Desucon 2012 cosplay plans!

Hello summer-hungry geeks!

I'm super early with this cosplay lineup post but I have already decided on my appearance at the upcoming Desucon in Lahti, Finland, on 8-10 June. There's still several months to go but, as I'm making an entirely new and somewhat challenging costume for the con, I want to start it already now while I still have plenty of time (and hype!) to get it done without it being yet another last minute project.. I hope. :D

This is what my plans look like~

Friday: Juushirou Ukitake from Bleach

Saturday: Ichito from Asaki, Yumemishi

Sunday: Souji Okita from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

I'm bringing my signature captain Ukitake cosplay on the first day and I will be taking the shikai twin swords with me too, woop! It seems our Finnish Bleach group decided on Friday being our group's main day – we're totally assembling once again! Gonna keep this greatness going~

When it comes to my planned Saturday cosplay I gotta say that this will be one of the most obscure cosplay choices I'll ever do and yet I don't care because I adore his design, period. Ichito is the antagonist from a visual novel game called Asaki, Yumemishi that was only ever released in Japan. I stumbled upon this character by chance when browsing online and I was immediately curious about the source. I've tried to read up on what the game is about and done my research but it's been quite limited since there's not a lot of information available in English, aside from a few scattered summary blogs. He might be a cursed undead spirit who's treading on psychopathic grounds but he looks cool and that means I want to cosplay him. Besides, I think his mystic backstory is what makes him rather intriguing because you have to piece together what happened to him through the routes of the other romanceable characters.

And for my third and final cosplay I will splurge headfirst into my latest new anime obsession and that's Hakuouki. Okita is currently one of my favorite shinsengumi members in the series, if not my favorite. I decided to do the sickbed yukata version or whatever it's called – the purple yukata he wears in bed while not doing too great. I don't know if it has an official name, probably not because I can't find anything? But anyways, this is a quick new cosplay to throw together and it should be possible to get both Ichito and this yukata version of Okita completed in time! Oh and yeah, my cosplay friend group is planning a smaller Hakuouki gathering so there's gonna be a lot of fun and derps~

That's all for this time, stay tuned for upcoming progress posts!
Shiro Samurai says bye~

Kitacon 2012 – Headhunted into the cosplay competition

Sup!

I was at Kitacon this past Saturday, on 11th February to be precise. It's the world's most northern con at the time of writing and, heheh, it's the only con in Finland that can be considered close to me. Normally I have to travel to the other end of the country for cons so I'm really grateful that there's something I don't have to sit in a train for half the day to attend lol.

Oh shit. I realized I forgot to take photos again. :DDD

Oh well, my friend Jäärä visited me during the weekend with the culmination being going to Kitacon together. As previously Kitacon was again held in the Kulttuurikeskus building. The con was small but comfy and the atmosphere was just right! We just walked around the con and had fun and all that jazz, time flew by quickly. Maybe that's why I forgot to take photos.

At some point when we were just vibing one of the cosplay competition judges saw us and went "hey guys, you two should seriously consider entering the cosplay contest!" or something like that. We were caught offguard because we hadn't gone there with the intention to compete at all and well, I have some serious stage fright lol. We thought about it for some minutes – at first we were unsure but then we signed up anyway. A fun little detail is that they had actually just closed the registration but they made an exception for us!
We competed as a duo by the way, if it was not obvious. I was so nervous, oh my god! Me and Jäärä were the last ones (number 22) to go up on the stage. I probably looked like I was shitting myself pale while waiting in line at the backstage. I'm really not the one to stand on a stage naturally. Once at school I was shaking so bad I couldn't hold my papers in hand during an oral presentation. I have like no memories of what I did on stage but it was one of those classic 'lavajuoksu' types, meaning you walk to the stage front and strike a few poses and then you walk away so the next contestant can enter. I did relax a bit once we entered the stage together and the audience cheered loudly. We actually got second place together, which felt really nice! It felt so fancy to get a medal for cosplaying. :D

Oh I almost forgot! We ended up getting featured on a local newspaper called Pohjolan Sanomat, that was crazy!

Someone took a candid shot of me. Notice the medal!

Fun fact is that I've actually competed twice before and one of the two was at another Kitacon, but that was a one-time-only Kitacon in northern Sweden. :'D It was an even smaller event than Kemi's Kitacon and I competed with my Ichigo Kurosaki cosplay. I ended up winning second place at the time – although I think my solid wood shikai form Zangetsu did a lot of heavy lifting. xD Everybody rained compliments on that massive butter knife lol. If I recall correctly I was asked to compete during that time as well – it's almost as if there's a pattern...

I don't really know what else to say except sorry for not having any photos to show, again. I really need to get better at documenting and going to cons with blogging in mind! I get so carried away in having fun so that while I'm at the event I just forget all about my blog responsibilities, lol!

Thank you for a fun day!
Shiro Samurai out~

Kitacon 2012 cosplay lineup

Hello!

