Hijikata night photoshoot + Saitou photoshoot

Hi!

After me and Jäätynyt Enkeli got home from Uppcon on both Saturday and Sunday we decided to do photoshoots in the park/playground outside -close to where my father lives in southern Sweden- before we changed back to normal gear. I won't write so much, I'll post photos instead. 
Oh, and please ignore my red Uppcon arm band ticket thingy.

Saturday 16th June - Toshizo Hijikata • Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan

Saturday 17th June - Hajime Saitou • Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan

- BONUS PIC -

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ISHIDA, DON'T COME PHOTO CRASHING DAMMIT! XD
(yes, I was serious face-ing half a second before.. and then ololo derptacular)

We will hopefully do another Hijikata photoshoot because I want one in daylight so we don't have to use flash... although night photos are pretty cool.

Bye.

History's last Uppcon (2012) is over

So I attended Uppcon XII, the last Uppcon in history. I had a lot of fun, met some friends and just had general con fun and a blast. I took quite a lot of photos of cosplayers but I didn't attend any panels or anything.. again, I'm lazy and prefer to just walk around and look at all the cosplays, enjoy the atmosphere and occasionally strike a quick conversation with someone.
I cosplayed Gin Ichimaru from Bleach on Friday, Toshizo Hijikata from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan on Sunday and Hajime Saitou from Hakuouki on Sunday. I was happy to see that some people did recognize me as Hakuouki characters, even though it seemed it isn't as known in Sweden as it is in Finland. Oh, and what made me kinda happy was on Saturday when I was cosplaying Hijikata and wandering around the merchandise tent two Japanese men were standing in front of me, when I was walking towards that scene thingy, away from the buying stands and I noticed them both watching me with a smile and then they said something in Japanese to each other, one of the words being 'shinsengumi'. Then one of them gestured to me like "hey, shinsengumi, come here" and of course I did. They took my picture. :'D And bowed to me, I just smiled although now later I wish I had bowed back. I think they didn't know I cosplayed from Hakuouki, probably they just thought it was cool that I was dressing up as something from their own history. xD Whatever, it really made me warm inside haha ~

The weather was perfect on Friday but Saturday was rainy and Sunday even more so.. but when the con ended the rain stopped... oh, speaking of the con end; I got teary-eyed after the "avslutning" (conclusion, final speech thingy) and I noticed several people crying too.. I saw someone with face paint coming out of the building who you could obviously tell had cried a lot because the make-up had these tear strokes. I didn't really cry at first but then I noticed some of the people who arrange Uppcon were hugging con-goers as some kind of 'thank you for coming and farewell' thing and that made me feel my eyes watering. I hugged some of them.
After the final speech thingy several random people gathered huge hug groups of people and I took part in at least 3.. couldn't resist.

Sad group hugging

Also someone went around with a video camera and asked random people close to her about the feelings after the final Uppcon had ended.. she asked me and I said something that I tried not to cry because I didn't want my make-up to run (had planned a photoshoot after the con), I should have added that I would most likely be crying later because I'm like that.. at first I'm just stunned and emotionless and then a few minutes later it hits me like BAM it is over. Now just let's see if I can find that video on Youtube..

I also hugged this one guy who was cosplaying some more casual version (I think it might have been canon) of Kenpachi from Bleach because he was the one who was crying the most and it really made my heart break to see him so sad.. because I've known him since my first (or was it second?) Uppcon and if I have to associate one person with Uppcon it's him. He is just amazing, such a fire soul and he's the 'pepp' (con hype) incarnated. :'( He was crying so much and everyone kept hugging and coming up to him. I wasn't cosplaying Bleach when I hugged him so I asked if he remembered me (I was Saitou) and mentioned that I was Ukitake last year and he said that of course he did and praised my swords, then I said he was the one person I remember the most from my overall Uppcon experience and that made him break up in tears.. again. ;_; Awww.

