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.

Hotaru's sword from Samurai Deeper Kyo!

Hi there everyone!

For a long time now I've wanted to cosplay Hotaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo and, as you may know, I've already got most of the cosplay done, yay! :D I think SDK is a pretty underrated series and even though I read it more than three years ago it's still one of my favorite shounen manga and the urge to cosplay from it hasn't withered away, which just further shows that I really enjoyed SDK and it left an impact on me. Some of my cosplay impulses come directly after I've finished a series but then they just die out in a couple months at best – but with SDK even after all these years I'm still super eager to finally get to start working on a cosplay from it! I just really enjoyed the story, all the characters, the art style... ♡

This is the only official colored manga artwork that
I found that shows Hotaru's sword completely.

On 3rd September 2015 I started the making of the sword – notice how long ago it is! I wrote on this post every time I did some progress during my "woodwork" class (aka 'redesign' and 'furniture renovation') in school, which I had approximately once per week, except during school breaks/vacations or when I was sick. Note: this is gonna be a rather lengthy post.

I was in my woodwork class in school and when I had to think up a project that I wanted to do Hotaru's sword quickly came into my mind. I saved some references on my cellphone, fetched a suitable plank from what school happened to have available, drafted the sword's shape onto the wood by using one of my unfinished other katana swords *coughmasamunecough* as a base. I left the sawing for next time as I didn't find the kind of saw in school that I had gotten used to and wanted to use; I went to borrow one from my stepdad on the Saturday that followed.

Back in class I cut out the sword from the plank; it didn't go quite as neatly as I had hoped. I hadn't used said saw in a couple years so I had forgotten how it was to use one of these. I didn't make any horrible mistakes but things just didn't end up as straight as I ideally would have wanted. I cut so gay! 
I took a file and started filing down the dagger end of the sword first. My arms were hurting so much after I was done sanding and filing for the day, hallelujah.
The next time I sanded and filed some more on the dagger and then I did the main blade part. Before I left class I put some filler putty on areas that had holes or cracks in them.

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.

After I had started sanding the "dagger" side and put filler
on all the spots that needed it.

The next time I came to class I had a short panic moment – things had been moved to new places and I couldn't find my sword anywhere! For a moment I thought that someone might have thought that it was just a scrap plank and trashed it. D: Luckily I found it lying on the "coffee break table", lol. 
I started by sanding the filler putty smooth, wham! I then took a piece of plywood from the scrap pieces box. I drew the circular tsuba on it and two pieces the same size of the handle; I wanted to thicken the handle so that it wouldn't be the same thickness as the blades. I also wanted to thicken it for a better and more comfortable grip.
I sawed out the plywood pieces and glued one side of the handle pieces to the, well, handle. OH LORD THE SCHOOL'S GLUE BOTTLE. It's so stuck that I had to use all my force to squeeze minimal amounts out of it – it was horrible lol. Took forever. ._. I swear it felt like over half of the glue had hardened inside the bottle...
Oh well, 10 minutes of glue squeezing later (and a red face and hurting hands) I had glued one side in place and put pressure clamps on. 

Glue added and pressure clamps on. Notice the tsuba on the table.

Next up I put some filler putty on the tsuba too; it had gotten a fair amount of "cracks" (aka the top layer of the plywood had peeled off while sawing) and I accidentally got a dent on the edge that had to be filled in too. I put plenty of putty on it and put it on a clamp to dry as well.

Tsuba put to dry after adding filler.

Next time I came to class I was horrified – everything had been moved again and a loooot of stuff was gone. I saw that my sword was lying on the table where I had left it but the tsuba and the other handle add-on piece were missing. My first instinct was to dig in the cardboard box on the table and in it I found a lot of sand paper and my handle piece. Thank God. I guess it helped that I had written my name on it before I left last time, otherwise someone might have thought that it was a random scrap piece... Now I just had to find the tsuba. I remembered that I had left it to dry on the clamp but when I cast a look at the clamp I noticed that it was open and nothing was in it. I went and asked the teacher if he had seen it and he thought that someone might have thought it was just a trash piece and thrown it away. We both started digging in the big box on the floor that was filled with scrap pieces of wood; we dug in it for several minutes before giving up. 
I looked around everywhere possible and didn't see a trace of the tsuba – THE HORROR STRUCK ME. What is someone really had thought that it was just a random trash piece that no one used? D:
I went to ask this one older guy, who seems to be a "helper" but not an actual teacher. I got it implied that he was the one who had been moving stuff around and yeah, I described what my missing piece looked like to him. He looked at me for a few seconds and then his face did this kind of I-just-had-a-revelation-and-now-I-feel-guilty expression, as if he remembered seeing my tsuba and putting it in the most horrible of places. Yeah, probably there.

