Desucon 2012 summary

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

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

Yay shoes.. and thus my cosplays were ready ~

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

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

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

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

Photo by Miika Ojamo

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

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

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

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

And last but not least:

Thank you everyone for a wonderful Desucon experience! <3

Head accessories + Ichito WIP

 Hi guys!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm fabulous.. err...

ICHITO, Y U NO STAND LIKE A MAN?

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

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

Uhum, I'm outta here!

Okita's yukata parts cut out + Ichito obi

 Hi everyone.

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

Most of the parts cut out

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

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

After I had ironed everything ready

Sewing it closed

Finished obi

That's all, see you!

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

 Hello!

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

derp

Notice triangular pointy front panels

So what do I do? Cut it.

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

Marked cutting line

Test photo after cutting and hemming

Took in the back seam and ironed it..

Folded in front panel sides too and sewed around them

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

Back side (näytän niin mursulta! :'D)

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

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

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

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

Until then, see ya!

Ultimate kimono making update

So today when I woke up I started sewing and I sewed and I sewed and I sewed... and then I ate dinner and then I sewed some more. It took me the whole day to make Ichito's kimono; I'm finally done and I'm so happy I managed to get it done in one day.. but I'm not so happy about the fact that my back now hurts as fuck from all that sitting and bending forward when sewing...

Note! This is not authentic but it looks okay for cosplay purposes! (also the sleeves are male style)

I'm tired so I will not explain every single thing I did, pictures will have to do for most of the how-to's today. Oh, and the first two photos were taken a few days ago and I have no pictures of the first cut out fabric step, not like there was anything to show because it was just rectangles anyway...

Panel cut out and ironed in the middle (shoulder part)

Sketching neckline cut ideas on fabric

Neckline cut out...

... and also backside sewn together

Ironed shoulder part again to make life easier before attaching sleeves

Pinning sleeves in place (ironed sleeves too and aligned shoulder and middle seam folds)

Sleeves attached, testing it on

ALL MY HATE TO SEWING ARMPITS CLOSED. ALL MY HATE ...

... and this is why. FFFFFFUUUUU Mega wrinkle derpherp durr
(had to redo it three times before it was not-that-bad)

Armpit sewing, third and final try (still wrinkle-ish on right side but didn't bother to fix it...)

Sleeve 'bottoms' and side seams closed

Folding in and pinning sleeve openings

Sewing sleeve hems...

Looked like this. Need to fold in sleeve opening once more...

Finished sleeve opening

Spread out kimono panels and took a look... what is this I don't even

Cut the shit straight

Cut out okumi panels (used double fabric) and ironed them

Ironed side seams and back seam open (looks better!)

Attached okumi panels

Cut out and ironed collar pieces

Sewed collar pieces together at one end to get one long piece

Zigzaged okumi panel ends before attaching collar (collar also zigzaged around the edges)

Pinning collar in place before sewing it on

Folded in end of collar and okumi panel and hemmed them

Finished kimono, trying it on

Showing sleeves

Kimono laid flat on my bed lol my feet can be seen (sorry bad lighting, it was late)

Sorry for the lack of detailed explanations and that I didn't show photos of every step.. but I guess it's easy to follow anyway. *shrugs* Oh, and I made it shorter for ease of wearing with hakama.

That's it for today and tomorrow my plan is to make Okita's yukata from start to finish afdghsah.