Hetalia photoshoot: the Rising Sun – Japan!

Konnichiwa! ~

Today I had a photoshoot with Sacchan behind the camera! I decided to dress up as Japan (human name: Kiku Honda) from Hetalia and have a photoshoot outside – I've been wanting to photoshoot this new (and still undebuted) cosplay ever since I didn't get to cosplay him at Kitacon this year. I'm not a super-huge fan of Hetalia, if I may say so, but it was a show that I enjoyed nonetheless because of all the silliness, haha. My favorite character ended up being Japan, which is not a surprise at all.

I've been wanting to have a proper photoshoot this whole year and I've actually felt quite shit because of the lack of new cosplay photos. :/ But now I can finally leave this year behind me with a satisfied mind because hey, I got some fresh new shots!

But with all good things comes a bad thing – I was freezing my ass off during the whole shooting! It was like -3 °C outside, which is not much, but the thing is that there was a cold northern wind of like 5 meters per second so... yeah. I couldn't feel my toes and neither could I move my fingers after I had been standing outside for like 15 minutes or something – we had to go inside to take breaks and warm up! I also ended up having my legs shaking so damn much that it was out of my control and yeah, I was happy I was wearing a kimono because it didn't show at all, lol. Oh well, enduring the cold was worth it because the photos turned out fabulous! 

What won't we do for cosplay? xD

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Japan)
Photographer: Sacchan
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

Before anyone asks this is technically a closet cosplay for me and that's because all the pieces of clothing are authentic vintage kimono items from my collection, with the exception of the obi, which is borrowed from Jäätynyt Enkeli. The wig is from another cosplay and it was a perfect fit for Japan too. Generic Asian hairstyle lol.

I decided to take the sword as a prop because I seriously don't know how to pose without anything, lol. Besides, Japan does use a sword at least in one episode, so it's legit!

By the way, for anyone curious the circle lenses that I'm wearing are the I.Fairy Ruby Browns – just click on the name to get to my review, if interested. ^_^

On those photos above –with the sunlight– I was actually facing/watching the rising sun, literally. Fun part is that the clock was 10:00 in the morning... yeaaaaaah. ._. You see, I live very high up in northern Sweden; we have the darkest time of the year at this very moment and that's because of a thing called polar night, aka right now we only get 3 hours of sunlight per day – try to imagine that. Yep, that means that if we had extended the photoshoot for a few more hours I would have been watching the sunset as well. Go figure.

Only fullbody photo.

Oh and yes, I don't think that Japan wears a kimono outift in exactly these colors in the anime so yeah, consider this an original version. He does wear almost the same thing on a promotional artwork for the World Series though, except that I basically used the reverse colors – meaning that I used a plum colored haori instead of a blue one and a blue kimono instead of a plum one. 

...

...

...

Why are you looking at me like that?【・ヘ・?】

...

...

...

Ehrrm.

