Cospicky review: Hakuouki Sanosuke Harada cosplay costume!

Hello fellow geeks and cosplayers!

At the end of last year I happened to find out that Cospicky, a store focusing on cute fashion and cosplay items, had a good sale going on! I was bored and, honestly, quite curious of what they had to offer so I, of course, started to scroll through the site! :D Much to my surprise I found that they carried the western version of Harada's outfit from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. As a big Hakuouki fan and as someone who has already made his spear a long time ago (just for fun and so that I can cosplay his Japanese/shinsengumi kimono outfit one day!) I was really tempted to order the costume. 

The thing is that I've never bought a full costume from an online shop before, so of course I was a bit worried that it might not fit, poor fabric choices etc. Luckily Cospicky offers a convenient custom size possibility, which erased one of my biggest worries right away and made me lean over to the "let's buy it!" side, haha. I mean, with the sale the costume only cost me a measly 87 dollars (with the custom size additional cost included) and that, say what you want, is super cheap! Oh, and I got free shipping too! o/

So yeah, seeing what a deal I got I just had to buy it and, with the order placed, I also soaked up a "seeing what I paid for it any smaller inaccuracies are fine" way of thought. I honestly can't even imagine getting it for cheaper than this!

Full Sanosuke Harada costume.
Photo by Sacchan.

This review is all 100% my honest opinion. This is not a sponsored review – I paid for the costume with my own money; I just wanted to review the Cospicky store and the costume for the sake of spreading the word about a good online store and, of course, to help and inform the community. ^_^

I placed the order on 11th November last year and I got an email saying that it was completed and shipped on 11th December – exactly one month later. Notice though that I ordered a custom sized costume, which might very well be a reason for why it took one month to make/ship; I'd assume that those pre-made sizes would get through faster. Oh and yeah, on my order confirmation email they said that because it's custom made it would take around 2-3 weeks to make.

The costume arrived around 20th December something – I'm sorry but I can't remember exact date anymore. ^^" The packaging was nothing special, just one of those big-sized white bubble wrap envelopes. Then again, my costume was pretty much all fabric so it doesn't need any extensive protection; it's not like fabric will break in transit, lol. I also want to mention that my parcel went through Germany, which is nice, because it might help to avoid additional custom/postal service charges since it's within Europe.

Inside the padded envelope were all the costume pieces, packed together nicely in a ziplock bag – it all gave a very neat and professional image. With the order there also came a Studio Ghibli postal card with a hand-written personal "thank you" message. I got one with My Neighbor Totoro motif, it's very cute! 

Costume as it arrived, in a ziplock bag.

I had wanted to cosplay Harada's western outfit for a while but it was one of those "not sure if I can be bothered to make it myself" cosplays, lol. The main reason for this is that I want to make Okita's, Hijikata's and possibly Shinpachi's western versions myself and, well, I'm not sure I'd feel like doing Harada's on top of that because yeah, they all are rather similar to begin with. Once in a while you can afford to take the easy route, right? ;) And besides, I had wanted to try ordering from an online costume shop for a while now and Cospicky seemed just like a perfect store to start with!

All costume parts laid out.

What is included:

• White shirt

• Black vest

• Jinbaori-style long coat

• Black pants

• Red arm wrappings

• Belt

• White sash for carrying sword

What is NOT included:

•  Wig
• Sword
• Spear

• Boots

Personally I am very selective and picky when I browse online cosplay costumes; I always scrutinize even the smallest details and compare with official reference photos to see how accurate they are. I always try to find the most accurately made costume possible but I also keep realistic expectations in mind – you can't get something that's 100% accurate, well-made and with quality fabrics for cheap. Most times you get what you pay for and that's exactly why I didn't have super-mega-skyhigh expectations for this costume, even though it looked surprisingly damn accurate on the stock photos on the site itself.

Detail photos ahead!
(all photos below are taken by Sacchan)

Front close-up. Notice the patterning on the tie.

