Gaogamon furry accessories in a rush!

Woof and hello~

For Nekocon earlier this year I made a new cosplay, my first Digimon gijinka Gaogamon. I didn't have time to do a WIP post before leaving home so I figured I'll just post it now that the summer con schedule is over!

So, uhh, this is a cosplay that I will improve later on and what I wore at Nekocon is basically the beta version lol. I was short on time when I made all the furry parts (as always :D) and a lot of the clothes are reused from my other cosplays and stuff I already have at home. The new parts are the "furry ones" that help with recognition – the ears, tail and mane.

I started with checking the local fabric store for light blue faux fur but of course there wasn't any available. Or well, there was one with an okay color but it had completely wrong type of pile! It sucks so much that there used to be an Eurokangas in Tornio and Kemi used to have, I think, two different fabric stores but they're all gone now and the only store left is Kangaskukkula in Tornio (and Kangastalo, but that's like almost entirely upholstery and home decor fabrics so it's not so good for sewing clothes). So yeah, finding the right fabrics for cosplay is extremely hard up here unless you're willing to mess around with ordering online or trying your luck at thrifting... or taking the train to Oulu for the nearest Eurokangas. And still I'd consider myself very lucky because mom has tons of fabrics in the attic from back when she had her own fabric store, but even with the "fabric store at home" option I still quite often have to go elsewhere to buy what I need.
So yeah, Kangaskukkula didn't have what I needed for the mane and so I decided to check out Kangastalo just to turn every stone around. They had a few faux furs, surprisingly enough, but mainly black and dark colors. I was feeling increasingly desperate and even considered buying some fluffy pillow covers from there to cut apart, color and piece together but I realized it would become quite expensive because one cover was like 16€ or something and it wasn't very big so I would have to buy multiple. With all fabric store options exhausted I suddenly had an eureka moment – why don't I just buy a sheepskin from Ikea and dye it? It's natural wool and thus, technically, any common fabric dyes I can find should work on it – and it would be cheaper than destroying tons of fluffy fancy decor pillows!
I felt lowkey crazy for even cooking up this idea but it was quite literally the best option I had and so I went over to the local Ikea and walked out with an ULLERSLEV sheepskin (which costs 349 SEK). I tried to pick one that was as uniform and light in color as possible and also with longer pile length and density; there's always some variation in each individual pelt and so I took my time picking a good one for my project.

Once I got home I took an old brush and started combing the fur to mark where I'd cut. You can part the wool anywhere and so it's actually very convenient to work with. I was also surprised how easy it was to cut through the leather on the underside! I made sure not to pull or tug the wool and brushed it out gently to get it to lay in the direction I wanted. One of the reasons why I parted it was to make it easier to visualize where to cut (pins get hidden in the fluff lol) and, of course, to preserve as many individual hairs as possible.

Parted and sectioned out the fur where I'd cut it.

I cut out one larger part for the front and one smaller for the back. I utilized the natural shape of the leather to minimize waste. My front and back pieces are not identical in shape, nor are they symmetrical anyway. I don't mind that and it's honestly not really that noticeable because of the floofiness.

With my pieces cut out (and over half of the sheepskin left for future projects – money worth indeed) I had to dye them. Fun fact: I've never dyed anything before. Needless to say I was extremely anxious about completely fucking up this part! I've kinda avoided having to dye something because I've been so scared of failure lol. I had bought some Nitor allfärg/yleisväri (number 16 for those wondering) in Tokmanni earlier. 

There's no turning back now. #ihavenoideawhatimdoing

I did read the instructions but I figured I couldn't exactly go throw in my dyes into the shared washroom's machine and then some unfortunate neighbor's clothes turn blue lmao. The other option seemed hella inconvenient too because I'd have to boil water and stir it while warming it up and it's not like I own a big enough skillet to dunk my furs in (and the instructions said it needs to be at least 7 liters lol) and just ugh, it seemed way too complicated and made my neurospicy brain spin. So what do I do? I disregard all the instructions and yolo it, of course! xD

Omg it's actually taking on the color!

So I went to my bathroom and covered the shower area with newspapers and threw my two fur pieces into the largest bucket I had. I filled it with hot water from the shower, put in a bit of dyeing powder and held my breath. I had no idea how much dye I was supposed to use because it was a marine blue and I wanted a very light blue shade! I was really worried of it turning too dark (both blue shades available were really dark) and so I was super careful with the dye lol, especially because I didn't have any test pieces.

The leather took on the dye so well, the heck?? xD

I don't remember how long I kept the pieces submerged but it was a pretty long time, at least 30 minutes? Probably closer to one hour. I kept adding hot water in the beginning and stirring it to make sure it stayed warm and then I slowly let the water cool down. I of course threw in some white vinegar into the mix as well. I kept checking the coloration every now and then and, honestly, I'm quite relieved that the dye worked because I wasn't sure if the natural lanolin the wool is coated in would somehow affect the absorption or not. But yeah, considering how I just winged this while ignoring the instructions I'm actually surprised it worked as well as it did! I ended up getting almost exactly the shade I wanted! Vaihteeksi ei ollut vituiksmän menossa mukana.

I also find it quite interesting how well the leather dyed, especially because the packaging doesn't mention leather at all, just natural fibers like cotton, silk etc. I mean yeah it says "and other materials from the animal and plant kingdom" but I've always had the impression that to dye leather you need specific products meant for just leather. :'D Well, I don't complain, this was a cool learning experiment!

Dyed pieces laid out to dry on my shower curtain rack.

It took quite long to dry (a hairdryer would have been nice..) but while they dried I had time to work on the other parts so it's not like I sat and rolled my thumbs or grew roots next to the Playstation with time running low. 