And I was crying a bit after that and people started to hug each other and a person came very close to me, gave me a tiny bit of chocolate something and a hug. Thank you. ;A;
Also one of the Uppcon staff (I think?) was walking outside with a cardboard box that contained cute hats that he was giving for free, I got a black and white one with ears and a cute skull on, yay.

Oh well, despite the weather being semi-crap and the very very sad ending Uppcon XII was amazing.. but I can't help but ask myself why it had to come to an end already.. Uppcon X was my first con and first con I cosplayed to.. Uppcon opened my eyes for going to conventions, cosplaying and gave me lots of new friends.. so I just want to say THANK YOU UPPCON FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART. <3

Fixed the last details for my shinsengumi outfits

 Hi guys!

I've been packing most of the day and I hope I don't forget anything now. I wonder where I've put my hair tie for Saitou... I've done some cosplay progress too: I added the long ties for the shinsengumi haori today and made the headband.

It's ready ~ <3

I just cut two 2 meter pieces of some random white cord that we had lying at home and tied them to the loops inside the haori, then I test tied it to see about how far down the ties fell on my back.

reference for haori himo length (and headband too..)

Turned out 2 meters was waaaay too long so I cut around 50 cm or something off each end and kept tying them together until I got them to look about right.

Next (and last) thing to do was the shinsengumi headband.
I had yesterday bought two strips of around 12 cm of thin bed sheet-ish flowy fabric (whole fabric width) and I started from that. First thing to do was sew one of the ends together so I got one long piece. Then I zigzaged around the whole thing and next up was to iron it. After ironing it in the middle I put it on my head to see how long it was. Too long. Again. So I cut 40 cm off both ends.

After I had cut off excess length. lol why do I look so angry?...

Then I folded and ironed the sides...

... and sewed it closed ~

And when that was done I went and grabbed my bag of craft foam. Yes, I'm cheap. XD I took the brown sheet because, well, brown is better than yellow or green or something. lol
I cut out a 21 cm long (whole width of the sheet) and a 5 cm wide piece and proceeded to mix together some glue and water in a glass bottle. I needed to seal the craft foam because craft foam is kinda like a sponge and it sucks up paint like a monster otherwise. Or something.

Craft foam sealing preparations

I coated it around 4 layers and then I got lazy and picked up the silver spray paint and went outside. Several coats of paint later I let the piece dry and then I used some Karlssons klister (it glues everything pretty much) and glued it to the headband. I tried to sew it on at first but it derped so I resorted to using glue. I let it dry again and tried it on ~

Finished headband

Closer shot of it

When it's not on my head trolol

I'm not 100% sure what color it's actually supposed to be because the pictures I looked at showed different colors... ._. Oh well, I made mine silver and if I later find out it's the wrong color I can always make a new one, not much trouble. Now I did some quick version because, as you all know, I'm leaving tomorrow. I will use the haori and headband for both Saitou and Hijikata and also other future shinsengumi members I will cosplay. That means now both my Saitou and Hijikata cosplays are finished and con ready, YAY! ~

Bye bye!

Uppcon cosplay plans change!

So after Desucon I decided to change my Uppcon cosplay plans a bit because I figured I probably won't enjoy a whole-day headache as Ichito on Saturday because those head wrap thingies did just that on Desucon. So I'll change him into something a bit more comfortable for Uppcon because, after all, it's the last Uppcon in history and I'd rather not be in any kind of pain but I will probably anyway derp and enjoy the weekend as much as humanly possible.

Friday
Character: Gin Ichimaru (captain)
Series: Bleach

Yeah, Gin is still on Friday. He is set and won't be going anywhere. Jäätynyt Enkeli will accompany me as Izuru Kira and it seems Psycho Cat will hang around with us as Rangiku Matsumoto too.