Actually... I honestly just forgot to check my reference picture when I dressed on the morning so yeah, I had somehow managed to swap the colors in my mind. xD Not like it's a big crime or anything; it's still something I can easily see him wearing – I mean, he's friggin' ~Japan~ himself after all, he should own plenty more than just two sets of kimonos... LOL.

~~~~~~

Eeheeeey, that's all for this round!

Shiro Samurai out! Thanks for viewing ~

MINI GIVEAWAY WINNER!!

Hellou everyone!

15th December has passed us by and today it's time for Star Wars and with that the Mini Giveaway has ended. What is left to do is to announce the lucky winner and that's exactly what this blog post is for! Let's go! ~

But first let me just give a big thank you to everyone who joined the giveaway (and even to those who commented without wanting an entry!) and I hope you are all looking forward to who won it all!

Thank you to everyone for your continued support, I love you all! ♥

Without more ramblings I'll get straight to the point – but first I just want to clarify how the winner was chosen! To pick the winner I used a random number generator online. The first number that I got on the generator was the winning one and I matched it up with who posted the comment of the same number on the giveaway entry post. There were 9 valid entries/comments out of 11 in total.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

*~* Here comes the results !!! *~*

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The winner is...

...

...

...
...
...
...
...
...

FankiKitsune!! ＼(*ﾟ∀ﾟ*)／

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Congratulations!
I will contact you soon about the prize! :D
 

~•••~

That's it for this time. I hope you all enjoyed this mini giveaway and don't worry, there will be more giveaways in the future! ;) And yes, with different prizes.

Before I call it a day I just want to –once more– thank all my followers, both new and old ones! I hope you enjoy my writings and will stay around for a long time! ♥ Cheers!
~ Shiro Samurai

I made a Jedi robe from Star Wars!

Hello geeks! ~

Okay, so I sewed a brown Jedi robe/cloak from Star Wars from scratch in like, two days. 

– The reason?

I thought I could dress up for the upcoming world premiere of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie, since I'm a volunteer worker at the town's cinema. And hey, great excuse to be nerdy and cosplay outside the walls of my apartment! :D Bonus points for the cinema encouraging the workers to dress up! For example: when the James Bond movie Spectre premiered earlier this year all workers on that day were formally dressed and wore black/white suits.

So yeah, I went to mom's over the weekend and spent like all my time sewing this robe together. I'm sorry but I don't have many photos of the progress because I was in such a hurry to get it done in time. I'm still gonna try to tell at least something on how I made it, even though this post won't really be detailed enough (I guess?) to function as any kind of tutorial on "how to make a Jedi robe". Sorry. ^^"

As a base pattern I used some very basic men's fleece jacket in, like, the biggest size possible – XXL. The pattern was then widened and lengthened to the galaxy moon and back. The pattern was also modified so that the sides of the body widened towards the bottom and the underside of the sleeves curved into small "trumpets" towards the arm openings, aka what I'd call 'wizard sleeves'. The hood was greatly enlarged too, to the point it looked comical. The hood was cut out twice (four pieces in total) so that it would be doubled on the final product.

I started by overlocking all the edges, of every single piece, to keep them from fraying. After that I sewed the shoulder seams together.

Shoulder seams done.

Next up I took the sleeves, folded them to mark out the center back and ironed them. It doesn't really show on the photo below but the edge further away is the arm opening and the end hanging off the ironing board has a slight tip (because of the trumpet style) which proved to be an annoyance when I hemmed the sleeve mouths later, lol. I actually had to hand-stitch the tips in place so that they'd stay flat.

One sleeve folded and ironed.

I first sewed on the sleeves and then sewed the underside of the sleeves closed and continued all the way down the side seams. Now it started to look like something!

Sleeves attached and side seams closed.

I hemmed the arm openings by doing a big fold of a couple centimeters. I always steam pressed seams open when I had sewed something together and I also ironed folded edges before hemming them. This fabric is elastic so yeah, it was needed to iron things in place because the fabric is seriously alive and did cause me some inner cursing during the process, lol.

One hood piece put in place on the fabric, to act as a pattern for cutting out
the "double hood".

Next up I think I went to straighten (read: cut) the bottom because, as is tradition for me by now, it's never ever straight down there – aka all pieces are not the same length. I don't know why this keeps happening because I sure do cut the pieces the same way and I always iron to mark out the center spots (shoulder folds etc) before sewing so yeah, it should be aligned perfectly but lolnope.
Oh well, I went to the trusty overlock to get the job done faster but guess what? I possess the luck of Donald Duck (it rhymes, hihi) so of course when I started sewing the machine made some really loud and scary sounds that sounded like I just tried to start a fucking lovechild of a chainsaw and a snowmobile – and a really old painful one at that.

Overlock, y u do dis to me? ;__;
Yeah, that's how much I had time to sew before it died on me...

Oh well, no can do except take out the ordinary scissors, cut the shit straight and do the good ol' zigzag instead. With the bottom hemmed I was nearing the end – now I just had to hem the front and sew on the hood. The hood did reveal itself to be the most annoying part of the whole thing though. xD I did hem the front "flaps" first all the way down to the bottom and then I started to sew the hood together; I first took two of the four pieces and united them so that I got one complete hood – a crazy big one at that. I then took the remaining two pieces and did the same thing to them and now I had two hoods. What was next was to sew both of these hoods together into a single hood that wouldn't show the underside (aka seam side). I thought that this was a good idea because the guys in Star Wars don't always wear the hood so yeah, when it's just chilling on the back it would still look neat and clean since even the inside of the hood would look the same as the outside.
