Throwback Thursday: Byakuya cosplay from InuYasha!

Hello everybody!

Last Thursday I started a new Throwback Thursday themed blog series on which I'll go through some of my early cosplays. In case you missed the first post I wrote about my Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach) cosplay I mentioned there that, even though I started making Ichigo first, he actually wasn't the first cosplay that I was seen wearing at a convention – and that cosplay, my debut one, is what today's post will be all about!

Ever since I found some really old cosplay WIP photos in the deep dark corners of my laptop I've been wanting to do something with them – like, for example, show them to the world because we all started somewhere. Yes, I totally took progress photos before I even started cosplay blogging. 

This means that, once a week, on Thursdays (because it's called Throwback Thursday for a reason), I will invite you all to experience a 'blast of the past' with me – featuring old cosplay photos, WIPs and stories ranging from late 2009 to 2011. Fasten your seatbelts, we're gonna be riding the time machine and you'll get to backtrack into my cosplay history and see some never-published-before photos on this here blog!  
Be warned that this, naturally, means a lot of (potential) embarrassment for me and highly varying photo quality for you. ;) I only had a crummy compact camera back then and didn't even notice if a photo was blurry or not...

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Byakuya. InuYasha.

Byakuya, I did him before it was cool. Or well, it was never really cool to cosplay him (he's a rare character to see done) but what I mean is that I did him way before the Final Act anime came out and when he had only recently shown up in the Finnish release of the InuYasha manga. This means that when I originally did this cosplay, back in mid 2010, I had really limited references to go by and only one or two colored images (manga cover/back), if even that. This means that back then I didn't really know what his lower legs and shoes looked like and thus it's a bit inaccurate; I couldn't even find another Byakuya cosplayer to check how they had done things, lol.

I had started working on Ichigo when I suddenly, around midway, decided on a spur of the moment that I wanted to do an InuYasha cosplay for the upcoming Uppcon in Sweden. Back then Uppcon was Sweden's biggest convention, sadly it doesn't exist anymore – the last one was held in 2012, R.I.P. ;_; But yeah, I'm not sure why exactly I suddenly wanted to start another cosplay project while I had an unfinished one still in the works; the only possible reasoning that I can think of is that the tenth Uppcon (2010) was to be my first big convention (I had only been to Kemi's manga days and possibly one Kitacon before) and I might have wanted to cosplay from my first manga, as if to honor it. Now, InuYasha wasn't technically the first manga that I ever read but it was the first one that I got into and the first one that I started collecting. I own every single volume in Finnish. InuYasha will thus always have a soft spot in my heart.

I'm not even sure if I had any specific reasons for wanting to do Byakuya of all possible characters. The only ones I can think of is that he intrigued me (and he was a new character) and had a pretty design – I guess I wanted to be a little hipster as well. I remember that originally I wanted to start with Sesshoumaru and, well, I can only say one thing to my old self – THANK THE HEAVENS THAT I DIDN'T. Sesshoumaru is a really precious character to me and his outfit is quite complicated and, well, I wouId have ruined my husbando had I done him back then. I'm so fucking relieved that I decided on saving him for a later time, heck, even today I feel like I'm still not skilled enough to do him justice... :'D But yeah, Byakuya's not the easiest cosplay to pick either, especially as a cosplay beginner, but thankfully I already knew how to sew and make swords out of wood; I've always been creative with my hands and Byakuya's costume required me to think to figure out some of the problems that it presented once I started working on it. 

I don't remember of I started sewing or making the sword first. I remember that back when I made the sword it hadn't been revealed in the manga yet that, in actuality, Byakuya's sword doesn't even have a blade until he uses it. I couldn't have known this back then and thus I made the sword with an ordinary blade... and not even a katana-style one but more of a western one. Not like it matters anyway because when I cosplayed him I never drew the sword, mostly because it hadn't been revealed yet what it looked like and thus I kept it sheathed at all times, for the sake of accuracy. Good thing I did. xD

Old photo of the finished sword.

Close-up of the handle.

It's made completely out of wood, all self-made. That golden paint that I used on the tsuba sucked elephant dong and I remember that even back then I hated it because it looked fugly and, no matter what one did, it didn't apply neatly. Sadly it was the only gold paint that I found in all the local shops back then and so I had no other choice... >_> 

A recent photo showing the sword in its sheath, all props attached.

I made a gourd for him. The dents are damage it took during Uppcon.

The sheath is made of some kind of thicker fabric, the kind that is water-resistant, has an obvious texture and is synthetic. It's not the best but it's easy to do and it fills its function. Luckily with Byakuya the floppiness, if I took the sword out, wasn't a problem because I didn't have to unsheathe it at the con. I used a violet textile cord to carry the sword over my shoulders.

The brown gourd I made by taking two styrofoam balls, carving out the bottom of one with a knife and then gluing them together. I used some red bias tape as decoration and to hide the attachment spot (and to fasten it to the sheath). The little 'mouth' of the gourd is actually a cork from a wine bottle. x) Recycling for the win!

