's was Pinkpod (obviously it was pink) and Jäätynyt Enkeli's was Emo Kakuna because it was a mix of black and neon-ish orange.
After the Metapod rampage I got exhausted and went to lie down on my place, on top of a fitness mattress. lol I can't say it was really comfortable.. at all. But it worked.. somehow. After we had finished talking about our cracky ideas like for example what Hijikata would hatch into if he slept overnight in a Metapod... rasetsu anyone? XD

By the way this was the first time ever during any con when I slept at the sleeping accomodation place instead of at a hotel or at some friend's/relative's place. In Sweden and Finland anime cons pretty much always organize this budget option for congoers to sleep at some random school's floor or something like that.

Oh, and on the roof close to me there was a paper airplace which had gotten stuck.


Saturday morning came. Me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan put on normal clothes, took our Hakuouki cosplays with us and walked to the con. We didn't wake up Sebastian because he was sleeping so peacefully. At the con we changed into cosplay because the toilets at the school was too small/narrow to allow for putting on hakama and stuff. I didn't bother to do any hardcore cosplay make-up because the con feeling was not the oh-mai-gawd-look-at-that-cosplayer kind and well, I was lazy.

Most of Sunday me and Sairu-chan just chilled in the bean bag chairs and occasionally wandered around. Actually, soon after we all had changed into Hakuouki cosplays I asked Chizuru -aka Sairu-chan- if she could braid my wig because Hijikata's hair is looooong and I wasn't very keen on having to make sure it doesn't tangle the whole day. She agreed ~

Braiding, braiding..
My expression.. xD
During 14:00 I went to the Shimbukan dojo (it's in the same building) to attend the "try-on" budo/martial arts. Me, having already practiced kendo for a few years (but for the time being I'm on a pause ever since I got a bad lung sickness last year's February..) went there anyway. I already knew all stuff they showed us and then we got to do the fourth kendo kata, the one with Hasso-no-kamae and Waki-gamae. I was feeling like a boss when I already knew all the movements.  XD We also got to do a harai men on a person who was wearing kendo armor. After the quick kendo try-on we switched to kyudo. Just so you know, I've been wanting to try kyudo a long time but there are veeeery few clubs in Sweden and Finland so I've never gotten the chance. Needless to say when it was kyudo time I was all rhghjreghjfdshagjd and about to explode!! <3 Everyone who wanted to try got to fire three arrows with a beginner bow at some kind of white foam-ish target.. I have no clue what it was really. Of course one of the budo guys (it seemed like some of them practiced several different martial arts) gave everyone some guidelines how to stand, how to hold the bow etc. But seriously.. DAT FEELING when you fire an arrow for the first time with like a 2 m long bow-of-awesome.. it was so agjhfdgsha oh my god. <3<3<3 Sain ihan jumalattomat kicksit siitä. xD eiku One of the coolest things I've ever done ahaha. I did hit the target on my second try.
   I'm really sad I don't have any photos of my time in the dojo because I was there some hours and it was so damn awesome listening to Magnus-sensei's stories from their kendo club's Japan trips (some things which happened them in Japan were hilarious. I laughed so hard I almost cried many times XD) and his "ninja's didn't really exist" speech was very interesting, not to mention he also showed some jodo techniques and some moves with a naginata and stuff. It was so damn cool. We also got to hold this huge shinai and look closer on a sharp iaito katana. Me gusta mucho!!

After I had been there listening and laughing with the sensei, the budo guys and some other congoers my company came and was like "Hijikata-san we will go eating soon" and so I had to take my leave, haha. I'm sorry, they probably waited for me all this time. :$
Oh well, all four of us made our way to the nearby Max - a Swedish hamburger restaurant. We sat in the same table and next to us was a kid family... the kids stared at us so damn much oh my god. But now for some shinsengumi hamburger time feat. Hijikata! 8D

DERP WARNING!

Hijikata eating fries!
I just had to put these photos together into a hamburger "comic" XD
Yah...
Enough of hamburgers. 

We went back to the con and waited for the food coma to pass by in the bean bag chairs. That was when I heard an interesting sound coming closer.. it sounded like... geta... and then I saw a dude walk by with tengu geta (one-tooth geta) and I went

MOTHER OF GUSTA
I want tengu geta so much!! *grabby hands*
At some point we went to the room where you could draw, make pins and perler beads and stuff. Sairu-chan had to draw Buttman there after I had been insisting "I AM BUTTMAN" the whole con time. It was too much fun!

