Lens review: TheDollyEye Pop C Dark Blue

Hello everyone out there!

I have a new lens review up to share with you all and this time it's the Pop C Dark Blue lenses by TheDollyEye! o/ I'm actually really confused as to who is the real manufacturer of these lenses (TheDollyEye is a rebranding label) because I've seen some sites list them as EOS while others say Dueba. I honestly don't know. ^^"

Oh well, let's get to the review ~

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 15.0 mm

Water content: 55%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Lenses in their vials, held up against the window.

Held up but with a flashlight (white/blue light) right under the vials.

Lens on my finger, "wrong" side up.

Please do note that these lens details I took from what it says on the TheDollyEye vials that I have. I've noticed that on PinkyParadise these lenses have a different base curve, diameter and even water content! (note: mine are not bought from Pinky)
That said I don't know which one is the real one or if there is different versions/batches/whatnot of the same lens.

One lens in.

My very first reaction when I put the first lens into my eye and looked in the mirror was "man, these are much more black-toned than I was expecting", along with "these are rather small". They don't seem like 15.0 mm lenses to me, pfft.
I think that they might be fairly similar in size to the Neo Celeb Violet lenses; actually, when I think about it, these are rather similar to the Neo Celeb series in many ways – both have a similar lens design, look similar when worn (except that the Pop C appears darker and shows less of the color, in this case blue) and the enlargement is on the smaller side of average but still noticeable.

The first time I wore these they went into my eyes no problem. My left eye started, after one minute or so, to feel like there was something annoying it slightly; I moved the lens in my eye and then my eye was suddenly crying and the feeling of irritation got stronger. I took the lens out, cleaned it and put it back in and this time it was fine.

All photos are taken during a cloudy afternoon, around 15:30-ish. Photos are all taken by me, as is to be expected. ;) I'm sorry about the quality though, my camera didn't want to be my friend this day...

Facing the window in the apartment.
(our window always has the sun facing it on morning/mid-day)

Flash photo indoors.

Bathroom light, part one.

Bathroom light, part two.

Facing a yellow corridor light.

Next to a crappy weak yellow light in the staircase.

Outdoors with my back against the light.

Outdoors facing the sun.

Actually, for some reason these lenses look more blue on photos than in real life, at least according to me. xD But yeah, I do like the color of these although I would have hoped for a bit more blue color and maybe a bit less black; now it kinda looks like the black is a tad overwhelming. It's not a bad thing though, it does give a rather rad effect and on some days I really like the dark look it gives.

In terms of comfort I think these are on the better end of average; I've worn them for around 4 hours no problem a couple of times. I do sometimes have this very slight feeling in my eye that I'm wearing contacts but it's not bothersome at all, really minor.
Overall I do like these lenses, although I'm not sure if I would repurchase them – maybe if I needed them for a character with black-blue eyes because, funnily enough, these look lighter and more blue on photos than what they do in real life, as I already mentioned before. I'm actually surprised how much nicer they look on photos... it's a bit of a bummer, haha. xD

Lastly I have the usual from-a-distance photo!

Facing window during a rather sunny day.
(note: this photo was taken on a different day than the rest)

Want to see these lenses in other colors?

I've reviewed a pair here: Green

Short summary:

Color: 6/10
It shows as dark blue, yeah, but I was kinda hoping for a bit more blue and a bit less... black.
Design: 7/10
These give me the whole "hey I've seen similar lenses out there!" reaction but they do look good nonetheless.
Opacity: 7/10
It does its job, but somehow it seems like my own eye color shows through in certain lights when viewed from a distance.
Enlargement: 4/10
Enlargement is okay.
Comfort: 7/10 
Comfort is on the better end of average I'd say.
Naturalness: 3/10
These aren't really natural because of the obvious black limbal ring, but it's still not bad either.

That's all for this round! Bub-bai ~

Kummacon 2015 – Pikkuconi ja puolikas vesimelooni

Hellou ~

Now I've finally gotten around to writing this short summary about my Kummacon experience!
I pardon for the lateness (the con was on 14th June so yeah, more than one week ago) but I must admit that the culprit this time wasn't laziness or busy-ness or any of the other commonly used excuses – it was honestly just me playing way too much Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate with friends. xD I'm seriously addicted to this game to the point that checking internet doesn't even feel tempting and well, that's saying a lot because hey, that's normally one of my top daily priorities! When opening the computer doesn't interest me then there's something horribly wrong lol. I just sit and slay wyverns and pink farting monkeys all day instead, huehuehue. I'm past 110 hours of gameplay and I've had the game for like, less than 2 weeks...? Oops.