Saturday
Character: Toshizo Hijikata
Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

Hijikata got moved to Saturday instead of Sunday. I will have with me both swords and possibly Ochimizu.. we'll see. Likely I will derp patrol around the con without a fellow shinsengumi/Hakuouki cosplayer because Jäätynyt Enkeli will cosplay from another series.

Sunday
Character: Hajime Saitou
Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

And Saitou will fill the last slot. He wasn't originally planned to be debuted already at Uppcon but it's a comfortable cosplay to wear and I'm in a Hakuouki craze right now so wuteva~

I'm not sure will I wear the shinsengumi haori and headband or not with Saitou. We'll see.

I got stuff for Hijikata!

I went to town around 12:00 clock something, I think, with Ari. Oh my god I was so tired but I wanted to go and get the town visit over and done with...
I went and picked up two packages from the post office and bought some white thin fabric so I can make a shinsengumi headband for coming Hakuouki cosplays. From the post office I picked up yet another vintage kimono (yay!), which, despite looking dark purple on the site it was this weird blue-gray-black with a purple-ish tint. Interesting. The lining is very dark black-purple too... but the whole thing seems to photograph purple anyway. xD I'll use it for Hijikata for now because I don't feel like sewing a kimono in stress again in one day not to mention mom is sick of me making kimonos lol. Tomorrow I need to do some finishing touches on my Hijikata cosplay and pack my suitcase, that's enough to do. *yawns*

I took some WIP photos of Hijikata so far. Excuse mirror photos again..

What's left to do is the headband and add haori himo ties to the haori. The swords are at Jäätynyt Enkeli's place already. The hakama and shinsengumi haori are commissioned by my friend Hasakitsuki's mom. Thank you so much. <3 I could never have made it myself in time for Uppcon because I was busy finishing Desucon cosplays and blah blah. So this cosplay is mostly commissioned and/or bought.

It seems my Uppcon cosplay plans will change too, I'll make a blog post about that later. Gin Ichimaru and Toshizo Hijikata are set though. It seems I'll change Ichito for Hajime Saitou but I'm not sure yet. I can't take Ukitake because the swords got damaged from the Desucon trip.. the golden paint rubbed against and transferred on the black parts of the blade. I need to repaint it and fix one of those ribbon holder square things because it broke already last year at Närcon by accident but so far it's been held together by Jesus tape.. but now it's giving in. Need to make a new one.

Bye bye!

Desucon 2012 summary

Pfhaah, I'm finally back home from my first summer!Desucon ever. Desucon was held in Lahti 8-10 June 2012. I had a blast, it was so much fun despite more-than-usual breathing problems, ME GUSTA VERY MUCH!! I'm so going there next year again!

My journey to Desucon started on Thursday morning by train. I managed to finish my cosplays in time for the con, although last minute and mom and stepdad modified Ichito's shoes for me because I was busy packing my stuff. :'D It looks a bit ghetto but it works lol.

Yay shoes.. and thus my cosplays were ready ~

I slept in Omenahotels with Jäärä, Ri-kun and Sukka from Thursday to Sunday. So much night derp and fun oh my god. xD PILLS!

I cosplayed shikai!Jushiro Ukitake on Friday and hung out with our Bleach cosplay group. We went to eat in a Chinese restaurang together a bit after the con started. I must say I wasn't too fond of the food. I do like Chinese food in general but I've eaten better.. but maybe that's because me and two others sat in another table from the rest and most of the different foods were on the other table and I didn't bother to go there because I was feeling very weak...

On Saturday morning and earlier daytime I cosplayed Ichito from Asaki, Yumemishi but I changed into yukata!Souji Okita from Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan later because, even though I really liked my Ichito cosplay it was quite uncomfortable and I'd rather not have a headache during the whole main con day. Jäärä cosplayed Miku from the same game and changed into Chizuru also.

On Sunday we had a Hakuouki group with Jäärä as Chizuru, Zkitsune as Harada, Ri-kun as Saitou and me as Okita. I think Sunday was my favorite day in terms of hanging-with-friends-fun. Even though shikai!Ukitake was, again, my most popular cosplay during the con.

