Gaogamon furry accessories in a rush!

Woof and hello~

For Nekocon earlier this year I made a new cosplay, my first Digimon gijinka Gaogamon. I didn't have time to do a WIP post before leaving home so I figured I'll just post it now that the summer con schedule is over!

So, uhh, this is a cosplay that I will improve later on and what I wore at Nekocon is basically the beta version lol. I was short on time when I made all the furry parts (as always :D) and a lot of the clothes are reused from my other cosplays and stuff I already have at home. The new parts are the "furry ones" that help with recognition – the ears, tail and mane.

I started with checking the local fabric store for light blue faux fur but of course there wasn't any available. Or well, there was one with an okay color but it had completely wrong type of pile! It sucks so much that there used to be an Eurokangas in Tornio and Kemi used to have I think two different fabric stores but they're all gone now and the only store left is Kangaskukkula in Tornio (and Kangastalo, but that's like almost entirely upholstery and home decor fabrics so it's not good for sewing clothes). So yeah, finding the right fabrics for cosplay is extremely hard up here unless you're willing to mess around with ordering online or trying your luck at thrifting... or taking the train to Oulu for the nearest Eurokangas. And still I'd consider myself very lucky because mom has tons of fabrics in the attic from back when she had her own fabric store, but even with the "fabric store at home" option I still quite often have to go elsewhere to buy what I need.
So yeah, Kangaskukkula didn't have what I needed for the mane and so I decided to check out Kangastalo just to turn every stone around. They had a few faux furs, surprisingly enough, but mainly black and dark colors. I was feeling increasingly desperate and even considered buying some fluffy pillow covers from there to cut apart, color and piece together but I realized it would become quite expensive because one cover was like 16€ or something and it wasn't very big so I would have to stack multiple. With all fabric store options exhausted I suddenly had an eureka moment – why don't I just buy a sheepskin from Ikea and dye it? It's natural wool and thus, technically, any common fabric dyes I can find should work on it – and it would be cheaper than destroying tons of fluffy fancy decor pillows!
I felt lowkey crazy for even cooking up this idea but it was quite literally the best option I had and so I went over to the local Ikea and walked out with an ULLERSLEV sheepskin (which costs 349 SEK). I tried to pick one that was as uniform and light in color as possible and had longer pile length and density, there's always some variation in each individual pelt so I took my time picking a good one for my project.

Once I got home I took an old brush and started combing the fur to mark where I'd cut. You can part the wool anywhere and so it's actually very convenient to work with. I was also surprised how easy it was to cut through the leather on the underside! I made sure not to pull or tug the wool and brush it out gently to get it to lay in the direction I wanted. One of the reasons why I parted it was to make it easier to see where to cut and, of course, also to not have a lot of wool in the way that would get cut mid-length and thus wasted.

Parted and sectioned out the fur where I'd cut it.

I cut out one larger part for the front and one smaller for the back. I utilized the natural shape of the leather to minimize waste. My front and back pieces are not identical in shape, nor are they symmetrical anyway. I don't mind that and it's honestly not really that noticeable because of the floofiness.

With my pieces cut out (and over half of the sheepskin left for future projects – money worth indeed) I had to dye them. Fun fact: I've never dyed anything before. Needless to say I was extremely anxious about completely fucking up this part! I've kinda avoided having to dye something because I've been so scared of failure lol. I had bought some Nitor allfärg/yleisväri (number 16 for those wondering) in Tokmanni earlier. 

There's no turning back now. #ihavenoideawhatimdoing

I did read the instructions but I figured I couldn't exactly go throw in my dyes into the shared washroom's machine and then some unfortunate neighbor's clothes turn blue lmao. The other option seemed hella inconvenient too because I'd have to boil water and stir it while warming it up and it's not like I own a big enough skillet to dunk my furs in (and the instructions said it needs to be at least 7 liters lol) and just ugh, it seemed way too complicated and made my neurospicy brain spin. So what do I do? I disregard all the instructions and yolo it, of course! xD

Omg it's actually taking on the color!

So I went to my bathroom and covered the shower area with newspapers and threw my two fur pieces into the largest bucket I had. I filled it with hot water from the shower, put in a bit of dyeing powder and held my breath. I had no idea how much dye I was supposed to use because it was a marine blue and I wanted a very light blue shade! I was really worried of it turning too dark (both blue shades available were really dark) and so I was super careful with the dye lol, especially because I didn't have any test pieces.

The leather took on the dye so well, the heck?? xD

I don't remember how long I kept the pieces submerged but it was a pretty long time, at least 30 minutes? I kept adding hot water in the beginning and stirring it to make sure it stayed warm and then I slowly let the water cool down. I of course threw in some white vinegar into the mix as well. I kept checking the coloration every now and then and, honestly, I'm quite relieved that the dye worked because I wasn't sure if the natural lanolin the wool is coated in would somehow affect the absorption or not. But yeah, considering how I just winged this while ignoring the instructions I'm actually surprised it worked as well as it did! I ended up getting almost exactly the shade I wanted! Vaihteeksi ei ollut vituiksmän menossa mukana.

I also find it quite interesting how well the leather dyed, especially because the packaging doesn't mention leather at all, just natural fibers like cotton, silk etc. I mean yeah it says "and other materials from the animal and plant kingdom" but I've always had the impression that to dye leather you need specific products meant for just leather. :'D Well, I don't complain, this was a cool learning experiment!

Dyed pieces laid out to dry on my shower curtain rack.

It took quite long to dry (a hairdryer would have been nice..) but while they dried I had time to work on the other parts so it's not like I sat and rolled my thumbs or grew roots next to the Playstation with time running low. 

Once the pieces finally were thoroughly dry I took out the comb again and combed them out. With natural wool you can alter the texture of the wool by combing it! This is actually pretty great because you can so easily change the look and touch of it to fit your needs and if you want to revert it you can just get the wool wet and it will go back to the original texture. I tested this because I had actually combed the pieces smooth before I dyed them. :)

Natural wool texture to the left, combed to the right.