Okey so, ehrrm, yeah, Kummacon. Let's get back to that!
So yeah, in case someone reading this doesn't know then I'll just fill you in and say that Kummacon was a small first-time convention held at Oulu in northern Finland; it had free entrance. It's a mixed fandom event (anime & manga, Western movies and comics, cosplay, literature, airsoft, zombie walk etc) that was held on the 14th June which, when you look at the calendar, you will notice is actually a Sunday. Yep, now that's unusual!
Oh, and before someone –who doesn't understand Finnish– wonders what the other half of this post's title means it translates to something like "a small con and half a water melon". You'll understand why soon enough... and yes, I do like goofy titles.

This time only me and Hasakitsuki attended the event; Jäätynyt Enkeli would have come too had he not had a trip to Germany a few days after. I did know though that Sairu-chan was attending, so I didn't leave for the con with the "I'll see no familiar faces" mindset.
As per usual my awesome aunt provided us two a free sleeping place because she lives in Oulu, duh. We arrived at le aunt's place on Saturday evening and yep, everything went smoothly. There's not really anything to say about my pre-con experience, expect that I played on my new New Nintendo 3DS XL, which I had put to use mere days before the event. It was a good choice to actually start playing on it now; I finally feel a bit updated in the gaming scene, hahaha. (but srsly, who came up with that name? New Nintendo 3DS. ._. It's so clumsy in everyday speech to specify that it's the "New" all the time, hurpdurp – "yeah I want to buy the new New Nintendo 3DS. :-DDD The new new....... pew pew. chew chew)

Sunday morning came. I don't know why but I had regained consciousness several times during the night, as if my sleep kept being really hacky or something. There was not anything to disturb me that morning and I never actually got up from bed or opened my eyes nor anything, it's just that I recall being aware that "hey, I'm not dreaming right now and it's the middle of the night" kind of thing. Con hype or nervousness, perhaps?
Whatever kept me from having a normal sleep wasn't only after my sleep – it wanted to screw up other things too! Yeah, you can guess. -.- Directly after breakfast my stomach started making silly roaring sounds and it felt weird and, err, by the time I got to the point I had started putting on my costume and doing the makeup then, well, I spent way longer in the bathroom than I should have. No one wants the details so I'll just leave it at that lol. Worst part is that shitty issues (quite literally, at times) seem a recurring annoyance to me whenever I'm either preparing for an event or something else that's important and, especially, when I have a time limit to keep tabs on. I dunno if it's some kind of "stress stomach" case or what but boy is it annoying when it happens.

Oh well, I got my costume on and we were ready to head out!
Much to our luck the weather was actually appropriate for the month this time – it was fairly warm but not too much. I swear we've had shitty April/autumn weather all the time and the actually sunny and nice days have been so few that I could count them on the fingers of one hand...

Yamato no Kami Yasusada is ready to go!
(note: mirror photo, hence why my kimono is reversed)

When we got to the now familiar Valve building I first headed straight for the bathroom – I reaaaally needed to fix my wig because it was living its own life! Even though the clip-on ponytail is short it's still surprisingly heavy (much fibers, I assume) and during the whole walk through the city it kept pulling my wig backwards; I should sew on some clips to the wig the next time I wear it...
At the bathroom I took the wig off and what do I see? My wig cap isn't even on my head anymore lol. No wonder why my real hair was peeking out like parasites all over the place and didn't stay under the wig when I poked them back in. Oh well, it was an easy fix – I just put the wig hooks on and prepared for the obligatory wig headache that usually follows shortly. You see, normally I almost never use the wig hooks because I seemingly have a rather big head to begin with and, well, most wigs are small-ish on me anyway so there is rarely a need to use them.

Valve building entrance.

Valve as a con hosting place is pretty okay... but it's still rather small and it feels crammed and narrow – wherever you look there is a mass of people constantly on the move; there is not much in the name of a breathing hole, unless you go outside of course. But Valve has its charm and I've started taking a liking to the darn place, hahah. I guess the crappy "let's have a con at the library!" experience adds to that feeling somehow... :'D

This is the sight you were met by as soon as you entered the front doors.

In front of Valvesali. If you turned left after passing this first "door" you
got to the merchandise area.

The one and only merchandise seller.
There was also a "visitor's selling table", aka where con visitors could
leave stuff they didn't want/need anymore for sale, during con time.

Of course there was the Artist's Alley as well.
Notice the seller closest to the camera – she's selling self-made colorful kanzashi
hair decorations! Now that's something out of the ordinary!

