Närcon Vinter 2013 preparations!

Hi guys!

Tomorrow 13:45 Swedish time I will leave for Haparanda bus station to take the bus to Luleå.. and from there I'll take the train to Stockholm and further to Linköping.. to Närcon Vinter!

I'm so terribly excited over this, I've been longing to go to a con since Skecon early last November and tomorrow the loooong journey down starts! I have to travel 19 hours because I live so far away and I try to avoid taking the airplane when I have props with me because.. well, personal experience with stuff (read: a sword) breaking. Train and bus just are safer even though it takes a lot longer.. but I don't particularly mind because I'm used to traveling long distances.. hell, before my parents divorced we drove car from Sweden to Italy. xD
I actually started packing my suitcase already yesterday. I'm not quite done yet. Speaking of suitcases, I bought myself a new one last week. I got it for 50€ (I had a 50€ gift card hehe) and it has a pretty nice size, not too small but not too big either. Just right for me!

Con stuff!

I took out my Hijikata swords (although I've used them for other characters too) yesterday to check them and I managed to break the very tip of the longer sword when I took it out of the sheath too hastily. This was no surprise because there's been a crack on it for a long time *coughsinceuppcon2012cough* but it hadn't fallen off so I didn't mend it back then. Now it indeed broke off so I took some glue and glued the chipped piece back in place.

After I had glued it back in place..

I've also got my hands on a small red glass pebble some time ago and, because I won't have time to try on the whole Espeon gijinka before the con, I decided I should at least check if the pebble would stick to my forehead with some spirit gum. It did.. after some pressing. This means my Espeon cosplay is ready!

Glass pebble testing.. success!

Oh, also this time I will have a new friend with me to the con.. I borrowed it from school over the con weekend! Say hello to le digital SLR camera! <3

Nikon D60

This obviously means I can take more-awesome-than-usual photos of my friends (especially if they want a quick cosplay photoshoot!) and of course of the Saturday Hakuouki cosplay group! Did I tell we're going to be surprisingly many Hakuoukis? We have me as Toshizo Hijikata, Jäätynyt Enkeli as Keisuke Sannan, Ri-kun as Hajime Saitou, Psycho Cat as rasetsu!Sannan and Izz as Souji Okita. There will also be a Chikage Kazama, Chizuru Yukimura, Isami Kondou and two more Saitous. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. xD We are so many, OHMAIGERD I'm so excited because last summer when I cosplayed Hakuouki very few people knew who I was supposed to be and I'm just so happy to see there's Hakuouki fans in Sweden too! (I've had the impression the series is more known in Finland..)

Now to finish packing and then PARTY HARD with le twin... lol not really. But seriously, this will be SO MUCH FUUUUUUUN!! ~~ :'DDDDDD

See ya!

Närcon Vinter 2013 cosplay plans changed!

Late yesterday I started thinking about my Närcon Vinter cosplay plans, especially after talking with one of my friends on Skype (same one who gave me the sakabatou) and trying to figure out if the blue kimono Kenshin is just an alternate color version or in fact Battousai. I'm getting really confused (maybe partly because I haven't finished the series yet) and my friend insisted more or less on that Kenshin only wears blue kimono when Hitokiri Battousai. The few seemingly non-Battousai Kenshin pictures I've seen in which he has a blue kimono and the sakabatou he seems to have white hakama.. which is a problem for me because while I do have white hakama they are too long (I measured wrong back in the days) so I plan to sell them and buy shorter ones as replacement. *cough* if anyone is interested in white unworn budo hakama drop me a mail, we can discuss price! I had thought about using my light gray hakama for Kenshin but that together with a dark blue kimono just seems to be what Battousai wears. Not like I would mind cosplaying Battousai sooooo ~

So here comes the new cosplay plans for Närcon Vinter:

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Kenshin Himura (Hitokiri Battousai)

Yup, it will be Battousai for now. Of course I will do the pacifist Kenshin too later this year! Now I get more time to try and figure out how to fix that sakabatou and get myself a new white hakama.. and maybe a purple/red/cerise/pink/whatever kimono... xD Oh, also I just ordered a red-brown ponytail wig for Battousai because he always seem to have his hair tied high while Kenshin has his hair in a low ponytail.. also I can't find any official pictures with Battousai with manga color Kenshin hair.. aka the brighter orange wig I have. So yup, Battousai is gonna have a different wig. Also I think I will do Battousai with just a single scar cut on his cheek.. on recommendations of my more Kenshin knowledgeable friend.