Gaogamon has these two tufts or tassels or whatever hanging from its mane in the front and I had to come up with how to make them with supplies I already had at home. My last minute solution was to try to dye some white synthetic wefts with markers. I've had some wefts lying around for like, uhh, 15 years? xD
I realized that I have a ridiculously pathetic collection of markers for being an artist – I quite literally only have two blue markers. Heresy! And the other one is way too dark for this project. So yeah, I only had one option and it better work.

White ancient wefts and my one and only light blue marker lmao.

I went through the fibers with the marker and colored them in. It feels cheap but it works! Synthetic wig fibers absorb the ink from markers and the dye "stains them"... or something like that. Whatever the technicalities are behind the process it works. I didn't use any rubbing alcohol or anything else than just the marker, I don't know if there's different needs for different brands or methods or whatnot but I did a water test to check for color bleeding and it didn't bleed at all! I put the dyed fibers under running tap water and rubbed it against some paper and nope, perfect results. Maybe it depends on the wig fiber quality too but I literally used some Tradera (Swedish equivalent of eBay) random hair fashion shop wefts from a decade ago that are of unknown quality and it worked lol.

No color bleed whatsoever. Yes, I was surprised.

In case anyone's curious what marker brand I used it's Letraset's promarkers of the comic art set so yeah, basically markers for doing manga and comics. 

While I like the shade of blue I ended up with by itself I don't like how it's clearly a different shade from the wool, but it had to do for now. Ideally I would have wanted the same shade and I did try to look for light blue yarn before I settled on using the weft but yeah, I couldn't find the right light blue yarn. I also considered needle felting the tufts from the same wool but I didn't have enough loose wool nor the tools to do it. The last time I did felting was like 20 years ago too. :'D

Oh well, back to the weft I had to roll with for now. It was too long and I needed to split it into two pieces anyway and so I cut it in half and then cut the length in half too. This was ngl such a messy ordeal and hell to work on. I needed to make wefts out of the loose fibers and I used some kind of universal glue for this (didn't have UHU glue available) and it dried way too slowly! It felt like it took forever to dry, despite claiming to be quick-drying, and a lot of fibers came loose and went everywhere and then I had to discard them, which was really stressful because the weft was rather sparse to begin with and I had no Plan B. Without exaggerating I probably lost half of the total fibers due to the glue being crap and the fibers getting stuck on my sweaty-ass hands when I just try to manage them. I lowkey suspect I might have palmar hyperhidrosis because my hands have always sweated like crazy whenever I'm nervous, tense, stressed or from temperature shifts, emotions etc... it's a pain in the ass to deal with.

This was supposed to be easy but it was hell.

I eventually managed to add the glued self-made wefts onto the original weft rows to get double thickness. Gaogamon has these gold-colored bead thingies hanging from the tufts but at this point I had no time to check stores for suitable beads and so I did a temporary easy-peasy solution and used some golden steel wire that I just wrapped around the wefts until it was snug and stayed in place. I handsewed the wefts to the wool piece – the wool is actually so dense that I didn't even have to sew through the leather to get them secured in place lol!

To make the mane wool piece wearable I made it an over-the-shoulder thing so there's a strap on each shoulder running front to back. It's very simple the design is very human. This meant I needed leather because it would be easy to work with (no need to think of fraying edges) and fits the Digimon aesthetics. My original plan was to repurpose an old worn belt from my late grandpa but my mom wanted it for herself when she saw it (it was still functional, just worn) and instead of the belt she handed me grandma's old handbag and told me to slaughter the carrying straps. Okay mom, if you insist. xD

Handsewed the leather straps onto the wool piece. The thimble was goated.

With the mane accessory done for now I only needed to do the ears and the tail. I originally wanted to use a fluffy fabric for these but of course the fabric store didn't have the right colors and I don't own an airbrush or anything fancy like that so yeah, I resorted to using what I already had at home – which meant a leftover piece of dark blue fleece fabric. I had bought a cheap fleece blanket from a second-hand store earlier that I used for the white parts.

The ears were straight-forward to make, I just measured and cut out triangles of the fleece fabric and then the inner ear parts of white fleece and sewed them together, after painting on the details. 
The tail came with a headache because the more I thought about it the more I realized I had no idea how to make a curled dog tail – I mean, I don't really have any fursuit experience and the previous tails I've done have been much simpler than this (basically more or less tapering tubes lol). Not to mention that this was like the day before the day I had to depart for the con or something like that so yeah, the con crunch was too real. xD I realized I didn't really have time to start drafting impromptu patterns that might not even work and so I scoured the internet in my desperation for any kind of advice. Somehow all the stars aligned and I came across the perfect salvation for my urgency, namely a free pattern online that I could just print out in its actual size. Hallelujah!

Tail pattern by Pseudocanid. You can find it here.

This pattern was such a blessing, it was very simple to make and easy to follow. Of course it would have been even cooler with a tighter curl but I really couldn't afford to be nitpicky at this point and I'm so relieved I managed to make a tail in time, lol.

Tail and ear parts cut out.

Gaogamon's ears have these light blue/white tips that are inconsistent on references and I decided to just paint them on. I had no idea how well fleece fabric takes on fabric paint and so I did a test run first. Turns out you have to be very careful with how much paint you apply because it easily becomes spongy and it also takes forever to dry! I had to apply the fabric paint in a rather thin layer and, just to be safe, I set it with the iron later. I accidentally burned a tiny bit of the fleece when setting the paint so it took on this slight sheen, luckily it's hardly noticeable because it's so small.

Fabric paint testing on fleece.

While doing the painting test I did originally mix in some blue acrylic paint to see how it would behave but I felt like there was hardly any color difference, for some reason, and so I ended up just using white alone because it didn't dry opaque anyway. If anything I'm a bit surprised that the fabric paint didn't dry and leave a crusty surface that would crack and/or flake. Or well, maybe it would crack if I start bending it and had a thicker layer on but yeah, with ears I don't really have to worry about any stress points on the fabric.