Kummacon in itself I didn't have much expectations for in terms of entertainment value – small cons in the north rarely provide anything spectacular. When you've been 20 minutes in the con you had seen it all.
Most of the time I spent hanging around with both old and new friends, going on a stroll in the city (scout for a lunch place!) as well as playing on my Nintendo 3DS. omg the Mii army I got on the StreetPass games, it was awesome!

Time to sit down and play! :D

Of course that there were a fair amount of more-or-less-interesting panels of many different subjects but, err, I'm not the kind to attend several panels in a row because it just tires me out and then I lose concentration/interest (been there, done that) and yes, that's totally why I ended up only attending one panel, even though there would have been at least one more that was interesting; there was the armor-making panel by Sheriff's Anvil (which I definitely wanted to attend) and then there was a cosplay photography panel. The problem was that both of these were placed in the same room and right after one another.
I ended up choosing to go only to the armor panel because that one I thought that I'd be more likely to learn something new from – after all, I did attend a photography panel at Kemi's manga day last year.

The entrance seen from above.

The Artist's Alley area (and the cafeteria to the far left) seen from above.

There was also a gallery for comics in the same building. This is
the Kiroileva Siili comic (lit. swearing hedgehog) which is well-known
in Finland.

About the armor-making panel itself I can say that it was a good one. It seemed to be targeted towards people who are new to armored cosplays (I still don't know if I count myself in that group or in the not-quite-so-newbie one, haha) and while it mostly had a "how I made this specific cosplay of mine" focus the panelist took up the step-by-step process of making the costume come true, which, in turn, can be applied for many different types of armored characters; he gave good starting pointers and all of that.
I personally found that dragging my hakama-clothed ass to the panel was a good investment and yes, it kept me interested through the whole run! The guy holding it was also funny and spoke in this kind of way that was entertaining, at least in my opinion. I do think that panelist holders who are expressive, pull jokes and use a lot of different voices are much more fun to listen to, haha. Also, this guy was clearly passionate about his work and about inspiring others and that was a pleasure to see.

Panel photos!
If you want to read the text I recommend that you open the image in a new tab to get the full-size version, in case your computer shows a resized image when you click on them through the blog.

The panel was held in Valvesali. Before the panel started there was
the Kummacon logo on the big screen.

He took off his cosplay and put the pieces on the scene, so that everyone who
wanted could go and take a look at how they were made. Really nice!

Sairu-chan and Karri showed up a bit later and I spent most of the con being around their company. I did a quick photoshoot for Sairu-chan outside and... eheheh... it ended up being a rather glorious passing of time because of all the photobomb tries that were provided by Karri and another guy. Karri just kept running into and crashing half the photos, it was golden. x) He also imitated Donald Duck's voice and said different things in said voice, including "feels good man" as well as some other lines from that really silly "Akun kakkaongelma" (lit. Donald's shit problem) video on Youtube that has gotten well-known in Finland by now. xD

Photobomb success! (provided by Emil, if I remember his name correctly)

Karri ninja photobomb!
(and he kinda got photobombed by the leaves, which means
photobomb in a photobomb. yo dawg)

This was actually just Karri being funny and picking up Sairu-chan but
it ended up looking like a scene from a cheesy romance movie. xD

Oh, and let's not forget Karri's awesome super crouch walk up the steps!
LIKE A BOSS. (yes, he walked up all the steps like that)

At some point after the photoshoot derping we passed by a nearby area of Valve and there we saw something bizarre and totally out of place – half a water melon left at the whatever park-like thingy!
It was so unexpected that we all went completely "WATER MELOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN" over it and did hilarious fake gasps and surprised faces at each other.. and then we started half-running in another direction. xD Too bad that I don't have picture proof of the melon but it definitely got the gold medal in the "surprise motherfucker!" category.

Towards the end of the con our group of four headed towards a pub that Karri knew – one of his friends worked there. At the pub I felt quite uncomfortable (I'm not a drinker and the atmosphere is not really to my liking) and I considered leaving when Sairu-chan left, but Karri cheered me up and made me stay. He and Hasakitsuki played chess and I just watched and was more or less bored... until a mention of Skecon was uttered and Karri took great interest in wanting to attend the con with us! Yep yep, we might very likely have a new face attending Skecon this year – OMGYES!!
By the time we left the pub the con was close to over so we just took a quick look inside and then headed back to aunt's place. Karri followed with us back for a visit and we ended up playing Super Mario 3D World all three of us and, duuude, was it fun!

