Yeah, you've seen it – I AM HEADING TO NÄRCON THIS YEAR!! o/
Last year I decided not to go but this year I am once again attending it! Last time I was at Närcon was in 2013, aka before the major expansion happened. I have a feeling that this year I will be very lost and won't find my way anywhere but oh well, gonna be buckets of fun anyway! :'D You are never really lost until... you are lost. Ehrmm. Yeah.
I will be traveling alone this time, which means that no one of my usual con company (Hasakitsuki, Jäätynyt Enkeli) will follow with because of them having other stuff in the way but hey, I'm sure to meet familiar faces at the con because my awesome mate Hitsuwa and some others will be there! I can't wait!
I'm really excited to go to Närcon again and I'm curious to see what it will be like! I've actually heard really mixed opinions about Närcon 2014 (both good and really really bad) so I want to see for myself if this year's edition is anything like the horror stories I've been told. x) I'm hoping that it will be worth the heavy hole it leaves in my anorexic wallet and that Närcon will be as comfy and festival-y as I remember it!
For this Närcon I really need to lighten the cosplay luggage – seeing how I will travel with a group of con people from the north in a minibus I will have luggage restrictions. You see, we will be around 8 or 9 people in the minibus and everyone's stuff will need to fit into the goddamn thing. :'D So yeah, I really can't take a whale-sized suitcase with me and shove it into the vehicle like I owned the thing lol.
For this reason I have decided to only take with me two cosplays for a whoppin' 4-day event! I'm sure I probably couldn't be bothered to cosplay all days anyway, especially if the dreaded heat wave will hit on the Närcon weekend, which it is infamous for doing. ._. I really dislike being all warm and sweaty in cosplay... So yep, only two cosplays for me and then gargwawesome semi-casual geekily spiced gear for the other days!
Series: Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver Character: Falkner (jap. Hayato)
I have not decided fully yet on what day I will do what cosplay, but I'm thinking of doing Falkner on Friday and Kenshin on Saturday. I reserve the right for any changes lol. It will depend on the weather, mainly.
I decided to go with Falkner and Battousai version Kenshin this time – both being costumes that haven't seen the light of day since 2012 and 2013, respectively! Man, that feels like so long ago...
The main reasons for these choices being that Falkner is a lightweight costume to wear –aka I shouldn't die of heat stroke– and Kenshin is just super fun to cosplay and is on my lighter end of kimono cosplays; he also doesn't require any vintage/authentic kimono pieces (save for the shoes and tabi socks), which would be a problem to take care of during the event. By problem I mean that if I wore a cosplay with a real –most likely silk– kimono it would be a hassle to air it out after wear (hot weather wouldn't be kind to the garment, aka sweating, and it's important to let it air out properly before folding and putting the kimono/hakama/etc back in storage) because I would need to hang it and well, have fucking fun doing that when you're camping in a tent the whole duration of the event. ;) Just.... nope. NOPENOPENOPENOPE.
I'm sorry not sorry! for the cosplay recycling for such a big con but I really don't have the money right now to do new costumes and the new cosplays I could have done I, well, ran into issues with. I originally had other plans, I admit.
I hope that my cosplay plans aren't too much of a bummer deluxe. x) Thanks for checking this out and I hope to see many cool souls at Närcon!
I attended Skecon in Skellefteå last weekend, 2-4 November. It was a small convention (they had 200 tickets) held for the first time and I must say it was very successfully arranged. Despite being small it was a very enjoyable con experience and I'm certainly looking forward for the next time it is held.
I'm sorry I didn't write this earlier, I've been a bit lazy and I've also been waiting to see if I could find some photos of one thing during the convention..
Oh well, now on to the con summary.
Okay so me, my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan started our trip to Skellefteå on Friday morning. We woke up 07:00 Swedish time and put on our traveling clothes, took all our suitcases and shit with us and mom drove us to Haparanda town where she dropped us at the bus station while herself heading for work. We three sat and waited inside for the bus, which came 08:30. It was a Norrlandskusten bus, it's a nice dark blue double-decker. I think the trip took around 4,5 hours.