Once the pieces finally were thoroughly dry I took out the comb again and combed them out. With natural wool you can alter the texture of the wool by combing it! This is actually pretty neat because you can so easily change the look and touch of it to fit your needs and if you want to revert it you can just get the wool wet and it will go back to the original texture. I tested this because I had actually combed the pieces smooth before I dyed them. :)

Natural wool texture to the left, combed to the right.

Gaogamon has these two tufts or tassels or whatever hanging from its mane in the front and I had to come up with how to make them with supplies I already had at home. My last minute solution was to try to dye some white synthetic wefts with markers. I've had some wefts lying around for like, uhh, 15 years? xD
I realized that I have a ridiculously pathetic collection of markers for being an artist – I quite literally only have two blue markers. Heresy! And the other one is way too dark for this project. So yeah, I only had one option and it better work.

White ancient wefts and my one and only light blue marker lmao.

I went through the fibers with the marker and colored them in. It feels cheap but it works! Synthetic wig fibers absorb the ink from markers and the dye "stains them"... or something like that. Whatever the technicalities are behind the process it works. I didn't use any rubbing alcohol or anything else than just the marker, I don't know if there's different needs for different brands or methods or whatnot but I did a water test to check for color bleeding and it didn't bleed at all! I put the dyed fibers under running tap water and rubbed it against some paper and nope, perfect results. Maybe it depends on the wig fiber quality too but I literally used some Tradera (Swedish equivalent of eBay) random hair fashion shop wefts from a decade ago that are of unknown quality and it worked lol.

No color bleed whatsoever. Yes, I was surprised.

In case anyone's curious what marker brand I used it's Letraset's promarkers of the comic art set so yeah, basically markers for doing manga and comics. 

While I like the shade of blue I ended up with by itself I don't like how it's clearly a different shade from the wool, but it had to do for now. Ideally I would have wanted the same shade and I did try to look for light blue yarn before I settled on using the weft but yeah, I couldn't find the right light blue yarn. I also considered needle felting the tufts from the same wool but I didn't have enough loose wool nor the tools to do it. The last time I did felting was like 20 years ago too. :'D

Oh well, back to the weft I had to roll with for now – it was too long and I needed to split it into two pieces. I cut it in half and then cut the length in half too. This was such a messy ordeal and hell to work on. I needed to make wefts out of the loose fibers and I used some kind of universal glue for this (didn't have UHU glue available) and it dried way too slowly! It felt like it took forever to dry, despite claiming to be quick-drying, and a lot of fibers came loose and went everywhere and then I had to discard them, which was really stressful because the weft was rather sparse to begin with and I had no Plan B. Without exaggerating I probably lost half of the total fibers due to the glue being crap and the fibers getting stuck on my sweaty-ass hands when I just tried to manage them. I lowkey suspect I might have palmar hyperhidrosis because my hands have always sweated like crazy whenever I'm nervous, tense, stressed or from temperature shifts, emotions etc... it's a pain in the ass to deal with.

This was supposed to be easy but it was hell.

I eventually managed to add the glued self-made wefts onto the original weft rows to get double thickness. Gaogamon has these gold-colored bead thingies hanging from the tufts but at this point I had no time to check stores for suitable beads and so I did a temporary easy-peasy solution and used some golden steel wire that I just wrapped around the wefts until it was snug and stayed in place. I handsewed the wefts to the wool piece – the wool is actually so dense that I didn't even have to sew through the leather to get them secured in place lol!

To make the mane wool piece wearable I made it an over-the-shoulder thing so there's a strap on each shoulder running front to back. It's very simple the design is very human. This meant I needed leather because it would be easy to work with (no need to think of fraying edges) and fits the Digimon aesthetics. My original plan was to repurpose an old worn belt from my late grandpa but my mom wanted it for herself when she saw it (it was still functional, just worn) and instead of the belt she handed me grandma's old handbag and told me to slaughter the carrying straps. Okay mom, if you insist. xD

Handsewed the leather straps onto the wool piece. The thimble was goated.

With the mane accessory done for now I only needed to do the ears and the tail. I originally wanted to use a fluffy fabric for these but of course the fabric store didn't have the right colors and I don't own an airbrush or anything fancy like that so yeah, I resorted to using what I already had at home – which meant a leftover piece of dark blue fleece fabric. I had bought a cheap fleece blanket from a second-hand store earlier that I used for the white parts.

The ears were straight-forward to make, I just measured and cut out triangles of the fleece fabric and then the inner ear parts of white fleece and sewed them together, after painting on the details. 
The tail came with a headache because the more I thought about it the more I realized I had no idea how to make a curled dog tail – I mean, I don't really have any fursuit experience and the previous tails I've done have been much simpler than this (basically more or less tapering tubes lol). Not to mention that this was like the day before the day I had to depart for the con or something like that so yeah, the con crunch was too real. xD I realized I didn't really have time to start drafting impromptu patterns that might not even work and so I scoured the internet in my desperation for any kind of advice. Somehow all the stars aligned and I came across the perfect salvation for my urgency, namely a free pattern online that I could just print out in its actual size. Hallelujah!

Tail pattern by Pseudocanid. You can find it here.

This pattern was such a blessing, it was very simple to make and easy to follow. Of course it would have been even cooler with a tighter curl but I really couldn't afford to be nitpicky at this point and I'm so relieved I managed to make a tail in time, lol.

Tail and ear parts cut out.

Gaogamon's ears have these light blue/white tips that are inconsistent on references and I decided to just paint them on. I had no idea how well fleece fabric takes on fabric paint and so I did a test run first. Turns out you have to be very careful with how much paint you apply because it easily becomes spongy and it also takes forever to dry! I had to apply the fabric paint in a rather thin layer and, just to be safe, I set it with the iron later. I accidentally burned a tiny bit of the fleece when setting the paint so it took on this slight sheen, luckily it's hardly noticeable because it's so small.