But yeah, Kummacon was an overall nice experience in my book – I would likely attend it again if a second edition comes. Even though for most part it felt the same as Animeseminaari because it was in the same building, except that Kummacon was a bit more varied, haha. I didn't notice any clumsy or lacking arranging of the event (seeing how it was a first-time con) but I heard that the cosplay competition had issues and some weird solutions going on. By "weird solutions" I mean that I've heard from others that because the competition had some time issues it was decided that the audience shouldn't clap their hands at all for the contestants when they were on stage.
Why, I wonder?
To save time, I heard.
That's just so weird and not okay that I can't but raise the nope flag. Just... why? ._. Surely there must have been better solutions out there than to cut out something that barely takes time and is a rather important way of encouraging and showing appreciation to whoever is on stage... boo.

Oh well, I don't have much more to add. I am always happy to see that new geeky events are sprouting, especially in the north. I hope that Kummacon won't be one of those "one time only" cases and that it will grow and be held in the future too.  
Psst! I didn't get a wig headache! :-DD

See ya!

Kummacon 2015 – Cosplay plans!

How's it going guys?

Remember how I implied earlier that Skecon would be my next convention? Well, that's not quite true anymore! ;)
You see, some time ago I was swimming around on the internet and then I happened to end up on Kummacon's website. Thing is that I already knew about this con... and I had completely forgotten about it, until now.
I guess that back when I first learned about it I just went like "oh, it's too close to Desucon so I can't be bothered" and then it left my brain completely, without a second thought. Now that it turned out that I didn't attend Desucon this year Kummacon suddenly turned a lot more interesting!
Sure that it's a one-day event but it's in Oulu (aka close, "only" ~100 km away), in the now familiar Valve building and my awesome aunt has informed that it's possible to stay at her place and BOOM – Kummacon, here I come!

I'm curious about Kummacon (lit. "weird con") because it's a new con that will be arranged for the first time this year – I'm always happy to see new geeky events sprouting in the north!
It's a mixed popular culture con so yep, there's the usual anime & manga and cosplay of course, but also board games, literature (Harry Potter books etc), television series & movies, comics and so on.
Kummacon welcomes both Japanese pop culture along with western fandoms, in other words – there's even space for zombie fans and other fabulous weirdos! ;)

...

But yeah, now to the cosplay plans!

At first I thought that I'd just do some random fancy non-cosplay outfit but, the more I thought about it the more I started feeling like I wanted to cosplay, after all. Been having a lot of on an off cosplay feelings lately. A quick thought about possible cosplay candidates (recycle edition) first ended up with Battousai version Kenshin, mainly because it was pretty long since I last cosplayed him, aka summer 2013, oops. But then I thought that Kenshin might be a bit too cumbersome to wear because I'm planning to attend panels (if I laugh the scar might start to peel off etc) and well, taking the swords off and putting them back in place several times seemed like a hassle I wasn't too keen on.
So yeah, I wanted something without props.. and preferably something new; something that I was currently into and that would be extra fun to cosplay. I've lately kinda been in a "cosplay rut", as if some of the excitement just wore off and I'm trying to find the fun again, idk? Because of this I wanted something fresh and new to wear – something that I'm currently hyped about and into; maybe it would help with getting the cosplay mood back on track...?

And what could that new and exciting series be?

– TOUKEN RANBU, of course. ♡

Character: Yamato no Kami Yasusada (uchiban version)
Series: Touken Ranbu

Yep, so this will be my debut into Touken Ranbu cosplay land!
I've been so into this shit ever since I first heard about it! I just love so many of the character designs to no end – perfect cosplay fodder for me lol; it's never gonna end. x) Yamato no Kami Yasusada is one of the favorites and was so from the very first time I saw him; he's just too cute haha. What makes him even more awesome to me is the fact that he is one of Souji Okita's swords – one of my favorite historical persons, yes please!

Nothing more to add.
A summary about Kummacon will follow after the con is over! Stay tuned!

Touken Ranbu uchiban cosplays, bits & pieces!

Hi there!

I've slowly started gathering stuff for some Touken Ranbu cosplays! Yes, I'm seriously in love with this online game (even though I haven't actually played it yet; blame shitty internet and a crashy laptop for that) and all the gorgeous character designs! There's way too many cool characters that I want to cosplay and so many are totally the style that I tend to gravitate towards when choosing cosplays anyway, agjhdfsjhahkj! ;w; I just... can't... stop... having horrible cosplay cravings towards Touken Ranbu, hnng!