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata

Hijikata of course stays the same because it's a group cosplay and also because I can use the same hakama and swords for Battousai. Yay less cosplay stuff to drag with me ~

Also now that I have the train tickets I know that I can stay on Sunday and go to the con; I have an evening train back home. This means I can do a Sunday cosplay! :D But because Sunday is a short con day I don't feel like putting on anything that takes a long time.. so I thought about doing some new cosplay I already had the wig and clothing for (read: kimono. My everyday clothes are mostly just black t-shirts with dragon/tiger/metal band/whatever prints lol) ... and then I thought "what kind of cosplays are of the kind that you can decide for yourself what it should look like?" and the answer was pretty obvious - gijinka. And me, being a long-time Pokémon fan it was clear as day that a Pokémon gijinka was the choice.

Sunday

Series: Pokémon
Character: Espeon

Why Espeon? Because I've always loved all the Eeveelutions and Espeon is a simple and kind of elegant Pokémon... so imagining a humanized (male) version in kimono makes sense to me. Also I've had a purple wig, for maybe a year or so now, that I bought just because I got it for barely even half the original price. Back then I had no idea what character to actually use it for but now I figured it's pretty much a perfect color for Espeon! I just need to make the ears and the red gem on its forehead.

That's it for now. I hope people don't mind too much that I suddenly changed plans to Battousai instead. I promise I will do gentle-and-does-not-kill Kenshin this year too! I like Kenshin so much as a character that there is no doubt I want to cosplay both sides of him!

Shinsengumi headband modification + stuff

Hi everyone.

I went to town today on the morning together with Jäätynyt Enkeli. First thing we did was that we went to his study apartment and ordered the train tickets for Närcon Vinter. Yay finally it's out of the way... sadly we couldn't get the Närcon discount herpderp. Oh well, after that we walked to the post office and I picked up the black ponytail clip-on I had ordered from eBay a month ago. It sure took its time to get here. ._. Better late than never... it was from China but still, never taken this long before for anything I've ordered to arrive.. except that one wig that got lost lol, I got a replacement wig though free of charge.
I must say that when I got the package in my hand I was... weirded out. My first thought was "is this now the right thing I ordered? It can't possibly fit into this... ó_ò" and then I started imagining all possible more or less bad scenarios. xD Oh well, I put it in my bag and went back inside the shopping center (post office is on the outside of the same building). When inside I remembered I needed to buy some cosplay make-up, namely some good concealer/foundation/whatever-stuff-to-cover-derpness-on-your-face (I'm soooo knowledgeable when it comes to make-up terms.. lolnope) because yeah, powder alone just doesn't really cut it and the one thing I have is just... well.. it takes forever to dry and doesn't fit my skin tone - first I look like Simpsons and then I look like I have airdried poo on my face.
So I wobbled into the make-up specialized store like "herpaderp I know like almost nothing about this shit -and I wouldn't put my foot in here unless my nerdy hobby called for it- but I need some stuff that gives me this effect herpaderp". Yeah, go figure. Luckily I got some guidance to some kinda promising concealer which I decided to give a try.. but the price wasn't as yummy: 25 €. My poor wallet cried tears of blood. *pats it* I'm happy I only use make-up for cosplays...  

When I got home I took out the package. It's sooo tiny!

package in size comparison with normal (bigger) scissors...

... but sure there was my ponytail clip-on in there!

It was tightly rolled inside. I must say I was surprised. XD I took it out and it unrolled like WROOM and I was all "mistä tämä pituus oikein tulee? : DD" no ei Saunalahdesta ainakaan. Highly space effective way of packaging lol.

Now over to the progress part. You might or might not remember that I did a shinsengumi headband quite some time ago. Yeah, I never wore it to a con because I noticed it derped. It was a bit too wide to wear on your forehead with a wig. It would look derp.. or at least on my face it did. Also the craft foam protector part thingy creased when bent and the glue didn't hold it super securely in place. So I've been thinking about modifying it for a long time and today it was time for it to finally get a long awaited make-over.

First things first. Rip off the craft foam part.

It left some glue remains.. not sure if gusta.

I then took the seam ripper and unstitched the whole thing open again. I didn't want to cut any fabric because who knows, I might need the extra fabric someday later if I want to resize the width again.
When I had unstitched the whole thing I wondered what to make the forehead protector part out of; I wanted something that was glossy and would bend with the fabric... and so my mind went to the roll of pvc fabric my mom has. "Why not?" I thought and went ahead to try. Oh boy little did I know what hell awaited me...

After cutting out a fitting piece of pvc fabric

I went to iron the headband itself, this time folding in the sides twice to get it thinner and after I just resewed it shut again.

Double folded and ironed sides before sewing.

Sewn shut.