Regarding the sword I feel a need to mention that it broke into three pieces after Uppcon, thanks to Arlanda airport's (Stockholm) carelessness. I flew to Uppcon with my brother and mom (I was underage and Uppcon was really big) from Kallax aiport, in Luleå, and there they were kind enough to have the aircraft workers personally taking it into the aircraft, to assure that it wouldn't break during transit. Please note that my sword was only stored in a sword-carrying bag and thus would likely have broken if, for example, a heavy suitcase was placed on top of it. Kallax special luggage service was amazing, I can't complain because they went out of their way to make sure that my prop would get to Stockholm intact. The same I can't say about Arlanda, they told me it would be fine at the special luggage counter and then just proceeded to flung it into the same space as all the other passengers (heavy) stuff. I think I might even have paid extra for special treatment. I even saw from the window, later on in the terminal, when they shoved all kinds of luggage into the plane, including trolleys and bigass sport bags... and then I saw my puny sword bag and got a clump in the throat. Back at Kallax when I went to claim my prop from the conveyor-belt I could see already from a distance that it was broken. It was disheartening and frustrating at the same time. I went to complain and the woman I talked to gave me a number and told me to call it and ask for a compensation for a broken hand-made item. I tried calling it later and never got anywhere and yeah, I'm still kinda annoyed by it all because they gave me a number that wasn't even up to date...

I sadly, once again, don't have any progress photos – only pics of the finished product. All of these costume detail photos ahead are recent. For Byakuya I didn't originally take any outfit photos (just like with Ichigo), save for those first two sword photos and the one farther down that shows the fake flower that I got for him.

Byakuya's kimono and haori. Front view.

Back view.

Just like with Ichigo I made Byakuya during the time when I either didn't know everything about accurate kimono construction or, alternatively, didn't think (nor care) that seam placement was that important. *smacks former self* :) Luckily because the haori is so dark in color one doesn't immediately notice that it has shoulder seams –and the yellow applique covers a part of it– and the haori itself, in turn, always covers the light blue kimono's shoulder seams. Phew. Otherwise I might just have been pulling my hairs right now.

I hand-painted the flames with fabric paint.

I'm sorry that the whole outfit (and especially the sleeves) are so wrinkly – this cosplay has been untouched and in storage ever since 2010. I quickly took it out to take these photos before the sun went down. Hello kaamos my old friend ~

Side-ish view of the haori.

As I mentioned above those yellow parts are appliqued on. I originally cut them out as complete wobbly oval-ish shapes with those 'inner lines' but, as I started sewing them on, they started to misalign/shift themselves because of the big size of the applique and the large area that I was sewing them on to. Of course this only started happening once I had already partly sewn on the yellow details and the only thing to do, to keep the original intended placement, was to cut the design into pieces at specific areas, align/replace them and sew them on – this created seams around the design.

Close-up photo of the seams of the yellow design, aka
where I had to cut it to get it to align properly.

Sewing on the yellow shapes to the haori was by far the most tedious and hardest part of the whole costume. It took a really long time and a fair share of patience and carefulness.
On the back of the haori I made a slit, lined it with bias tape for a neat finish and I also added that little ribbon at the top, which sometimes was visible on Byakuya in the manga. A cute little detail.

Showing the back slit and the little ribbon.
(this is a flash photo, hence the color difference)

The kimono and the haori are made of cotton fabric, the yellow parts are perhaps a cotton blend (I'm not sure) and same thing for the wannabe-hakama pants.
Speaking of which, I'm still not sure what the fudge I was thinking when I made these pants. :'D I mean, I did know what hakama looked like (I was practicing kendo for fuck's sake!) but still I decided to not make these in a proper way and instead made them.... hakama inspired. *dun dun duuuun* Just let me cringe for a moment. No but really, I decided to completely skip the side openings and the koshiita. I could have made a more proper tattsuke hakama but no, I didn't. I'm still not sure if it was just pure laziness, a weird expectation that real hakama would be sooooo hard to make or a case of "the sides will never show because of the long haori so I can't be bothered to go the extra mile". I was horrible. :)) So yeah, while these atrocious pants have five pleats in the front and two in the back, just like regular hakama, that's pretty much the only thing they have in common. The ties on these start from the sides and the legs have elastics in them. The sides are sewn close like on regular pants.

My horrible wannabe-hakama. :DD
This is mighty embarrassing to show...

Fun fact is that I think that the Hakama Gods™ saw what I was doing and took revenge on this blasphemy of a creation. You see, during one of the two cons that I wore Byakuya to, can't remember which one, one of the sides on which the ties were attached literally ripped. And no, I don't mean that the seam gave in, I mean that the actual fabric tore next to the seam – most likely because of too much strain. Ouch.
So yeah, the sin punishes itself it seems and, if anything, then that was the ultimate way of showing my older self that if you need to make hakama, make them right or your fake-ass pants will tear.
I can attest that ever since this failure I've never even considered lazying out if I had to sew a hakama. You learn from your mistakes and yada yada.

One iconic thing with Byakuya is that he's almost always holding a flower whenever he appears. A flower that, to my untrained eye, looks like a peony. I could be horribly wrong likely am but whatever the case I found a really suitable fake/plastic flower from a Finnish store called Tiimari back in the days. Tiimari has since then disappeared, which is a shame because it was a good mixed craft/hobby store for cosplayers... although it was expensive at times.

An old photo showing the prop flower.

I have no idea where this flower currently is. What I do know is that I've sold my original Byakuya wig though. It was a black Ivy from the old Cosworx, aka cosplay.com's own wig store. The thing is that the wig was good quality and all but I was a stupid sack of cucumbers who didn't know that you can't just simply by a long wig and expect to be able to pull it up into a high ponytail just like you do with real hair. :) Needless to say that at the con I only managed to keep the wig in a loose low ponytail and I was too scared and clueless to even cut the bangs into the right length.
So yeah, the costume itself might have been impressive but the wig and my face really made it crash and burn. Heck, this was during the times when I strictly refused to wear any kind of makeup, except for powder. *vomits profusely* The truth is that I didn't even know how to use makeup and, even though I could pull the man card, it's not really an excuse because even guys do use makeup for cosplay – everyone is recommended to use makeup for cosplay because it really does one hell of a difference.
You know what makes it even worse? I didn't even know that filling in your eyebrows was a thing and well, just imagine a black wig and my naturally light-colored eyebrows... :) Add to that a makeup-less face and... just no. Fucking no.