Guessed it?

– Yep, dumpster diving time.

The trash hadn't been taken out and so we still had the hopes on our side – or that's what he said. We probably spent like 10 minutes digging through all the trash bags before I finally hear a voice shout "hey you, boy, I found it!" and I look behind me and see this guy holding up my tsuba with a satisfied grin on his face and a trash can next to him. I thank him, he pulls some jokes and I go and sand down the filler areas with sand paper. After that I fetched the drill and made several holes in the middle; the rest of the class I spent carving, filing and sanding the tsuba hole so that I could thread it all the way down the blade, into place.

Tsuba with the hole fixed. I added some more putty to even out
some pressure marks from the clamp as well as cracks that appeared
while making the hole itself.

Oh, and I also sanded down the excess dried glue, on the handle, that had spread past its intended place. I then glued the second plywood piece on. It's not a problem to sand down dried glue with sandpaper!

This shows the glue spill from the first add-on handle piece before I sanded it down.

When both handle pieces were glued on and dry I took a file and started filing the corners of the handle, so that it would be more rounded and thus provide a more comfortable grip. I sanded them smooth after the rough file work.
 

Handle rounded (it barely shows on this photo) and testing tsuba fit.

After this I went home to buy the termoplastic holy grail of all cosplay prop makers – Worbla's Finest Art! Yes, now the time had finally come for me to try out this material that everyone has been gushing about for years! *u* It feels so good to finally get some studying money so that I can afford ordering Worbla from Germany...

Back at class I put gesso on the tsuba because I wanted to give it some extra base coatings; the rest was to be primed after I had done the worbla parts. So yeah, time to try out worbla for the first time ever! I must admit that I felt all kinds of "holy shit I hope this won't be hard" and a case of kuumotusta but yeah, once I had measured, drafted and cut out the pieces I needed I just turned on the power of my heat gun (borrowing from stepdad is da best!) and prayed to the cosplay gods that I wouldn't commit some disastrous nooblord maximus.

Worbla pieces added – success!

Thankfully this was a very simple and newbie-friendly first project for learning how to use worbla. I only had to wrap some approximately 2 cm wide strips around and blend in the seams. I didn't do any screw-ups and I'm quite satisfied with the results for being a first-time. :) After this first experience I already figured out a lot of how worbla works and now I'm even more excited to do some bigger projects!
Oh, and to blend in the seam/overlap so that it "disappeared" I thought for a while what to use and so I went to dig around the garage... and I found this little tool that proved to be mighty useful:

much clean. such wow.
It's for school use though, so what did you expect?

I used this metallic spatula thingy to make the seams (aka where the worbla overlaps with itself) flat, move and push the edges, flatten it out etc. It worked wonders!
Next I thought about ways to smoothen the worbla out; not like I mind the texture that much but I wanted to try to at least make it a little bit less noticeable. I took some really fine grit sand paper and sanded it carefully – although I'm not sure if it actually made a difference...? Oh well.

Worbla gets a bit paler by sanding...?

Next up I went to buy some spray primer because heck yeah, why not? I would have preferred white but the store only had gray so that had to do. My school has discount prices to this one store so I get things a bit cheaper if I buy from there so, eh, who cares about the color in the end since it's just a primer? :DD I regret not knowing about the discount earlier because I bought paints from this store already last year...

Primer in a spray can!

