Närcon Vinter 2013 preparations!

Hi guys!

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

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

Con stuff!

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

After I had glued it back in place..

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

Glass pebble testing.. success!

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

Nikon D60

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

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

See ya!

Espeon gijinka ears

 Meow!

I bought today some purple fleece for my gijinka Espeon ears while I was waiting for le stepdad to pick me up from town. When I got home I decided to start making them right away. I will write this in a kind of tutorial-ish way. Here goes ~

My chosen fabrics: purple fleece and err, I think it's black velvet..

The reference picture I used of Espeon

I took some pattern paper and drew the form of the ears, including the "eartail" things. I made them around 30 cm long.

Pattern for the ears drawn..

Folded the fleece fabric and pinned pattern in place..

After I had cut out a pair of ears.. 4 pieces of fabric in total. Remember seam allowance!

I made the inner ear pattern by putting the "outer ear" under the pattern paper and drew it..
(this is taken after I had cut out the inner ear pattern and put it on top of the outer ear to check that they fit together)

Inner ear pattern pinned in place on fabric...

Inner ear pieces cut out.. 2 in total, you don't need these at the back of the ears obviously.

I didn't do any seam allowance for the inner ear pieces because they are just sewed on top of the ears.. and the fabric doesn't fray, so no need to fold it in or anything.

I pinned the inner ear pieces..

.. and zigzaged them on. (you can do straight stitch if you want, I just used zigzag to avoid getting more of those "black fluffs" everywhere)

Turned the ears right sides against each other and sewed around it..

During the sewing I made some mistakes. Every time you have to change sewing direction you can't do a sharp angle... Like an "L" or something like that. It will look bad when you turn it right sides out.. trust me, I did this mistake on the first ear and it puckered and looked fugly so I had to unstitch all parts were there was a sharp angle. You have to do a soft curve and it also helps to do some cuts along the curve at the wrong side to "relax" the fabric.

Cuts at the curve to demonstrate what I mean...

When you have sewed both ears closed (except the root of the ears, which you obviously should leave open, if you want to have some stuffing inside them) carefully turn it back right sides out and use a pen or something to get those narrow pointy-ish shapes out fully.

An empty ear turned right side out... it needs some...

... FLUFF! (pillow stuffing or whatever it's called)

After filling ears with stuffing...

I sewed the roots closed with a sewing machine.
You can handsew too if you prefer that..

Now I had a pair of Espeon gijinka ears. The method of attaching them to the wig is either by safety pinning the ears into the wig or you could sew them on if you'd like. I will just use safety pins for now myself because I don't know yet if I can use the wig for other cosplays...
I did the ears this way because it's easier to hide and looks more, err, "natural" than just having an obvious headband with ears on.

I decided to do a really quick Espeon gijinka try-on, just to see how the ears sit on the wig and if they weighted it down or something. They did not, very light-weight and comfortable to wear!

Here's few (mirror) photos:

Is it just me or does this wig suit me? xD
When I had it on I thought "Maybe I should really cosplay Gakupo.." (yes, I've planned that for quite some time but not 100% sure)

My gijinka ears "droop" as you can see on the last photo, but I can position them and have them hold the new pose as long as I do not move my head around. I'm not sure if I should keep them like this because in a way I kinda like them when they hang like that. xD Or should I safety pin them so that they point more outwards/stand up more? I think depending on how I pin them the shape they are in will be different... hmmm I'll have to experiment with it...

That kimono (and juban) is the one I'll be wearing but I have not yet decided on if I should use a black or wine red kaku obi.. and I'm thinking about adding some accessories.. if I can find what I have in mind ~
Also I need to get my hands on a red craft gem or rhinestone or whatever they are called.. with a flat back of course. I checked Tiimari and another store today but they didn't really have gems with the right form/size/color.. and if they had something half-way decent they were in a multi-pack and/or overpriced... and because I just need one and not like 30 in different sizes too OTL it feels a bit derp to pay 5 € or something to just use one of them lol. I think I'll go check Tex too before I turn to buying from eBay haha.

Bye bye for now!

Närcon Vinter 2013 cosplay plans changed!

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

So here comes the new cosplay plans for Närcon Vinter:

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Kenshin Himura (Hitokiri Battousai)

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

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata

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

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

Sunday

Series: Pokémon
Character: Espeon

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

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

Absol gijinka redesigned

First some background information. Absol is one of my absol-ute haha favorite Pokémon and I've been wanting and meaning to do a gijinka (human version) of it since 2010.

Official art of Absol

I drew my first gijinka version of Absol back in the start of 2010. It was basically a kimono style shirt with a fluffy collar, black gloves, a black sash tied in a ribbon at the back and white pants and generic black shoes. The hair was white and short (neck length) and layered with medium long bangs. Red eyes of course. Pretty boring right? Not so interesting although it wasn't really terribly bad either.
At the end of 2010 I redesigned it slightly; the pants, gloves and sash were the same and the shoes were pretty similar too. But I changed the kimono style shirt into a keikogi (with the tie at the chest) but the collar was still fluffy. Also added a black headband and the white hair was slightly past the shoulders and smoother, medium bangs still. I had planned to make this second design for a long time until last week when I started thinking about redesigning my Absol gijinka for the third and hopefully last time because it still felt.. lacking and bland... and just not so interesting.

So today I sat down and redesigned it. I kept some of the earlier elements but instead of black I decided to go with dark blue because I read somewhere long time ago that it's body is actually dark blue but commonly mistaken for black by fans. I also added some details and stuff and I must say I'm very pleased with this new design. Now it certainly has some attitude and looks much more interesting than before. I won't show how it looks surprise surprise~! but I really want to cosplay it next year, if possible. Masamune will take a fair chunk of next year to complete. If I start working on it I will post the progress here and you all can guess what the final product will look like while I work ~