My new friend Sebastiangot on the same bus further down but I wasn't sure it was him until we were in Skellefteå bus station and I saw him wearing the Hajime Saitou (from Hakuouki) wig and had two swords wrapped in fabric. xD We all four then found our way to the Skecon building, aka the Efyran.
We got our con bands and soon decided it would be better if we went to the sleeping accommodation place (which was on a class room floor of the nearby school) to dump our luggage and shit. Everyone of us four changed into cosplays there. I cosplayed Falkner, Sairu-chan cosplayed Erika and Jäätynyt Enkeli cosplayed Silver, all from Pokémon. Sebastian cosplayed a hakama version of Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan.
We walked back to the con building and walked around a bit. Soon our "original trio" -aka me, my twin and Sairu-chan- found a nice blue painted wall so we decided to take turns and have a photoshoot of our Pokémon cosplays.
We mostly just chilled around and hung together and derped the whole Friday. The con atmosphere was relaxed, cozy and friendly and everyone seemed to have a good time. My favorite chilling place at the con was, without question, the bean bag chairs!! <3
"Life's tough being a Pokémon trainer" lol
I tried to take some self-photos just for fun but the (red) lighting was rather bad...
At one point we three went on a building exploration. We wound up in the Shimbukan dojo's "backside", aka changing-room-private-shower-and-sauna place where I noticed this sign someone had.. edited..
"såskopp" xD
It reads in Swedish:
"Please!
No shoes in the changing rooms.
It's easier to clean that way."
But someone added "-skopp" to the last word which changed its meaning to:
"It's easier to clean sauce cup"
I found it funny. Even though I think it was made before the convention.
Oh well, we went back to the more main-ish part of the convention and derped some more. Walked around and stuff.. and of course I drank some coke.
COCA(INE) COLA :'DD
When we three started to get tired we headed back to the sleeping place. Sebastian stayed behind at Skecon and came to sleep later. Our trio went back seemingly rather early because we were the only ones in the class room we had picked. Well, good for us because I think I was on some sugar high thanks to the coke drinking combined with con excitement so that when we pulled out our sleeping bags.. well.. as soon as I got into my green sleeping bag...
METAPOD RAMPAGE!!
I don't even
My sleeping bag was named Metapod because.. duh, it's green. Sairu-chan's was Pinkpod (obviously it was pink) and Jäätynyt Enkeli's was Emo Kakuna because it was a mix of black and neon-ish orange.
After the Metapod rampage I got exhausted and went to lie down on my place, on top of a fitness mattress. lol I can't say it was really comfortable.. at all. But it worked.. somehow. After we had finished talking about our cracky ideas like for example what Hijikata would hatch into if he slept overnight in a Metapod... rasetsu anyone? XD
By the way this was the first time ever during any con when I slept at the sleeping accomodation place instead of at a hotel or at some friend's/relative's place. In Sweden and Finland anime cons pretty much always organize this budget option for congoers to sleep at some random school's floor or something like that.
Oh, and on the roof close to me there was a paper airplace which had gotten stuck.
Saturday morning came. Me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan put on normal clothes, took our Hakuouki cosplays with us and walked to the con. We didn't wake up Sebastian because he was sleeping so peacefully. At the con we changed into cosplay because the toilets at the school was too small/narrow to allow for putting on hakama and stuff. I didn't bother to do any hardcore cosplay make-up because the con feeling was not the oh-mai-gawd-look-at-that-cosplayer kind and well, I was lazy.
Most of Sunday me and Sairu-chan just chilled in the bean bag chairs and occasionally wandered around. Actually, soon after we all had changed into Hakuouki cosplays I asked Chizuru -aka Sairu-chan- if she could braid my wig because Hijikata's hair is looooong and I wasn't very keen on having to make sure it doesn't tangle the whole day. She agreed ~
Braiding, braiding..