Photo by Miika Ojamo

I didn't attend any panels or even buy any merchandise I have so much stuff in my room already.. but the con was very very nice anyway. Lots of nice cosplay costumes and friendly people. I took quite some photos so if you remember being photographed by shikai!Ukitake, yukata!Okita or Ichito (aka white long-haired eyepatch guy) give me a shout and I'll see if I have a photo of you! If you don't know what those characters I cosplayed look like you can have a look at my earlier Desucon cosplay plans blog post. I have photos of Okami cosplayers, Hakuouki cosplayers, Bleach cosplayers, Sengoku Basara cosplayers, InuYasha cosplayers, Digimon cosplayers and some few more like some hobbits from Lord of the Rings (names escape me gah!), Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur and Gakupo from Vocaloid. So if you cosplayed something from these series there's a big possibility I have a photo of you~ I have some photos too of characters I didn't recognize but I thought the costumes were really nice/interesting.

Oh, and of course if anyone has photos of my cosplays I'd really like to have them! My email can be found under the "contact me" text to the left. Thank you ~

Hmm, what more to say.. one thing's for sure.. Desucon was probably my most derp!lungs con ever.. dafuq. Weird it fucked so much now when it has been over one and a half year... *shrugs* Oh well. I think I ended up lololo-can't-almost-breathe 5 times.. 2 of them when going to sleep and the others when walking either to the con or back from the con damn ascents. Not cool... and ironically enough I think all bad breathing derps happened when I was cosplaying Okita or Ukitake.. OTL
lololo someone took a photo when I was recovering and I ended up getting a random chest pain just when the photo was taken.. so needless to say a random person probably got a very in-character Okita photo of me. ._. derp

I'm now suffering this after-con lag hahah (yyyh want more Desucon!) and I'm so friggin' tired right now, I hardly slept in the train back home and ahgjfsgfs. I got home a few hours ago and need to start packing again for another con, this time Uppcon in Uppsala next weekend. I'm leaving 13th June so need to pack my stuff again... but I need a bigger suitcase because I will be staying at my dad's place for some few weeks after the con.

And last but not least:

Thank you everyone for a wonderful Desucon experience! <3

yukata!Okita preview ~

As I recently wrote in the earlier blog post I got Okita done in time for Desucon and I promised some preview photos.. so here they are ~

Bleh mirror photo..

So this is what I'll be wearing on Sunday. We will have a mini Hakuouki cosplay group with me, Jäärä, Zkitsune and Ri-kun. I'm so excited! Although you guys have to deal with lolrepsderp Okita. XD

Bye bye!

Okita's yukata finished!

So I woke up early today to finish sewing Okita's yukata. After lots of ffffffuuuuuu moments, rage and more rage I managed to get it done. I hate lining forevermore with a passion, it will always fuck up somewhere and then everything fucks up and it's slippery and pain in the ass to sew and just GRAH KILL IT WITH FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I didn't take many progress photos because I focused on getting it done as fast as possible. Today is my last day to get all Desucon cosplays done because I will be leaving tomorrow early. Here you have the few photos I actually took:

Sides had just been sewn together

Lining sewn to the same point as earlier photo

Something just ate my arm!!

Ah, it was just the okumi panel being pulled rightside out...

Oops

Finished

I'm not too happy about it because the lining is too short and creates random folds and bumps at random places... ugh. Oh well, it's still usable so it will have to do for now.

Soon I will upload some Okita preview photos, stay tuned ~

Head accessories + Ichito WIP

 Hi guys!

I've been sewing on Okita's yukata today, but I didn't take any photos of the progress so I'll make a blog post about it later when it's finished instead.

I made Ichito's eye wrap thingies and hair piece today. Not so much to say, pretty easy to do.