Sewing the tail pieces together.

The tail I assembled with the sewing machine. Thankfully the patterns lined up just right despite my worries that something would go wrong. I filled the tail with cotton batting and soft fabric scraps, just like I did with the ears as well.

Tail and ears stuffed.

I was a bit unsure about how to do the base of the tail, aka the part that is against your back. The instructions didn't mention this part and all my previous tails haven't had a rounded base like this. I ended up using the same off-white fleece fabric to make the "lid" and I handsewed a couple elastic loops on it to thread a belt or such through. I couldn't have known at this time but in hindsight I probably should have used something rigid (foam maybe? idk) instead. I didn't catch the issue that this created in time to fix it because I couldn't test wear the tail while at mom's because the rest of the costume was in my own apartment lol. So there were two issues and issue one was that I had made the loops way too big, which made the tail hang and not rest against my back at all. This I tried to fix by making the loops tighter while sitting in the car. Unfortunately this didn't really fix the main problem, just make it a bit less unsightly. The tail was still rather low-hanging and unstable and I think that's because the fleece of the base is too soft and yeah, it gives in too much when the tail is worn aka hanging (aka something pulling on the base fabric, making it stretch), making the tail droop because of a lack of support. I will have to come up with some solution for the next time I wear this costume but it was at least wearable at Nekocon. Twisted around a few times and needed extra safety pins for stabilization but hey, I had a tail at least. :')

Oh, the ears are directly sewn into the wig with a few stitches by hand but my first attempt had me positioning them in a way that seemed okay when not worn but, when worn, it looked so bad I legit cringed when I looked in the mirror. xD It looked like some poorly drawn Sonic OC with horizontal flag pole ears lmao. Needless to say I removed the ears and reattached them on a different spot on the wig. I had to do an "anchor stitch" to lift the ears up (basically a single stitch on the backside of each ear towards the crown of the wig) to get them to look more action-y instead of sad, I mean Gaogamon has attitude and is supposed to look like a fighter, not like the Sorry-oo dog from Moomin!

I have like two photos of this costume and the tail isn't visible on any of them but at least you can see how the mane and ears ended up. 

Gaogamon gijinka v1.0. (photo: Firith)

As I mentioned in the beginning I consider this an early version of this particular costume, meaning I will definitely improve it later; I already know what I'd like to fix and add before the next outing. :D
This was a pretty fun costume to wear although there's a lot of moving pieces and so I had to constantly readjust something lol! I'm sufficiently happy with it for now but yeah, looking forward to fine-tuning Gaogamon over the years because I do have a vision for it!

Thanks for reading!
Shiro Samurai out.

Nekocon 2025 cosplay lineup!

 Hello frens!

Nekocon is right around the corner this weekend aaaaa and yeah, I know, this cosplans post is a dumb amount of late. I would have liked to publish it sooner but I swear my plans were changing every second day, no joke. I just could not settle on what to cosplay for the longest time because I wanted something new but also something I wouldn't boil to death in. We've been having crazy warm weather lately and apparently the Nekocon weekend will be warm too and well, I don't want to be miserable during one of the highlights of the year lmao. :'D I really need to make more summer-friendly cosplays... 

After a lot of back-and-forthing I think I've finally come to a point where my plans won't change anymore. *crosses fingers* It's not the first time I'm very last minute with cosplay plan reveals but better now than not at all!

Let's goooo~~

Saturday

Image source: Digimon wiki

Character: Gaogamon
Series: Digimon

I've always been a Digimon fan, I just haven't cosplayed from it yet – which actually is kinda weird when I think about it. As a kid I never really understood the "you have to choose one" rivalry between Pokémon and Digimon, I genuinely enjoyed both? Over time Pokémon won the mass appeal and Digimon got stuck in an underdog kinda position but honestly, the original Digimon anime went hard because it had a more dark and mature story that hit some really deep themes (especially when you consider it was a kids show) compared to Pokémons episodic and light-hearted animation. 
But yeah, it's about time I showed this long-running franchise some love and ever since I saw Gaogamon in the Digimon World: Next Order video game I was like hell yeah! 

I'm reusing bits and pieces from previous cosplays for this one (happened to have stuff with fitting colors..) combined with some newly made props to make it recognizable. :3 Obviously I'm making a gijinka, not a fursuit. xD A fursuit would be cool though but I have no experience how to make one so it ain't happening in two days lol.

Sunday

Character: America (Revolutionary War)
Series: Hetalia

I've had this cosplay lying around since early 2021 so maybe it's time I finally debut it lololol. I figured it was technically one of my lighter cosplays lighter than 3+ layers of lined kimonos at least and, although I don't have the shoulder/cross belts, the costume is still complete enough to be wearable. I don't have any kind of props for now but that's fine since America will be my chill Sunday cosplay. 

That's it. These plans should be final unless something unforeseen happens. It's a bit amusing that both of my costumes have the same color palette with blue, red and white – that wasn't intentional at all. xD

Oh, and I should maybe mention as a sidenote that it's been like 10 years since I watched Hetalia and it's just a silly gag show to me that I originally watched because one of my big interests has always been history and world history happened to be the basis of the show (regardless of how accurately it portrays things). I don't think of myself as part of the fandom, the show was amusing at times and a bit questionable at others but left no big overall impact on me; I'm mainly cosplaying from it because some outfits are cool-looking – just like with any other anime I casually consumed lol.

See you at Nekocon, meow!

Gingacon 2024 – Furries and a missing cheese slicer

 Hello peeps and woofers alike~

Last weekend I attended my first Gingacon event and, as the name implies, it is an anime convention especially aimed at fans of the Ginga series and other works by mangaka Yoshihiro Takahashi. Gingacon's target audience was also the furry community and people overall who are into animal-themed fictional works and toys (Pokémon, Digimon, Tamagotchi etc) as well as stories and fan creations.
This year's Gingacon was held on Saturday, 23rd November in Tampere, Finland. The host building was a school commonly called Tredu by the locals.

