Ichito's 'flap' pt.2

 Hi all!

Today after dinner I decided to hand-paint the design on that 'flap' thingy. So first of I needed to have a reference picture of Ichito at hand and I also happen to know what those designs actually are supposed to be - higanbana - aka spiderlily.

Lycoris Radiata

Ichito reference

 So knowing what I'm actually trying to paint is a little bonus. But I drew mostly according to the character reference and some artistic freedom.. because it would have peen a major pain in the ass to draw every damn flower and line exactly the same.
I did iron the fabric prior to painting so it was wrinkle-free. So yeah, here is today's progress photos and please excuse the crappy lighting again, the colors get a bit fucked up.

Sketched some "base flowers" on the fabric.

Started painting...

Painted some more...

Started doing the lines...

More lines. Half of it done pretty much.

Other half done and started painting the bottom "rings"...

Finished!

I didn't count the time but I think it took me around 4-5 hours to finish. Urgh. I'm sick of drawing lines now. XD Now I just need to sew together the front and back piece at the sides and fix the edges and probably add a lining to the front's backside.
Ah... now I've earned myself some chips and a bottle of påskmust. lol

Bye bye!

Ichito's 'flap' pt.1

Hellou!

Pfft, today mom got my depressed ass to do something instead of being a half-dead angsty sausage in front of the computer all day. Yeah, I had a shitty day today, didn't go to school etc...
So with her help I started working on Ichito's 'flap' thingy late during the evening instead of completely wasting the day.

Sorry again for the bad lighting but here's a few photos of today's progress:

Fabric cut out. Pattern still attached.

I zigzaged all around the 'flap' so the edges won't fray while I'm painting it later...

The fabric paint I will use. Slate blue.

Testing paint on scrap fabric.

To the right is only solid blue color and to the left is blue with some white blended in at the tips. I think I prefer the blended version so I will do the 'flap' that way, it looks better... not as boring, at least I think so.

Tomorrow hopefully I will paint the real thing, it's too late already and my eyes are going afdfghsgfh on me. *yawns* So tomorrow it is.

Goodnight!

Uppcon is green!

My twin told me earlier today that our father won't be going to Thailand this summer after all... and that means if I decide to go to Uppcon in Uppsala (Sweden) I could sleep at their place instead of having to pay my ass open so I can sleep at a hotel. I'm too nitpicky for "sleeping accomodations á la class room floor"... And that's a huge save for me because the tickets to Uppcon are ridiculously expensive compared to all other cons we have in Sweden/Finland.. it's like... I can go to 2-3 other cons for the same ticket price I can go to just Uppcon. Bleh, my poor wallet doesn't approve. But Uppcon is awesome anyway and has a special place in my heart because, after all, it was the first con where I ever cosplayed and the first "proper" con I went to.. not to mention all the awesome memories and people I befriended there!
I will try to go there this year (if I do it will be my third Uppcon!), despite the fact that Uppcon starts the day after my last school day before the summer vacation. D'oh! Bad date is bad. I will have to get to Luleå somehow and take the train/airplane down that very same day after school has finished, ahaha I will need to hurry... but it'll be worth it.
Now I just hope mom approves me going to both Desucon and Uppcon... why? Desucon is held the weekend before Uppcon and err, one is in southern Finland and the other in southern Sweden. Go me, I am crazy. But what won't you do for cons?

My cosplay plans are pretty much decided too, although changes are still possible.

Today I got my Uppcon ticket! So now I'm coming! 8D (even though bad date, rush after school ends~)
I will be sleeping at my father's place a bit outside Stockholm and my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli will keep me company at the con. Dad might drive us every morning or otherwise we'll take the train, haven't planned yet how we'll get to Uppsala.

My cosplay plans aren't set yet, but this is what I had in my mind:

Friday - Gin Ichimaru (Bleach)

Saturday - Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi)

Sunday - Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan)

I might change Hijikata for Okita, not sure yet.. it depends. And Ichito is not 100% sure either, but I want to do a BOOM unique/cool cosplay for Saturday. XD Yeah.. we'll see but this is what my plans look like at the moment.

Finishing Ichito's "jacket"

 Hiya!

So today I finished Ichito's "jacket" hitatare? chihaya? I don't know thingy.
First off I attached the sleeves to the body and then I just hemmed everything. I left the sleeves open on both sides and the body of the garment is fully open at the sides too.

Sleeves are on.

Huge sleeves...

After hemming everything I just had left to do those chest cord decoration thingies... so here's how I made them:

Draw the shape.

 First off I went to our outside storage and cut off a tiny square of this one leather-ish plum colored fabric. Then I took a reference and drew the shape of those flame/flower/whatever decorations and cut them out.

Sew them to the ribbons... (notice sewing machine left fugly marks on them -.-)

... and then sew them to the collar of the "jacket".

And then it was finished. Now I can just tie them whenever wearing it. Although I could have made those ribbons a bit longer mom pointed out, oh well.