Fabric paint testing on fleece.

While doing the painting test I did originally mix in some blue acrylic paint to see how it would behave but I felt like there was hardly any color difference, for some reason, and so I ended up just using white alone because it didn't dry opaque anyway. If anything I'm a bit surprised that the fabric paint didn't dry and leave a crusty surface that would crack and/or flake. Or well, maybe it would crack if I start bending it and had a thicker layer on but yeah, with ears I don't really have to worry about any stress points on the fabric.

Sewing the tail pieces together.

The tail I assembled with the sewing machine. Thankfully the patterns lined up just right despite my worries that something would go wrong. I filled the tail with cotton batting and soft fabric scraps, just like I did with the ears as well.

Tail and ears stuffed.

I was a bit unsure about how to do the base of the tail, aka the part that is against your back. The instructions didn't mention this part and all my previous tails haven't had a rounded base like this. I ended up using the same off-white fleece fabric to make the "lid" and I handsewed a couple elastic loops on it to thread a belt or such through. I couldn't have known at this time but in hindsight I probably should have used something rigid (foam maybe? idk) instead. I didn't catch the issue that this created in time to fix it because I couldn't test wear the tail while at mom's because the rest of the costume was in my own apartment lol. So there were two issues and issue one was that I had made the loops way too big, which made the tail hang and not rest against my back at all. This I tried to fix by making the loops tighter while sitting in the car. Unfortunately this didn't really fix the main problem, just make it a bit less unsightly. The tail was still rather low-hanging and unstable and I think that's because the fleece of the base is too soft and yeah, it gives in too much when the tail is worn aka hanging (aka something pulling on the base fabric, making it stretch), making the tail droop because of a lack of support. I will have to come up with some solution for the next time I wear this costume but it was at least wearable at Nekocon. Twisted around a few times and needed extra safety pins for stabilization but hey, I had a tail at least. :')

Oh, the ears are directly sewn into the wig with a few stitches by hand but my first attempt had me positioning them in a way that seemed okay when not worn but, when worn, it looked so bad I legit cringed when I looked in the mirror. xD It looked like some poorly drawn Sonic OC with horizontal flag pole ears lmao. Needless to say I removed the ears and reattached them on a different spot on the wig. I had to do an "anchor stitch" to lift the ears up (basically a single stitch on the backside of each ear towards the crown of the wig) to get them to look more action-y instead of sad, I mean Gaogamon has attitude and is supposed to look like a fighter, not like the Sorry-oo dog from Moomin!

I have like two photos of this costume and the tail isn't visible on any of them but at least you can see how the mane and ears ended up. 

Gaogamon gijinka v1.0. (photo: Firith)

As I mentioned in the beginning I consider this an early version of this particular costume, meaning I will definitely improve it later; I already know what I'd like to fix and add before the next outing. :D
This was a pretty fun costume to wear although there's a lot of moving pieces and so I had to constantly readjust something lol. I'm sufficiently happy with it for now but yeah, looking forward to fine-tuning Gaogamon over the years because I do have a vision for it!

Thanks for reading!
Shiro Samurai out.

Matsucon 2025 – Cultural exchange and dab in the park

 Greetings!

Matsucon was held this past weekend in Oulu, 9-10 August, Finland. Just like on previous years Pohjankartano school was the con building this time too. It's a pretty good place to host a convention since it's close to centrum and also the train and bus station, it's also spacious and there's enough rooms for all kinds of activities!

Let's get to the summary!

Matsucon's poster/advertisement! 

As one can make out from the cake in the poster, 2025 was some kind of celebration milestone for Matsucon. Apparently "Pocky ry", the registered association or whatever it's called in English (basically the group behind organizing Matsucon), turns 10 years this year! I'll admit to being such a pleb that I didn't notice anything drastically different from the other Matsucons I've been to, aside from the birthday arts of Matsucon's mascots lol. :'D I mean yeah there were guests of honor but as far as I can remember that's been a rather expected/common feature of Matsucon? Well, regardless it was a good year for Matsucon~

But hey, let's backtrack a bit. So me and Firith traveled to Matsucon together by train the day before the con. There was a lot of uncertainty about what the weather would be like during the weekend it literally kept changing every day I checked but I had packed with me Urahara as planned, just in case. It would have sucked if the weather turned out fine in the end and I had omitted my chance at cosplaying. :-DD
Once we arrived at Oulu we came to the conclusion that we were both pretty dang hungry and so we just slid into the nearest pizzeria we could find on the way. Yes, before even checking in at the hotel first lol. I had a pizza and it was so stonks that I couldn't finish it all and had to take the last couple slices with me wrapped in tinfoil. It's good that hotel rooms have minibars but oh lord Metapod my savior did the fridge smell of my greasy garlic pizza afterwards... xD

The rest of the day went by preparing for tomorrow and the rest was random hotel bullshit and trying to wind down after all the traveling. These old millennial bones can't keep up with this one con a week schedule lmao. Thank higher beings there's a break after Matsucon.

Saturday morning came, we woke up at 7:30 and headed almost straight for breakfast. Sokos Hotel Arina's breakfast buffet is very familiar to me by now, lol. The weather seemed fine at this point too.
Once we got back to our room I started putting on my cosplay. I had intentionally left my lenses at home this time because I figured it would be an unnecessary strain on my eyes because over half of my time at the con I would sit inside the green room during my work shifts. Urahara also has gray eyes anyway and usually the shadow of his hat blocks his eyes so I figured I could skip the lenses this time as I wasn't planning on photoshooting or anything anyway and well, I just wanted to be comfy and not have my eyes acting out because of dryness or whatever. I'm very relieved I decided to go without lenses because my eyes ended up being super dry all day – it felt like I had worn lenses for hours except that I hadn't!

