Tracon 2013 - Red eyes and a bottle with the blood of Moomins

A few days after Tracon it feels good to come back and write a little about it. This time I don't have all that much to say I hope so let's get on with it!

But first...

Have some ducks!
(from Sorsalampi outside Tampere-talo of course)

My journey to Tracon started early on Friday morning. Me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Hasakitsuki woke up, ate breakfast and put in the last stuff in our suitcases and then we waited for my stepdad to come pick us up from our apartment. He drove us to Liikekeskus Corona in Kemi where we waited for the carpooler to turn up. Meanwhile we waited we went inside to Prisma and bought provisions for the trip - Moomin lemonade and candies, what did you expect?
We drove to Oulu where Jäätynyt Enkeli jumped off at the bus station (he would take the train) and then we went to pick up the driver's cousin from Oulu and then the journey down started. During the car trip down I mostly just played on my Nintendo DS and PSP and lagged. It didn't feel like it took super long (then again I'm used to traveling long distances) and soon enough we were in Orivesi. Yes, Orivesi, not Tampere. The carpool duo stopped here so me and Hasakitsuki had to take a train from Orivesi to Tampere, luckily one came after around 30 minutes. Now we hadn't preordered train tickets but that proved to be a good move and that's because when we were at the train the train conductor never came.. or it was that one guy who super-speeded past the cart. FREE RIDE AAAAWWW YEEEAAA! >8D
Oh well, at Tampere train station we were met by Ri-kun, exchanged hugs and walked to Omenahotels.. but before going to the hotel we went to a nearby foodstore to buy something to eat at the hotel. At Omppu we just chilled around until Jäätynyt Enkeli arrived and when it got late we went to sleep.

Saturday

The first con day arrived. We woke up at 08:00, had some breakfast and then started to put on our cosplays. All three of us had simple/casual cosplays so it didn't take all that long until everyone were ready. My cosplay for the day was Kureno Sohma from Fruits Basket and Tracon would be his debut con. I'm kinda happy I didn't choose Hijikata for Saturday because Saturday was a rather hot day and I would so have toasted.. c'mon, even Kureno was toasty! D: Then again, having a flashier cosplay on Saturday would have been more fun I guess.. Well well, our group of four walked to Tampere-talo and soon we split up because me and Hasakitsuki had to find the Fruits Basket group. It soon turned out that the meeting time had changed from 11:00 to 11:50 or something but we found everyone and took some pictures together. After that the group kind of split up and I just randomly walked around the con building, taking pictures of cosplayers, meeting friends and checking out the dealer's hall.

Random Kureno self-picture feat. pocket monster bird!

15:00 it was time for the symphonic wind ensemble at Iso Sali -which I had been looking forward to- so I went there with Ri-kun, Jäätynyt Enkeli, Hasakitsuki and Sairu-chan.

Symphonic wind ensemble playing the Red/Blue Medley from Pokémon, duh

I must admit that I didn't recognize any of the songs except the Pokémon medley (oh my god the waves of nostalgy when they played that one! <3) but that didn't stop me from having 45 minutes of my life well spent.
After the symphonic wind ensemble we all were super hungry except Sairu-chan so we headed out to town to get something to eat. Sadly Sairu-chan had to go back to the con half-way to help a friend or something and change cosplays but oh well. We ended up roaming a kebab place not too far away from the con and of course that meant what was on my plate was a..

Kebab animal!

Or well, we are more used to it in this form:

I must say the kebab was surprisingly good! I wonder how come I have only eated kebab maybe 5 times in all my life.. this needs to change!
With kebab animals inside me we rolled hihi back to the con and had a photoshoot at Sorsapuisto outside Tampere-talo. Gosh I love this place!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Kureno Sohma)
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

Soon enough we moved to another spot and had a follow-up photoshoot.

Again photographer was Jäätynyt Enkeli.

