New kimono for Saitou!

I bought a new solid black vintage kimono for Hakuouki's Hajime Saitou weeks ago but I've not tried it on until now. I think me gusta mucho!!

I put it on, along with my juban (also authentic), a white sash and le Saitou wig and went to take some photos. I didn't put on the scarf or any extras because they would just block out the kimono which is the thing I'm trying to showcase here. xD
Excuse me the photos are mirror style (home alone..) and I look like a trainwreck because I have no make-up on except that I darkened my eyebrows slightly... truth is, I've not even had breakfast yet even though I woke up a few hours ago. lol

Notice how far down the sleeves reach with my hand down.
Also the juban doesn't peek out from the sleeves.. which is some sort of awesome considering it's a very common kimono kitsuke problem and is not desirable.

Kimono wingspan. It's awesome! <3
It's rare vintage kimono have sleeves this long.. aka not far from perfect wingspan. :')

This kimono has a nice front overlap.
And I notice I might need a longer sash... xD

Side shot

 With the earlier kimono (which was also vintage) I had the problem that it was not very wide.. which would result in me flashing my legs while walking in anything quicker than semi-snail pace.. along with some other things. But this new kimono is wider, no more do I need to worry about having my legs showing while sitting or walking.

This is just to show how much apart I can keep my feet without showing the juban/my legs.

This new kimono is superior in almost every aspect: better length (aka pretty much my ideal kimono length), better width, longer wingspan. Also this kimono's silk has a solid surface which in a way is more accurate because Saitou's kimono doesn't seem to have any texture to it. My other kimono is tsumugi silk; tsumugi is woven by unevenly spun silk thread so it has texture and is always informal/casual because of its humble origins; Don't think it's actually appropriate for Shinsengumi 3rd division captain lol. But it is cool too and whether or not you want a kimono for cosplay with textured or solid silk (or other fabric, but silk is most common when shopping vintage and vintage = cheaper) is kinda personal preference anyway I guess. I like both.

I will be wearing this kimono for Saitou from now on because of the advantages I listed. But there is one thing that can be a problem - this new kimono is hitoe, meaning it is not lined unlike the other one. This means if I want to cosplay Saitou to a late autumn or winter con it will be cold. The white juban is not lined either so it wouldn't really add much extra warmth. I will have to use my other kimono for the colder months but otherwise this new one will be the default to wear.

Masamune coat test + collar

I've been inspired to work on cosplays the last two days so here's finally more Masamune progress. I really need to work more actively on this.. before I know it it's going to be summer and d'oh! xD Must stop procrastinating.. it's the bane of my existence lol.

First up I took the front upper half coat pattern and pinned it together with the back pattern to see if the neck cut matched with the front's shoulders or not. It didn't.

After I cut them to fit

After this quick fix I did a prototype version of the coat's upper half of some scrap fabric we had at home. Nothing special, just cut out the pieces needed.

Because this is just a kind of test, to see how the real thing will fit/look, I didn't bother to zigzag or do anything except sew the shoulder seams and side seams closed with a simple straight stitch. This is just a scrap test anyway, just to see how well my self-made patterns work or not when assembled.
After I had sewn what was neccessary to hold the thing together it looked like this. Not too bad.. if I do say so myself.

Face censor ftw.
The two pins are there as collar markers.

The shoulders will need some hardcore interfacing on the real coat to stay up like on the reference but the form seems to be otherwise quite alright.

Next up was time to figure out the collar. It took some thinking before I felt sure enough to draft a pattern. The pattern looked like this:

But the collar would need to have a strip of extra fabric added to the front, extending towards the coat's opening. Masamune's collar kind of starts already on the coat's V-shaped front and folds a bit out. I don't know how to explain clearly what I mean but on this anime pic it's pretty obvious:

So I went and took the front pattern piece, pinned it along the curve to a small piece of pattern paper and drew out the curve. I put the collar pattern temporary on top for reference and to get the starting point (aka 11 cm from the collar's middle) right.

After that I pinned the collar pattern (it's only half pattern, will be cut at the fabric fold) along with the extension piece to the test coat, to see if it would sit like I had imagined. Of course I pinned the collar's "end" (actually middle point) to the middle back of the coat and then just pinned along the neck curve and when I got to the front I pinned the extension piece along the coat's front curve. It sat really well.. I was surprised haha.

Straight...

.. and slightly folded.

Green lights! Time to cut out a prototype collar for the coat to see if it works as well with fabric..

As you see I just sew the collar on with a straight stitch just like the shoulder and side seams earlier.
No need to do extra work.

It looked something like this when worn after being sewn on:

Not half bad. The collar is a bit too wide but otherwise it seems to work.
Super floppy fabric though, so the real collar will need interfacing too.

 The prototype coat looks like this when on a flat surface:

I took the collar pattern and made it a little bit less wide.. I don't want a huge Dracula collar lol.