Okay so, I've gone ahead and bought fabric for Mikazuki Munechika's uchiban (casual) outfit, namely for the yellow headband thingy. I've also bought fabric for the tasuki sleeve cord that both Kashuu Kiyomitsu and Yamato no Kami Yasusada have on their uchiban outfits as well. If anyone wonders what a tasuki is for it's to tie up the kimono sleeves so that they aren't in the way.

Fabrics!

I started making the sleeve tying.. well, tie, first. I took no progress photos because it's simple as hell.

I had bought like 26 cm of a 150 cm wide fabric and I cut it in half so that I got two 150 cm long strips. I then just zigzaged the edges, sewed one end of each piece together to get one 3 m long piece. Then I just folded it in half, ironed and sew the whole shebang closed. When done I ironed the whole shit once more so that it wouldn't twist itself like a retarded sausage, which it did before ironing.

The annoying thing was that even though this was a super simple thing to do I had ridiculous problems with the sewing machine I was using in school. I was using the oldest one and well, last time I used it it was kind to me but now... lolnoep. I had the needle breaking once, the thread getting pulled and snapping off in the middle of sewing God knows how many times and that's not even all! When I put the new sewing needle in place it literally just fell off (even though I had screwed it in place) and IT FELL INSIDE THE GODDAMN SEWING MACHINE. Yep, right through that tiny little hole under the presser. I was like "are you kidding me? ._." but nope, there it went and there it stayed! I even tried to lift the whole sewing machine (with the metal part removed, so that all the dust inside stared at me) and shake it, upside down, but the only thing that came out was an older already broken needle. Fudge muffins.

Finished tasuki being worn.

Seen from the back. Mirror photo, it's reversed!

I did cut the tasuki shorter by one meter before I took the photos; I realized when doing a test-run that there was way too much length to it and I couldn't hide it nicely.
I know that on the official art neither Kashuu nor Yamato seems to have a visible knot in the front but hey, that's the only way I know how to tie the tasuki so that's how I rolled. So far I haven't found an official illustration showing what the back looks like so yeah, if the knot is actually in the back on either of them I'll figure out how it's tied and do it that way in the future. :)

Next I made Mikazuki's headband thingy.
Nothing special to say about this quick project either, except that I used fake leather for the emblem (that I stitched on) instead of fabric paint; the main reason for this because I had scrap pieces of fake leather lying around after making Kojirou's tekkou and well, I couldn't find the black fabric paint anywhere (if I even had any) and the school didn't have any either and well, I'm cheap.

Emblem leather cut-outs placed on the fabric, before being sewed on.
Enjoy the cellphone quality! :'D

Annoying thing was when I was done with the whole shit and held it up to look at it. Yep, that's totally when I saw that one damn loose thread was INSIDE THE FINISHED THING; I had somehow missed to brush it off like the rest. Hnggnhejgfdhjhd!!

You see that fucker? ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ

Yep, I had "inside problems" this turn around. OTL Sewing needle falling inside the sewing machine and loose thread inside my completed headband, geez...

Oh well, with the help of some mad ninja skills I managed to move the thread to the very edge of the headband so that it disappeared from view. Mad ninja skills include poking a needle through a spot before were I started stitching (to avoid having to undo the sewing) and moving the needle around repeatedly until the thread moved along with it. :'D enjoymyclumsyexplanations.com

Tried it on my head. Excuse my face, I have zero makeup on...

Yep, that's my Mikazuki wig which recently arrived; I just took it straight out of the bag and put it on my head. I will need to style it later – this is just a quickie to see how it fit with the headband.
At one point I was seriously worried that the headband would be too short to actually be possible to tie, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Even with the wig on it's still okay!

Actually my Yamato no Kami Yasusada wig arrived together with the Mikazuki wig and yep, this is totally why I'm actually wearing Yamato's outfit on the Mikazuki headband pic and the other pics. ;)
I did a super quick outfit test (aka zero makeup) to see what it would look like; I already had everything needed for his uchiban outfit now that the wig showed up, woop!

Sorry about my weird expression and that it's a mirror photo, I
was home alone. Enjoy the Wario cap in the background.

I took the wig straight out of the bag and put it on.
The white hair ribbon I have yet to add...

I guess this would count as some kind of closet cosplay because I had the hakama already from earlier cosplays (Kenshin & Hakuouki's Hijikata) and the kimono is from my vintage collection, aka my kimono kitsuke hobby. x) The scarf I stole borrowed from Hasakitsuki. Only the wig I needed to order and well, the tasuki I made. No shit, Sherlock.

Psst, I have a wig for Kashuu as well that arrived recently! I just might need to cut and style it a bit and, of course, add the white hair tie. But I'll save that for another post!

That's all for this time! Bub-bai ~