Let's get this summary started!

 

Gingacon info booklet.

My trip to the con started on Friday but, I admit, I might have been panic-packing on Thursday. As mentioned in previous blog posts I had planned to rewear my shiny Mightyena gijinka and, well, that costume consists of parts from other cosplays, stuff from my wardrobe and from my vintage kimono collection. It's effectively a fancier closet cosplay with some accessories added on top to make it more recognizable, aka a pair of ears and a tail – of which the latter I didn't have during its debut. But yeah, when I was packing my suitcase I might have had a panic moment when I realized that I didn't really remember exactly what brown pants I had used for the costume previously and all the brown costume pants I found didn't fit! So there I am losing my shit over some pants until it dawns on me that "hey, weren't those old corduroy pants I snagged from grandma brown?". *lightbulb moment* So I go digging through my wardrobe like a dwarf digging a hole diggy diggy hole and I found the damn pants and, even better, they fit so comfortably! Pants crisis, averted.

...
Except that wasn't my only crisis. I had a wig crisis too. xD I did find the old wig I had used for this cosplay but when I quickly tried it on I just had one blaring opinion – it looked like shite. It just wasn't flattering on my face at all, way too much fiber and poofiness on top. And the more I thought about it the more I kinda wanted a longer and shaggier wig but, of course, I only own short brown wigs. :)) I have like two bigass plastic containers full of wigs and somehow I never have the wig I need – a cosplayer's eternal curse amirite? Oh well, I ended up borrowing a wig from Firith, who was my con company for the trip too. I will buy a more fitting wig later for the next outing.

On Friday we took the train down to Tampere. I should maybe mention that we had an accommodation catastrophe since Gure, who was supposed to accomodate us during Gingacon, got sick with fever a few days before the con déjà vu and that threw our plans out the window. So in a last-minute panic I'm scrambling to get a new place to stay in while Firith loses all hope of even going. Our train tickets were non-refundable too and we literally knew no one else who lived in Tampere. Another thing is that Gingacon is held in an area outside of Tampere's centrum so there's not really any hotels nearby (and it's not like we could have afforded an emergency hotel stay on such short notice anyway). In my desperation I asked around in the Gingacon work crew Discord group and luckily Nawulf in there suggested this one airbnb that was very close to the con building, which ended up being our saving grace that secured the con trip!

It was late when we arrived to our airbnb stay and we both were a bit nervous because we had never used an airbnb before. Luckily the host was friendly and showed us great hospitality so everything went well! It was one of those airbnb types where you live together with the family in their home, essentially just renting a vacant room for the stay. We were allowed to use the living room to watch some TV; it was nice to wind down a bit before going to bed.
On Saturday morning we packed our stuff and put our costumes on before leaving (luckily there were like three bathrooms so we didn't hog the only bathroom in the house for cosplay prep xD). We were a bit behind schedule but not too bad.

Tampereen Seudun Ammattiopisto, aka Tredu.

I think the clock was around 12:30 local time when we arrived to the con. It looked quite empty from outside and we were momentarily very confused because there were signs on the front doors saying something like "entrance not allowed" and there also weren't any obvious big Gingacon signs anywhere stating that we were in the right place. Luckily we weren't dumbfounded for long because someone from inside noticed us and came outside to welcome us in and told us that they were working on hiding those "no entrance" signs.

View to the right (feat. cloakroom) upon entering.

Immediately upon entering the information desk was in front of our noses. There was a slight queue so we waited for our turn to get our badges. I had applied to be part of the work force and, more exactly, a green room worker. Firith in turn had applied for the cosplay competition and thus also got a badge, albeit an orange contestant badge instead of a blue worker badge. :3

My worker badge (and con ticket) featuring Gingacon's mascot Routa!
(yes, I censored my name for privacy reasons)

As soon as we got our badges we headed to the cloakroom to drop off our luggage and almost immediately after that Firith had to bolt for the cosplay competition's pre-judging phase. I had roughly 20 mins left to explore before my 3h work shift would start.
One thing that I quickly noticed was that Tredu was extremely similar in style to Pohjankartano in Oulu, except smaller. I mean the similarity was tripping me through the whole day lol! If you've read any of my Matsucon summaries you'll probably get what I mean with how these two buildings resemble one another, especially the way the stairs and upper floors are arranged.

General view of the main area, including the stage.

Another general view, Artist's Alley visible in the back.

I didn't really have enough time to do any proper exploration before my shift would start so instead I just kindly waddled over to the green room, which was hidden away in a corridor to the left half of the building, near a vending machine. There were signs pointing me in the right direction so I didn't get lost lol.
One thing I immediately noticed when stepping inside the green room was that it was surprisingly large in size, especially for a smaller con like Gingacon. There were tables full of many different food items including instant noodles, fresh fruits and vegetables to put on bread, snacks, chips and cookies, Pocky sticks, orange soda and juice and porridge and yeah, basically anything that's easy to eat or prepare! There was so much more variation than I expected; hands down probably the most comprehensive green room I've used to date, 10/10 would work again.

One of many green room tables.

I don't know if I misunderstood or misremember or if the information was wonky, but I do remember asking if there was any warm food and was told that Gingacon didn't supply warm food to the workers, unless you count the instant noodles. But then not long after I learned that there was some homemade food in the fridge that was free to use and had seemingly been prepared for the con workers? There were like two or three aluminium packages with some chicken dish inside and I think there was a bowl of salad too or something? I was just perplexed why said homemade food didn't count as a warm meal? Maybe it was just brainfarts on one or both sides but, whatever the case may have been, one thing was clear – there was enough food so you wouldn't have to work on an empty stomach.

