Närcon Vinter 2016 cosplay plans – Sword boys with sad stories!

Hello puppies!

So my first con of the year will be Närcon Vinter in Linköping, Sweden. It's held during the 12-14 February and I must say that I'm really stoked about attending! σ(≧ε≦ｏ) I already bought the con tickets and everything else is fixed too! I haven't been to Närcon Vinter since the very first one back in 2013 – it's gonna be interesting to see how it has evolved! What makes it even more of a fresh experience is that this year they changed locations so the con will be in a different building, yay! It used to be in Anders Ljungstedts Gymnasium but now it's gonna be in Saab Arena and Sporthallen!

I will be carpooling with the best company ever – we're gonna be 5 friends in one car! >w< Our seat takers consists of me, Frozen Angel (former Jäätynyt Enkeli), Sacchan, Ronya and Hitsu. It's gonna be so awesome!

Regarding my cosplay plans I need to admit that for the longest time I was pretty damn set on what to cosplay but then, like two weeks before the con, it suddenly hit me that some really important stuff for the cosplays have yet to arrive and that I won't be able to finish some props in time. D'oh! 

So yeah, I ended up having to change my original plans almost completely, only leaving one of the characters still on the list. But without further babblings I'll get to the cosplans, here goes!

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin (Tsuiokuhen OVA)

Character: Kenshin Himura (Hitokiri Battousai)

Time to let Kenshin out again! A rather comfy and fun cosplay to wear for Friday – and I can't deny that it will feel a bit nostalgic since I did cosplay him at NCV (shortening for Närcon Vinter) three years ago. :') Kenshin is one of those cosplays that I really enjoy wearing to cons because I often get funny interactions and yeah, people are more likely to come and talk to me about RuroKen etc. It's a classic series for many and I just feel all kinds of fuzzy inside when a random congoer comes up to me and tells me that they're so happy to see that someone is still cosplaying from the old classics. ;u;

Saturday

Series: Touken Ranbu

Character: Kashuu Kiyomitsu

New cosplay! I have already spoiled here at my blog that I was planning to do Kashuu's casual outfit for my next con so yeah, this should hardly be a surprise anymore. xD I think I'm starting to fall quite deep into swordboy hell but I regret nothing. I just love the designs so soooo much, okay. ;A;

I decided to put Kashuu on Saturday because I'm hoping I'll find other TouRabu cosplayers on that day since it's the main day and well, Touken Ranbu is popular right now!

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That's about it. Even though the con is three days I don't plan to cosplay on the last day, aka Sunday. Sorry about it. ^^" The reason for this is mainly because the con will close it's doors around 16:00 and that I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to put on a full cosplay and, well, it would slow me down and be a bother in case our carpool group has to leave ASAP after the con closes. I'm really not the type to want to be in a 9+ hours car trip with my cosplay and all the makeup still on, ughh. I just don't want to stress as soon as the con is over because yeah, we won't have much time to waste because driving back up to the far north will take the rest of the day and, most likely, we won't even reach our first destination before midnight – especially if we actually stay at the con until 16:00.

That's my cosplay line-up for Närcon Vinter! See ya there!

Shiro Samurai says byebye!

Touken Ranbu Kashuu Kiyomitsu's scarf and tasuki

Hello again!

My first con is closing in and I'm starting to really rush to get things done! I'm also crossing my fingers that some stuff will arrive on time, especially considering how shitty the post has been lately. One of my packages got sent back to Japan before I even got a notification that it had arrived, boo. I'm 95% certain about my cosplay plans but I can't publish them just yet because yeah, some critical stuff has yet to arrive. Sorry about that. Cosplay plans will be released as soon as possible!

One of the characters I will cosplay at the con is Kashuu Kiyomitsu's casual (aka uchiban) outfit. I sewed the scarf at mom's last Sunday. Luckily the kimono, juban and hakama I can pull directly from my kimono collection since I happen to have perfect pieces for him, haha. But yeah, the scarf I had to make and I started making it with the thought that it's gonna be a piece of cake but yeah, it took me longer than anticipated, mainly because I had problems figuring out the best way to do the tassels at the ends.

Really quickly thrown together outfit test.
(note: mirror photo! aka corpse mode)

The photo quality is shit because the sun had gone down for hours ago and yeah, I only had my crappy apartment light to count on. ._. I couldn't be bothered to dig out my juban so I just kept my long-sleeved shirt under, lol. I might do a more proper test before the con too, we'll see. Heck, I didn't even tie the hakama...

I barely took any progress photos of the making of the scarf; I was too busy trying to get it done before mom would drive me back home. I do have a few pictures to show though, but they're all taken with my cellphone so yeah, the quality is sub-par at best. ^^; Oh and yeah, my cellphone fucks up the colors real bad, lol.