I managed to find some old photos of me wearing Byakuya at Uppcon 2010. This was the 10th Uppcon and it was held in Uppsala, Sweden, in a big building called Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. I have really fond memories of the con itself (we had an InuYasha cosplay group!) but I'm so goshdarn ashamed of how bad I was at doing facial expressions for photos and yeah, I just had to censor my face on these two images below as well. Even if I had some really basic posing knowledge I had no idea how to position myself and, especially, not what to do with my face. Half the time I was either staring into the camera or staring away from it in such a way that it looked like I had spaced out into the moon or something. A third variant was an unintended(?) killer glare. It was really that bad. Killer glare was almost like my neutral face for years, no wonder people were afraid to approach me.

Taken outside Uppcon's entrance. I cropped
out my brother.

I used to be proud of that photo above and now, whenever I see the uncensored version, I feel a violent urge to slam my face into a wall. :DD During the 7 years that I've been cosplaying I have, after all, improved quite much and it's really noticeable when I find this kind of old shit and compare them to the new stuff that I do. It's maybe not an astounding lot of improvement in terms of sewing but, even more so, in posing and using makeup.

Only back view photo that I have. Notice
the low ponytail and the props.

I'm not sure how noticeable it is on these two oldie pics but I actually bought high-quality pointy ears for this cosplay. I find it amusing how, back then, I could pay a lot of attention to some small details while I chose to ignore others – especially if I didn't consider them important enough for whatever reason.

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So there you go, my debut cosplay. I'm still happy with it in general (except for a few things, lol) and I would definitely rewear it once I have remade the hakama, bought a new wig and fixed some other stuff. I want to have an updated photoshoot with this cosplay because I obviously don't have any presentable photos of it currently, thanks to it being of an embarrassing 2010 model and thus before I realized the importance of makeup. >.< Byakuya will definitely be seen at a future convention!

Current status of this cosplay: In need of repairs/update and a new wig.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's episode!

Shiro Samurai out.

Throwback Thursday: Ichigo Kurosaki cosplay from Bleach!

Hello guys!

I will start this year by doing something that I haven't done before but have had in my thoughts since forever – namely a number of themed posts all dedicated to my first few cosplays! :'D Ever since I found some really old cosplay WIP photos in the deep dark corners of my laptop I've been wanting to do something with them – like, for example, show them to the world because we all started somewhere. Yes, I totally took progress photos before I even started cosplay blogging. 

This means that, once a week, on Thursdays (because it's called Throwback Thursday for a reason), I will invite you all to experience a 'blast of the past' with me – featuring old cosplay photos, WIPs and stories ranging from late 2009 to 2011. So yeah, we're gonna be riding the time machine and you'll get to backtrack into my cosplay history and see some never-published-before photos on this here blog!  
Be warned that this, naturally, means a lot of embarrassment for me and highly varying photo quality for you. ;) I only had a crummy compact camera back then and didn't even notice if a photo was blurry or not...

I must admit that I originally wanted to use a more creative/original name for this blog post series (TBT is so mainstream, lol) but yeah, I couldn't come up with anything short, funny and something that everyone would instantly know that it means flashback time. So yeah, it became Throwback Thursday anyway. xD

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Ichigo Kurosaki, shinigami version. Bleach.

Oh, haven't we all done at least one Naruto or Bleach cosplay back in the days? *nostalgic*

Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach was actually the very first costume I started sewing when I 'officially' started cosplaying back in late 2009 – November, to be exact. But if we count that I made a couple OC outfits way back in school's sewing class, before I even knew what cosplay was (I had seen cosplayers on internet but didn't know that it was a thing), then that would mean that I started cosplaying in, err, somewhere around 2004-2006 or some such, yikes! Regarding those OC costumes I never made other parts except the clothes themselves, I didn't know about wigs or anything (I wanted white hair thou) and I had never heard of the word 'cosplay' either, hence why I often consider that 2009 is my official cosplay debut year because at least then I knew that cosplay was a hobby that anyone could do, I got all the parts needed for my costumes and debuted them etc.

I don't think that Ichigo as a character needs any introductions – he's the main character from the popular shounen series Bleach and is also a really typical shounen lead. The reason I picked Ichigo was simply because I had recently started reading the Bleach manga and I liked it. Back then many characters hadn't been introduced yet (I think I was on volume 2-5 or such, lol) and I chose Ichigo on a whim, thinking that it'd be easy to do and really recognizable – which meant that I'd possibly get new friends at conventions. Yes, I had almost no friends before I started cosplaying and thus picking a well-known character/series to cosplay was sort of important. My reasons were simple. 

I also remember thinking that if I started with Ichigo I could easily use the same main outfit (the shihakusho, aka shinigami outfit) for cosplaying almost anyone from the cast later, which I did.

Sadly I have no actual progress photos of this cosplay, only shots of the finished product.

Finished Bleach shinigami kimonos.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

It's worth mentioning that I knew how to sew before I started this geeky hobby. I also knew about fabrics (thanks to my mom having had her own fabric store for a majority of my life) and thus I'm not actually cringing when I look back at my old sewing work... :D Of course I've improved since then but I can still easily reuse my first cosplays without feeling a need to burn them, at least not the clothes. Needless to say that I conveniently avoided the common mistakes that a lot of first-time cosplayers do: shining satin monsters, "bedsheet cosplays", poorly hemmed or outright raw/untreated edges, random threads hanging, wrong fabric choices etc. But of course I had my Experience Zero™ zones too, namely I didn't know nor care jackshit about makeup and was bad at posing as well as doing facial expressions. Facing the camera and staring into the distance, anyone? I also didn't style wigs early on and that ended up with a lot of fibers blocking my eyes etc...