Buttons.

Lining.

Upper back. Please ignore the dust.

Belt.

Side ties.

Side trims.

Costume information and thoughts

When I took out the costume from the bag my first impression was that the fabric choices were actually pretty damn good – and this is coming from someone who has spent a good lot of his years helping and playing around in mom's fabric store; I've basically been surrounded by fabric rolls all my life. By good I mean that for example the fabric for the dress shirt actually feels like I could just as well have bought it from any normal clothing store's shelves or something. The jinbaori coat also feels sturdy and is made in a heavier fabric and heck, it's even lined in the right color! The hand wrappings are made of some fabric that feels a bit coarse in texture and that's awesome too. Also, I was surprised that the white sash was of some reaaaaally soft, flowy and elastic fabric with a sort of silky-smooth touch to it; it somehow, weirdly enough, reminded me of swimsuit fabric although that's not what it is, lol.
So yeah, ain't no shining satin monster here! I guess the fabrics are all synthetic (they do feel like it) and, according to the store, it's "uniform fabric". It's obvious though that the parts are not all made out of the same fabric. Oh, and the trims on the coat and the belt seem to be some kind of fake leather-like material.
I was also relieved to notice that the buttons on both the vest and the shirt are the "male way", aka so that when it's buttoned it is closed left over right and not vice versa. I've seen my share of cosplayers –especially female cosplayers– who wear women's shirts etc when doing a male character and, honestly, it irks me. I'm a stickler for details, okay? I understand that there might be problems finding a fitting/flattering men's size or just not wanting to spend extra money on the same piece of clothing (which you already own, except in women's version) that you'd only wear for a cosplay but yeah... still. :/

I want to say though that upon putting on the costume I was nervous. I was half-expecting that at least something wouldn't fit, even though I gave the correct measures for everything – and I even put a couple extra centimeters to most measurements, just to be extra safe. I started putting on the parts one by one and when I got to the pants I took a deep breath. You see, pants have always been my main problem when it comes to finding fitting clothes. Much to my surprise the pants went on –and stayed on– with not even the slightest issue... WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?? Same thing goes for the rest too; there wasn't anything that didn't fit me or that was uncomfortable to wear. I must admit that I'm really positively surprised that, in the case of Cospicky, custom size really effin' means custom size in its purest form. I sure as hell would order from them again! *thumbs up*
Oh, and if anyone wonders why this is such a big deal it's because I've heard and read countless stories about people ordering online costumes and, even though they would pay extra for custom size, the costumes would still, in reality, be either a pre-made size anyway or fit all kinds of weird.

And if we get back to the whole accuracy thing for a while I want to say that Cospicky is one of those stores on which you will get exactly what is pictured – rare candy! I remember staring at the Harada costume's stock images before purchasing it and noticing that even the silk tie has an elaborately woven design on it and well, when I received the costume and took it out I noticed that the exact same tie design was on mine! I'll say it again: THE COSTUME LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ON THE STOCK PHOTOS – 100% FOR REAL!!! So yeah, you better look at the photos closely because you'll receive the exact same thing, down to the letter. Or at least I did.

Please note that on all photos on which I'm in costume I am wearing my own white sash and NOT the one that came with the costume. 

Front view.

Side view.
Note: it was very windy.

Back view.

Link to Cospicky main page: Cospicky Cosplay Store

Direct link to costume: Cospicky Hakuouki Harada Sanosuke Cosplay Outfit

I pretty much only have good things to say about my purchase and I would really recommend Cospicky for those who want to buy their costumes for whatever reason you might have. ^_^
I also want to state that I think that there is nothing wrong with buying costumes – it doesn't make you any less of a "real" cosplayer. Truth is that not everyone can sew, or heck, even like to sew! Some people also, like me, occasionally just want to choose the easy/comfy route, even if I could have made the costume myself if I would have wanted to; there's no shame in being a little lazy at times. :P Oh, and I think I also got this costume for cheaper than what it would have cost me to make it myself anyway, so that's also another reason for this choice. 