My next anime convention is going to be Kitacon in Kemi, Finland. It's held on 11th February and seeing how I live very close to Kemi it would be rather dumb of me not to attend. :D This is the fourth iteration of Kitacon and I gotta say it's so nice to have events in the north, even if it's just one-day events. Almost everything is in the south and so we poor bastards who live up here with the reindeers and stuff really miss out, haha.

I've been really into Bleach lately and I'm gonna stick to this hype for a while longer, hehe. I've considered cosplaying all canon variations of Ukitake so you can probably guess what my cosplay plans for Kitacon will be...

Yes I'm doing ponytail Ukitake, aka the Turn Back the Pendulum. I guess it's technically a new cosplay because it's a different version of the character but the only difference is basically that he has his hair tied up and the front bangs are a tiny bit longer, maybe. It's a stretch to call it new because the only thing I need to do is the hairtie lmao. Easy cosplay is easy. xD

I've already done a test run with the wig and everything tried on and err, maybe it's just me but I find I look totally awful with the hair tied back?! I can't stand how my face looks in almost every angle, feels like it brings out my worst features and it makes me horribly insecure. Oh well, I should do this version at least once so let's bite the sour apple and go. Love for the character wins.

If everything goes as planned my friend Jäärä will travel up here and do a pair cosplay with me as captain Retsu Unohana to match. She's doing the Turn Back the Pendulum version as well and will have a Minazuki plush prop! It's gonna be a lot of fun, I just know it!

That's all folks, see you!
Shiro Samurai out~

Desucon Frostbite 2012 – Bleach gathering and pizza

Hello!

Desucon Frostbite came and went. It was held in Sibeliustalo on 14-15 January 2012.

It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun! I was part of a massive Bleach cosplay group on both days and I met a lot of great new people! I'm quite socially awkward and don't have a lot of friends so this was really something great for me. We had a lot of different characters like Hollow Ichigo, regular Ichigo, Grimmjow, Hitsugaya, Izuru, Uryuu, Hanataro, Aizen, Orihime, young Byakuya and I saw others too including Rukia, Ikkaku, Soi Fon, Rangiku, Shuuhei, Renji and Yoruichi. Of course I was Ukitake myself on Saturday and Gin on Sunday. :)

I took a bunch of photos of other cosplayers too but mainly from shows I recognized because I'm not really into the currently popular stuff like Kuroshitsuji, Ao no Exorcist, Hetalia and those. I'm not sharing any photos here though since it didn't cross my mind to even ask permission because yeah, I was so engrossed in the moment and since cosplay blogging is so new to me I didn't even think about taking photos for blog content, oops. I probably should have thought about documenting the con for the future, and in hindsight I wish I had, but at least I can say that there's a lot to improve on. :'D Bad blogger!

The weekend was mildly crazy and there was a lot of derp and bonding going on. I saw a bunch of cool costumes like some viking guys with big shields, Link and Midna from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and someone cosplayed Mulan in her Ping disguise!

Kotipizza mayhem in full force.

If you've been to Desucon before you might know about the Kotipizza case. I was at Desucon this past summer (before I started blogging) and I vividly remember how basically everyone went to get pizza there because it's the closest restaurant by quite a margin, as far as I know. Obviously I'm not a local since I live in northern Finland but I for sure didn't see any restaurant closer than Kotipizza when your starting position is Sibeliustalo lol. It's literally just a few meters away, it's as convenient as it can possibly get. The only thing that makes getting your pizza a hassle is that probably a thousand others thought to do the same. :'D

Hangry Ukitake chomping down a pizza.

Both my cosplays seemed well-received and I got quite some hugs and photos taken of me, even though it seemed, at least for me, that not so many people ran around photographing cosplayers – maybe because the con was crammed with people inside all the time because of the cold weather outside or something? At least I know I don't like taking photos and having 94389392 people in the background lol, but maybe that's just me.

I don't really have any proper photos of my cosplays to show even though I took a fair amount of them. It's just that I'm self-conscious about how I look (I used to be bullied and called ugly a lot in school) and wasn't happy enough with the photos I had. :/ Does anyone else have that weird experience when you think you look good when you're posing in your costume etc and then when you look at the photos you look nothing like you envisioned? It's hard to deal with sometimes. 

This sums up the con. :'D (not drawn by me)

During the later hours of Saturday there was a night party (aka iltabileet) and I attended it together with AuriRaitsu and Frozen Angel. We had planned already before the con to dress up as original formal wear versions of our corresponding Bleach cosplays, meaning that I did Ukitake in a white suit and a red shirt, AuriRaitsu did Izuru in a black suit with a nice silk blue brocade vest and Frozen Angel also did Uryuu in a white shirt and black vest with no jacket. We were looking smooth! It was a fun spin on the characters and going to a night party was a new experience for me, albeit different from what I would usually gravitate towards. I think the company made the occasion because I know I would have gone straight to bed if I had no friends luring me over lololol.