My expression.. xD
During 14:00 I went to the Shimbukan dojo (it's in the same building) to attend the "try-on" budo/martial arts. Me, having already practiced kendo for a few years (but for the time being I'm on a pause ever since I got a bad lung sickness last year's February..) went there anyway. I already knew all stuff they showed us and then we got to do the fourth kendo kata, the one with Hasso-no-kamae and Waki-gamae. I was feeling like a boss when I already knew all the movements. XD We also got to do a harai men on a person who was wearing kendo armor. After the quick kendo try-on we switched to kyudo. Just so you know, I've been wanting to try kyudo a long time but there are veeeery few clubs in Sweden and Finland so I've never gotten the chance. Needless to say when it was kyudo time I was all rhghjreghjfdshagjd and about to explode!! <3 Everyone who wanted to try got to fire three arrows with a beginner bow at some kind of white foam-ish target.. I have no clue what it was really. Of course one of the budo guys (it seemed like some of them practiced several different martial arts) gave everyone some guidelines how to stand, how to hold the bow etc. But seriously.. DAT FEELING when you fire an arrow for the first time with like a 2 m long bow-of-awesome.. it was so agjhfdgsha oh my god. <3<3<3 Sain ihan jumalattomat kicksit siitä. xD eiku One of the coolest things I've ever done ahaha. I did hit the target on my second try.
I'm really sad I don't have any photos of my time in the dojo because I was there some hours and it was so damn awesome listening to Magnus-sensei's stories from their kendo club's Japan trips (some things which happened them in Japan were hilarious. I laughed so hard I almost cried many times XD) and his "ninja's didn't really exist" speech was very interesting, not to mention he also showed some jodo techniques and some moves with a naginata and stuff. It was so damn cool. We also got to hold this huge shinai and look closer on a sharp iaito katana. Me gusta mucho!!
After I had been there listening and laughing with the sensei, the budo guys and some other congoers my company came and was like "Hijikata-san we will go eating soon" and so I had to take my leave, haha. I'm sorry, they probably waited for me all this time. :$
Oh well, all four of us made our way to the nearby Max - a Swedish hamburger restaurant. We sat in the same table and next to us was a kid family... the kids stared at us so damn much oh my god. But now for some shinsengumi hamburger time feat. Hijikata! 8D
DERP WARNING!
Hijikata eating fries!
I just had to put these photos together into a hamburger "comic" XD
Yah...
Enough of hamburgers.
We went back to the con and waited for the food coma to pass by in the bean bag chairs. That was when I heard an interesting sound coming closer.. it sounded like... geta... and then I saw a dude walk by with tengu geta (one-tooth geta) and I went
MOTHER OF GUSTA
I want tengu geta so much!! *grabby hands*
At some point we went to the room where you could draw, make pins and perler beads and stuff. Sairu-chan had to draw Buttman there after I had been insisting "I AM BUTTMAN" the whole con time. It was too much fun!
My idol. <3 err maybe not xD
And in case you have no clue what we are talking about:
(Finnish only!)
Later during the evening maybe 30 minutes or something before the cosplay competition was about to start I noticed Sairu-chan was shaking. She said she was freezing so I gave her my shinsengumi haori. We started walking slowly towards the second floor where the cosplay competition was to be held and while sitting on a couch up there a man came and asked if we were going to compete. I said that we weren't and then he said something about that we couldn't be there because the competitors were practicing how to walk on the scene and stuff. I think I asked if we could sit there because Chizuru wasn't feeling good and he then asked if we wanted to go to the con's health care. The "con nurse" came and led us up the stairs to his little health care room. He asked some questions and gave Sairu-chan a warm blanket-ish thing and told her to take it easy and drink water because she had some temporary fever. When the cosplay competition started it got noisy so we migrated over to the first floor's café where it was calmer. Me and Jäätynyt Enkeli -aka Sannan- tried our best to keep her company and comfort her.