So yeah, as long as you have fun with cosplaying there is no rules or any "right way" to do it and anyone who says anything else needs to get off from their high horse. 

Cospicky store & Sanosuke Harada costume rundown – Pros and cons:

+ Good fabric choices
+ Everything fits (note: custom size)
+ Looks exactly like on stock images
+ Sewing quality is great
+ Accurate to original character
+ Shipping and making time as promised
+ Good packaging
+ Excellent, kind and professional customer service
+ Affordable prices

+/- Dress shirt and vest are cut so that they will always be open at the chest

- Vest is square shaped = boxy fit
- Some minor detail trims on the coat are missing
- Coat is a bit too long
- White sash is really cheaply made
- Arm wrappings are too short to cover your hands/wrists well (aka don't stay in place)

I want to point out that most of the cons were visible on the stock images if you paid attention to them. They are also minor in the sense that they're easy to modify and/or replace.

List with thoughts of all the clothing pieces:

Belt: The belt is notably thinner than your average belt and yes, it kinda feels like a "costume belt". It's still fully functional (and adjustable) though and the holes are in the right places so yeah, it's a non-issue since the thing works like any normal belt.
Vest: The vest is square shaped (aka not slim fit), which means that it gives a really boxy and unflattering fit, but this is not a real problem either because you tuck it under your pants for the costume and then you can just adjust it so that the excess fabric is in the back, where it won't be seen. Also, because you wear the coat over it the general shape of the vest isn't visible; you could also just whip out your sewing machine and take it in at the sides, if wanted.
Shirt: The dress shirt has a sort of wonky fit/attachment at the armpits so it feels a bit tight at that spot, even though everything else is loose and comfy. I could also mention that the shirt is shorter than your average dress shirt but yeah, it's still long enough so that you can tuck it into the pants, so it's not really a problem. The sleeves are full length, in case you wondered – on the photos I have rolled them up so they appear shorter because yeah, that's the way Harada has his sleeves. :) Oh and yeah, regarding the cut of the vest and the dress shirt I just want to mention that because it is made so that the chest will always be a bit exposed it also means that, although you can close the upper buttons, it will look really bumpy and weird; they are not supposed to be closed. Then again, because it's done like this you are sure to always show a bit of chest, which is exactly what Harada does, lol. So yeah, it's both a plus and a minus, haha.
Coat: The jinbaori-style coat is the highlight of the whole costume and for a good majority it's really well-made. The only cons I have is that it's a tad bit long, but I can deal with it (it reaches half-way below my knee when it should end at my knee), and that some of the edge trims on the bottom of the coat are missing – for example the back slit has no trims at all, even though on official art it appears to have a black trim, and the same thing goes for the horizontal bottom trims that should be black too; the white front trims running down the lapels/flaps, the arm opening trims and the side seam trims are all white and thus accurate, though. Then again, it's not a hard mission to add those missing black trims...
Sash: The white sash is like... what the fuck? I don't even know. (・_・)ヾ It feels so off with its cheapness when the rest is so nice. I mean, it's basically just a rectangle of smooth elastic fabric, nothing more. And by nothing I really mean nothing – there's not a single stitch on it! I would have expected it to be at least folded in half and sewn shut but nope, I can even see the pencil marks where it was cut. ._. Besides it's too short for my liking; I'd prefer it so that I can at least wrap it around myself twice but this one only wraps once and barely gives me room to do a knot to secure it in place. I think I'll gladly just use my default white sash instead that I've been using for a lot of cosplays, lol. It's my trusty friend that has served me for years ~
Arm wrappings: I really like the color and fabric choice for these! The fabric feels very slightly rough to the touch but not enough to be itchy or anything. The big problem with these though is that I wish they were much longer – I can only wrap them like 4 times around my wrists/hands before I run out of length and, well, I'd need them to cover and layer up more (looks dumb otherwise) and thus they are unusable. Also, because of the short length they don't stay in place really well either; I had to be very careful with what I did with my hands or they'd start to undo themselves, even though I pulled the wrappings tight and tucked the ends under previous layers. I ended up replacing them later with boxing wraps.