Well, once we were done we took a taxi to the con; don't want to sweat off all the makeup before even arriving at the con. Yeah, despite it being August and northern Finland it was still rather hot – sure, the worst heat wave has passed but it still feels like it's warmer than it should be at this time of year? We can all collectively blame climate change I guess.

Matsucon entrance.

I think the clock was something around or near 11:00 when we arrived at the con. Immediately at the entrance I got my worker's badge and then I think we first went to check the Dealer's Hall in the main hall on the base floor. It's like a big open space with merch sellers and artisan tables along with merch for the guest of honors. You could of course also buy snacks and other Japanese treats.

View directly after entering the con. Dealer's Hall to the right.

Dealer's Hall and artisans were both in the same area.

I don't know how other countries do it but Finnish cons typically separate artist's alley and artisans nowadays, although technically they are the same type of sellers. The difference, as far as I know, is that artisan's are "too experienced" to be in the traditional artist's alley in a sense; usually an artisan has a long-running and/or highly successful business with high selling volumes. I think some cons are trying to prioritize giving the artist alley spots to artists who are newer and/or less experienced because the alley tables are cheaper than merch/artisan tables? So yeah, there's a lot of overlap and the line is blurry of when someone is considered an artist versus an artisan (I mean both are independent artists selling their works) but I can imagine this distinction was made in the interest of fairness and to make sure budding artists don't get mowed over by established ones with more experienced portfolios (aka more likely to be chosen by the con), especially because the artist alley slots always fill up crazy fast things you learn when you organize a con and far from everyone who applies gets a spot.

View of the main hall from the other side.

I browsed the different sellers and overall there was a great con atmosphere. It got a bit crowded at times but nothing out of the ordinary. So many sellers were very friendly and chatty, it was fun talking to everyone! I ended up buying a few items and then I think I went to chat with the Cryo tabletop guys (had some questions about the upcoming Maracon, which I'll maybe attend) and after that I had to hurry upstairs to my work station because I had to be in the green room for some briefing 15 minutes before my shift would start.

Second floor's corridor. Cryo's room to the left.

I've worked at Matsucon's green room once before so the briefing was very, well, brief. It's basically the same rules and everything of how to do things and what the work tasks are etc. Working in the green room is quite chill if you ask me but a requirement is that you have a valid hygiene pass certification so yeah, not everyone can apply for this volunteer role. So what do I do in the green room then? Well, the most important one I'd say is to make sure that there's always fresh coffee available because everyone needs caffeine all the time lmao. Of course there's basic stuff like answering food and green room related questions that other workers might ask and to keep the place tidy. Oh, and of course make sure that only people who are allowed to enter the green room are there, aka con workers and those who provide for the con in some way (panelists, security officers, sellers, guest of honors).

Green room edibles. :D Take a pause and eat~

One thing that made me chuckle was when I was in the green room just doing random small tasks and some other worker just says out loud "should we be trusting of Urahara being in charge of our foods?". xD I mean yeah the character is highly sus but I promise I'm not sus lmao!

All my work shifts on Saturday were 2h shifts followed by 2h free time and so when I stamped out of my first competed shift at 14:00 I went to do a speedrun of the Artist's Alley on the second floor (green room was on the third floor). Just like on previous years Artist's Alley was located on the second floor and split into two halves, one half on one end of the corridor and the other on the other end. It works sufficiently well although it can be quite difficult to browse during the rush hours because the hallway is rather narrow. I mean it is a school corridor.

View of the Artist's Alley. Or well, one half of it.

I felt like most sellers in the Artist's Alley were familiar to me this year, maybe there was one or two I didn't recall seeing before, but I still enjoy checking all tables in case there's something new. I feel a bit bad that I couldn't purchase from everyone who had interesting items but I have to be careful with my budget this month. :'( I already lowkey overspent a bit but it was worth it rausku is life.

Funny "feed Naruto/Sasuke" jars at Anocado's table. XD

I don't really know what was different with this year's Matsucon but it somehow felt more cozy, more idk... united? Or at least I personally had a surprisingly good time despite being stuck literally half my total con time inside the four walls of the green room. xD I must admit I liked Matsucon's older volunteer system better where you could choose if you wanted to have shifts on both days or focused into one day and the other day free. I understand why they possibly changed that to have everyone work both days but as a long-time volunteer I used to praise Matsucon in my mind for being the one who did things differently and let the volunteer have a semblance of control of how they wanted to work. As much as I had a good time it also, simultaneously, felt like my con experience was more scattered and sprawled out than before – especially my free time because I never had more than 2h at a time so yeah, I always had to plan what I "could do" and be as "time efficient" as possible to not waste it. Feels kinda counterproductive to stress about free time lol. :') For example I gave up on going to the video game room because time blindness when getting immersed playing is too real.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that roughly during this time (around 2 PM) I had checked the activities and rather spontaneously decided to go check out the "dragon art & samurai dance" program, despite having no clue what it truly was (mainly because Matsucon's leaflet didn't have program descriptions written out, you had to check them through a QR code). I just thought it sounded interesting and I happened to be free during the time slot it was on so I went to check what it was about. I noticed immediately that the room was almost full and there was a Japanese lady in kimono standing in front doing some kind of presentation. I glanced an empty chair in front and sat my ass down and, despite my initial confusion of a mismatch in expectations (seemed like some kind of business advertisement at first lol), it was a very worthwhile experience.

Japan and Finland in unity art statement? Something like that. :3

Eventually another lady in wafuku, Shihomi, took the stage and after introducing herself and what she does I was intrigued. She's an arts and entertainment performer expressing and sharing the teachings of Japanese divinity, zen etc through various art and dance acts. I really liked the way she spoke, it was professional without being dull and heavy; there was clearly a passion of sharing her culture without making it appear "exotic" and "marketable" for westerners. I liked especially how there were spiritual and zen components weaved into the samurai dance performance (which I sadly didn't get photos of because there were people sitting in front of me and catching a good photo of a moving person is hard!) and also after when she did the calligraphy dragon art. 

