PARTY TIME!! (aka Masamune preview)

My eyepatch stopped smelling glue so today when I woke up I decided to put everything on and take some preview photos before the coming debut at Animecon. I also needed to check that everything worked as I wanted it to. Oh well, enough blabbering, here's photos!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (obviously, duh :-DD)
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

Ignore my Uppcon wrist (ticket) band... I don't want to take it off because this year's Uppcon was the last in history and well, Uppcon 2010 was the first (proper) con I attended and cosplayed at so yeah... ;_;

Bonus pic!

"Fuck these mosquitos..."
(one tried to eat my face and I slapped it. lol)

 And some background info why I did kimono!Masamune:

I needed something very simple because I wanted to cosplay from Basara already this year (cosplay group!) but I have had a lack of time making cosplays since Desucon because I've been away from home for almost a month + Uppcon. So yeah, this means that this cosplay is mostly not made by me. White kimono is commissioned by my friend Hasakitsuki's mom and the inner gi is from Kendoshop. The hakama are my kendo hakama.. yay multi-use! Eyepatch made by me. Sword borrowed from my twin.

I noticed a few things while wearing this cosplay: I will need to reinforce the eyepatch with Jesus tape (duct tape) because even Karlssons klister can't seem to hold the elastic in place at the back without the sides starting to peel off.. oh well, I guess it's because the eyepatch bends a bit when worn.. human faces aren't flat. lol I also need to try to keep my covered eye closed because it's annoying to get my eyelashes almost touching my eye when I blink and also moving the eyepatch around... otherwise it's all fine and dandy.

Awaiting Animecoooooooonnnnnnn ~~~~ <3

Chikage's collar and Kondou's kimono

Some time ago I had randomly found out what that particular pattern Kazama has on his haori's collar is called after having seen it on random Asian stuff (including dish cloths in a Thai food store lol) during my life time - sayagata. I had typed it and searched on Google for fabrics but didn't find anything with the right color for Kazama.. until I saw a thumbnail of an Etsy auction selling a vintage kimono collar. It was labelled as 'moss green', but looked darker gold on the photos, so I took the risk and ordered it. Today I found a small package from France in the mailbox and figured it must be it and well... for once luck was on my side when it came to colors, it do indeed look gold!

Oh, I also went and biked with Jäätynyt Enkeli all the way to town to pick up two packages from the post office. One of them was the vintage kimono I will use for my coming Isami Kondou cosplay for Närcon in Linköping. Oh, and yes, it's Kondou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. Yes, I will cosplay him because he is such a bro to Okita (codename: Konbro! xD) and deserves some cosplay love. Especially considering what he did to save all the shinsengumi and yeah, I kinda adore his sense of honor and I loved that scene in the anime where he gave his black haori to sick Okita. ;A;

Kimono (in plastic bag) and collar

Collar close-up

Besides, speaking of Närcon.. a cosplay plan list will appear any day here on my blog so stay tuned if you're going there!

Masamune's eyepatch

I've been away from home, as you might have figured already, but now I'm back and thus this blog is brought back to life again with the most recent cosplay updates. So Animecon (Kuopio, Finland) is soon around the corner and the only thing keeping my cosplays from being 100% ready for the con is Masamune's eyepatch. Well, I was bored today so I decided to make it and get it out of the way ~

First of all I needed a reference. I had already saved myself a good screenshot from the anime so I could start working ASAP.

hurr hurr

But before I could start working I needed to climb to our attic where mom currently stores all her leftover fabric and sewing supplies. I remembered yesterday I had asked about black elastic and she had said there should be lots of it in different sizes visible as soon as you get up there. So yeah, I dragged my ass up there and when I was up I noticed a cardboard box lying on the floor. I opened it and was flooded with lots of zippers. Yeah. But because I didn't see anything else that could hold elastic bands in it I dug deeper into the box and then I saw a whole roll of white elastic. "Cool, but not the right color.." I thought. Dug some more and found a black one... and another... and another... and then I probably looked like this:

I went back inside á la herpy derp and could start working. I took with me two rolls because I wasn't sure which width I preferred. I ended up using the wider one.

Mom I love you. <3 lol

Cut off a fitting length

Now I will just show photos of the rest of the progress because I'm lazy ~ 

and my twin wants to play Mario Party 4 with me lol

I made a (fail) test version first to check size...

... and then started making the real one. (craft foam)

Some trimmings later...

Cut out a second layer of the same size (lol Masamune secretly likes Sweden...)

I started painting 'em black... dries so slow...

FUCK YEAH HAIR DRYER!!1

Three coats of paint, black fingers and some glue later I had made myself this:

I did do a quick try-on.. but soon found myself getting high on glue fumes and my eye twitching. So yeah, need to let it dry completely before I go take preview photos trolololo ~