I want to mention in the same go a bit about my top robes and what they look like and this is simply because, over the years, I've had surprisingly many people contacting me especially to ask how I made mine because "it looks accurate" and/or "you seem knowledgeable". Think of this as a bonus mini tutorial/guide for Bleach shinigami cosplays! Truth is that because of these multiple requests I've been wanting to make a post about my shinigami outfit already earlier but now, with this Throwback Thursday nostalgy series, I got a fitting post to bake it into ~

When I made the shihakusho robes (yes, there's a top and an inner one) I did a lot of extensive research to figure out what it was supposed to look like. I had seen so many cosplayers doing it in different ways and when you add horribly inconsistent anime/manga references then the following confusion starts hurting your head. I ultimately ended up picking out some selected images from the manga and sticking with them, which I'm glad I did. The images I used showed that the whole front of the sleeve was open, likewise the back; there was also an arm opening like those seen on real kimono and from which the white under kimono could be seen peeking through. Tite Kubo either had no clue what he was doing when he designed the shinigami outfits or he simply decided that "screw the rules" was the way to go.
It's worth mentioning that during the time when I made this cosplay I had no idea about how kimono were traditionally constructed and thus this costume has shoulder seams, no okumi panel and the like. Yes, if anything then that's a reason if I ever wanted to remake this thing. Then again, considering all the inaccuracies of shinigami outfits anyway (at least when compared to proper kimono) then it's not a big deal anymore, lol. I mean, why does both male and female characters have the underarm slits and open back sleeves? That's reserved for women only. *rolls eyes*

Fully open sleeve mouth.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

The sleeves of the white under kimono/gi/kosode/whatnot I made a few centimeters longer than on the outer black one, so that it would stick out like it does on all characters in the series. Even this little detail strays from general kimono kitsuke ideals. The white and black robes are identical otherwise, except for that I sewed the white one shut under the arm and the back of the sleeve is closed as well. No idea if this is accurate to the series or not (lol) but that's what I did because I didn't want to potentially flash my may-or-may-not-be-there armpit hairs to other congoers...

Just me trying to show what the armpit slits look like. Notice that the white
sleeve peeks out from the open back of the black kimono.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

The black kimono is made out of twill cotton and the white one is from some kind of bridal quality cotton blend that mom had a leftover roll of lying in the attic. A bit overkill perhaps, but it looked really nice. xD Oh and yeah, both the robes are mid-thigh in length (recommended minimum) and this is so that they'd cover up the side openings of the hakama, so to not have my bare skin showing.
Speaking of which – the hakama. I must admit that I lazied out on this and, because I practiced kendo at the time, I simply just decided to order a black budo (martial arts) hakama for the costume. This saved me a lot of fabric, time and effort – and looks better. I used a heavy cotton aikido hakama but of course you can order some cheaper polyester ones too, or make it yourself if you're up for it. Just remember that if you decide to make your own hakama that it has 5 pleats in the front and 2 in the back.

My black aikido hakama (folded) that I use for Bleach cosplays.
(note: this is a new photo)

This hakama that I use is a lot sturdier and stiffer than your average synthetic samurai pants. What I do to get the iconic white sash/ties that the shinigami have is that I use a separate white sash, approximately 2 meters long (can be shorter, depends on your body and preferences), that I put under the koshiita (backboard), tie the hakama's own ties as I normally do and then I just turn or twist the white sash so that it covers as much of the black ties as possible and, finally, tie it in a loose ribbon knot at the front. It's a bit hard to explain, hope you can understand what I mean. ^^" Please note though that for this to work you need to prepare/set the white sash in place below the koshiita and the back ties before you secure and tie the back half to your body – the white sash is supposed to get 'stuck' and be kept in place by the hakama itself; it's only there for decoration/accuracy. 
Of course one could always do covers for the black ties or replace them altogether but yeah, I did it the easy way.

I also have some really old photos of the Shikai Zangetsu –aka oversized bread knife– back when I had just completed it. I did it completely by hand with a little sawing help from my stepfather (the curved thin part of the handle, if I recall right) back in mid 2010, I believe. It's about 150 cm long, made out of a block of solid wood and thus it's rather heavy. I planed it down towards the edge (to simulate the look of a cutting weapon), used masking tape to get a crisp line between the silver and the black paint and used silk ribbon for the handle. It was a really big project for being one of my first wooden cosplay props. I had actually done Sesshoumaru's (InuYasha) swords at woodwork class in school a few years before I tackled Ichigo's Zangetsu – again, before I knew what cosplay was.

Finished Shikai form Zangetsu.

Zangetsu close-up.

The white ribbon was actually only fastened by a few nails and not glued on, which meant that after a few conventions it started to loosen (because of shifting when held for long times) and currently it's lose to the point it's almost hanging/unraveling at some spots, showing the bare white-painted handle beneath. This doesn't look really good and I've come to wish I had done it another way; maybe I can still fix it or at least replace it.
I'm still mighty proud of this prop –especially considering the quality and how long ago it was made– but it's such a shame that the tip cracked at Kitacon in Luleå, at the end of 2010. It was a really small local con held for the first (and only) time; I let someone hold my sword because they thought it was hella cool and they then proceeded to strike a pose, struck it to the ground (too carelessly), tip down, and once I got it back I noticed that the tip had a horizontal split in it. I was too timid and meek to really say anything and just swallowed it and acted as if nothing happened. The tip hasn't broken off but it needs to be glued to prevent it from breaking and, well, since then I haven't cosplayed Ichigo. Lesson learned: don't let (over-excited) people handle your props.