I started painting my sword and, err, of course I'm not patient enough to do like a billion thin coats so I sprayed on a closer distance than recommended to get better coverage quicker. Am I the only one doing this all the time? I really shouldn't do this crap. Well, if anything I noticed that the excess paint was very easy to spread out with your fingers and it didn't leave any signs of where it had been before. Flawless blending, frick yeah! o/

I didn't get to finish priming though because out of nowhere I saw that a spot that had been just nice before now had the wooden grain sticking up. I just took the grain and ripped it off, added some filler putty and left it to dry. Damn you derp wood for prolonging this project now, why didn't you show yourself earlier? ._.
Oh, and guess what? The next day, when I had fixed that grain issue and continued spray priming, well, more surface derps showed themselves and I entered "fuck this shit"-mode and put filler all over the damn thing! I was really sick of having to constantly backtrack and delay my progress because uneven surfaces galore – yeah, it happened many times during this project but I just didn't bother to mention it each and every time. It's annoying how much more noticeable those fuckers get once a coat of paint goes on; really sticks out like a sore thumb.

Filler added all over the place and put to dry. Priming incomplete.
(notice my mad balancing skills!)

So yeah, once more I had to pause the priming to put some filler putty to cover uneven/faulty areas. But because I put filler on both sides of the sword (except on the handle) at the same time I had to put it to dry in a way so that neither side was touching anything. This made me position the handle on a tip of a table and then put wooden blocks on it, to act as weights, so that the center of balance would change and fit my needs.
The next time I came to class the filler had of course dried so now I just had to sand it down. I was super careful to make sure that the filler blended into the wood so that it wouldn't be obvious, once the paint was on, where the filled in spots started and ended. But even though I triple-checked and everything there was still two small areas that I had missed when I once again resumed the priming work. Oh and guess what? I've almost used up the whole spray can just for this sword alone, goddammit! xD But yeah, those two misses were minor enough that I just drowned them in some extra coatings and then it was pretty okay, lol. I got lazy. I also noticed that putting filler putty on top of worbla (to even out bumps, overlaps etc) is a thing! :D

I had winter break and didn't get to work on my sword for a while. When I finally got back to school I had to go and buy some more silver spray paint because I noticed that my trusty can was pretty much empty, boo. Much to my dismay the brand I had been using had been changed and the newer replacement one, that the store now carried, seemed to be of a slightly darker shade. I thought that it couldn't be that different so I went ahead and bought it. Fuck me. :) Okay so, I started painting my sword as per usual, everything looked fine in the dim garage light when the paint had been freshly sprayed on. But guess what? When the paint had dried I noticed that it was way too dark and dull/matte to pass for a blade. FFFFFUUUUU--
Nothing to do than backtrack and go buy paint from another store and yeah, that totally means a store that doesn't give me the school discount price. Fuck my life. :) My other option was to pray that there happened to be any leftover spray paints at mom's – from the days when I still lived there and did my early cosplay prop projects...

I found an almost empty can of silver paint at mom's which I took with me to school; I also took with me my own old silver spray paint just in case there was a little left (it sounded empty). All along I was praying that there would be enough spray left to allow me to be able to paint both blades on the sword. I started shaking the cans and first tried my luck with the seemingly-empty-one-from-home and there was enough left to cover one side of the dagger part. Ooooookay.
I stared at disbelief at the other can that I had picked up from mom's – it barely felt like it contained much more than the one I had just used up. I pressed the nozzle down and........ nothing happened. It was as if the nozzle was stuck and wouldn't go down. Oh, great. ._.
I went and asked one of the teacher assistant guys and he proceeded to joke about sticking something sharp into the can again, to check if there was spray left, to which I responded "OH NO YOU DON'T" and then we both just laughed. In case someone doesn't know what I'm referring to then go and read about my foam explosion adventure here. x) But yeah, he totally did shove something sharp into the can and luckily nothing exploded this time – just a small burst of spray paint came out. :D But the problem was that the nozzle was still not working and yes, I had tried using all three nozzles from my other spray cans and neither of them worked on just this one can that I needed right now, urrgh.
I went to look around and found a spray can that belonged to someone else so yeah, because I'm a sneaky bastard I stole borrowed its nozzle and ermahglerb – it worked! I was about to jump with joy because I could finally get to paint this damn thing!

The blades are painted silver, the rest is untouched since priming.

Much to my surprise the can I brought with me from mom's actually contained enough spray for me to be able to paint both blades completely and even, almost, do two full coatings. So yeah, there was actually enough spray left and I thank the Cosplay Gods™ for that.