I didn't really do anything special on Saturday so I don't have so much more to say, when we got tired we just walked back to Omenahotels and derped around the rest of the night. I must say that the Saturday weather was surprisingly hot, felt like a summer day even though it's autumn! Not that I really complain though, Kureno isn't the warmest of cosplays. *coughunlikeprettymuchallmyothercosplayscough*
Oh oh, that reminds me! I met two of my con friends at one point and they told me this one pretty awesome story or whatever to call it - basically they had spotted me as Kureno from a distance and been asking themselves something like "is it [insert one of my internet nicknames here] or is it not? He's not wearing a kimono but it looks like him.. is it or is it not?". The thing is, I've pretty much always worn kimono cosplays to conventions (like, 95% of the time) and some people know me by that and well.. when I suddenly turn up in western clothes it seemingly throws people off and they don't instantly recognize me. :'DD Well, me too. lol My trademark is kimono style BOAHAHAAH ~ ... ehrm, yeah.

Sunday

We woke up one hour earlier than on Saturday, which meant 07:00 it was time to lift our asses up from the bed. Oh, ya know, everyone had casual cosplays on Saturday but Sunday was like.. how about the total opposite? :DD Yeah, so for me it was rasetsu!Hijikata and for Hasakitsuki oni!Chizuru from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan, Ri-kun turned into Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit and Jäätynyt Enkeli into his signature cosplay - Kratos Aurion from Tales of Symphonia. So yeah, there was contact lenses, kimono dressing, horns to put on your forehead, making ears pointy and gluing of feet hair going on in the hotel room on a Sunday morning. Hey, seems perfectly normal to me!
What also is perfectly normal is having a suitcase that is overflowing with ~STUFF~ and having Chizuru ordering Hijikata to sit on it so that there would even be a slight chance of getting it closed. It's not like we got it fully closed but almost.

This is how you do it!
(shitty photo quality is shitty, taken with my old camera by Jäätynyt Enkeli)

We left the hotel around 10:00 and walked to Tampere-talo with all our luggages. I'm happy no one died because it wasn't all that awesome.. and the weather wasn't either; kinda cloudy and boring but not cold at least.
When we got to the con I put on the rest of my cosplay - namely the ponytail, swords, headband and... blooooood ~ >8D Yup, it was weirdly fun to get your face and hands red! Hasakitsuki's face when a bloody Hijikata came out of the bathroom was pretty fabulous. When I was all donned up we went to walk around the con a bit and low and behold, we spotted Kazama!

Just had to strike a rival battle pose ~

Soon enough we decided to go outside to have a photoshoot because the weather forecast had promised slight rain around 13:00 to 15:00 and well -as our luck would have it- when we reached the wooden dock next to Sorsalampi and had taken a few pictures it started raining and the umbrellas came out - save the silk!

Luckily the rain ended soon enough so we just stood there waiting under our umbrellas until it ceased. Then our photoshoot continued! (and our efforts to not get ducks photobombing everywhere as well...)

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Toshizo Hijikata), Hasakitsuki (Chizuru Yukimura) 
Photographer: Sairu-chan

Of course I also got my time to shine alone and some pretty cool gusts of wind made me look 20% cooler!

Photographer is still Sairu-chan.

 

Under the photoshoot someone else had laid their power-hungry eyes on ochimizu...

A CROW!

After ending our Hakuouki photoshoot I went to shoot Ri-kun's Bilbo Baggins cosplay. I must say that meanwhile I was shooting their cosplay I noticed that not all people around me were con-goers, then again it makes sense because we were in a pretty well-known park in Tampere. I swear some of the looks I got from the non con-goers were priceless, the best one being that little boy (maybe he was around 8 years old) who passed me by and stopped and stared with these huge eyes and open mouth. His expression was something between fear and fascination (or both?) and even when he had passed me his head turned back and he still stared at me while he walked. I swear his eyes were glued on me for what felt like 5 minutes.. xD I was trying not to scare him by doing a creepy smile or something because hey, it's perfectly normal [not] to have a bloody samurai with white hair and red eyes who walks with an obvious limp next to you. But yeah, pretty much everyone who wasn't a Tracon visitor stared at me.......... :'DD I wonder if anyone thought I was actually hurt..