I also want to note that the Harada costume that Cospicky is selling is the GAME VERSION and not the anime version, the difference being that the game version has those black ties at the side seams, which the anime version lacks.

Harada Sanosuke reference image.
note: game version

Okay so, to conclude this review I want to say that my final score for Cospicky, based on this experience, is very good. I'd definitely recommend them and I sure would feel safe to order from them again. Oh and yeah, you get free shipping if you buy for over 80$ too, which is awesome!

Final Grade (from A-F): B+
Recommend to others: Yes

The main things dropping my grade from an A- to B+ is the cheaply made sash, the way too short arm wrappings and that the jinbaori surcoat is a bit too long, along with the small things mentioned above in the detailed description of each item. Then again, I guess the coat length issue is kinda my fault because I didn't think of providing a measurement of how long I wanted it to be so yeah, they probably went by defaults. (the coat is long on their stock photos too)

Thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful! (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)

Shiro Samurai says goodbye!

Sanosuke Harada's spear from Hakuouki!

Hallo!

First off, I started in a new school on 2nd february and while I'm there I'll be attending this one furniture renovation & redesign course. Thing is, I'm not limited to just working with furniture on this course –even though that's the norm– so I'm free to do anything, as long as it involves woodwork and being creative. And well, I quickly learned that there's another guy making a viking shield so why the heck wouldn't I make cosplay props then? :'D Yeah, so I had my first redesign class on the 4th February and I got a sudden urge to make a spear – Harada's spear!

This is gonna be a lengthy post –mostly because of photos– but I originally planned to separate it into two parts, but then stuff got in the way and, in the end, I thought it better to just keep it as a single longer post – from beginning to end. Enjoy!

I went to check some references and I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make the game version of his spear –aka yari– instead of the anime version. There seem to be a slight difference and I personally think the game version looked nicer.
Yes, this totally means that I will cosplay Harada in the future! ;)

Oh, and I decided not to make the spear in any super authentic way because this is just for cosplay and as long as it looks the part –and isn't too heavy to carry around a whole con day– then I'm happy!

This dude here is Harada and that's the spear I'm making!

We're building our stuff in a garage, a short walk from the school building. I went there to check what stuff there was but didn't find any wooden poles. Luckily that could easily be fixed – the teacher drove me and some other guys to K-Rauta store in town during class time, booyah! o/ 

There I bought a two meter long wooden pole and a can of PU-foam. I finally get to use PU-foam, ouyeah I've been waiting for this! 8D

My pole, notice the length.
(and don't notice the messy background.. xD)

PU-foam in a can.

The following day I drafted the spear's blade onto some thin cardboard I had lying around. I did some quick research online and came to the conclusion that a 30 cm blade should be fine and it seemed to be the right size for Harada's spear too, at least compared to the length of my wooden pole – aka what is to be the shaft.

Spearhead pattern.

I cut out my blade pattern and compared its width next to the pole, it looked right! But I did realize that I will need to cut the pole 30 cm shorter or it will be too long to keep upright in most indoor locations; the spear would exceed 2 meters. Sure that spears are long in general –and Harada's spear definitely seems to be longer than what he is– but I need to take into account how convenient or cumbersome it will be to carry around something this long in a convention. Not practical, almost hazard. :'D So yeah, my spear shall be 2 meters in total, not much more than that.

That's not exactly a short stick to poke with, nope nope! ~

On 4th March I could finally continue the process. Yes, I got sick. I waited patiently for my class to start on Wednesday afternoon and then I took my stuff (pole and PU-foam) and walked to the garage with the rest of the class. While there I marked my pole and cut it shorter. Easy peasy.