My Gin cosplay went over well for its debut (better than I had expected actually), especially because I had AuriRaitsu tagging along with me as my wonderful lieutenant Izuru and we walked around the whole Sunday as a duo! As much fun as I had I feel like I don't have the right aura for this type of character, like Gin has this kind of chilling presence and I was derping around more often than not lmao. It's also really hard to do his facial expression right when he has that constant smug fox-faced grin and squinted eyes plastered on his face at all times. I'm so inexperienced with makeup that I don't know how to make my eyes do that look. I only started learning makeup because of cosplay, haha.

All in all I had a lot of fun despite my still fresh respiratory issues from that traumatic hospital experience last year. Well, at least I pass as a very convincing Ukitake lol, I mean you gotta try to make the best out of it or otherwise experiences like walking up stairs and almost fainting because you can't fucking breathe becomes a lot more morbid. I'm so grateful I had sympathetic people around me who helped me carry my bags and made sure I was okay. ;_; Y'all are gold worth.

Thank you to all the lovely people I met!
Shiro Samurai says bye bye~

Sealed state Sogyo no Kotowari sword finished!

Hello!

I've been making captain Ukitake's zanpakutou in its sealed state for the upcoming Desucon Frostbite anime convention and I finally finished it today! I do have his, agreeably much more impressive, shikai version of his swords made already prior but due to convenience reasons I wanted to make the ordinary version of Sogyo no Kotowari for this con. Traveling with those twin blades by train is a bit cumbersome.

I was so excited (and kinda in a rush) to make this cosplay prop project that it didn't cross my mind to take any progress photos, oops. The base of the sword is a martial arts bokken training sword, made out of wood, that I removed the plastic handguard from and repainted the whole thing to look like the character's sword. All Bleach shinigamis have distinct designs on their zanpakutou handguards so I used a few references to make Ukitake's out of a plywood sheet. The details I made out of craft foam that I then used a diluted water and glue mix on to seal and harden it before I painted over it with gold spray paint. It took several layers to make the craft foam less, well, spongy.

I did the tsukamaki (read: handle wrapping) by following a tutorial I found online. It's quite easy to do, especially if you glue it down as you work your way forward as it keeps the slippery satin ribbon I used from shifting and made the end results look neat and crisp.

Sogyo no Kotowari full sword.

Close-up of the hilt.

Gosh, how bad lighting we have in our house! The only place decent enough for photos is the shower/sauna room during this time of the year. My digital camera (Samsung ST500) ain't the best quality gear for photos either but whatever, better some photos than none at all, am I right? :D

I'm happy with the sword for now. I'll admit though that I cut some corners in my eagerness to just get it done as soon as possible, hehe. I might eventually want to add a sheath for it but we'll see; I'm just not too sure how to go about doing it with my current experience. The handguard, aka the tsuba, feels a tiny bit too big so I'll maybe remake it one day, but for now it'll suffice.

Thanks for stopping by. Sayonara!
Shiro Samurai is out~

Desucon Frostbite 2012 lineup!

Hi everyone!

The next con I will attend is called Desucon Frostbite and yes, I'm very excited to attend it! It will take place in Lahti, Finland, during 14-15 January 2012. This is the very first Desucon Frostbite to be held; the regular Desucon has been held during the summer for some years now (although I haven't attended it yet myself) and Frostbite, as its name implies, will probably from now on be held during winters as a smaller sister event.

My cosplays are pretty much set in stone for the weekend. Both days I will be part of a big Finnish Bleach cosplay group (although the main meetup day is on Saturday) and naturally that means both my cosplays will be from said series. I'm really looking forward to this as I find it fun to get to know other fans of the same series I'm into!

Here comes the cosplay plans~

Saturday: Juushirou Ukitake from Bleach

Sunday: Gin Ichimaru from Bleach

Due to me not starting this blog already earlier in the beginning of my cosplay journey I can't blame anyone for not knowing that Ukitake is currently my signature cosplay. Before I started blogging I used to share my cosplay stuff on DeviantArt and, while there, I garnered quite a dedicated following as "the Ukitake cosplayer". :D It's not like I was crazy viral or anything but yeah, within a particular subset of the Bleach fandom during those days I was quite popular and it really helped my confidence as a cosplayer barely starting out. Ukitake is one of my favorite characters and due to a very personal experience I can relate to him a lot, which makes it all the more easier to act believably. Lung disease is no joke.

So yeah, on Saturday I'm bringing out Ukitake but on Sunday I'm going to be doing something new and going as Gin Ichimaru! He's creepy and intriguing and well, we'll see how it goes because I suck at smiling and I suck at emulating an eerie bad guy lol. xD

Because the con is held during the winter I won't bring my shikai twin swords with me this time; I will just make Ukitake's sealed state zanpakutou instead and carry it around. It's just way more convenient to be able to carry a sword on your waist instead of having both hands busy holding epic swords all the time. Not to mention that whenever I have to go outside I'd rather try and keep my hands warm and cover my face with a scarf so that I can breathe properly because, as everyone probably knows, Finnish winters aren't exactly mild.

That's all I got to say, see ya there!

Shiro Samurai out~