This food package gave me a laugh. xD (artist unknown)

My work shift lasted from 13-16 and I spent that time watching over the green room and doing various tasks to keep it functioning like instructing and helping green room users, emptying the trash bags, making more coffee whenever it ran out and so on. Usually Nemi was also there to help me observe the situation so it never really got too hectic or overwhelming. Most times it was actually pretty chill and manageable and thus a pleasant working experience.

One tiny little thing that kept occuring though was that someone would every now and then come and ask where the cheese slicer was because there was a block of cheese but nothing to slice it with. Turns out that Nemi had forgotten to bring the cheese slicer. xD So yeah, those who wanted cheese on their bread had to resort to violating the cheese with a knife for the first hours of the con while the cheese slicer was on its way. Eventually there was a message in the Discord channel that the slicer had arrived, and because Nemi was hosting the Pokémon Go meetup at that time and thus I was the sole person watching over the green room, it meant that I put on my errand boy shoes and ran to pick up the much coveted metallic object from the info desk.

THE MYTHICAL CHEESE SLICER HAS GRACED US.

In hindsight I would perhaps have liked to check out the Pokémon Go meetup but it collided with my working hours so no can do. It was nice though because there was an in-game event running called the Wild Area and Gingacon put lures on the pokéstop just outside during the full duration of the con. I must admit I've kinda fallen off the PoGo wagon, I have no clue about the whole Dynamax thing and so on but it's still fun to play casually every now and then. I just hope that all my mons aren't horribly outdated by now lmao.

Oh and speaking of Pokémon, me and Firith decided already on the morning when we put on our cosplays that we would postpone photoshooting my shiny Mightyena outfit. Reason number one was that we wouldn't really have time (bless the diminishing sunlight hours during the winter months in Finland) due to our respective responsibilities and reason number two was that my ears didn't function at all like intended and thus I didn't really feel like having a proper photoshoot before fixing them... again. I didn't have time to test wear them before the con. You see, I've remade them once but despite my efforts to add in steel wire they still didn't stay upright (I really need a different attachment method for support than just safety pins). So my ears were just hanging down the sides of my face and I looked like a sad doggo all day. *sniff* But at least I have a proof photo that I did have the costume on!

Crappy phone quality, I know.

I did have some slight difficulties with the lenses, or more exactly one of them. For some reason the right eye one kept being lowkey scratchy so I took it out and reinserted it like three or four times before it went away. I was starting to worry that the lens was defective (I had not had time to test these before the con either) but luckily that wasn't the case. I intentionally bought super bright manson-styled lenses to look more cartoony and well, shiny Mightyena has super vibrant blue eyes so I wanted to match that for extra accuracy haha. I also added those triangles to aid recognizability a little but I'm honestly not sure if anyone actually knew what I was supposed to be lol. Not like it matters anyway, I still had plenty of fun!

This was by the way the first cosplay on which I had a big floofy tail. I had to constantly remember to lift the tail up and out of the way before I sat down because otherwise it would get in the way due to its rather massive size. xD At least I can say that the tail mostly functioned as it should; the only thing I need to fix for next time is to move the elastic loops even closer to the edges to keep the edges from protruding – something I didn't realize while sewing it as a first-timer. You live and you learn!

Tail awareness every tiem.

While I was working in the green room I got handed this little bag of gifts from the organizers. I was quite taken at first because I have not experienced this kind of appreciation before as a volunteer worker. ;;_;; Apparently every worker got a 'thank you' goodie bag with Gingacon merchandise featuring the mascot character Routa, which was super cute and made me feel seen omg.

Standard issue green room meal. :'D Stupidly delish noodles!

Once my obligations shift was over I immediately headed over to the plush doll meetup on the third floor. This was the one program I had planned already prior that I wanted to attend. I gotta admit though that I'm a lazy congoer when it comes to attending activities like lectures and panels etc, most times I might see something interesting when the activities are revealed online but then when I'm at the con I most often ain't really in the mood during that specific time when something I was moderately interested in is happening. It's like I'm not feeling it, you know? Like the headspace is not right at that moment and then I just can't be arsed because I know I wouldn't stay focused and/or invested enough. Maybe it's a neurodivergence thing or maybe I'm just getting old, who knows lol.
Anyways, this stuffed doll meet was something I really had a drive to check out – one big reason being that it stood out to me. I've honestly never seen such an activity at any con before (which feels weird when I think about it, I mean so many alt people collect plushies) and it seemed like a relaxed low-threshold meetup where you'd maybe hear some fun and engaging stories.

Plushie meetup collection!

One key aspect of this meetup was that it was free-for-all, meaning that you didn't have to reserve a spot in advance, aka it was essentially a drop-in program. You were also encouraged to bring any soft toy with you to the meetup to show it off and tell the others about the story behind it, if you wanted to. This was the part that incited me to attend because oftentimes people have some emotional attachment to plush dolls and I find it interesting to hear this kind of personal stories, even if it's brief. Oh, and did I mention that I love plush dolls in general? I have soooo many from my childhood and also a bunch of newer ones that I've bought as an adult – mostly imported ones from Pokémon Center in Japan and such.
Honestly I really enjoyed the meetup, we all sat in a circle around the room and just one by one we told the others the story behind the particular plush we had brought with us to the meeting. The stories ranged from tragic accidents to unhinged, outright hilarious ones like taking a short-time loan to afford a must-have plushie that was out of budget at the moment.
I hope that this type of meeting will be held in the future too (staple meetup at future Gingacons?), it was a great social experience which helped me feel less childish and stigmatized in my plush collecting hobby.

My childhood fish plushie and boba tea.

I left the meetup a little before it officially ended because Firith had gone earlier to order us some bubble tea and was waiting for me in the main hall. I decided to be silly and sneaked up on Firith because I saw that my target was reading a book and thus not paying attention and then I took my fish plush and lowered it in front of the unsuspecting reader's face while singing a part of a meme variant of the Kalakaveri (lit. 'fish friend') song by K-Citymarket food store. Video below is of the edited variant, I don't know who the original creator is but all credit goes to whoever it is. Y'all can thank me later for the brain rot... or not. :'D Laitetaan vahinko kiertään!