Making of the hair piece.. (it's covered craft foam)

I also got my commissioned wigs today so I could finally take some WIP photos without face censors lol. I had one problem though, the wig is very short in the back... or I have a too big head? I don't know, maybe my hair was at fault because I styled it pretty heavily on the morning and very quickly put the wig cap and stuff on.. maybe works better if I pin my hair up (so hard to pin short hair..) and/or flatten it with water. We'll see, otherwise I have to use those head wraps to cover what can be seen of my real hair under...

Oh well, have some WIP photos. Pardon shoes are not done and I was too lazy to put on blue nail polish and I don't have white face powder yet... lololo derp.

I don't know why my hands always end up so close to my face somehow...

I'm fabulous.. err...

ICHITO, Y U NO STAND LIKE A MAN?

Did you notice.................. DOTTED SOCKS BLASPHEMY??! Badumtssh ~

Oh, and one thing. This cosplay already earned the following titles:
• Ultimate everything-falls-off-every-minute cosplay
• Ultimate I-look-like-a-walrus-in-this cosplay
• Ultimate it-feels-like-I-have-no-pants-when-I-actually-do cosplay

Uhum, I'm outta here!

Okita's yukata parts cut out + Ichito obi

 Hi everyone.

Mom helped me cut out the pieces for my Okita cosplay.. but... she made a measurement mistake and we ended up with a knee-length kimono instead of an ankle-length. OTL Mom told me she had earlier been thinking "I'm surprised we haven't done any cutting mistakes yet", you shouldn't have thought that. lol Oh well, I will have to add extra pieces to the front and back panels to get the full length and that means I'll have to make an extra seam where there should be none; I have no other choice because this particular fabric was a leftover piece from the store and only 2,8 meters long and yeah, no extra fabric available and no time either. If I had wanted the body of the yukata to be 'whole' after that error we would have had to put seams in the upper part of the sleeves instead. Eeew. I'd rather have those seams a bit under my butt on the yukata itself than on both sleeves...
Oh, and I have to line this thing too because the fabric is a bit thin and to help it fall better and well, to make it a bit warmer because Okita only has one layer..

Most of the parts cut out

I got lazy so I didn't start sewing it.. I'll do it tomorrow because I have no school...

Some time later I figured I could at least sew Ichito's obi so I'd be one step closer to goal. So first I cut out two long pieces (150 cm each) of that fabric I took inside earlier. I sewed them together at one end and zigzaged around and then I folded it in the middle and ironed to create a middle fold. Then I started folding in the sides all the way. Also folded in the ends.
It was very easy to do, didn't take much more than maybe 15 minutes ~

After I had ironed everything ready

Sewing it closed

Finished obi

That's all, see you!

Modifying Ichito's "jacket" + found last of the fabrics

 Hello!

A few days ago I tried on Ichito's "jacket"-whatever-it-is and noticed that it needs a slight make-over. I needed to cut those front panels into a more triangular shape because I noticed just hiking them up didn't do it. I also needed to take in the back of the garment because it was too big.

derp

Notice triangular pointy front panels

So what do I do? Cut it.

Before any modifications. Poor thing thought it was con-ready..

Marked cutting line

Test photo after cutting and hemming

Took in the back seam and ironed it..

Folded in front panel sides too and sewed around them

Testing after the operation with a substitute sash (blue kimono under)

Back side (näytän niin mursulta! :'D)

I think it'll have to do, I can't take in so much more from the back part closest to the collar.. so it's bigger up and narrows slowly the farther down it gets.

I also helped mom moving her former fabric store's leftover fabrics (those that had been stored in big black bags in the old storage house) to our attic and I found some fabrics I can use for Ichito's obi and shoe covers. Yay, free fabric once again. <3

That rib knit fabric just doesn't want to photograph its real color... it's closer to an army green...

When mom is done outside she'll help me cut out the fabric for Okita's yukata so I can start sewing it. There will very likely be another blog post about it later today.

Until then, see ya!