The thing with sewing the hood was that the neck (aka the spot for attaching the hood on the cape) was only around 60 cm around while the hood was 112 cm.
See what this means? – Yep, make huge-ass pleats so that it will fit in!

Pleating in progress. I decided to make three deep folds on each side
of the middle seam of the hood.

I sewed the pleats in place really carefully (so much fabric layers!) and I was kinda expecting the needle to break on the sewing machine... but it didn't, phew. Next up was to take the "inner hood" and pleat it as well.

Showing that the underside (seam side) of the outer hood is pleated and sewn on; the
"inner hood" is yet to be pleated and attached to the body of the cloak.

"Inner hood" pleating in progress – one side done.

I did some fancy stuff by sewing the pleats of the "inner hood" in place without actually attaching it to the cloak itself yet – this made it possible for me to hem the "inner hood" on top of the outer hood's seams and thus hide all the seams for a very clean and professional look. The problem is that, meanwhile I was pinning the hem folds, mom came and took a look at it because I had joked that this is sooooo gonna break the whole sewing machine – worst part is that she agreed because holy crud so many layers and pleats had accumulated in that hood attachment spot by now that sewing it by machine was out of the question; not even the thickest 100 numbered needle would make it. So yeah, I had to sacrifice some Neatness Pro™ points and just skip the actual hem folding and just sew it on as a single layer, no folding. I still of course sewed the edges of the "inner hood" on top of the outer hood's seams, to hide the "mess". Not like it was messy because clean overlock seams but yeah, still looks better.

Finished Jedi robe!

Back view of the hood when not worn.

So yeah, this is what I've been sewing on the whole weekend. It was really stressful to make it in such a short time (intense sewing, go!) but at least I can't call it rushed because the sewing work is still clean, save for a few really minor things (mostly hemming) because of the fabric living its own life...

It's gonna be fun to wear this at the cinema and be a random Jedi knight!
The issue is that I'll have to throw the rest together from whatever I can find from the closet since I won't have time to make or buy the rest of the parts. Now if only I had a lightsaber...

That's all I have for this time!

Shiro Samurai says goodbye!

My cosplay strengths & weaknesses – REVELATION TIME!

 Hello geeks all across the world ~

Let's get straight to business! One ordinary day not so long ago I was living through my daily life, checking internet and just chilling around and them –BAM!– a thought suddenly struck me! I couldn't brush it away because it actually made me really think and get motivated to do another one of these "cosplay as a hobby" thought-filled posts soooo... here we go!

What if I made a blog post about how I am as a cosplayer and what I'm good and not-so-good at in this hobby?

I'm not sure if this has been done before but I figured that it might be an interesting thing to actually write down, if nothing else! Hopefully it will serve to let you all know a bit more about me as a cosplayer and maybe inspire others to do similar posts and appreciate their own skillsets too, both in good and in bad! After all, I'm far from equally talented in all the different fields that this hobby more or less requires from us and eey, ain't nothing wrong or weird with that. :) I thought this could be a fun way to show that yes, we all have things that we aren't as good at as others but that we also have our strong points! Yay for skill diversity appreciation!

So yeah, what's on the plate today is a breakdown list about my strengths and weaknesses as a cosplayer and yep, this is of course all 100% truth about me – seen from my own perspective. Leeeeeeet's goooooooo ~

With each category I've put a grade scale from 1-5, which is a way of indicating how good I personally think I am with each of them, with my enjoyment level counting in on the final grade – so yeah, some scores have an enjoyment bonus of 0,5-1 point added in. A low number means that I perceive it to be one of my weaker points and a high number means the opposite.
Note: the scores are of course not permanent since they only reflect my current situation. 

Patterning (2/5): This is definitely one of the things I dislike the most with cosplay, no joke. I think that the pattern making part is tedious, boring, complicated and just not my thing. Sometimes it happens that I lose my cosplay crafting motivation before I even get to start properly because of the damn patterning. ._. I just don't pattern. such difficult. much annoy. very bore.

So yeah, while I have managed to draft the patterns from scratch to, for example Masamune Date's blue coat from Sengoku Basara, I really don't think that I'm cut out for this bull. I get a lot of headaches trying to figure out how to make it work and yeah, it's such a demotivator that it huuurts.

Fabric cutting (1/5): UGH. UGH. UGH. Along with drafting/understanding patterns placing the darn paper pieces on the fabric the right, most clever fabric-saving way is just something that I don't get right and I always have a huge fear of screwing up and wasting ~le expensive fabric~ or cutting something the wrong way. I'm just not good at figuring out the best way to go about using my fabric wisely and it's really one of my weakest points on the whole sewing part – maybe silly but it's true. >_< Not to mention that I never got the gist of the whole straight grain thing no matter how many times someone explains it to me. ;_; I feel stupid for saying this but it just confuses me every time and I keep forgetting...

Oh, and being left-handed really is an additional shade of bother when the whole world always assumes everyone's freaking right-handed! Hello, impossible cutting angles. ._. (and before you ask: yes, I've tried left-handed scissors but lord they feel even more retarded than using right-handed ones! Maybe it's just me not getting many chances to use them when growing up...)