My pole shortened ~

After that it was time to start working on the spearhead. I took a sheet of plywood, drafted my pattern over onto it and cut it out with your usual hand saw. After that I sanded and filed it down a bit so that it wouldn't be so rough and shit. The curves I did with the file.

Man, I cut so damn straight! :-DDDDD

After some filing and sanding – ready for the foam!

 Next up was my first encounter with using PU-foam, expanding foam. Luckily it's super easy to use so no poops happened; I just sprayed it around until the whole area of the spear was covered, as evenly as possible. I left the thinnest part of the blade untouched because this part will be inserted into the pole, through a notch, that I'll saw on the pole's end later.

One side recently PU-foamed.

I couldn't do so much else for the day so I left home and came back the following morning. The foam had expanded as it should and well, it had also glued itself to the table. Oops!Luckily it was a working table –and thus not precious– so I just took whatever sharp and handy object I could find in the garage and slid it under the foam, in a repeated cutting motion, to free my piece of work.

Stuck foam monster and my rescue tool.

With my spearhead freed from the table it was time to put foam on the other side too.

Unfoamed...

... and foamed.
(the wooden blocks are for support so that the thing wouldn't roll over)

The progress didn't go forward in a week or so because I got sick again but on 18th March I had class again and it was time to start carving my spearhead into shape! Sure that I did have a quite ridiculous amount of PU-foam on the thing, but rather too much than not enough.

I used the same knife I had used to free my creation from the table earlier (photo above) and started cutting away! I had never done this before so it was all a new learning process for me; I quickly got the hang or it and figured out what worked best. 

Around maybe 30 minutes later I had a start:

At this point I could only see one thing – KEBAB ROLL. :-D

I kept on cutting the PU-foam for the next 2 hours non-stop. It was a fun thing to do, I enjoyed it very much. But you need to be careful so that you don't cut too much at a time... or your fingers, hence why I used gloves.

I made sure to try to get both sides as identical as possible but it wasn't the easiest task at times – always when I thought that one side was of perfect thickness and then, when I tried to make the other side have the same thickness, my precision would derp and I'd cut off more than what I had intended. Luckily I never cut too much and in the end the finished product turned out nothing short of fine.

Carving finished!

Looking at the foam's surface I definitely wanted to even it out and fill in the holes and such. My school had a big can of putty lying around so I fetched it, a putty knife and started spreading a layer of the gray goo on my spearhead; both sides of it.

Putty added!

I then couldn't do much more for the day except leaving it to dry. In one of the "rooms" in the garage I work in during class –aka where all the wood and saws, tools etc are– there was an sturdy iron clamp. I spun it open, put my putty-fied spearhead on it, closed it and went.

Drying time, drying time... ~

The following day I had class again so I returned to check up on my project. The putty had dried but when I started sanding it I quickly noticed that at some parts the foam's structure was peeking through and well, even though most of the holes were filled you could still easily spot the outlines of them as well. It didn't look very good so I just went ahead and put a second layer of putty on this – this time plenty.

No regrets – there's more than enough this time!

I left it to dry and returned the following Wednesday. Of course I sanded it again and this time it looked more promising; I didn't get a perfectly smooth and even surface but it was much better than the previous time. I decided to leave it with some minor imperfections to give the spearhead a more used/rugged look because hey, after all it is a battle weapon!
With the sanding done I took my can of gesso and started coating the shit white. I think I applied five coatings in total before I called it a day and, of course, I let it dry the recommended 30 minutes between each layer.

All layers gesso'd.

Oh, and a fun thing! At the garage where I'm working there was nowhere to put water. Well, at least we even had water in a specific room... I obviously needed water for the gesso so that I could clean my pencil between the coatings and such. But hey, when there is no bottle or anything to put water in you take one of those big plastic cans that normally carry random car wash products and shit and yeah, you take a big knife and massacre the top of it brutally so that you get an oversized water-container! *thumbs up*

My gorgeous water can! :'D

Errr.. yeah. Back to business.
So after all the gesso layers had dried I just had left to paint the whole shebang. For this I had silver spraypaint ready at home; I went to pick up my spearhead from the school's garage and sprayed it at home. This went without any issues this time, except that I noticed after painting one side that the brush strokes showed up a bit more than I had thought. I tried sanding down the gesso on the unpainted side but in the end the difference was so minor that I didn't bother repainting the other side. Or I was too impatient...?