I bought a short orange wig for this cosplay and used it straight out of the bag. I didn't know how to style wigs and the wig was, upon later realization, way too flat. I remember trying to constantly tease it during conventions to get it to be more spiky and fluffy but it always returned back into looking like a Kyo Sohma (Fruits Basket) wig instead. xD I tried to look for some really old cosplay photos to demonstrate but even though I lifted every nook and cranny of my computer I couldn't find a single one that I could use! The few (and I mean few) that I found either had another person on them blocking part of my costume, were a horrible red-eye-open-mouth-flash-photo candid shot or had an old non-blog watermark on them and the non-watermarked version was nowhere to be found. I might even have (accidentally) deleted all my Ichigo cosplay pics a few years ago when I stumbled upon them and acted on a spur of the moment... oops.

This is a cropped version of an old (already resized) photo.
It's just to show the red chain. Yeah I know, it's on the wrong side.

I want to make a special mention for the weird red chain, possible sword-carrier thingy, that Ichigo has going on. Fun fact is that I legit made it by taking a bicycle chain, taking off the grease and spray painting it red with car spray – it worked wonders! I don't remember if it was originally my idea or my stepdad's but whatever the case it was genius. Sad part is that ever since I moved into my own apartment I have no idea where the heck this chain is...

[edit] A few days after I posted this (aka on 13-14 January) I went to my mom's and, while there, I took the chance to start up her old laptop and check in the image folders if there happened to be any of my old cosplay stuff in there because I remembered that I used to store photos in it back then – bingo! I found a lot of reaally embarrassing photos, including those from my very first Ichigo photoshoot. I must admit that most were a lot blurrier than I remembered and thus unusable but yeah, I found this one joke pic which, ironically enough, is one of the few that doesn't make me cringe badly. By this I mean that at least I'm not lowering my chin enough for my neck to completely disappear or any other hilariously bad posing shit. xD Actually the only reason I can show you guys this one –without being ashamed to death– is because at least I was clever enough I think it was unintentional originally to block out most of my (horrible) makeup-less face with the sword. 
So here ya go, a really shame-inducing cosplay photo from early 2010! :'DD

Ichigurr durr.

Just... don't ask me about the pose. It was some kind of out-of-character joke about Ichigo being shy or whatnot, lmao. At least it showcases the sword and yeah, I'm holding up the ribbon because otherwise it would have been dragging behind on the ground. You probably also noticed that I'm wearing zori and not waraji and that's simply because I was afraid of making/wearing waraji because I thought they'd be uncomfortable, a lot of work to make and would break easily. Oh and yeah, I'm cringing at that wig – I mean, it's good quality and all but oh lord, do I wish I had spiked it... [/edit]

I don't have so much more to say about this costume, especially since I only ever used it at two conventions and both were really small local ones. I have some nice memories of it (mostly other congoers gushing over how badass my sword was, which felt really nice since I was a lonely beginner xD) and I actually competed at both the conventions I wore Ichigo to and, funnily enough, I placed both times. Second place and shared second place, lolwut. It was my first time ever trying a cosplay competition and I was horrified and so nervous that I don't even want to think about how awkward I must have been on stage; I've never been good at standing in front of people and during my school days I avoided oral presentations like the plague itself because I started shaking so much. The competitions were both of the "pose in the middle when it's your turn and walk away" kind and there were a shortage of competitioners anyway, hence why I got asked to participate, lmao. This was still during the early days when there weren't any hardcore armor cosplays in even the smallest cons but just good ol' Narutos and closet cosplays – aka if you had a big cool-looking prop you were almost sure to win. No way I'd ever stand a chance if I had competed with Ichigo in today's standards, hahaha... no. :-DD

Oh and yeah, before I forget! I actually made a Substitute Shinigami Badge a long time ago as well but I never got around to using it, sadly. It's made of wood (the base) and craft foam for the details. I'm not sure if I'll ever get use of it but at least below is some photo proof that I have indeed made one. This was one of those spontaneous projects when I had scrap materials lying around, by the way.

Substitute Shinigami Badge.

Substitute Shinigami Badge.

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So yeah, Ichigo Kurosaki was my first cosplay that I 'officially' started working on, back in November 2009, and although I started Ichigo first it's actually not my debut cosplay that I wore to a con – that would be Byakuya from InuYasha, which I'll talk about in another TBT post! 

My Ichigo cosplay will always have its place in my heart and even though I have no idea when, or if, I'll ever rewear him out to a convention again I still plan to at least have a photoshoot, to get photos that are up-to-date with my current standards.

Current status of this cosplay: In need of repairs/update and a new wig.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's episode!

Shiro Samurai out.

The making of Hotaru's tengu geta!

Hello buddies ~

I'm a bit crazy for attempting this, I confess. But as a sort-of-perfectionist when it comes to my own cosplay making I decided that this would at the very least be a wildly interesting challenge to go through, both in making and in wearing the finished product, which, in this case, is a pair of tengu geta! You see, Hotaru is always seen in the manga wearing these 10 cm high Japanese wooden geta shoes – except that his signature footwear only has one ha (teeth) to stand on – yikes!
Needless to say this is gonna be one hell of a trial to actually figure out how to walk with these beasts! I'm gonna need to prepare myself for some serious balance training, huff puff.

Sooooo... are you interested in following my adventures in making some serious suicide shoes? If yes, read ahead and remember – build and wear these at your own risk. Hohohoho ~
Warning: this is gonna be a long post. 

Hotaru reference.