Fabrics (5/5): I'd like to think that I'm honestly good at figuring out what fabrics will give me the look and/or purpose that I want/need when it comes to making my costumes. I can touch and look at a fabric and pretty instantly be able to tell if it's what I'm looking for or not – if it has the required qualities of drape, texture, sturdiness, softness etc. I'm also fairly good at telling different types of fabrics apart when I see/feel them. I'm quite picky on what I choose to make my cosplay out of – it has to be right!

It's not a secret that I had prior fabric knowledge before starting with cosplay and yeah, that's mainly because my mom owned her own fabric store for yeeeeeeeears and I spent most of my childhood hiding between fabric rolls (hide-and-seek!) and helping her move stuff in the store etc. I learned a lot from her, both directly and indirectly because I've spent all my life surrounded by fabrics. Heck, mom's attic is still filled with fabrics from those times. ♥ I love the fabric smell, lol.

I always thought that fabric choice was an important part of cosplaying – hence why I didn't enter my cosplaying hobby in a beaming cheap satin monster or in a, what I'd like to call, "bedsheet cosplay". There's nothing sinfully wrong with those (we all start somewhere!) but yeah, I was always willing to pay a bit more to not look like I'm walking around in a potentially shiny potato sac. ;)

Sewing (4/5): I'd say that I feel pretty confident with my sewing skills; I haven't gone any proper schools for it or anything but mom taught me a lot and I'm thankful for that. Sure that I might not know the high-end professional ways of sewing and there's obviously many things out there I'd have no idea how to even sew! But yeah, the point is that I know the basics well enough for my standards/needs and I'd personally say that my sewing work is generally clean and looks proper – or at least I always strive first-hand for a neat final appearance.

Props (4/5): Pretty good, I guess? I'm by no means bad at it but I wouldn't personally say that I'm a Prop Master Deluxe™ either. I've done some weapons back in the days, especially from the Bleach series during my early cosplay years, that have received a lot of admiration at conventions as well as online, but I do think that I could still have made a better job on some parts of them – even when I originally made them. So yeah, I think I'm pretty okay on the prop making department, especially when it comes to weapon-type props. I do enjoy making props a lot and learning to use different materials, tools and techniques!

Armor making (3/5): Tough one. I really don't know what to answer on this one because creating armors is still a rather new side of cosplaying to me. In the beginning I was really hesitant and unsure of how to make it happen and I was indeed standing on shaky legs when I first experimented with craft foam and, later on, polystyrene sheets. Once I dived into the worblerful world of worbla (yes, worblerful) I've reached a new enlightenment in terms of creating armors and hey, I think that I might be able to go quite far on this part!

Wigs (3/5): Eh. I'm fairly good at shopping for wigs that give me the look I prefer but I'm not very fluid at wig styling; I have cut and styled some wigs before and they've all been rather small alterations so far. I haven't done any hardcore modifications like stubbing, gravity-defying giant spikes, widow peaks and such. I don't feel too confident handling wigs and I lose my patience perhaps a bit too fast when it comes to untangling long wigs and carefully moving layers of wefts. It's not quite my favorite part of cosplaying but it's doable. I do love shopping for wigs though (and the quest of finding the perfect one) and wearing them!

Makeup (2/5): I do acknowledge and feel that I'm way below many others when it comes to general makeup knowledge and application etc. If I'm brutally honest half the time when I'm applying makeup I'm not even too sure of what I'm actually doing, lol. 

My main issue is that the whole makeup world is so big and confusing and –to make matters worse– you need to have a lot of prerequisite knowledge of, for example your skin type, to actually get the makeup itself to work and look/perform the best on your face. I went into the makeup universe not knowing jackshit and boy was I lost – HECK, I STILL AM. NOT GONNA LIE.

I feel really unsure every time I try on some new makeup techniques and/or products because –fuck me sideways– I don't even know if I'm using the right applicator for this crap! D: As a proof of point I have a 32-piece brush set and I don't even know what 3 of them surely are for so, err, go figure. -.- The more I try to learn the more overwhelming it gets and then I just end up getting frustrated and feeling even dumber than before.

I didn't even know about the existence nor importance of primers, moisturizers and concealers until this year. Can you believe it?? Yeah, that means I did 4 years of cosplaying without preparing my facely canvas properly. Ugh. I'm not even sure if I want to know what other important products I'm completely missing as of yet...

So yeah, I really don't think that I'm honestly good with makeup and, to boot, I'm unaware of so many things that would probably be considered essential to know. I just scribble something on my face for now and hope it looks at least decent meanwhile I wait for some knowledge expansion miracle to befall upon me. Yeeeeah. #makeupishard

So yeah, as you can see I don't perceive myself as a super amazing cosplayer. I'm average – good at some things, less good at others.
And you know what? – That's perfectly okay! ♥
Along the years we'll keep improving, learning new things and shaping our cosplaying selves! I think that a big part of the fun in cosplay comes from the challenges and new things you get to tackle and experiment with! It's a given that failures will happen but so will successful creations too. I love the diversity of cosplay and hey, you aren't forced to like everything that this very wide hobby brings with it! I don't like those super-long wigs either when they get tangled into a... Tangela... after I just cast a look at them.

That's all for this time!
Hope you enjoyed this blog post and feel free to comment! ╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯
Shiro Samurai out ~