After the photoshooting was over we bumped into Anniilaugh as Battousai version Kenshin and well, Kenshin got a sip of our drink of madness.. which is made by the blood of Moomins.

"This looks suspicious.."

One bad thing was that I missed the Zelda piano concert! It started 13:00 and during that time we were photoshooting our cosplays outside, damn! I had really wanted to go see it but meh, shit happens I guess. :'( Oh well, maybe this chance comes again...

The advertisement for the Zelda piano concert

When inside we went to sit in the cafeteria to relax. My hurt foot had been, well, hurting, over the weekend because of all the walking around so sitting down for a while was really appreciated. Hasakitsuki bought a bread to eat and we just sat there chilling.

Hijikata chillin'

Because I missed the Zelda concert I didn't have anything else to keep track on time for.. except that the carpoolers had informed me that we would need to leave 17:00. I decided to not go eat during the con time because if we went to eat outside it would probably take us an hour or two and I wanted to spend as much time with my friends as possible, especially Ri-kun whom I probably wouldn't see anymore for the year.

You know, except for the fact that it was pure awesome to be all bloody it was quite a bother sometimes too, mostly because I couldn't really touch anything without having to think first. Sure as hell I didn't want blood on my silk kimono because I don't even know if this thing washes out! With that said, I needed help whenever my cosplay was going everywhere as well as with carrying stuff and that help was always in the form of a certain oni. But despite the extra brain activity needed to do anything myself I'd totally want to be all bloody again!

assistant!Chizuru fixing headband

The Sunday went by really fast, really.. or more like, the whole Tracon did. During the last hours I just hung around with my friends; sadly Sairu-chan had to leave a few hours before us and I didn't get to say goodbye to her... :'( Neither did I get to say goodbye to Ri-kun. ;_; But at least one hour or so before we left I decided to take a roof photo of our group (except Sairu-chan who had left) looking up.. funny thing was that this random masked guy ninja'd his way into the photo just at the right moment! And the scary part was that I didn't even notice him until like 5 seconds after the photo was taken. Damn.

Random masked guy ninja photobombing.. WITH STYLE

With that I'll end my Tracon summary. All in all it was a great con (with surprisingly little rain for a change, if compared to the other cons of the year) and Tracon still stays as my favorite Finnish anime convention. Tampere-talo is just such a great location to host a convention in!

Oh, and lastly here's a cosplay photo video of all the photos I took of other cosplayers during the con weekend:

Thanks for a great con and bye bye ~

...

......

.........

Wait, you really thought I'd just let you leave like that?

This time I don't have any bonus pictures but I have...
BONUS GIFS MOTHAFUCKAAH!! >8D

When I tried to get up - also known as "Chizuru, don't step on my hakama dangit!"

Drinking ochimizu... it's seemingly not very effective.

Tracon 8 cosplay plans!

This beautiful thing popped up in the mailbox yesterday!

My Tracon ticket!

That means I now have the con ticket in my hands as well as the hotel room booked (thanks Ri-kun!) and so far it seems I will be carpooling with some people from the north. :) Everything seems more or less set now so let's roll out the cosplay plans!

Saturday

Series: Fruits Basket

Character: Kureno Sohma

Kureno on Saturday because I will be part of a Fruits Basket group. I don't have so much to say about this cosplay, it's casual and easy-to-wear and having a cosplay group is always a bonus. I would have liked to have a more flashy/cooler cosplay on Saturday but oh well.. ~

Sunday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

Character: Toshizo Hijikata (rasetsu)

Time to be crazy again, Hakuouki style ~
I really want to have a photoshoot of this cosplay (c'mon have like no proper pics of it.. ;_;) and seeing how Tracon has a really nice outdoor area I thought why the hell not? 8D Also Hasakitsuki will join me as oni!Chizuru ku ku ku ~

Lens review: Super Pinky Bright Red

What's up bros? ;)

I bought these contacts already some months ago and wore them to Animecon for rasetsu!Hijikata but haven't done a review of them yet – I'm lazy, okay? OTL I thought I could do it now while I still needed to check if they looked okay for my coming Kureno Sohma cosplay.