When I first thought about cosplaying Hotaru, for several years ago, I was thinking about just making ordinary geta (aka those with two teeth) and painting them red and call it close enough. I was afraid of making tengu geta because of the hazards they'd come with once you slip them into your feet, hahah.
But then at Närcon 2015 I saw a guy cosplaying Hotaru and, once I asked to take a photo of him, I saw him pull out his tengu geta and change into them! :O He was wearing some kind of comfy-looking sneakers or such as walk-around-the-con shoes. I remember that he had to lean on his two friends to get the shoes on (I guess these two were always around him, just in case he'd trip or something) and once he was done he could actually stand with them on without having anyone pressed next to him! Seeing him standing on those crazy shoes without any support made me think "if he can do it, so can I!" and yeah, I did ask him later if it was hard to walk in those skyscrapers and he said that it's actually not that hard to walk in them... but standing still is a whole different story. *badumtssh*

How can he jump around, fight and run with those on??

But yeah, these things ain't easy to move around in; you're constantly worried about tripping over something, losing your balance, falling over someone, getting accidentally bumped in crowds or entering an area with uneven/bumpy ground etc. You really can't move around freely because you have to be 110% aware of your surroundings at all times... or else you'll be effectively face-planting.
I'll be sure to always bring with me a second pair of shoes whenever I bring my Hotaru cosplay to a con because hey, I will need comfier shoes and something that's a bit less risky to move around in. Having "tengu-legs" all day doesn't sound like the most sober idea I'd ever have – these are likely best suited for photoshoot occasions or for the mildly crazy ones out there.

I apologize for the crummy cellphone-quality on most of the photos ahead; I didn't have my SLR camera with me in school during this project.

Okay so, I started this project on early March 2016. Because I'm cheap and stuff I did this during school on my woodwork class... or well, it's not actually called that but woodwork is what a big majority of the students are doing during class so, err, yeah. The class is actually called "redesign" and "furniture renovation". We work in a garage that belongs to the school and there we have a lot of power tools, paints, sand paper and whatever you might need – including free wood. 

I knew that I needed to use some kind of wood that could take my whole body weight and would be durable yet preferably not too heavy or else wearing my shoes would be like walking with anchors strapped to my ankles, lol. I checked first through the "trash box", aka where all the scrap wood pieces were but I didn't find anything suitable in there. I then went to check the actual wood storage and found a thick plank that seemed suitable. I went to ask my teacher and he said that "you should be able to jump with shoes out of that" and so I assumed it was okay to use. xD Problem was that I couldn't find another plank of the same wood, width and thickness so yeah, I had to go with something else. I searched around for quite a while before I laid my eyes on some scrapped wooden bed legs – they had just the right thickness and seemed very sturdy! I went to ask my teacher if said legs belonged to anyone else's project but he said that I could take them, hell yeah!

Got my wood!

For those wondering what woods these are the plank is Scots pine, aka European redwood. Note though that it was painted in some white paint before I took it, hence the pale color. The former bed legs are made out of beech. I reserve the right for any misinformation since I'm just stating what my teacher told me; I'm not a wood expert and I don't know if he is either. 

The Swedish names, for those curious, is 'furu' (the plank) and 'bok' (the legs).

Even though it's officially mentioned that Hotaru's tengu geta only have 10 cm long teeth I decided to screw that and made mine 15 cm instead. Normally I'd always go for accuracy but I honestly thought that 10 cm looked stupidly short and I always thought that his geta looked taller than that in the manga anyway, lol. I'll probably regret this choice once I have to walk in them...

Aaaaand back to the project!
After I had found the pieces that I needed –and marked where I needed to cut– I went and said hello to the new love of my life... err... the circular saw. I had never used one before and, hot damn, is it a handy asset to have when working with wood! It just takes a few seconds and bam, you're done!

Too bad I can't steal it without anyone noticing....

Pieces cut.

Next up was some rigorous sanding, except on the 'tooth' parts since those are already smooth and all thanks to being a recycled leg piece from a bed. Save time, effort and nature, wohoo! I sanded the body pieces of the shoes until they were smooth like a duck's butt and then I sanded some more. All the previous white paint that was on them came off.

Everything sanded and the placement for the 'teeth' are marked.

Now came a brainstorming session with my teacher about how to proceed and if it would even be possible to walk with these things strapped to my feet. He googled 'tengu geta' and pointed out how other examples had a slanted shape on the underside, likely to provide stabilization and support for the 'tooth'. Don't quote me on that though, it's just a guess.

Example photo from Google.

Now I can say that I've seen tengu geta without those triangular slanted shapes on the underside (mainly homemade pairs) but I'm fairly certain having them makes these monsters easier to walk on. I thought long and hard if I should add them or not; not adding them would be more character accurate but adding them would likely lessen the risk of me faceplanting everywhere and so, the question stood, should I go for accuracy or for convenience and safety? Which one weighed more?
It was a really hard decision to make but I decided on adding them in the end, mainly because I really don't have the best balance to begin with and I don't want to kiss the floor at cons, unintentionally. 
Off I go to find something usable in the scrap wood box!

DO DO DO DOOOOOOOH ~

Another bed leg to the rescue! :'DD No but really, this one had one side already in a slanted shape that had been glued on – a perfect starting point for an occasionally lazy cosplayer like me, lol. Thank you beds for sacrificing yourselves for a good cause. 
I had really good luck because each of these scrap legs were 18 cm long (the leg part, not counting the fastener top) and my geta needed two 9 cm long pieces per underside, bingo! So of course I decided to just cut one in half and use the more slanted half for the front half and the less slanted for the back half. I hope my explanations are not too bad. What I was less lucky with was that these pieces are not as wide as my geta's main body but yeah, I thought I could deal with it because it's not a ridiculously noticeable difference and, well, it won't be seen all that much anyway; I just want something to support the 'teeth' and balance out the weight a little, without having to put a shitlot of time into making it.