Sprayed side with non-sanded gesso under.

The following day –on 8th April– I went to school again to continue my progress. This time the first thing to do was to saw the notch into the top of the pole head, so that I could fit my spearhead into it. It needed to be 4,5 cm deep and actually my teacher did the sawing (by hand) while I held the pole still. He ended up cutting his finger a bit but nothing serious, thankfully. :'( The sawing was quickly done although hazard and then I spent maybe around 20 minutes sanding the notch wider with some folded sand paper. After a while I could finally fit my blade into the notch and it actually held in place securely, just like that!

Spearhead inserted into the notch.

But obviously it wouldn't stay like this – I needed to add the golden part that connects the blade with the spear's body. I first thought about making this golden piece the same way I made the spearhead – foam and putty. But then my teacher showed up and suggested using metal instead; I thought "why not?", I mean, that would be a new experience!
I left the golden part for a while and checked on my references again – Harada had this kind of round end on the other end of the pole. I immediately thought about using some kind of wooden door knob and that's exactly what I found lying around in the garage too, yes!

Hello wooden knob!

The one I decided to use had this kind of bottom that was almost the perfect size to just be fitted on top of my spear. I just needed to saw off the little protruding part on top so that it would be smooth. Easily done!

Protruding part cut off and bottom quickly sanded.

I ended up accidentally doing some sawing marks –where I didn't want any– and so I took some putty to fill them in. I left the knob to dry in the garage and took the spear with me home to paint it.

Putty added on top.

At home I put one layer of gesso on the pole and let it dry. Before going home I had purchased a can of black spray paint but on the following day when I returned to school to spray the thing I noticed that my spray can was defective! No matter how much I pressed the nozzle down nothing came out and no, there was no security thing still left on that I would have needed to remove prior to usage – it just plain didn't work. Luckily the store was close to my school so I just went over there, told the guy that I bought this one from them yesterday and that it didn't work. Even though I actually didn't have the purchase receipt with me the guy still gave me a new and functioning one in exchange. Thank god for small shops; it was the same guy at the counter who sold me the defective one the day before so he recognized me, phew!
But hey, actually, before I sprayed my pole, I did figure out that it was still too long and so I cut off 30 cm more from it. It was 210 cm long before I shortened it once more, and this was without attaching the spearhead, which would have made the whole beast a whopping 240 cm! Luckily I did realize that it was still too long before I started spray painting it, because otherwise it would have been annoying. Well, seeing how the spear barely fit into my apartment and the elevator then yeah, it would have been a hazard at the event because of its size, oops.
So yeah, I just shortened it again and then I had to do some measuring and put marks, with masking tape, to mark what parts of the spear would be black and what would be red. When that was done I just went outside the garage to spray two layers of black paint on both ends.

Pole coated with gesso. There are masking tape marks around it.

Black parts sprayed.

I had also sanded down the dried putty on the knob and put a layer of gesso on it which actually ended up in me accidentally dropping the whole knob in the gesso jar, shit.

15th April I'm back in class again! I started by painting half of the knob with golden spray paint (half because I had to hold it somewhere) and while it was drying I went and sprayed the red middle part of the spear. Of course, before painting, I needed to protect the already painted black parts from getting red paint on them and so I covered them with masking tape.
At first I thought that I'd make the red color completely even but then, when I was actually painting, I started thinking that having uneven color with more or less 'blotches' varying in darkness from dark to lighter red looked really cool! I don't know, it just made it look more lively, real, gave more depth or whatever you want to call it – it just looked awesome so I kept it like that.

Red part sprayed.

