Desucon 2014 cosplay plans – A reluctant bodyguard and double Okita!

Heeeeeeey!

I've barely recovered from Cosvision's con hype lag (it lasted longer than usual, I still get the Cosvision feels! *flappy hands*) but very soon it's time for Desucon! I'm pretty set for what I will cosplay so here goes!

Friday

Series: Original

Character: Yukinaga Kuroyama

Eeyup, I will be heading to the con in an Original Character costume! I think this might be the first time I'm ever doing this; I'm pretty curious how it will turn out. Hasakitsuki will do a pair cosplay with me from the same OC story and yeah, it actually has a name – Demon Idol. *badamtssh* 

She will cosplay the main character, who is the idol, and I'm cosplaying the idol's not-so-excited-about-his-job bodyguard. Oh, and there's no picture for you this time (I don't have time to draw one!) but I can tell you that Yukinaga has white hair, a horn on his head, pointy ears and is wearing *drumroll* kimono! You didn't see the last one coming, now did you?

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

Character: Souji Okita (bedridden yukata, anime version)

I don't know what to call this version or if it even has a proper/official name, sorry. But it's basically that pale violet yukata Okita is seen wearing in the anime – especially often in the later episodes when his condition worsens. ;_;

If someone remembers I actually wore this same version once before at Desucon 2012 (my first Desucon! *nostalgic feels*) and since then I've meant to remake it... and that's done now. Hasakitsuki will help me around as Chizuru and I will be taking with me a black haori for comfort warmth. Kondou-san was here. ;A;

Sunday

Series: Hakuouki SSL ~Sweet School Life~

Character: Souji Okita (summer uniform)

Screenshot from http://www.otomate.jp/hakuoki/ssl/

 Okita again, this time in a more modern format. Yep, I needed an easy "normal clothes" cosplay for Sunday so that I don't have to change out of it after the con when I have to run for the train back home. So yeah, school boy Okita will get his debut at Desucon!

That's about it, Desucon is calling soon! SOOOOON.
Bye!

Souji Okita's violet yukata remade!

Hello there!

Yesterday on 1st June I biked to mom's place together with Hasakitsuki. 

Our reason, you ask? Make some cosplay progress for the very-rapidly-approaching Desucon! Go go go!

I already spoiled one of my cosplay plans earlier and that was Okita-san's violet yukata version. Remade, of course. Because my original one is so damn bad that I wouldn't wear it to a con even if I got paid for it. So yeah, I went to mom's to remake this fucker! 8D Because mom has the awesome high-tech sewing machine and I have trusting issues with the old-school one I got to borrow...

So around afternoon 15:00 or such (Finnish time) I started sewing; I had already cut out all the parts needed (except for the collar) at Jäätynyt Enkeli's home a few days prior. I did the measuring and cutting based on some French kimono tutorial as well as my own knowledge.

(note: this picture is of a woman's kimono, I'm making one for men)

I tried to make it accurate, as far as appearance is concerned, but I did cut some stuff off instead of folding it inside collars/seams and stuff because I just couldn't be bothered – for example the collar and okumi panels. The kimono police won't come and chase me with a naginata for a not 100% authentically accurate cosplay yukata anyway. Phew.
Well well, let's get on with this; at mom's the first thing I did was zigzaging around all the pieces except for the okumi panel pieces and the collar, but I hadn't even cut it out at this point because it was to be made of a different fabric.
The first part I attacked after the zigzaging was the sleeves. I went to iron them to make life a bit easier; one small fold for where your hand will come out of the sleeve and one bigger fold for the sleeve's "hanging end", so that there will be less bulk when I sew it shut later.
Oh, much later on I sewed a straight stitch on top of the small fold so that I would get a neat finish and avoid having to fold in the hand opening when I sew the rest of the sleeve shut.

Sleeve preparing – ironing.

I then left 10 centimeters of the sleeve hanging off the body panel (for men's kimono only), aka leaving the sleeves not fully attached to the body of the garment. Then I just sewed the sleeves on. Of course before this I had taken the body panels (left and right) and ironed them in the middle to get shoulder folds; this makes attaching sleeves a lot easier because kimono does not have shoulder seams. I had ironed the sleeves in the middle too to have a corresponding fold that I could easily match up with the shoulder fold to see that it was centered.

10 centimeters marked.

Sleeve attached to one body panel.

With the sleeves on I sewed the back seam shut. I also ironed it flat so that it would look better. Now the front is fully open and the other half, the back, is closed.

Back seam done.

After the back seam I just had to sew the sides shut. I started at one of the sleeves, left 27 cm for the hand opening (this measure is for a man's kimono, women have smaller openings) and then started sewing it shut. When I reached the armpit I prayed to the almighty cosplay gods that it would go well but lolnope, my wish wasn't granted; it ended up being wrinkled and fugly as usual so I had to rip up the armpit seam after I had sewn down the rest of the side. I swear, armpit seams are the bane of my existence, I never get them right. Of course the other sleeve's armpit seam had to derp as well and so I ended up hand-sewing these suckers down.

 I have no idea what I'm doing but let's hope it turns out a-ok! (handsewing)

With the sides sewn I took my okumi pieces and cut them triangle-ish. Actually you are just supposed to fold the excess of the okumi panels into the collar somehow, but I couldn't be bothered to be this accurate so I just cut it brutally into a close-enough shape. I have cheap cotton, not precious silk.

Okumi panels.