Luckily her fever seemed to go away (or at least her forehead wasn't hot anymore) after a while and she said she felt much better; the shaking had gone away. It was a relief. Now we did miss the actual cosplay competition but I don't really mind.. my friend's well-being is more important. <3
After Chizuru had recovered it was my turn to derp. I started feeling my breathing was fucking up slightly and I just generally felt a bit.. dizzy. HIJIKATA YOU CAN'T BE OKITA NOOOOOOOOO I dealt with it (after all I'm used to breathing screw ups ever since that bad sickness..) and when it got late we went to the place with blue wall were we had photoshooted our Pokémon cosplays yesterday. But this time we went to sit on that wooden bench which was half-way hidden behind a wooden screen.. thing. lol you see I get language block right now. OTL We ate some candy we had bought at Ica yesterday and took some last photos. I can't say we got anything sensible but oh well, here's some derp photos!
Empty coke bottle storage.. it was my RATTLE dammit!
I was tired.. and le wig is a mess
"Fuck this shit, it's hot here" *takes off haori*
Chilling together
And then the obligatory self-photo...
Soon after these photos we three changed back to normal gear and went to sleep. We had decided to not go to the con on Sunday because it ended early anyway and if we took the bus home on the morning we would be back home before it got dark. So on Sunday we woke up, packed our belongings and left while everyone else in the class room were sleeping. We headed to the Skellefteå bus station.
I saw this Skecon poster on the bus station's bulletin board thingy <3
We sat and waited for the bus to arrive. We were early so we had to wait one hour or so because the bus came 10:30 if I don't remember wrong.
I'm wearing my Saitou wig because of a really bad hair day. I noticed some people gave me dem looks. Oh, and the bus driver said to me after Sairu-chan had gone into the bus (she was wearing her Ciel wig) "oh, you also have such cool colored hair. Why have you colored it like that? :D" and I was all:
Because it was a wig and he thought it was my real hair..
I was so tired when we got on the bus so I slept most of the journey back. But. We had to change bus for some unknown reason (even though this bus wasn't supposed to change as far as I know) at Luleå bus station. The bus driver said that when we arrive there the change bus would already be there but when we got there the other bus wasn't there. He then said it would arrive behind the bus we had been in. So we stood and waited... in like 15 minutes or something and it was cold and we all were freezing. Our feelings:
Oh well. We got home and the trip was successful. I hope there will be more Skecon events in the future.
...
.......
.........
-Warning. Rant ahead-
Except that I got offended by some few people during the con who would misgender me and when -I or my friends- corrected them they would insist on correctingme.
I'm the one who knows myself the best. No one else has
the right to define who and what I am, except myself. It's not my
damn fault that I currently have some physical shortcomings, so please understand or at the very least accept that not everyone and everything is what it might look like at first glance. If I correct you don't insist on correcting me, that's rude. You might think it's not a big deal but it's my identity in question and that is indeed a very big deal to me; I want to have a right to be who I am and not be treated wrong all the damn time. I've had to deal with it 19 years so you can guess how fed up with that shit I am by now. I just want to be seen as the person I am.. is that too much to ask?
Of course I understand if someone who doesn't know me messes up when they first meet me -but- after I correct them and they don't do those mistakes again it's fine. But. If they still insist on calling me wrong things after that then they piss me off with their ignorance, very much. It's painful; I'm sick of being mistaken for something I am not and have never ever been. I'm a guy. Thank you. /end rant
Today when I woke up I decided to do a quick Falkner cosplay try-on with everything I had finished, aka everything except the shoes. I didn't really get any good photos but here's one which isn't too dorky, wonderful wig eye censor:
Oh, and I also tried to do something vaguely resembling Falkner's Gym Leader battle pose.. thing.. you know when you battle a trainer on the newer Pokémon games their game sprite will do something. I'm so good at explaining. lol
Falkner battle sprites
Me being a dork. xD
(and now I noticed le twin gave me wrong pose directions. lol)
Much later on the evening/night I decided to brainstorm ideas to make Falkner's shoes. First I focused on his red ball things he has around his ankles. Mom had bought some.. err.. I think they're called paper mache balls in English ("vaddkulor" in Swedish and "massapallot" in Finnish) when she got home.