Dragon scroll painting.

I can't quite explain it but during the performances, especially the samurai dance with the fan, I felt a stir of emotions that came out of nowhere. Maybe it was the atmospheric music that let the mind wander combined with her refined moves and sharp expression but something deeply spiritual felt very tangible in those moments. I rarely get watery eyes but the silent yet powerful energy of that performance moved me.

The dragon painting was also a treat to watch. She freehanded it in roughly 10 minutes, with a prayer before starting and after finishing it. It was mesmerizing in its simplicity and professionalism – of placing trust in the process. I liked the descriptions of the dragon's powers in shintoism and how the direction the soaring dragon's head is facing matters.
She mentioned that the finished scroll was for sale for 500€ (half price from normal quote/value) but that's waaaaay out of my budget. *sniff* I do hope someone who could afford it bought it during Matsucon, it would definitely be a really cool and unique home decor, along with a memory to look back on...

You could buy home lucky charms and other crafts made by Shihomi.

After the painting was done the next activity was a bon odori dance for everyone to join in on. At this point I decided to leave because I didn't see Firith anywhere in the room and I'm too awkward to dance around people lol. Besides, my knee had been unstable lately (I had wrapped it for stability) and I didn't want to take any risks to aggravate it further thankfully con workers are allowed to use the elevator.

I found Firith just outside at the cafeteria and I'm not sure what we did at this point but I think we went to browse the other half of the Artist's Alley? It's a bit hard to remember what exactly I did when because all this time I was just trying to explore as much as possible without overstaying anywhere lol, I had to optimize the shit out of my free time. 

The rest of the con day flowed by without a hitch. Or well, except that in the green room one of the two coffee brewers randomly dropped a spring from nowhere?? It still worked though and no one was entirely sure where it came from lmao. Having a malfunctioning coffee machine would have been a whole new level of disaster kahvin menekkiä ei voi estää. Oh, and at some point when I was in the green room there suddenly came a massive rainfall out of nowhere, like it was raining sideways. :'D Good thing it came when I was indoors...

On Saturday I had the last shift and so when I was done the con closed for the day. Me and Firith had some differing opinions on if we should take a taxi in case it rains again or walk back to the hotel, I voted for the latter. We ended up walking and it was a good idea because it didn't rain and the weather was actually pleasant because it had cooled a bit and so it was rather refreshing. We ended up taking the semi-classic "proof that I had a costume on" photo at the nearby park. And got goofy about it. :'D

Am I hip with the kids or cringe now?

Once we got to the hotel we peeled off our cost--, wait a sec, no we didn't. Before we got to the hotel we grabbed some bubble tea and ResQ app sushi lol. Yes, we still had the smelly pizza slices in the fridge too. xD It's kinda convenient when the hotel is in the heart of the centrum so you just have to walk a few meters to get boba, get food, go to the foodstore or the bar or anything really. 

Back at the hotel the costume flew off and into the shower I went. Firith had planned a meeting with some mutual friends at a bar in like an hour or so and so we had to get ready. We still had time to chomp down the sushi though and slurp our bobas, no stress. 
We went out into Oulu's night life and met up with Gure and Selja and one of their friends. The bar that had been chosen I personally found very uncomfortable at first; it was claustrophobic and the music was way too loud and everyone around us were drunk and loud and yeah, it was sensory overload hell for me. Luckily a spot on the terrace freed up and we quickly moved outside, which was much better because we didn't have to listen to drunks unaware of their own decibel levels. I still despise the guts of random people who start smoking right next to me and blow those cancer fumes in my face. :)

Eventually we parted ways and me and Firith went back to the hotel and watched some National Geographic and binged doritos until past midnight lol.

Sunday morning came and it was another round of breakfast and then we had to pack up everything and leave the room. I had no cosplay for Sunday and that was for the better, just didn't want to sit in the train in costume nor waste precious free time trying to change out of costume at the con.

Matsucon outside area. People hung out outside too. :)

My first work shift was at 11:00 but we arrived at Matsucon before that and so we had some time to wander around and explore. Sunday was more calm than Saturday but that's a given, it's almost always a more laid-back day regardless of the con. 

Feel Japan drop-in workshop.

Already yesterday we were curious about this Feel Japan workshop on the second floor but on Sunday we decided to check it out. You could try calligraphy (kanji on paper), I think I saw some kendama toys and there was this lovely slightly older Japanese lady, Yoko, who apparently lives in Finland and organizes cultural exchange events. You could try out kimono here and get help dressing up, which is a really nice experience offered for those who've never tried it and are curious. I ended up talking with her that I actually collect and wear vintage kimono myself (although I've had a long break on the collecting part) and she and the other lady who was in the workshop got so excited when I dug up an old photo to show them. It's been years since I last had someone so exhilaratingly beam kakkoii at me. x) Aah, so precious! I really should dress up more often, it's been a long time since I last did a proper wafuku coordination...

General view of the main area (Dealer's Hall) from above.

Sadly I didn't have that much time to talk before I had to leave because my work shift was starting. I was hoping to return later but in the end I didn't have time before they closed the workshop. :( Oh well, I hope a similar workshop will be held in future conventions in Oulu so I could check it out more thoroughly – would have liked to try the calligraphy with some guidance!

The video game room~

I took a peek into the video game room at some point but they didn't have U.N. Squadron on Super Nintendo, although there were quite many SNES games available. I hope I one day find a con that has that game available to play, I miss it so much. 