I sewed the okumi panels on and noticed soon afterwards that I HAD PUT WAY TOO MUCH SEAM ALLOWANCES EVERYWHERE. It's hilarious to the point of ridiculous because my first yukata ended up being way too narrow to wear properly –because of lack of fabric– and this remade version turned into a "size: SUMO". Needless to say I spent some time taking in all the seams (okumi included) at the very least 2 centimeters, sometimes up to 5 centimeters! And then I spent the remains of the day ripping up the first seams I made because double seams look bad. Don't we all love ripping seams?

Yeah, I actually slept over at mom's place. I need to finish this yukata before I leave or it's not gonna get done in time. On the following morning I woke up fairly early (more time to sew!) and started preparing to make the collar. I cut up 9 cm at the shoulder folds on both sides on the front to make room for the collar. At this point I also lazied out of accuracy so I just measured a straight line from the 9 cm cut to the beginning of the okumi panel and cut out a triangular part on both sides, to make room for the collar.

Upper part of the front panels. Also shows shoulder folds.

Making slits on the shoulder for the collar.

I had found a piece of white scrap fabric that was pretty much perfect for the white collar in a plastic bag in the attic; I measured around the part of my yukata where the collar would be attached and I ended up with it being approximately 180 cm. Luckily the scrap fabric piece was just below 2 meters long so I had enough!
I cut out a 14 cm wide piece (it's called seam allowances and the final collar will be folded in half), ironed it and attached interfacing fabric to the whole length. Then I just folded and ironed it in the middle and sewed it on. I trimmed the interfacing fabric excess off as well.

First, iron it smooth.

Add the interfacing fabric! Floppy collars are eew.

While I was pinning down the collars on the yukata I figured that I could fold inside the collar ends to avoid having an additional (and inaccurate) seam at the very end of it. Of course the iron was of help in keeping the fold inside. Like this:

Folded like this shows.

Folded and pinned in place.

Being sewn on.

Lastly I spent forever trying to figure out if the bottom hem of the thing was straight or not. I swear when I put effort in measuring the whole length of the yukata and trying to get it to be 140 cm long (my ideal kimono length) it kept trolling me. It's like, when I measured it carefully so that it would be 140 cm at all ends then lolnope, it was completely not straight when you lined it up. I probably tried all possible measuring methods but there was always something giving me a headache and finally I got tired of its bullshit and just folded in 1 cm everywhere and prayed that it wouldn't end up uneven as hell... and it actually turned out surprisingly okay. What the actual fuck?! :'DD And here prior to this I put so much effort in trying to straighten it out before getting fed up and opting for the most basic couldn't-care-less solution. Grah! the fabric was cut unevenly to begin with so I don't even know anymore why it didn't end up straight when I tried to measure it right... gh gh gh gh hurr durr derp.

With the bottom hemmed my yukata was basically finished and so we biked back home and I took a few photos of it. If I have time I will do a preview before Desucon but if not then you have to satisfy yourself with this finished product photo:

It's finished! And doesn't fit on my bed.

Valkoinen Samurai goes off to eat some pancakes and think about what more stuff needs to be done before the con arrives ~

Where are my Desucon tickets? A tale of panic and relief!

What's with the flashy title?

– Sit down and see, dudes and dudettes. I'll share my experiences.

You see, back when Desucon released their tickets I was a part of the ticket rush and I managed to elbow my way through and fetch two PDF-tickets. Now –with the con creeping close– I suddenly realized late a few nights ago that "hey dude, you haven't even received the tickets yet!" *booom* Stress. Panic. THE HORROR.

I immediately sent an email to Desucon and asked what was going on; I had paid and everything so why was there no tickets to be seen anywhere? I got an answer telling me to check my mail's trash bin in case the confirmation mail (feat. tickets) had been sent there by mistake and, if not that, to check my Desu profile on the con's website. I checked my trash mail inbox –nothing there– and then I logged in to the Desucon site and saw... the most horrible thing. You see, at the "payment situation" box it read cancelled. Motherfucking cancelled.

I immediately logged in to my bank and saw that yes, the money had been taken on the same day I ordered. I remember paying for the tickets instantly. Okay, so what was up? My cash was gone yipee but there were no Desucon tickets and my order was claimed to be cancelled. This didn't feel all that great. No, not at all.
I kept mailing back and forth with the Desucon sales support over the coming days and sent them a screenprint showing proof that I had paid from my bank.
Today I then got an answer that said that seemingly the problem was that because the payment was registered (or whatever it's called in English, "merkkaantunut maksetuksi" in Finnish)
on 22nd April in my bank and it had –for some reason– not been registered in Desucon's system and thus it said cancelled even though it had gone through on my bank. This contact person fixed it and sent me my printable PDF-tickets to my Desucon profile, YEEESSSS!

Phew, this feels like the biggest relief ever; for a moment I thought I was screwed for good! I had time to think all horrible possibilities – that I had accidentally, in all the rush chaos, paid to the wrong receiver or paid too late (I got told that if you didn't pay after a few hours of purchase it was automatically cancelled) and everything in between. But luckily it was just a system registration fart on their site. I am so relieved. I am 100% coming to Desucon now!

Oh, and before I leave I'll tell you guys that I've managed to get myself a sleeping place for the Desucon weekend, hell yeah! I'll be trolling over at a congoer's home who happens to live in Lahti and is going to Desucon as well. I don't think we have met IRL before but from what I've talked with her online she seems very nice. I'm thankful that she invited us over to her place over the con weekend! >w<

That's it, now to just continue working on my Desucon cosplays! Ciao ciao!