Paper mache balls
I decided to start painting them red. I used fabric paint.. it worked without problems. I just held the ball with my fingers and painted around it.. after a while I noticed my fingers were red and messy so I took the closest sharp-and-thin object I could get my hands on: mini scissors. I just shoved the scissors into the hole in the middle of the paper mache ball and voilá, no red fingers anymore and a good way to keep the ball from rolling around on the newspapers while drying.
When the balls dried I tried to come up with what shoes to use for Falkner. I didn't find the black ones I originally had planned to use.. but then I noticed mom's black crocs. "Maybe if I could cover up the holes they would suffice." I thought and with mom's help we tried using some black fabric for shoe covers. It failed, I couldn't wrap my head around how to get it to look neat. Plan B was mom's idea: black pantyhose. Mom basically took the shoe and shoved it inside one of the pantyhose legs. She then gave it to me and told me to cut off the excess length and seal it. All I could think was
Then mom found some black socks.. and stretched them over the crocs... and now it actually didn't look half bad. Well, they looked better than my Plan B (C?) at least which involved just not giving a crap and using my black slightly shiny-ish fuzzy ("soft hairy"? I don't know xD) slippers as-is....... yeah. I decided to go with the sock version.
After the paper mache balls had dried I took the paintbrush I had used while painting and used the other end of it to make the hole in the ball bigger and so that it went through the whole ball and not just half-way like default. After that I took some black elastic (maybe 1 cm wide), zigzaged the ends and put it through the hole it was rather annoying and time consuming and then just sewed the ends together. Now I had these:
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way-- err, no.
Then I just took another strip of elastic and glued it to the back of the ball and BOOM le Fazer Falkner shoes were done! The shoes are not the best ever but they work me thinks.
With this my Falkner cosplay is now ready for debut at Skecon. Now if only I could be ready myself.. I have still left to pack everything and solve what I will sleep on during the con.. sleeping bag or what...? I have no idea, I can't take anything bulky like a normal mattress. First time ever during a con when I will sleep cheap floor lodging style (aka on the floor of a school most commonly) instead of a hotel or at some family member's/friend's place.. We'll see how this goes... interesting...
I've done some more Falkner progress today, I'm close to the goal now!
I finished the feet things. They feel rather.. funny.. when worn because they're like mega long sock tubes held up by elastics. xD
Here's a photo of what they look like:
I continued on the jacket also. I added the white trim to the bottom by piecing together long straight 11,5 cm wide strips of off-white leftover fabric at the jacket seams. Like this:
After I had done that the only thing left was to hem the front and add the pom poms. I actually ordered the pom poms from America (eBay) because I couldn't find big enough ones in Finland. They were cheap too; I think they cost under 5 dollar with shipping included. Beat that Tiimari. lol
Huge and fluffy pom poms!
I just handsewed them to the jacket's front. I didn't want to glue them on because if I would need to wash the jacket in the future the pom poms would get damaged. It's better to sew them on so I can just remove the stitches holding them in place if I need to.
The finished jacket looks like this:
Yes, the pom poms are huge. They stick out and make the whole thing look cartoony. xD
I'm kinda pleased with the cosplay so far except that there's some flaws like the skipped stitches and some other things. *shrugs* Oh well, I think it's fine considering I've done this in such a rush, ahaha. It's not too bad but I could have been more careful with the sewing sometimes. ._.
Hmmm... now I only have left to fix the shoes. I hope I'll get them over and done with soon so that I can start focusing on the packing.