Drew a line with a pencil where I will cut

After fixing the size. Put it over the collar for comparison.
(prototype collar has about 1 cm seam allowance though)

That's all progress for today.. ~

Year of Cosplay 2012

 Hi hi!

 For the last day of the year I figured I could do some kind of special blog post ~

First of a list I'll list all the cons that I've been to this year:

Desucon Frostbite - Lahti, Finland
Kitacon - Kemi, Finland

Chibicon - Oulu, Finland

Desucon - Lahti, Finland
Uppcon - Uppsala, Sweden

Animecon - Kuopio, Finland
Närcon - Linköping, Sweden

Oulun Animeseminaari - Oulu, Finland

Tracon - Tampere, Finland
Kemin Mangapäivä - Kemi, Finland

Skecon - Skellefteå, Sweden

A lot of cons this year, hahah. Mainly in Finland too. It's very hard to pick my favorite con for the year but if I do a top 3 it would probably look like this:

1. Närcon

2. Tracon

3. Uppcon

• Närcon first because it's.. well, awesome. It has so many activities no other cons offer and is like a huge 4 days con festival! The atmosphere is great, the locations are nice (although I get lost many times because of the maze-like corridors lol xD), great outside area, juice bar, laserdome/bouncy castle/whatever special attraction of the year, swimming pool etc. Närcon is shortly said a blast all congoers should visit at least once! Also the weather was great this year and didn't ruin my con weekend, hence the first place.

• Tracon is second because I'm in love with Tampere-talo as a location for hosting a con. It is very nice and feels luxury somehow haha. Also the park around Sorsalampi is amazing.. too bad I only noticed it at the very last minutes before I had to depart. Amazing photoshoot opportunities in nature. Oh, and Tracon is just overall very enjoyable and certainly my favorite con in Finland currently, mainly for its more than awesome locations.

• Uppcon was a blast too. Too bad this year was the last Uppcon in history and the rainy weather kinda ruined it on the later days, otherwise Uppcon wouldn't be third place for me. But the location is amazing and big, there is lots of stuff to do and I don't even need to mention the huge merchandise tent which is like a geek's treasure trove haha. Uppcon was the biggest (and most well-known I presume) con in Sweden and it's a shame it is no more.. but it seems there will be a successor.

And lastly here is all the cosplays of different characters I've worn this year. Ukitake is the only one of these which has already been worn 2011, the rest are 2012 debut cosplays. I only put a character once even though in some cases I did different variations of the same character.. like formalsuit!Ukitake, artbook!Saitou (Hakuouki) etc.

Upper row, left to right: Jushiro Ukitake (Bleach), Gin Ichimaru (Bleach), Byakuya Kuchiki (Bleach), Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi), Souji Okita (Hakuouki), Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki)

Lower row, left to right: Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki), Masamune Date (Sengoku Basara), Isami Kondou (Hakuouki), Sojun Kuchiki (Bleach), Hajime Saitou (Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi), Falkner (Pokémon)

My favorite cosplay of the year.. hmm.. very hard to just pick one because I love them all. xD But if I think about the overall con experience with said cosplay, how comfortable it was to wear, overall enjoyment and liking of the character etc I guess it's a tie between two Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan chars - Hajime Saitou and Isami Kondou. Saitou is a cosplay that fits me like a glove in the hand, my anime alter-ego and just everything about his design and personality is very much to my liking. Very comfortable to wear too except the scarf that's always planning to suffocate me lol. Isami Kondou was also very much fun to cosplay, especially during Tracon's Hakuouki group! Also very comfortable and fun and that wig is just too awesome not to like!

Happy New Year 2013 and Happy Cosplaying! ~

Cosplays for Närcon Vinter

I think I finally settled on what to cosplay at Närcon Vinter, 22-24 February 2013, my first con for the coming year. My Saturday cosplay has been decided for some weeks now but the Friday cosplay has been a question mark... until now. Here goes!

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Kenshin Himura

I finally started watching Rurouni Kenshin late yesterday and I'm already hooked after 5 episodes... I had expected nothing less haha. As you might know I got myself a (manga color) Kenshin wig not too long time ago and I already happen to have passable clothes, for a blue kimono version Kenshin, thanks to previous cosplays so... why the hell not? :'D Besides I'm itching for a new make-up/special effects challenge.. namely creating his cross-shaped scar. This will be fun.

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata

The Hakuouki roll continues. I'll probably never get tired of cosplaying from this awesome series. <3 Why Hijikata? Because two of my new-ish Swedish con friends plan to cosplay Chizuru Yukimura and Kazama Chikage and they really wanted me to join in as Hijikata so that we would have the complete trio. I happily accepted!
and it seems we will have a few more characters too, a group yay!

What I will cosplay on Sunday, if anything at all, remains a mystery for now. The con ends pretty early on Sunday morning (as far as I remember) so maybe I can't even attend it the last day.. it will depend heavily on when I have to leave Linköping; after all I have a long journey home. We'll see.