HHHHHHHHHHHHHANSKA

hanska = glove (in Finnish)

And it's done!

How I made it? Well, I took some pattern paper, spread out my hand on it and traced out an exaggerated mega-sized version of my hand. Yes, it looked ridiculous and I laughed until I cried.

Then I just cut the pattern out, put it on top of this.. err.. is it called PVC fabric or what in English? I dunno, it's not leather but it has a slightly similar feel, it is shiny and it doesn't fray.

Whatever, I cut out a front and a backside glove 'prototype'. 

Cut out

Cut finger spacings and just sewed the glove together, leaving the finger holes open for obvious reasons. Then I turned it right side out and tried it on.

I must say at first when I was trying to get it on it felt like I had made it too small.. but after some time and struggling I got it past the narrow part and then it... well...

If this is supposed to be a glove I'm a fucking whale shark.

Yeah, just like that.

So.. to get back on track. I cut the glove fingers shorter and then it looked like this:

Better... but still rather fugly. (note the 'bump' and retard looking thumb)

So I went and took it in a bit and reformed the thumb opening and placement slightly and then I had got something that I finally could call a 'glove'.. without feeling like I was trying to fool myself.

Not perfect, it's still a bit bunchy but it's decent enough ~

Remember that I mentioned earlier that this was a 'prototype'? Or well, supposed to be more like a try-out. Well, it turned out better than I had thought in the end so I didn't bother to make another. xD This one was fine after the modifications.

And this means that my Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi Saitou cosplay is now ready for debut at Tracon, AWWWWWWW YEEEEEEAAAAAA!!

This is probably going to be my last blog post before Tracon so, well, see you there!!

Gloveless Saitou test

As you might know I finished my shirt for Saitou yesterday and.. err.. I got home early (because the only class I had, psychology, well, the teacher was away.. so I went to school for nothing and I couldn't do my plan B geography leftover task either because school's internet hung itself all the time.. so I just got fed up and went home, derp) and decided to quickly try on what I had ready for Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi's Saitou.. basically everything except the glove. lol

So, here's my share of derp for now ~ (sorry mirror photos..)

Excuse my lazyness which led to no make-up, except on the eyes and eyebrows, obviously.

That feeling when YOU ARE TOO !!MURSU!! PERKELE to tie a proper musubi.. OTL XD
(aka the ends escape under the obi while they should be slightly visible)

Rather herp but only full-body pic that I managed to take which wasn't terribly blurred..

Obligatory face photo...

SILLY POSE PICTURE! >8D

And then I went to take some photos outside. Notice how the wig is actually blue-black. It is mostly black but has some specks of blue blended in; I didn't want to have a jet-black wig, I thought this looked nicer on me while still being a good color for the character.

I probably won't have time to do a 100% completed cosplay preview (read: proper make-up, shoes and glove) before the con so this will have to do for now. Hopefully I'll have a photoshoot of this costume under or after Tracon. I CAN'T WAIT AGDHJSAGJHFDS TRACOOOOOONNNN ~

I has a shirt!

Hiya!

I started working on Bakumatsu Renka Saitou's shirt yesterday and I just finished it. I didn't take progress photos of every step because it was a rather simple project and I focused more on getting it done because, as we all know, Tracon is this coming weekend and I also will be leaving home already on Thursday.. and Wednesday goes for packing stuff so.. yeah.

I will now show those few progress photos I took while making the shirt:

Front and back pieces cut out + arm hole facings

I had to widen the collar to get the thing over my head. My chosen fabric didn't stretch at all.
(I did widen it more than what this shows in the end)

Then I went ahead and sewed the shoulders together and side seams. No need for explanations.
After that it was time to attach the facings. I had never done this before so I was worried the facings wouldn't fit, I angled them wrong etc. But luckily they ended up being pretty damn perfect.

Test pinning facings in place to check that they were of the right size..

Sewn together, zigzaged around the "flap edge" and stitched on top so that the facings stay better on the 'wrong side'.

Making a self-made facing patterns for the collar because the original pattern was wrongly curved after the widening earlier...

I must say I was really unsure if the collar facing would fit right because, err, I made the pattern by tracing it over onto pattern paper directly from the shirt itself... and I couldn't even see if I was tracing right because the pattern paper was kinda thick, herp. So I just had to feel my way where the collar was and trace. It felt like it would be a fail but I went ahead and cut out the facings in fabric. I added some extra centimeters to both ends of the facings (back and front) just to be sure that they would fit when sewn together. After having cut out the facings I had veeeery little fabric left (read: barely enough if I ended up fucking it up) and now when I tried to line up the front and back pieces to meet at the ends it seemed like the front piece was too long. I was ready to shorten it when mom came and said "don't cut it, you might need the excess length when sewing the facing around the collar". So I put away the scissors.

Test pinning the collar facing on

When I had pinned the facing to the collar I noticed pretty early that one of the facing shoulder seams wouldn't align with the shirt shoulder seam if the other side did. "Fuck.. now it probably won't be long enough.." I thought but kept on test pinning... and then I noticed it was just long enough to go around. AWWWWWW YEEEEEEAAAAA, thanks mom!

And by that I was finished ~

I has a shirt! :'DDD

Now just to make the glove and get ready for the con ~