My idol. <3 err maybe not xD
 And in case you have no clue what we are talking about:
(Finnish only!)

Later during the evening maybe 30 minutes or something before the cosplay competition was about to start I noticed Sairu-chan was shaking. She said she was freezing so I gave her my shinsengumi haori. We started walking slowly towards the second floor where the cosplay competition was to be held and while sitting on a couch up there a man came and asked if we were going to compete. I said that we weren't and then he said something about that we couldn't be there because the competitors were practicing how to walk on the scene and stuff. I think I asked if we could sit there because Chizuru wasn't feeling good and he then asked if we wanted to go to the con's health care. The "con nurse" came and led us up the stairs to his little health care room. He asked some questions and gave Sairu-chan a warm blanket-ish thing and told her to take it easy and drink water because she had some temporary fever. When the cosplay competition started it got noisy so we migrated over to the first floor's café where it was calmer. Me and Jäätynyt Enkeli -aka Sannan- tried our best to keep her company and comfort her.


Luckily her fever seemed to go away (or at least her forehead wasn't hot anymore) after a while and she said she felt much better; the shaking had gone away. It was a relief. Now we did miss the actual cosplay competition but I don't really mind.. my friend's well-being is more important. <3

After Chizuru had recovered it was my turn to derp. I started feeling my breathing was fucking up slightly and I just generally felt a bit.. dizzy. HIJIKATA YOU CAN'T BE OKITA NOOOOOOOOO I dealt with it (after all I'm used to breathing screw ups ever since that bad sickness..) and when it got late we went to the place with blue wall were we had photoshooted our Pokémon cosplays yesterday. But this time we went to sit on that wooden bench which was half-way hidden behind a wooden screen.. thing. lol you see I get language block right now. OTL We ate some candy we had bought at Ica yesterday and took some last photos. I can't say we got anything sensible but oh well, here's some derp photos!

Empty coke bottle storage.. it was my RATTLE dammit!
I was tired.. and le wig is a mess
"Fuck this shit, it's hot here" *takes off haori*
Chilling together
 And then the obligatory self-photo...


Soon after these photos we three changed back to normal gear and went to sleep. We had decided to not go to the con on Sunday because it ended early anyway and if we took the bus home on the morning we would be back home before it got dark. So on Sunday we woke up, packed our belongings and left while everyone else in the class room were sleeping. We headed to the Skellefteå bus station.

I saw this Skecon poster on the bus station's bulletin board thingy <3
We sat and waited for the bus to arrive. We were early so we had to wait one hour or so because the bus came 10:30 if I don't remember wrong.


I'm wearing my Saitou wig because of a really bad hair day. I noticed some people gave me dem looks. Oh, and the bus driver said to me after Sairu-chan had gone into the bus (she was wearing her Ciel wig) "oh, you also have such cool colored hair. Why have you colored it like that? :D" and I was all:

Because it was a wig and he thought it was my real hair..
I was so tired when we got on the bus so I slept most of the journey back. But. We had to change bus for some unknown reason (even though this bus wasn't supposed to change as far as I know) at Luleå bus station. The bus driver said that when we arrive there the change bus would already be there but when we got there the other bus wasn't there. He then said it would arrive behind the bus we had been in. So we stood and waited... in like 15 minutes or something and it was cold and we all were freezing. Our feelings:


Oh well. We got home and the trip was successful. I hope there will be more Skecon events in the future.

...
.......
.........

-Warning. Rant ahead-

Except that I got offended by some few people during the con who would misgender me and when -I or my friends- corrected them they would insist on correcting me.


I'm the one who knows myself the best. No one else has the right to define who and what I am, except myself. It's not my damn fault that I currently have some physical shortcomings, so please understand or at the very least accept that not everyone and everything is what it might look like at first glance. If I correct you don't insist on correcting me, that's rude. You might think it's not a big deal but it's my identity in question and that is indeed a very big deal to me; I want to have a right to be who I am and not be treated wrong all the damn time. I've had to deal with it 19 years so you can guess how fed up with that shit I am by now. I just want to be seen as the person I am.. is that too much to ask?

Of course I understand if someone who doesn't know me messes up when they first meet me -but- after I correct them and they don't do those mistakes again it's fine. But. If they still insist on calling me wrong things after that then they piss me off with their ignorance, very much. It's painful; I'm sick of being mistaken for something I am not and have never ever been. I'm a guy. Thank you. /end rant

Bye bye!