And now to attach the pvc piece to the middle. I just thought that it would be easy peasy to sew on. The first few stitches went all good and I was positive it would work so I continued sewing. I noticed very soon that every second stitch I had to lift the presser foot because the fabric wanted to turn to the side and crease and fold up under the presser and ahgjfdskjadskgj. But I continued sewing... and when I was almost done with the upper part I finally noticed that the whole thing had turned into a fucking drunk banana crooked beyond all points of hope!!

"Tell me again how you were supposed to be a headband..."
(yes, that's the default form it took if I tried to lay it flat, go figure)

I raged silently for myself and here comes the seam ripper. But sweet Jesus! Dx The stitches were so small it was impossible to rip them up because the seam ripper's.. rip.. point.. thing.. seemed gigantic in comparison. OTL So I tugged the pvc fabric upwards and somehow, slowly, managed to unstitch it. But the hand position I had to keep hurt like fuck and it felt like my thumb muscles or something would disintegrate when I was done. Needless to say my feelings were nothing less than..

If you didn't figure it out already - I left it unfinished.

Maybe another day I'll finish that sucker up... now it can just go and... sew itself goddammit.

Cosplays for Närcon Vinter

I think I finally settled on what to cosplay at Närcon Vinter, 22-24 February 2013, my first con for the coming year. My Saturday cosplay has been decided for some weeks now but the Friday cosplay has been a question mark... until now. Here goes!

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Kenshin Himura

I finally started watching Rurouni Kenshin late yesterday and I'm already hooked after 5 episodes... I had expected nothing less haha. As you might know I got myself a (manga color) Kenshin wig not too long time ago and I already happen to have passable clothes, for a blue kimono version Kenshin, thanks to previous cosplays so... why the hell not? :'D Besides I'm itching for a new make-up/special effects challenge.. namely creating his cross-shaped scar. This will be fun.

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata

The Hakuouki roll continues. I'll probably never get tired of cosplaying from this awesome series. <3 Why Hijikata? Because two of my new-ish Swedish con friends plan to cosplay Chizuru Yukimura and Kazama Chikage and they really wanted me to join in as Hijikata so that we would have the complete trio. I happily accepted!
and it seems we will have a few more characters too, a group yay!

What I will cosplay on Sunday, if anything at all, remains a mystery for now. The con ends pretty early on Sunday morning (as far as I remember) so maybe I can't even attend it the last day.. it will depend heavily on when I have to leave Linköping; after all I have a long journey home. We'll see.

Närcon Vinter, I'm coming for ya!

Ohohohooo ~
Look what I have! <3 <3 <3

I'm about to explode with excitement and fly away on a manly sparkly rainbow of awesome!! The tickets were released today 14:00 Swedish time and I sat refreshing vinter!Närcon's page like an idiot the last 5 minutes so that I would get myself one of those Early Bird tickets for sure! For those not in the know the Early Bird tickets are 100 SEK cheaper than the ordinary ones, aka 250 SEK instead of 350 SEK. Early Birds tickets are limited so you need to be, well, early to guarantee that you will get one.. especially seeing how popular Närcon is and only 1000 tickets were released in total for the convention. I'M SO EXCITED OHMEIGERD the first vinter!Närcon, it will be so much awesome!

This also means that I'm sadly not going to Desucon Frostbite next year because Frostbite is on 16-17 February 2013 and Närcon Vinter is on 22-24 February. Too close to each other so I have to sacrifice one. Oh, and this also means I can't go to Kitacon in Kemi on 23rd February either because it collides with Närcon.

My reasoning for choosing Närcon Vinter over these two other cons are following:

• It's cheaper for me to travel in Sweden than Finland. (except that Kitacon would have been close to me, but it's so small it can't really compete with Närcon and Desucon...)
• Närcon Vinter is one day more than Desucon Frostbite and 2 days longer than Kitacon. The more con time the better; mer för pengarna ~
 • I have a free sleeping place if I go to Närcon Vinter, opposed to Frostbite, because Närcon is in Linköping and my oldest sibling lives there. Me gusta.
• I've already been to Frostbite this year so I have already "experienced/seen" it in a way while Närcon Vinter will be a whole new experience because this is the first time it's arranged and it's also in a different building that the usual (summer) Närcon + new activities. Hotto Dorinku (warm drink) bar anyone? <3
• Närcon in overall I think is better than Desucon and Kitacon, sorry. Närcon (summer) and Tracon are my two top anime conventions I've been to (if we don't count Uppcon because it doesn't exist anymore..) and of course then of a higher priority to me.

I'm not sure what I will cosplay there yet, but I have some loose ideas, so stay tuned for a cosplay plan revelation later! Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet Närcon Vinter will be the next con I go to. Sorry, I won't be going to Wapanese Night 3 in Umeå because I'd rather save my money for Närcon Vinter and mom thinks I've been to too many cons this year already + December and Christmas stress...

Nothing else to say, bye!