At first I had thought that I'd just saw off the piece that I wanted but then one of the assistant teachers looked at the bed leg and saw that the glue fastening had started giving way; he said we could likely just split them open with a knife in the seam and a couple hits with a hammer – said and done!

Slanted pieces separated. One is glued.

As you can see on the photo above one of the pieces cracked because it didn't come off cleanly. Luckily it didn't break in two, so we just glued it and put some pressure clamps on. The knife pictured is the one we used, in case anyone wonders.

Next up I moved to work on the main body again. I decided that I wanted the teeth platforms to have some extra support to hold on to so I decided to make a groove in the underside of the shoe's body to sink them into. It was really important that the groove was as close to the tooth's width as possible so that it would be snug and not wobble around. Every millimeter was important and I had to be really really careful. But instead of carving out the grooves by hand (which would be quite some work and take time) I had a genius flash and turned my gaze to the circular saw, once again.

I'm a clever little shit!

I basically adjusted the circular saw so that it wouldn't go all the way down and then I did a lot of sawing in lines back and forth, millimeter by millimeter, until I got a nice groove formed. Fast and efficient!
When I was done with that I took a chisel and smoothed out the roughness caused by the sawing.

One groove done.

Shoe to the left is smoothed, shoe to the right is raw.

Next I took one of those metallic compasses (?) and marked out the holes and the center of them on the teeth, mainly so that it would be easier for the drill to locate them. I used a 51 mm hole saw on a drill to do the holes, it's pictured on the photo below together with the compass.

Holes made more pronounced, in preparation for sawing.

Holes cut out with the hole saw.

The hole saw got really warm while in use, to the point it actually burned the wood and reeked of smoke – hence why the holes look blackish on the edges. It started to smell burnt, it was kinda scary. :S The drill even shut itself down to cool down when I was half-way done, oops. I need to mention though that beech is an amazing wood, it doesn't crack nor splinter at all!

Next I marked out the placements for the hanao, aka the thongs. I then fetched some rope of the thickness I'd want to use and picked out some leftover fabric from school; the fabric is actually a former couch cover pillow thingy and thus it was perfect for my project because I wouldn't need to buy any cotton filling for the hanao!
I drilled the holes and realized that the fabric rope I first had set my eyes on sadly won't be durable enough. Luckily a trip to a mixed store afterwards provided me with a white synthetic rope that was cheap, had a nice thickness, a lot of meters and was durable too!

I noticed at some point that, for some reason, the holes on the ha weren't on the same spot, even though they should have been – good thing for me was that I had saved a reserve bed leg, just in case, and now it came to use. I shortened it to the right length, drilled the hole in it and then I had a much more identical second "tooth"! It also fit better into the groove when I did a test-run, aka the new one didn't wobble around as much.

Summer vacation came and went and I didn't progress on these shoes for months because duh, no school. :'D The project continued again on 30th August and the first thing I did was to refresh my memory of what I had been planning for these shoes. I remembered where I had left off and continued by gluing each tooth to the main body of the shoes. I used normal wood glue and pressure clamps.

Tengu geta glued and put to dry.

I left the glue to dry for a couple days, aka until my next lesson. The next time I came to work on my shoes the glue had dried completely and I took them out of the pressure clamps. But upon taking off the clamps I noticed that one of them had pressed an ugly mark onto the main body of one of the shoes; I didn't notice before but one of the pressing "plates" on the clamp, that you screw onto your item to hold it in place, had an uneven surface. Luckily it was not a big deal because I would have to go through and use filler to even out cracks and shit anyway.
But before I started with the whole filler mission I decided to make each tooth extra sturdy and thus I went ahead and drilled some screws into them – don't want to take any risks with the glue failing me after some time of use! Okay so I basically just marked out the spots for each screw (two per geta), drilled the holes, used a thicker drill to "carve" out space for the screw head and lastly I, of course, drilled the screws into the geta. I placed the holes about 2 cm into the body from each side. Each screw was about 4-5 cm long.

Screws drilled in place.
Notice the pressure marks from the clamp as well.

After the screws were drilled in I found some wood filler that I thought I could test. I didn't quite like how it behaved (I think it might have been semi-dry because the person who used it before me didn't close it properly after use) and so I gave up on it and went with normal filler instead. I carefully went through the whole shoes to even out any cracks, splinters and unevenness. Once that was done my class had ended and I left my tengu geta to dry upright on a shelf.

The wood filler that I tried using. It sucked. :(

During next class my shoes had dried and I continued by sanding down the excess filler until I got my geta as smooth as possible. After that I wiped them dry of the sanding/filler dust with a towel and then I went to purchase some spray primer, because it's a lot faster and easier than using ordinary primer in paint form.

Before priming my project I took a good look at the current progress. I remembered the existence of those slanted pieces that I made out of the bed legs and messed around with them, to try to simulate if they would actually do as much of a difference in balance and sturdiness as I had thought. I got more and more sceptical because after doing some simulations it seemed like they didn't actually do much at all to increase the safety of me standing on these murder shoes; I started to think that maybe they don't give the desired effect because it's not from the same block of wood as the main body. So yeah, after some thinking I decided to forgo these slanted pieces (after all the work I put into them) because they didn't really seem to do as much of a difference as I had hoped and yeah, if they don't do their work then I'd rather be more accurate to the character and go without.

Comparison with one shoe with the slants and the other without.