Been working more on Falkner today. I've almost finished the jacket except for hemming the front and bottom as well as adding the white bottom trim and the pom poms. I didn't take any photos of the progress but the jacket is like a mutation of a haori. The sleeves are short but kinda wide and the jacket is bell-shaped with an open front.
Oh, and let me share you what happened yesterday evening when me and mom were cutting out the pieces for the jacket.. rage comic style!
Mom got this rageburst out of the blue when I told her I'd rather do it without shoulder seams, Falkner's outfit clearly is inspired from traditional Japanese clothing after all. She was so scary I went all okay-guy and as soon as I had submitted to her will she was all happy again. Dafuq mom.
So as I already mentioned the jacket is coming around nicely and I also shortened my "hakama" and hemmed them today. I think I might be able to finish this cosplay in time if I keep this pace...
Here's what I had finished earlier today:
Camera face censor ftw
Some hours after mom came home she helped me with figuring out a way to make Falkner's... feet... things. I seriously don't know what to call them. lol They are finished I hope except for adding the elastic bands to keep them in place. I will fix that next time and hopefully finish the jacket too. Then I just have left to fix Falkner's shoes if I'm not missing something. I know I should have some black almost unworn shoes somewhere which are close enough for me.. but..of course when you need something you won't find it even if you turn the whole house upside down. Guh.
I guess that's it for today. More progress next time and if I'm lucky I might be able to do a Falkner cosplay preview test before leaving for Skecon. Time will tell.
Today I cut out most of the parts for Falkner's jacket, I will start sewing it tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll also finish his "mini hakama". The progress for today is Fazer's Falkner's arm bracers. They are just made of red and dark-blue-almost-black rib knit fabric. Mom sewed them with the overlocking machine (I guess it's also called a serger)because, err, she just did.
Yo bro, I dig these things
You might notice I'm wearing kimono. I wore that kimono all day together with a matching haori.. even when I went to vote at the town's municipal election. The stares... xDOh, and don't ask me why my hair is standing up like that. I have no damn clue. When I woke up today my hair had decided to go SUPER SAIYAN and when I went to look at the mirror I lol'd so very hard. I tried to comb it down but it bounced right back up and my hair has now been like that the whole day. It's ridiculous and awesome at the same time...
There's only 5 days left to finish my Falkner cosplay before Skecon. Ouch.
Decided to sew on his hakama style pants most of the day. I won't explain so much what I did because I'm lazy but I'll show some photos of the process at least. It's pretty simple.
I started with doing the pleats. Remember, this is not the authentic way to make hakama. Two back (overlap) and two in front. I'm fully aware that hakama normally have 5 pleats in the front but Falkner's hakama doesn't really look like your typical hakama... and I kinda interpret those two "folds" on the front like pleats soooo... *shrugs* Besides I need to make pleats or I'd have those humongous granny pants which I do not want. lol
Making front pleats..
... and back pleats.
I went ahead and ironed the pleats and after that I needed to cut out the last missing parts.. the ties. I used most of the last bits of the fabric I had left. I cut out 4 about 165 cm long and 7,5 cm wide strips of fabric. I would have made them wider if I wasn't so short on fabric.
Ties cut out
Zigzaged all around and sewed them together at one end so I had 2 long ones
Ironed to get a middle fold
Sew the ties into a long "tube" so that the zigzag is folded inside...
Sew a straight seam across the pleats to secure them
(front piece on photo, of course do same to back piece)
Pin the ties in place and sew them on
At this point I was done except for heming the pant legs. I tried them on very sloppily and noticed that they were waaaaaay too long. My typical mistake. ._. Oh well, it's much easier to shorten than to lengthen..
They were supposed to end at my knees. lol
Gonna cut off some excess length next time and hem them. *yawns* I don't feel like doing anymore for today. Next time I'll finish these so that I can start working on Falkner's jacket.