I took with me the sword home after the spray painting – now the only thing left to do was to paint the non-blade parts (handle, tsuba, habaki) by hand. But as per usual I had a ridiculously hard time trying to find some red glossy and/or metallic paint that wasn't spray paint! I found this weird really chunky-looking paint called Inka Gold in the color Lava Red (fitting!) in the bookstore shop in town and, even though it felt a bit overpriced, I decided to try it. I couldn't find anything else (unless I bought online but that would mean stupidly high shipping costs) and I noticed that it was a German brand so yeah, I thought that at least it can't be shitty because German stuff tends to be good quality.

Painting preparations done. The plastic spoon's other end
I used as a spatula, if anyone wonders what the heck it was for. :'D

Turns out that the super chunky paint is actually a water based metallic vax paste that you rub on by using either a sponge or a soft cloth! Fancy shit. I tore a piece of fabric from a worn-out bedsheet because I didn't have any sponges and yeah, it worked just fine. I had to use one of my stiff makeup brushes (lol but seriously, I had nothing else that would work) to paint some spots that needed pin-point precision or were impossible to reach with the clumsy crumpled fabric.
Good thing with the vax paint is that it dries really fast and that, because of its thickness, it will easily cover up flaws and uneven spots! The bad thing is that I noticed that, even after it has dried, that if I touched the painted areas the paint would rub off slightly and leave fingerprints. So yeah, now I needed to get something to seal it with too. Great.

Because I didn't have any sealer nor varnish at home I had to go fetch some as well. I first thought about seeing if the bookstore carried the specific varnish for the Inka Gold paints but they didn't so yeah, I had to get something else. I found some all-purpose glossy varnish in another store called Tokmanni (it's a mix-store selling dry foods, sodas, toys, clothes, power tools etc) that I decided to try. I've actually never used varnish before so yeah, I guess it's high time to start eh?

Glossy varnish that I used.

The varnish did the trick, wohoo! o/ Now I only needed to wrap the handle and I can finally call this project complete!
I had bought 1 meter of red fabric bias tape during early March 2016 and, luckily, it was just enough if I wrapped it a certain way. But when I was about to start wrapping the handle, with some help by Sacchan, I noticed that the trusty glue I've had since at least 2012 had dried out. :'( Damn it. So yeah, with no Karlssons klister to save me (that's the name of the glue) I had to go and ask to borrow stepdad's hot glue gun instead – which I got!
Sacchan came and visited again a few days later and we did some teamwork because I needed an extra set of hands for the gluing mission. We basically did it so that I was the one carefully wrapping the bias tape (had to wrap very specifically for it to be long enough) and giving Sacchan directions on where to apply the hot glue, little at a time. So yeah, I was the wrap master and she was the glue master. xD It took us a while to finish but at least it worked out well and nothing went wrong ~

Finished SDK Hotaru sword!

Sorry about the crummy final mirror photo, it doesn't really do it justice. :'c The tsuba and the habaki parts have a metallic shine but it just doesn't want to photograph well, lol. My sword also ends up looking overly neon red on some other test photos that I took after finishing it, ugh. I hope it will behave on cosplay photoshoots and con photos etc; it's not really flattering when it ends up looking way brighter than it actually is...

I can admit though that I'm not completely 100% satisfied with this sword. I did some early parts of it a bit too hastily (sanding and spray painting, mainly) and because of that it's not as neat as most of my other props – it's things that doesn't really show from a distance but I can easily spot them with my naked eye but, then again, I know where to look. *shrugs* Also, because of being impatient or non-observant I several times had to backtrack and add filler or sand something smoother etc; it was really annoying to have to go back and patch up stuff you either lazied out on (because you thought it was ready but it actually wasn't) or somehow missed. It sucks to have to sand down imperfections after you've already primed and started doing the final painting on something because you didn't notice them during the original sanding process... ughrrr. >_>

Note: I finished this sword and Rentarou's gun at the same time, but I decided to publish the gun post first even though this Hotaru post should, chronologically, have been published first. This is the reason why I in this post, for example, mention going to buy varnish even though in the gun post –posted before this one– I suddenly had varnish already (because I had already bought it while this post was still an unpublished draft). xD I'm mentioning this just to clear up any eventual confusion! Oh and yeah, Hotaru's sword was the first cosplay prop I used both worbla as well as varnish for.

Thanks for reading! Hotaru wig and makeup tests coming later!

Shiro Samurai out.