So yeah, I left the "stability pieces" out of my project and continued with priming my shoes. I let them dry and added another coating. The drying time took long enough that my class ended before I could get to start with the actual painting job.

Primed geta.

Next time was painting time! I had previously decided on using the same metallic red vax paste that I used for painting Hotaru's sword a while ago. I wanted them to match and the color (and the vax paint itself) is awesome and super quick to use! So yeah, this paint is really chunky and you apply it by using a soft piece of fabric or a sponge – I use a torn piece of an old bed sheet. I spent a lot of hours painting my shoes, did two layers and was very careful to avoid as much "color-stealing fingerprints" as possible because yeah, I need to seal this thing after it has dried or it will continue to smudge off ever so slowly when I touch it. :D It got kinda hard in the end to not accidentally touch some spot when you were painting another – the only area that didn't matter was the actual part of the shoe that will touch the ground when I wear these.

Painting in progress.

Once the shoes had dried I returned to seal them with a clear gloss varnish. When I was done spraying them I carefully put the shoes upright to dry on a shelf in the garage; I should have realized that this was not the safest space to put them on because the shelf itself is vintage, narrow and wobbly – I remember thinking before I left that I'll move them to a safer place once I could touch them on the next lesson. But of course, once the next time came about I of course forgot about that tiny little detail. So yeah, when I came to check on the varnish I noticed that the paint still left fingerprints and thus a second coating was needed. I opened the drawer under the shelf (the shelf was separate and on top of the drawer, fyi) to look for my varnish can, which was not there, and then I closed the drawer without thinking and – BAM! Of course the impact from closing the drawer (it doesn't go in smoothly) made the whole shelf shake and my shoes fell down. One shoe survived without taking any damage but the other one hit one of its front edges against a wooden chair and the tip of the edge got worn down and lost its point. Fuck my life. :)) I was really annoyed with myself because I could so easily have avoided this unnecessary and stupid mishap (I even reminded myself before I left last time >_>) and now I had to partially redo the painting job. Its during this kind of times, when you ruin things for yourself when you're almost done, that you want to highfive yourself in the face... with a frying pan.
So yeah, I had to backtrack, try to repair the edge and then repaint the area surrounding the damage and then go back to seal the whole shit again. Oh well, I needed to do a second coat of varnish anyway but yeah, fucking up the the nice edge really sucked donkey balls. I could so easily just have moved them away before closing the damn box.

Once I was done with the painting it was time to actually make the shoes wearable, aka create the hanao. What I did was that I took the previously mentioned synthetic rope and the couch cover fabric thingy that I took from school. I don't know the proper name for the piece but it's fabric with cotton layers/filling added to it, to make it extra soft and thick. So yeah, I had cut out some strips of the fabric and of the rope that would become the hanao. I just simply handsewed the fabric onto the rope, like the photo below shows. The fabric was folded in half and the edges were folded in too. It's important that the rope stays inside the fabric during all times because if it accidentally goes out then it's gonna be a bitch to reinsert once the "fabric tube" is closed.

Sewing the hanao.

This is not any accurate way to do it and no, I did actually not zigzag the edges because I had no sewing machine available; luckily the fabric doesn't seem to fray too easily. What I did though was that I folded in the edges before sewing them closed – should keep them from unravelling too much.
Once I was done with sewing I tied these thongs to my shoes. I didn't do any proper tying because I have no idea how the Japanese actually do it so yeah, just did a lot of basic knots over and over again until I ran out of rope.

Now what was left was to, preferably, find some sort of textured and durable rubber that I could attach to the bottom of the shoes to make them safer to walk on, especially indoors. I've realized from an earlier convention experience that wearing wooden shoes indoors with a plastic floor is like being on an ice-skating rink – in other words, a combo that will lead to injuries. Tengu geta has a higher percentage to lead to injuries anyway lol, who am I fooling?
Okay, so my first thought was to buy one of those car rubber mats and cut out pieces of it and hot glue them on. My second idea was to buy some really cheap second-hand shoes and cut out the bottom and use that but yeah, when I went scouting for suitable shoes it turned out to be harder than I thought. The thing is that I preferably wanted something transparent and so, one day when I passed by Ikea, I suddenly remembered that I had scrap pieces of a colorless anti-slip plastic cover thingy lying around somewhere; I'm sorry but I don't know the proper name for it. ^^" It's a thin transparent rubbery plastic film on a roll with nubs on it. I originally used it to put some inside my cupboard boxes so that all my cooking tools, spice boxes etc would stay in place; also used it for protection and for ease of cleaning. The reason I remembered its existence when I was close to Ikea is because that's where I bought it, for your information.

Before gluing it on.

So I just cut out some fitting pieces and hot glued them on. Of course I put the textured side outwards. I don't know what my hot glue was doing but it didn't seem to want to heat up properly (might be that the electricity is restricted in the garage, idk) and so I fear that these won't hold for very long. Oh well, in case that happens they're super easy to just glue back on at home.

Glued in place and started to trim the corners.

After I had glued the transparent sheets onto the shoes I trimmed the corners and whatever else that was a bit too big. Now to hope that the glue holds... Good thing though is that I have a fair amount left of the plastic thingy so even if I would somehow lose these original ones at a con or something I can easily replace them.

Finished tengu geta for Hotaru.

With that done my tengu geta are finished for now! I might still need to resize the hanao because I fear I might have made them a bit too long but yeah, I can't tell yet if that's gonna be a problem or not since I haven't tried wearing these monster shoes yet. But oh well, in any case I'm happy to finally be done with these shoes because it means that my SDK Hotaru cosplay is now complete!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment if you have any questions etc ~
Shiro Samurai out.