While we were sitting at the table enjoying our bobas a shy person approached us and asked if we wanted to adopt a puppy, as in those adoptable character arts you might find on sites like Furaffinity or DeviantArt. It took me a second to realize what was going on and then this person made it clearer by asking if any of us two likes to draw, to which I raised my hand. So the gist is that this person had designed a bunch of adoptable puppies (essentially a reference art that you would claim ownership of) and I was presented with a lot of random numbers to choose one, kind of like a lottery ticket. It was a cute little encounter that I didn't expect but which gave a heartfelt touch to the overall atmosphere of the con. I wish I would have talked more with this random stranger but they disappeared almost as soon as they came, although they were very polite and charming with the whole "hey I'm socially anxious but want to get to know new people and this is my way of breaking the ice" shtick.

Yes, my phone's low battery makes me uncomfortable too.

After that encounter we finally had time to plow through the Artist's Alley and the dealers. There were some familiar artists whom I had bought from already at other cons but there were also some new faces I had not seen before, like some people who sold handmade ceramics! I was a bit let down because I didn't really find anything that really caught my fancy (I like supporting independent artists and buying small items) despite there being quite a nice amount of tables. There were several who had interesting items but I was mostly looking for magnets this time, especially because my keychain collection is growing so large at this point that I don't know where to display all the ones that I own, send help. x) 

View of Artist's Alley.

More Artist's Alley. JeMiChi's table in front.

On the second floor was what was referred to as the "Ginga room". This included the booth of Suomen Hopeanuoli-fanit ry which is the association that organizes Gingacon. There was a lucky wheel and some merchandise for sale, including Ginga fanzines. I also saw during my brief run-through during the day that on the second floor were also different activities like a fur workshop for making ears and tails and opportunities to draw and color in Ginga-themed linearts. But when I did my proper exploration the fur workshop and the drawing room had already closed for the day so yeah, I didn't really get to observe them in action. Seemed like fun concepts though based on that one quick glimpse I did catch.

A part of the Hopeanuoli-fanit merch booth.

Oh, I forgot to say earlier but I did meet Lillepysen briefly, an old friend of mine from many years back. We used to play video games together casually and shared some fandoms. It was nice to see her again and swap some words, albeit a bit in a hurry because we both had stuff we still stuff we needed to do haha. Ah, cons and running into people you know~

I also ran into some completely random people just randomly duking it out with a Beyblade battle near the video game room. It made my closeted little nerd heart take an extra beat because it was so nostalgic and unexpected! I remember when Beyblade first came out – I was obsessed! I had a Gameboy Advance game (which kinda sucked, sadly), duvet covers, stickers and of course some G1 spinning tops. Even begged dad for money so I could buy a Beyblade from the local toy store during a vacation when I was a kid. xD

Surprise encounter: Beyblade battlers.

This impressive Tamagotchi and virtual pet display
was near the Beyblade trio.

It was getting quite late at this point. I had wanted to check out what the retro video game room had to offer but I also knew that I wouldn't really have time to sit down and play because our ride was coming soon to pick us up. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I was honestly happy that the consoles in the room really were the true retro stuff – there was a Super Nintendo, Playstation 2, Playstation 1 and so on. Yes, the good old ones that takes me back to simpler days. I think the newest console I saw might have been a Nintendo Gamecube?
There were surprisingly many gaming consoles too, a lot more than I expected – I didn't count but I'm pretty sure that the total amount was close to 10 or so. Two thumbs up from me, a really solid game room. Whoever arranged this deserves applause, I lowkey regret that I didn't have a bit more time so that I could have played at least a little.

I got so excited when I saw that the Super Nintendo had
both Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars!

We had to leave the con a bit before it officially ended because we were dependant on Gure (mostly recovered) giving us a ride to the train station and thus had to work with more than just our own time schedules too. We had to catch a train to Harjavalta that same night but before the train would depart we had some time to kill so we went to have some pizza in the train station. It was surprisingly good, especially when hungry.

Lordipizza. Yes, the Eurovision winner Lordi.

We boarded the train and it was full of people. We had the random chance encounter to be situated next to a couple in their 50s who clearly looked like metalheads.. and also clearly looked like they had just been in a bar drinking. The lady was in the sleepy phase but the longhaired dude (he kinda looked like Marko Hietala except with more narrow face and features) was super chatty and curious about us. We both had changed out of costumes before leaving the con but we still had makeup on so yeah, I had my casual clothes (I look like a rocker so he probably sensed that we're his people lol) with those Mightyena triangles below my eyes and I guess it caught his curiosity. It was funny because he asked where we had been and I assumed he didn't know what cosplay was so I explained it in simpler terms, like taking the long way around to make sure he gets the gist of it and then this man just looks at me and his eyes widen and he goes "do you mean that cosplay thing?" and I'm like say whaaaat how does this random dude know the word cosplay? XD He then goes off on a tangent about how he fucking loooooves Star Wars (bro literally goes like "I have ADHD I can't stop talking", bless his heart) and how he's always wanted to try to dress up but that he didn't know how to nor where and now he fears that he's too old and it would be improper of him to go to any conventions. I encouraged him to go to any free events first and check it out because age is really not a hindrance and that there's people of all ages who enjoy dressing up (even though you mostly see the young ones in social media and on the streets). He seemed genuinely interested and really inspired and ngl I wish that he gathers the courage to actually go check out a cosplay event in the future. This was hands down the most wholesome random drunk encounter I've ever had. Not to mention that of course we also talked about metal bands and what bands we had seen live and he had like all the same favorite bands that I do, it was absolutely crazy how much we bonded over such a short time. They were going to the 70 000 Tons of Metal cruise too, that's a bucket list thing for me.