I was tempted to buy that Dragonair... ;_;

I honestly don't remember much what I did on Sunday. I just worked and existed in a daze lol? Conidarra iskee ennen kun coni ees on loppu? :'D No but really, I remember having a decent time and like idling at the Artist's Alley, checking if I missed something on my earlier runs and such. I always triple-check just in case because it feels like you always miss something somehow. 

Organization booths were downstairs, mainly other cons advertising!

I had the very last hour's shift and that meant I was in the green room packing things up, wiping tables etc when we started closing it down when there was like 30 minutes left. Once again there was a loooot of bread left over (I still remember the rieska mayhem many years ago omfg) and anyone of the workers who wanted to could take some home with them. I grabbed what I could carry before I left. xD

After we retrieved our luggages from the cloakroom we took a taxi to the train station. At the train station we saw a random pink abandoned travel bag next to the rails on the opposite of where we stood? No idea what was going on but it was unattended for the whole duration we were there (almost one hour) and it was kinda weird, not gonna lie. I hope the original owner reclaimed it. :S


Anyways, Matsucon this year was a solid experience. I liked the overall atmosphere and flow of the event and I'm happy I went to impromptu check out Shihomi's performances, those really elevated my Matsucon experience and made it more memorable as a whole; I even feel inspired now to paint more and seek inspiration from other channels in life.

My con haul! Kultainen ES on vihdoin löydetty. xD #tietäjättietää

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who interacted with me! <3

Matsucon 2025 cosplay plans!

 Hi there!

I've barely had time to recover from the long trip to Mericon and soon I'll be in Oulu at another convention! It's been a really tight con schedule this year but at least after this it'll calm down for a little bit lol. :'D So yeah, Matsucon is coming up now this upcoming weekend on 9-10 August and of course, as a north-dweller, I am attending. 

Just like the past few years I applied to be a volunteer worker again. Honestly I'm quite exhausted mentally but I got one of the relaxed jobs so yeah, it should be fine.

I thought for a while if I had the energy to cosplay but decided that I'll at least bring one of my easiest cosplays to put on – which happens to be among my breeziest ones too, in case it's hot. Which it might be considering the record heats this year. Of course my chosen cosplay has to fit the requirement of being easy to work in too and yeah, not hindering mobility because I will be watching over the green room.

Cosplay revelation ba ba boom~

Character: Kisuke Urahara

Series: Bleach

The sus hat guy returns for a second round after his debut in Nekocon 2023! This is one of my easier cosplays to move around in except perhaps for the geta clogs which can be spicy when going down stairs lol and thus perfect for the Saturday. I might just walk around in normal shoes for convenience though, will bring geta in case there's a nice photo location somewhere nearby. 

But if the weather on Saturday ends up as all over the place as it's been here the last couple days (aka constantly fluctuating between sun, rain and thunder) then I will not cosplay.

On Sunday I will be incognito in casual clothes lol. So yeah, only one cosplay for this year's Matsucon, believe it! 

That's all, see you at Matsucon!

Mericon 2025 – Mermaids, sailors and a soldier!

Greetings and yo ho!

So Mericon was held for the third time last weekend or, well, the past Saturday on 2nd August to be precise. After all it's still a free one-day event and yup, still arranged by Rauma's main library. And just like on previous Mericons the nautical theme continued this year as well and it probably always will because of Rauma's history. :)

Everybody onboard, let's go!

Rauma's main library, aka Mericon, entrance.

Since the con's figurative keel was laid three years ago I have remained an integral part of Mericon's inner crew. I may not have as much influence as during the first year and well, the main responsibility has shifted a bit to allow Mericon to anchor safely, meaning that now the library and Rauma town are keeping the main responsibility of arranging the event together while me and Firith, the original creators whose brainchild it was, are now in a role more akin to consultants. ^^ This is a natural progression and the most convenient long-term for all involved parties – Mericon is growing up~

But yeah, back to the actual summary! So me and Firith arrived in Rauma the day before Mericon; we had booked a night at the Scandic hotel (not recommended in summer, there's no air conditioning!) for convenience since it's literally just next to the library. Earlier on the same week we participated in a Mericon work meeting to iron out the last details. 
Oh, and I procrastinated with starting to work on my panel until there were like three days left and then I sat glued to the laptop and compiled my pages 5 hours straight for two days. xD Even in the hotel at night I had to change some final things lol.

Halfway done with 20+ pages. Stinky meme was a whole mood. 

At the hotel we arrived pretty late. The room was ridiculously small but we managed; I mean it really showed in every possible way that the building was from the 70s. :'D The room was the ugliest I've ever had in a hotel, no cap – depressing gray walls with no decorations and the bed took up like 75% of the space. Thankfully the bed was amazing though because it was hard enough that I woke up without any lower back pain. So often in hotels the bed is too soft and then I am hurled over like a shrimp lol.

Late hotel room dinner. Rescued a meal from Tokio Sushi with ResQ app!

It was really difficult to sleep due to the complete lack of climate control in the room (yay for heat waves...) but eventually morning dawned. For once I was happy it was morning and wanted to get out of bed fast lmao. Before we did anything else we went for the breakfast buffet downstairs and it was pretty awesome – so much fancy-ass stuff like pickled cranberries, fresh cinnamon rolls, dried apple slices and real fruit smoothies! I basically stacked all the expensive and healthy ingredients into my oat porridge and felt like some fitness junkie. xD

Back in the hotel room I debated whether I could be arsed to cosplay. My reasoning was that my makeup would probably melt off my face before I even got out of the room because yeah, it was stifling inside and I get oily rather easily (having combination skin kinda sucks). But I felt like I had already committed because I had no spare clothes with me and thus didn't really have any other option anyway. So yeah, I started putting on my cosplay and almost immediately noticed that oh, this is one of those days. :)) You know those seemingly random occurrences when, despite doing the skincare routine etc, the makeup and especially foundation just won't go on smoothly. In truth almost nothing worked out on the morning, I couldn't even put on my blue contact lenses because my eyes felt super itchy and dry when I tried to! So yeah, I ended up going without contacts, which I normally wouldn't do because it clearly feels like my costume isn't complete lol; natural eyes just don't look right to me nowadays on anime characters, even if the color is correct.