Okay, so these lenses are the Super Pinky Bright Reds. They are my second pair of contact/circle lenses ever, my first pair being the same lenses but in violet, which I also made a review for back in February. There's quite a lot of red-eyed characters I want to cosplay in the future so buying red lenses was bound to happen!

Lenses in solution.

 

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.8 mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

The first time I ever put these on –which was back at Animecon last month– they went on like a charm! No problems whatsoever and they were very comfortable all con day. But today when I put them on both of the lenses felt uncomfortable in the eyes and when it didn't ease after a while I took them out, cleaned them again and put them back in and then it was a-ok! I guess there was some dirt left in them or something...

I won't talk too much about these lenses but I have some photos to show – the photos are pretty crappy though, sorry about that. Excuse me but all photos, except the first one with the lenses in the lens case, are taken in the bathroom with my older camera (aka not the SLR) so not the best lighting and sharpness. Oh, and sorry for my eyes being red no not the lenses but as I mentioned earlier I had problems putting them on. ._.

With just one contact in.
(my natural eye color is a mix of blue-gray-green, depending on lighting)

With both lenses in.

These are quite enlarging but not enough to swallow your eyes, at least not according to me or on my eyes. If you have small/narrow eyes these might appear big but that, of course, depends on your eye shape as well.
I'm sorry if they look a bit orange-ish on the photos but I assure you that the color is indeed a true red, it's just the bathroom light being yellow and a troll. It's actually a pretty intense color and thus great for cosplay! The Super Pinky line of lenses also covers a lot of your iris, which means that the pupil hole is small and thus there's very little of your real eye color showing through in the middle. Unfortunately this also means that they might blur your vision in places with poorer light conditions.

I really like these because while red sure isn't a natural color they still don't look ultra-mega-demonically-unnatural but rather kinda if-red-was-natural-it-could-look-like-this – if that makes sense. :'D But maybe that's helped by the rather realistic pattern of the lenses...?

Oh, and here's a quick try-on with the Kureno wig and a random shirt.

From a distance. (bathroom light)

 

-- EDIT! 2014, mid-August! --

One year after I had opened these contacts I still had them lying around; I thought that I could take some additional review photos and upload them here before I throw the contacts away. Couldn't be bothered to do make-up, sorry. The previous photos were so poor (friggin' bathroom light!) so here's a new photo batch of the contacts going for their last wear, in different lights.
I must mention that I had huge problems keeping my eyes open because the contacts had turned so dry and uncomfortable; it felt like they were pulling my eyelids closed all the time. I constantly felt them in my eyes so I didn't wear them for more than 30 minutes maximum and when I took them out they were dry as hay. I threw them away after this – they had served me well.

All photos taken by me, as always.

There's no color filters or such and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible. I'm sorry that my eyes appear to be half-closed or something... I don't know what happened, lol.

Inside in natural room light, facing the window on a cloudy day.

Outside on a cloudy day, facing the (hidden) sun.

Outside, standing in the shadow.

Outside,  some weird bright light going on.

Outside, cloudy day.

Facing the sunlight. It friggin' hurt to keep my eyes open... xD

 

As you can see they are really red and show up well in most lights. They aren't completely opaque so some of your real eye color will show through close to the pupil hole. The hole is still smaller than on your average circle lens, which means that occasionally you can have red corners in your vision.

Psst, if you are curious about other colors of the Super Pinky line and how they look on light eyes then check out my other reviews here: Violet, Green, Wine Red, Black

Short summary:

Color: 9/10 
It's a really bright red that pops. Everyone will notice it!
Design: 5/10 
Looks pretty nice although not really unique. I wish the outer rim would be slightly darker.
Opacity: 8/10
Very good color coverage!
Enlargement: 8/10 
Notably enlarging. A bit borderline if you don't like big contacts and they might look freaky on people with smaller eyes.
Comfort: 7/10 
Comfort-wise okay but I tend to feel them in my eyes sometimes.
Naturalness: 2/10 
Not natural because of enlargement and color. You don't buy these to have people think it's your real eyes, lol.

Nothing else to say, ciao ciao!

Thanks for viewing ~