Kebab arm! :DD

I found a suitable fabric in the attic and used the whole fabric width twice for the length; I made the scarf double so that it would be a bit thicker and look nice no matter which side was showing. I sewed the two pieces together and then put right sides together and sewed the scarf into a long tube. To turn the tube the right way I threaded it on my arm (I had left the ends open), like on the photo above, and just grabbed the edge and turned it around.
I had several ideas about how to make the tassels, ranging from using silk ribbon to just cutting them straight out of the fabric. Mom also did a fire resistance test on the fabric to see if we could simply just burn the edges, to keep them from fraying, but the fabric caught fire way too easily so it wasn't an option. Yeah, basically just us trying to see if there was a way to skip the tedious zigzaging part. xD
In the end I decided to cut out two separate pieces (one for each end) from the same fabric and then pre-sew the zigzag on it and then cut it up, next to the zigzag.

Put our idea to the test – it works!

I did try first to cut and then do the zigzag but oh lord, it was such a pain in the butt that I quickly went back to the original plan. Mom later came to ask me how it went and my answer was a straight "tää on perseestä mutta toimii". :DD lol

Second piece done and ready for cutting.

With the tassels done I just took the open edges of the scarf, folded them inside, put the tassel part inside and sewed the whole shit closed. It was a bit hard to get it to look nice on both sides because yeah, this fabric is the same type as the one I made the Star Wars robe from and, well, it lives its own life. I had to rip up the "underside" twice and redo it because it looked like shit. xD

Tassels pinned in place.

I realized a few days later that the tasuki I had used for Yamato no Kami Yasusada was too short to work for Kashuu. The reason is because they have it tied differently – you can see it on the official art book. Yasusada has the tasuki sleeve cord tied the usual way in the front but Kashuu has it tied in a ribbon at the back.

Touken Ranbu art book reveals Kashuu's back!

I had to ask some of my kimono friends how to tie it like that and I got some good suggestions how to make it work! I ended up having to try it several times and it was harder than I thought to get a neat bow. I will need to practise a lot more... or ask someone to tie it for me directly on the back. #lazy

I don't have any progress photos of the tasuki, except for the one below. Yeah, I decided to make a completely new one for Kashuu because I want to be accurate and hey, the fabric only cost 3 € per meter!!
I made it in school today during my handcraft class. The tasuki was made the exact same way as the scarf but because it's a lot narrower I had to use a wooden pole, to push it back to the right side, after I had sewn it into a tube.

Tasuki in tube form, half-way done with turning it back to the right side.

That's about all I have to say for this post. See ya later and thanks for reading my blog! ^^

Shiro Samurai out.

Kashuu Kiyomitsu eye makeup test

Yoo.

Today I decided that it was high time that I started practising the makeup for some of my upcoming new cosplays! Soon I will reveal for you all the first convention of the year that I will attend. ヽ(ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉ I'm super stoked about attending said con because I haven't been there for years but yeah, I'll get more to that later.
This post is about the next cosplay that I will likely debut and it's no less than Kashuu Kiyomitsu from Touken Ranbu! Yep, that's a cosplay plans spoiler right there. I wanted to try out a new makeup look now that I've gathered some more products. Too bad that I had to rush the whole thing because the sun was already going down before I even started! Screw you, polar night. So yeah, I'm sorry but I had to skip pretty much all other makeup save for the eyes, I just simply didn't have time. :( At least by doing this look I learned a lot of new eye makeup techniques that I sure as hell will experiment further with!

A rare case when I can smile without looking stupid...

This one is taken in yellow room light.

It's a bit annoying how my camera washes out most of my makeup, including the eyeshadows and highlights, ugh. At least it faded my pale-ass beard too so I didn't have to shave it lol. Now that I look at the photos I notice that my eyebrows are way too light; I should have filled them in some more. ._. Weirdly enough they looked dark in real life but yeah, camera...
I also want to apologize for the blueish light, the sun was down by the time I was sort-of-ready so I had to deal with the "blue hour"... or whatever it's called. I also couldn't be bothered, nor had time, to dig out the cosplay so I just took whatever red I had around me and put it over my shoulders, lol.

I'm pretty happy with this look, considering what a makeup greenhorn I am. This was also my first time ever using false eyelashes – oh what won't you do for the sake of cosplay?
For those curious I will review the two eyelash pairs that I used later so yeah, if you're interested keep an eye on my blog! ;) Fun fact is that my natural lashes are already stupidly long (been told that I have long lashes all my life by several relatives etc) so yeah, as soon as I put even a little bit of mascara on them they look like falsies lol. So yeah, when I wear actual false lashes on top of my own it's like... crazy shit.

Styled wig.

I also wanted to put in a pic of the wig when it was newly styled. My friend Sacchan did the cutting and styling for me this time; we had to make a hairline/parting and I wasn't really comfortable with that because I lacked the know-how to do it. I did tie the ponytail though, haha.

That's all for this time, see ya!

Shiro Samurai over and out.