Anyways, we left the hotel pienen paluujuoksun jälkeen kun unohtui edi ja vesipullo minibaariin and headed over to Mericon. I was one of the three cosplay competition judges and Firith was the, uhh, 'cosplayvastaava' (basically the one in charge of guiding the cosplay contestants, planning the competition etc) so we had to be at the con in time to do our jobs.

Mericon entrance view.

One of the first things I did once I arrived at Mericon was to ask the library workers, aka the other Mericon crew, where to put my belongings because I carried with me my laptop and personal stuff, camera bag etc. I asked if I could use the cleaners' locker like last year and thankfully it was available so I could get my valuables behind a lock.

Mericon general area (info to the left) feat. new Dealer's Hall.

This year merch sellers were allowed!

I noticed almost immediately upon entering Mericon that there's been some changes in what was located where and, more importantly, that there was a sort of mini Dealer's Hall with a couple merch sellers and some artists with established businesses were moved there as well! This was probably done to free up slots in the artist's alley for those with less experience (similar to how other Finnish cons have artisan's and artist's alley separated). One of the merch sellers was the local Pelivaari, a shop selling nerd culture items like TCGs, retro games and all kinds of collectables. I personally think it's high time the library loosened up the archaic rules and allowed small businesses to attend and Pelivaari was one of Mericon's first sponsors. After all a lot of people go to cons for shopping and it's a great way to lift up local entrepreneurs in the area who sell items of relevancy to the event. 

I didn't have time to do much before it was time to meet the other two cosplay judges and then after that short briefing I parked myself next to the photo booth. The reason? Await the cosplay competition contestants and photograph them once they arrived from the first phase of the judging (where the two other judges judged their costumes). I was the photography judge so basically I reviewed how well they posed and if it was character-accurate etc.

General area view and the photo booth to the left.

Quite literally the only photo I have that proves I was America. :D

I spent a sizeable chunk of time near the photo booth waiting for contestants to drop in. While waiting I had an interesting encounter with a middle-aged couple who clearly were tourists from abroad. I saw that they were looking at me in a curious way, almost as if they had questions about what's going on. I spoke to them first in Finnish but they asked if I speak English. They spoke in such a clean, natural way that made me think they might have been from England because there was no English-isn't-my-native-tongue accent. :D So basically they asked what's going on and why people are dressed up in costumes, if there's some kind of theater going on or such. There clearly was no malice or disdain in their tones and they seemed genuinely interested. I explained that there's an event for popular culture going on right now in library and that the reason I'm standing here is because I'm a judge for a costuming contest and waiting for contestants to show up. I explained what cosplay was and how it's basically dressing up as characters from fictional sources like movies, games, comics etc and then I asked if they knew what anime was and the man's eyes lit up and said something like "oh those Japanese cartoons right?". They asked if they were allowed to be here due to the event because they had no idea there would be anything out of the ordinary in the library and I assured them that it's a free event and that they're free to participate in anything they see and that the library is open to the public like normal.  They were honestly so delightful and full of curiosity, not like some typical judgmental boomers at all lol. Before they left they asked if this costuming event is held frequently and I said that they were lucky because it's only once a year, for one day, and they happened to be at the library on the right day! Oh and they really liked my costume lol, kept complimenting me. Miten kehuja otetaan vastaan apua :'D

If I didn't need to stay alert I would have picked up some Tarzan to read...

Whenever I noticed that the gap between one contestant and the next was drawn out I speeded across the building to snap some photos for this summary. I'm glad in hindsight that I took these opportunities when I could or I would have no photos to show now. My schedule was very packed this year and I had very little free time to actually explore or participate in anything. The cosplay competition and everything that goes into it ate up a big chunk of my time at Mericon this year; i was pretty fun though, I would probably have gotten restless if I had nothing to do lol.

You could borrow some board games etc, the library was fully functional!

When I was on the later half of photographing the contestants I noticed that Firith and one of the library workers suddenly were approaching me with very suspicious smiles. I just knew they were about to try to drag me into something! And right I was –  they needed people for the cosplay catwalk. Normally I would absolutely not participate in this kind of activity because I have a debilitating fear of being on stage and center (thanks anxiety disorder for that one) but one of the two Marias, the one dressed as the sea with a perch plushie safety-pinned to her butt, suggested that we could go on stage together if it made it any easier. I guess I didn't have a choice because there was only a mere handful of participants and Mericon needed fillers or there would be a real risk of having to cancel the activity and that wasn't an option since it's one of those that draws public. Getting participants was made even harder because cosplay contestants weren't allowed to participate because that's a standardized rule in cons apparently. Mericon just didn't have that many people in character costumes but we got enough in the end to host the catwalk.

So yeah, I stepped up on stage and accidentally on Maria's toes lol and then I quickly bounced back to photograph the final contestants. I saw a big imposing guy dressed as Jason Voorhees and I apologized to him for having to wait for me while the photo booth was vacant for a few minutes. Thankfully, despite his intimidating presence, he was really chill. :')

There was a PS4 available for anyone who wanted to play.

One of the cosplay contestants had cancelled last minute because they got sick, but luckily we had someone interested who applied to compete on-site so, in the end, we still had six cosplay contestants. Sometimes things just work out. I'm relieved we got the sixth one back because having five contestants and three who will win prizes feels kinda bad, like singling out two. Six is the magic minimum number because then you can view it as half-and-half and it feels more fair and less like exclusion.

All contestants on stage.