This about sums up my Gingacon experience. I didn't mention every little thing because this summary would have gotten so long (hopefully Firith will mention what I didn't so you can read that report for a more complete picture of our trip!) but let's just say that this was an eventful journey with a lot of twists and turns but which turned out well in the end.
Gingacon left a very good first impression on me – I went in with low to no expectations and was positively surprised in almost all fields. It might be a small con with a specific target audience (the prominent Ginga focus might deter people who aren't familiar with the series) but it felt so genuine and passionate through and through. I also want to say that I find it really great from an inclusivity perspective that there are cons like Gingacon and Pörröcon etc that are extra welcoming towards fursuiters and furries because yeah, sadly I have seen that there is negative stigma and attitudes towards the furry community among the broader anime/manga community, especially online. I don't get the impression that such behavior would be common in Finland but yeah, I believe everyone deserves a safe space to express themselves and their interests freely – as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else and abides by the law, of course. We are all just geeks of different flavors doing geeky things that makes us happy.
All in all I'm really happy I attended Gingacon and I would definitely consider a revisit next year, especially if it's in Tampere again. I know Gingacon has existed since 2016 but I've always been either completely unaware or simply forgot of its existence after hearing about it, until now.
And finally, a big thanks to the main organizers for the flexibility and compassion in arranging my work hours to suit my current capabilities, it's always a blessing to come across such thoughtful and understanding people in higher positions. <3

And before I end this post, here's my lil' con loot:

The contents of the 'appreciation bag'!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this report! Remember to follow the blog if you like my content and aren't already a reader!
See you again soon! ~ Shiro Samurai

Shiny Mightyena cosplay ears and tail WIP!

 Hello everyone!

Years ago I quickly threw together a shiny Mightyena gijinka (aka human version) which included making a pair of ears for ease of recognizing the character. I took a few progress photos already back then but never got around to publishing a WIP post of how I made them because I wasn't happy with the ears and intended to remake them at some point. Well, that "at some point" finally arrived because I plan to rewear this cosplay at Gingacon.

So if you've ever wondered how to make simple costuming furry accessories then here's my debut experiences lol. I'm sure there's plenty of other more professional ways to do this but I tackled the project in a hurry with a "random bullshit go" mentality, just winging it from my head. :'D

2018 unpublished WIP photo of the starting materials.

So I started this project and did the first version of these ears in 2018 with some yellow fabric, a scrap piece of fake leather, some threads in matching colors, safety pins and stuffing (not pictured). I drew up a pattern of the general shape of the ears and then transferred that design onto the yellow fabric and cut it out. Mightyena has that type of long pointy ears with the inner ear being almost the same size of the outer ear.

Inner ears also cut out.

I handstitched the inner ears to the front-facing half of the ears because I didn't want to have as many holes in the leather that a sewing machine would make. That and I liked the rugged look of the handsewing, I thought it was fitting for a hyena Pokémon. In case it's not obvious each ear has a yellow front and a back side and the leather part only goes on the front.

Completed handsewing.

After that I used a sewing machine to put together the front and back sides. I left the base of each ear open so that I could turn the right side back out again and fill the ears with stuffing.

It was at this point when I realized my mistake. I had not factored in seam allowances and the concept of volume, which meant that the inner ear part ended up way too big, covering almost all of the surface when filled. Another issue was that the filling made the ears heavy and so they would droop when attached to the wig with safety pins and just wouldn't stay upright. This was a look that worked for my even older Espeon gijinka (first set of ears I made) but it didn't work at all for Mightyena.

2018 version completed ears. Eww.

And here ends the 2018 mishaps and efforts and we jump back to the current year of 2024 when I decided that this shit needs an overhaul before I dare wear it out in public again lolol. 

Okay so after digging these wonky ears out of my wardrobe my first mission was to open up the base and remove all the stuffing. Once the ears were flat they were easier to handle and so I took a seam ripper in hand and started undoing the handsewn stitches that kept the inner ear in place – after all, one of the two big mistakes was that the inner ear was way too big. Once I freed the inner ears I measured and sketched out the amount I needed to remove on the backside of the fake leather (don't want visible marks!) and then I cut it off carefully. I shaved off like 1 cm from all sides except for the base.

First steps towards an improved appearance!

I had decided that for Gingacon I wanted to add a fluffy tail to my costume for more recognizability and to have it feel more complete and less like a closet cosplay lol. It still is a closet/recycling cosplay though. *screeches*
I bought some fur fabric from Eurokangas in Oulu, it's not a perfect color but it was like the only brown option that looked passable as canine fur and didn't make me think of a bear or moose. I would have ideally wanted a darker, more cholocate brown fur but I was really short on time and the options were very limited. It sucks that the fabric store in Kemi closed down and that the Eurokangas in Tornio also disappeared already years ago.

I worked on the ears and the tail simultaneously, swapping back and forth between the two depending on where I was and what equipment I had to use. The tail is a very simple creation; I just bought a roughly 35 cm piece of fur, the width of the fabric, and then I folded that in half and cut the other end into a tapering tip while leaving the folded, now upper half to be the base of the tail.

I was convinced the 80 needle would break but it didn't??

I've never sewn fur fabric before and especially not furry fur like this. It's quite difficult to keep the hairs in check and when I was cutting the end of the tail into a tip I had loose fur flying all over the place. xD Luckily my new rehabilitation place has a hobby room and there's a sewing machine there, albeit an old Husqvarna one. I was quite distrusting of the machine because there weren't anything but 80 strength needles and the fur I had was very thick – I was sure it would break or jam while I sewed the tail shut. Yet somehow the needle didn't break during the whole odyssean ordeal and I just sat there wondering if the sewing machine was secretly an overpowered Autobot on a mission to save my day or if I had somehow cheesed the law of unfortunate setbacks. GG needle, well played.

Tail edge sewn shut.