Wooden knob finished.

I left them both to dry a while and when the knob had dried enough I painted the other half of it gold. Yes, I played the waiting game quite much this day. Oh well, when that was done I turned my focus to the golden piece –aka gyakuwa– that would be fitted where the spearhead starts. Earlier I had mentioned this to my teacher and he had suggested metal and well, guess what he actually brought with him on the morning to me? Yeah, this.

Tadaaaah!

After I had gotten past the initial "what the heck? xD" surprise I actually thought that it was a very clever material to use – I mean, it looks like metal and it was easily bendable too! Gotta love recycling haha. I just bent the piece around my spear, to get an idea of how it would look, and it looked pretty damn good. But I noticed that I had to paint the very top part of where the notch was so that it would be gold as well and yeah, so I did. I accidentally got some golden paint on the black part (of course where I hadn't put masking tape -.-) and so I had to re-apply a coating of black spray paint to get rid of the extra glitter effect.

Now I had things drying everywhere and I was kinda stuck, so I asked permission to finish class earlier and went to check for gyakuwa references on one of the school computers in the actual school building. Because who has internet access in a garage, anyway?

The following day I started by turning my spear into a mummy package – yes, I put masking tape over mostly all of the already painted areas so that I could do the small golden 'circles' around that separate the red parts from the black. This took a while but when it was finally done I took my gold spray paint and started spraying.

Masking tape all over the place...
(the brightest white spot will be sprayed gold)

I let them dry meanwhile I undid the tape on the parts that wouldn't need to be covered anymore and, while doing so, I came across a few areas where I had put tape previously and then forgotten about it; which meant that the white gesso coating was still showing under. Oh well, some quick fixes here and there wasn't really a problem and soon enough the golden parts had dried too. Of course some of the paint had leaked under the masking tape over onto the other color's area and this would need to be fixed with small paint brushes later, but I thought I'd do it at home because in the garage we had no fitting brushes.
Oh well, I then took the gold metallic piece again, wrapped it around the spear, took a marker and started sketching the shape I wanted it to be. I cut it with scissors.

Shape sketching done!

Now there was not much left, except for reclaiming back my spear from the mummy world and taking it home with me to fix the small paint spills. The weather was nice on the 21st so that was the day when I fixed the leaked spots – I basically just sprayed some paint on a plastic surface, from a very close distance, and then just brushed it on the faulty spots with a thin paint brush. Obviously the spray paint dries quickly, so I had someone spraying the paint on the plastic while I applied it on my spear, to save time.. and paint.

Example of the spray paint having leaked
under the masking tape during the painting process...

On 22h April I finished the spear! *badamtssh*
What was left to do was gluing the knob in place (with hot glue!) and gluing the gold metal piece with universal glue, aka Karlssons Klister – which was my Swedish choice. After gluing the metal piece I had to press and hold it tightly until the glue stuck to it properly; it took a while and I had to glue it in parts (first "around" it to make it stick to the right place and then glue the overlapping end) but in the end it worked out.

Gyakuwa glued and tied in place.

I tied a small string around to keep the glued overlap of the metal piece tight, so that it wouldn't lift and thus undo the gluing before it had dried completely. Blah blah blah...

But now, have some photos of the finished spear!

I apologize because these photos don't really do justice to it but oh well, you'll get to see it in action when I cosplay Harada. ;)

This is just to show the spear's height.

I'm happy with it, even though I know that I could have done a neater and more advanced job – I just got a bit lazy. x) I also skipped a very small detail, the 'ring' around the gyakuwa's mouth; I couldn't be bothered lol. Psst, it's the very first time I made a polearm type of weapon, woop! o/

Oh, and by "more advanced" I mean that I could, for example, have made the spear's body be of different thicknesses in the different painted areas; I thought it wasn't that necessary though, and maybe a bit too much trouble anyway for something that won't really be noticed on photos...

That's all for this time! Now to start planning for my summer cosplays! 

See ya!