After I had photographed everyone it was time for the actual cosplay competition to begin. It's a very simple format and worked identically to previous Mericons; it's the type that we in Finland call 'lavajuoksut' so basically the contestant walks up on stage, does a few poses and then walks out and the next one walks in and does the same etc. I'd say it's the most classic one and the easiest type for beginners and those having stage fear.

We judges agreed on the winners and everything went well, no drama. In fact I didn't hear of any drama or bad things happening during Mericon, it seemed like no issues cropped up during the whole duration of the event.

Marine animal art on display, aww!

After the cosplay competition was over I finally had a short window of free time and went to check out the Artist's Alley. It was located in the same place as always, although of course the artists were a mix of old and new faces. I like how there's different ones every year, it keeps things fresh.

General view of the cafeteria/lounge area.

But before I get to the Artist's Alley I want to briefly mention that this year Mericon had a special guest, Merenneito Riia. She held a panel about mermaiding and such and I'm not gonna lie, I'm bummed that I couldn't go listen because it overlapped with my work responsibilities. :'C I've been lowkey interested in the mermaid swimming (and costuming) hobby for a while now and she seemed so sweet and genuine based on the small chat I had when I bumped into her later during the day. 

Real mermaid talk~

Okay so, back to the Artist's Alley visit lol. I mean it's one of my con traditions by now and one of my number one priorities to check – you never know what treasures you will find!
The Artist's Alley is in the "reading room" I guess you could say, the part of the library where you go to read newspapers, magazines or just about anything that you want to read in silence in a dedicated room. It's shaped like a reversed L lying down and it works well with the natural light coming in from the glass windows lighting up the place. Except this year some rainwater came in and I heard the table positioning had to be moved slightly. xD

Artist Alley's beginning...

.. and the other half.

I found some nice Honkai Star Rail heart-shaped pins and a small Lord of the Rings print with Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn in action poses that I really liked the art style of and will put up on my fridge. :) 

Oh, speaking of art and artists... Most people have probably noticed that the marketing on social media for Mericon leading up to the event had a revelation of Mericon's new mascots. These two mascots are a gray cat with a blue scarf called Meri and a young sailor named Rauno. I am the original creator of these two. :D Janika Wahlman made the cute mermaid chibi version of Rauno also seen in the marketing! Probably not too surprising seeing how I'm the artist behind the painted signs in use since the very first Mericon. I guess it's not too farfetched to say I'm Mericon's official illustrator at this point lol. 

Mericon leaflets feat. Rauno the sailor!

Of course there was a drawing room just like on previous years, only difference was that this year it was moved upstairs since the room where it used to be, just next to the lecture room, has been enlarged and with that the wall separating the two rooms was removed. It felt weird walking in there the first time because the damn wall was missing. xD

Drawing room and pin/badge workshop just outside.

Oh and there was a drawing competition and this year's theme was to draw a mermaid. The best artworks in the three different age brackets won a prize and it was the library workers who kept this workshop running and acted as judges. I heard it was very popular this year! There were a lot of entries for the contest and Janika showed me and Firith some of the artworks and oh boy it must have been so difficult to choose just one winner per group because there were so many amazing entries. I'd feel bad, honestly, I kinda wish we could have rewarded more entries with prizes because so many were deserving. Libraries just don't get big budgets allocated to them anywhere in the world. :'( #justiceforlibraries

After I had stashed away my Artist's Alley purchases I went to the changing rooms to grab my laptop and stuff needed for my panel, which was to start at 15:30. Or well, was supposed to. Because of course I run into multiple technical difficulties and to make it worse my laptop was incompatible with the cable for the projector because it doesn't have an HDMI port and I was not aware of this prior. Great. :)) Thank lord I had borrowed a flash drive from Firith's parents that I had my presentation in, just in case. But despite that we ran into another problem and that was issues with opening the presentation because it was done in LibreOffice and none of the building's laptops had that same program and yeah, it was a nightmare to get it to work because we weren't allowed to just install it either. Eventually we got it to work but at this point 20 or so minutes had already passed and, to make it worse, the text formatting on my slides were majorly fucked up when opened on this other program (was it Adobe Reader? I can't remember) and my 10h+ of hard work looked like garbage. :( It was quite upsetting (although it's no one's fault really) but at least the photos appeared correctly... 

And lastly it was time for my tall ship panel!
(photo by Janika Wahlman)

Because the texts were distorted and missing in parts that also meant I lost a lot of my references and had to tell some parts from memory, which wasn't ideal with my level of nervousness and ADD. Thankfully the listeners were patient and understanding, although I had expected more people to show up. Luck in misfortune though because I wasn't proud of the delayed start and how the technical difficulties made my presentation appear to the listeners; it just looked sloppy and all my well-placed memes and stuff were rendered unintelligible. :( I also couldn't even finish my slides (only got about halfway) before time ran out because the con closed. Maybe if I had an earlier slot I would have had time but whatever, at least this chaos gave me some very valuable experience on what to do before I rerun this presentation anywhere – reserve a longer time slot and carry with me adapters so that I can use my own laptop and avoid issues. Oh and this was good exposure therapy lol.

The guest book returned but there was this new feedback sign too!

With that Mericon was over and it was time to head back up north, especially because next weekend it's already time for Matsucon in Oulu. Coniputki ei lopu koksaan :'D

I want to give cheers and thank yous to Rauma's main library workers and the volunteers who helped make Mericon successful once again – it wouldn't be possible without you all! We're a small but tight-knit bunch keeping this event running and we all should be proud of the fruits of our labor. Let's keep Mericon afloat in the future too, library cons are accessible for everyone and have the added bonus of keeping libraries relevant in the youth sphere~

Thanks for reading, next up is Matsucon!
Shiro Samurai (aka KaamosWolf) is out~