Sewing the tail took quite a lot longer than I thought it would because I spent so much extra time trying to keep the fur hairs away from the presser foot! I mean I had to constantly be there re-arranging the direction of the fluff and trying to move away as much stray hairs as possible to not have an excessive amount get stuck in the seam. It's an impossible mission to complete perfectly but I did what I could.

Turning the tail back out. It's so fluffy.

I left a relatively large gap up on one of the sides near the top so that I could easily turn the fur side back out and later fill it with stuffing to have it actually look fluffy and not like a hairy pancake.

I left the progress of the tail for a bit and jumped back into finishing the ears. For this I paid mom a visit because I needed some additional stuffing to fill the tail (the stuffing I removed from the ears was nowhere near enough) and I also wanted to brainstorm ideas for reattaching the faux leather parts onto the ears without having to undo all the seams first, to separate the front and back pieces, because that was a lot of extra work I didn't want to do and didn't really have the time left to do either. I mean now that the ears were already assembled I couldn't exactly handsew the inner ears back on because the stitches would show on the backside and that would look fugly.

Hello vliesofix my new friend!

Mom had recently ordered this material called vliesofix from Germany for her sewing/craft projects. It behaves similarly to interfacing fabric except that it has heat-activated glue on both sides with a peelable film on the other side.

So what I did was cut out a suitable piece and put the glue side down so that it would stick to the backside of the inner ears. My vliesofix piece was slightly too small to fit both ears but this was easy to solve by just using other scrap pieces to cover the missed spot; make sure not to have the edges overlapping because that might make peeling off the film more difficult.

Preparing the vliesofix.

I used an old towel to protect the ironing board from glue. You could of course just cut the vliesofix directly into the correct shape to minimize product waste and glue residue, but as I was already working with scrap pieces I didn't bother. I also made sure to protect the fake leather by folding over the towel on top, before ironing, so that the iron wouldn't touch them directly in case of damage (the iron was on a high heat setting). If you're working with delicate fabrics, or fabrics of which heat-resistance properties you are unsure about, you might want to sandwich them between another heat-tolerant fabric like cotton.
I gotta admit though that these photos were from my second try – my first try was a major oopsie because I accidentally put the glue side facing up (it's quite difficult to tell them apart on a quick glance) and when I pulled away the towel, to reveal my work, the ears were still there but the vliesofix had stuck to the towel instead and I had to tear it off. xD I has the dumb!

Successful attachment.

I cut tiny scrap pieces into the shape I needed to fill in that one corner that didn't fit into the block. After the first glue side was fully attached I trimmed off all the excess product and then peeled off the film to reveal the second glue side. This side I would then attach to the yellow part of the ear by ironing it again. I used the towel of course for extra security although it also meant that the vliesofix took a bit longer to fully stick. Despite my efforts it didn't fully attach itself (glue wore out or evaporated or something, I dunno) so I had to use some fabric glue on a few spots to finalize the attachment of the inner ears. For once in my life fabric glue actually seemed to work. I have so many bad experiences with fabric glue being absolutely worthless crap that just created a mess.

The last part involved using wire to get the ears to have some support so that they'd stay somewhat upright. I bought some cheap steel wire from Dollarstore and layered it like six or so times, after which I bent it to a roughly matching shape and twisted it to become more united and stronger. I used two wire frames like this per ear, except the second frame was half the length of the first one (so basically one curved and one straight piece).

Example of the wire shape before insertion.

After completing the wire frames I just inserted them into each ear and then I sewed the base of the ear shut and called them done. Done for now at least. Yes, I intentionally omitted the stuffing altogether for the remake although I did briefly consider other attachment methods than the safety pins. I mean, safety pins are an inexpensive and effortless way to attach something to a wig without it being semi-permanent, although it can be a bit cumbersome to set up as you need to make sure that the ears are on roughly the same height and position etc. I did consider buying a thin headband and attaching the ears to that for an easy wearable, but I saw no suitable ones in the stores I had time to check.

With the ears completed I could focus on the tail.
I stuffed it to my liking and then came the part that I kicked myself over – I had not paid any mind to how to attach the tail to my costume in advance. Or more like I had thought about options but I hadn't foreseen that yeah, it would be a lot easier to add belt loops or whatnot if you do it before sewing the tail shut on all sides except for that one gap. -_-
I decided to add elastic bands so that I could just thread through any sashes or belts to attach the tail. The hard part was sewing said elastics onto the backside of the base of the tail without losing my sanity along the way; all the measuring was just rough eyeballing and gut feeling because there was no way to really know where the heck any correct placements were because of constant shifting lol. Having one hand inside the tail (and locked to only one entrance direction) and one hand unable to properly keep things in place, due to how thick the fur was etc, made it really challenging to handsew the elastics in place. It would have helped had I kept two openings on each side of the tail because then I would have had more control to adjust once my hand with the needle went in. So yeah, the elastics aren't perfectly aligned but whatever, they do their purpose and as they'll always be against my back no one will really be staring at them.

The final task was to handsew the gap closed.

I finished the tail by handsewing that entry point closed (secure the stuffing!) and with that my Mightyena cosplay was upgraded ja minusta tuli virallisesti turri me thinks and a bit more complete than last time. I gotta say though that the handsewing was also done completely in the blind, the long fur completely hid my stitches upon doing them and I was impossible to even see where the folded edges waiting to be closed were, I had to go by touch only and hope that my needle poked through both layers on its way. Gotta say that these experiences make me appreciate and respect the fursuit makers even more than I already did, just handling the fabric itself requires so much extra patience lol.

Finished tail, it's honestly pretty stonks!

I would have wanted to try the costume on before Gingacon to see how it looks but I don't really have time for that anymore; I haven't even found the costume parts nor started packing yet and I'm leaving on Friday, send help. I just have to trust that they function as they should.
Oh well, I will try to get some cosplay photos soon so that I can put a link here that shows how these furry accessories look when worn!

Gingacon event summary will be up next, see you soon!
~ Shiro Samurai out.