Ah, lovely thing ~

Now I have left to do the obi, "flap" with higanbana design, dark blue kimono, tekkou, bracelet, tattsuke hakama-ish pants, feet wrappings, shoes, eyepatch... err... let's just say everything else. OTL

Bye bye!

Ichito sleeve progress pt.2

Alrighty everyone, I did the second sleeve today. Here's the breakdown!

Preparations for marking every buttonhole...

Close-up of the marking process. Dots.

After that I started to sew the buttonholes. Again. I had to install the memory thingy myself this time, it worked after some errors...

... and then I got one like this. It doesn't look anything like a buttonhole man. -.-

I kept doing them anyway and when I had finished a little bit more than half the sleeve...

.. I finally got the first perfect one. Finally.

But that joy didn't last long because of course directly after that perfect one...

IT MADE NOT ONE BUT THREE MEGA DERP BUTTONHOLES FFFFFFFF-

Okay, machines will never work like you want them do. For every job well done they will pay you back with three times shit. Don't trust them.

Problem?

I promise, it trolled me.

But that wasn't the end of the trolling... because it seems three derpholes wasn't enough....

FFFFFFFFFFFFOOUUURRRRRRRRRRRR!!!1 Need I say more?

But when I had almost finished the sleeve something impossible happened...

It suddenly did two perfect buttonholes. What the fuck.

Wow, this thing sure can't decide if it wants to be my friend or not... OTL

Oh well, 43 buttonholes later and some raging I made the slits and threaded ribbon through them, just like I did for the other sleeve yesterday night.

Ah, it's handy to have the whole roll.

And well, then I just tied and burned the ribbon ends and it was done. Here's one in-progress pic:

Not sure if gusta.

The sleeves aren't attached and stuff needs to be hemmed and, err... lots of stuff left. But I'll finish this sucker! 8D

That's all for this time, laterz!

Ichito sleeve progress pt.1

Ah, lovely. I actually did some cosplay progress today, go me!

So, well.. here's some explanations and photos of what I did today. Sorry in advance for the crappy lighting, it was late... err, it still is but whatever.

 Okay, so first off I had to figure out a lot of things and mom helped me count how many "full patterns" (read: every different "ribbon loop" before it started over again) I could fit into the sleeve and stuff... I suck at maths, big time. Then I had to decide how close to the arm opening I wanted the ribbon to run, how big I wanted the buttonholes to be and how long I wanted the "long part" and the "short part" of the ribbon to be and how-- ... screw it, my explanations make no sense anyway so I'll proceed to show pics instead. xD

Ah, mass producing buttonholes.

Mom helped me to check how the memory function on this black sewing machine worked and after I found this machine part explanation after some googling because we couldn't find the manual we got it to work. Yay. She then set the memory function to make same sized buttonholes and then showed me how to sew a few and then I took over.

Buttonholes, buttonholes, buttonholes... Did I say buttonholes?

After what felt like forever my huge-ass-sleeve was filled with buttonholes. Yay. Some of them ended up being mildly derpy when others were perfect. Hah, machines won't do perfect work all the time...

Poor innocent fabric gets cut...

After that I snipped off all the loose threads and began to make slits into the buttonholes so they became... well... buttonholes. Only I wouldn't be using them for buttons.

Ah, lovely blue ribbon. Now it looks better.

 After all the slits were done I just took that blue ribbon and threaded it through the sleeve, making sure it was loose enough to not bunch up. Then I just burned the ends and tied them together and then finito.

Tomorrow the other sleeve will receive the same treatment run sleeve run! and hopefully I'll get some better photos of the thing and maybe I'll even have time to attach the sleeves to the jacket-thingy-whatever-it-is (it looks a bit like a hitatare or chihaya I think...) but before that.. *yawns*

.. I'm off to bed. Night.

Chibicon 2012 – I found a new friend for life!

Hello!

Chibicon came and went. It was a one-day event held on 7th April at the Pohjankartano building in Oulu, Finland. I was really happy to see another con in the northern half of the country!

Before going to the con me and Jäärä, whom had come over to attend Chibicon as well, tried to take some photos together of our Bleach cosplays outside on the terrace. I did Byakuya Kuchiki and she did the blue dress version of Rukia. Despite our efforts an overwhelming majority of the photos were high on the derp scale and thus not professional enough to post, lol. We tried to get some intentionally silly shots by throwing the plushies in the air and well, of course we couldn't catch them successfully every time they came back down again and that's the story of how Wakame Taishi (aka Seaweed Ambassador) almost ended up swallowed by the snow lol.

The plushies had an eventful morning.

Once we got to the con I was quite excited – this was my first anime convention in Oulu after all. I gotta mention here also that I had never been to Pohjankartano before this and so I had no idea what to expect when I entered the convention area; I was surprised by how big and open the place was! It was somehow almost surreal to me how there could be so many anime enthusiasts at a convention this high up in the country; I had only really seen larger amount of people at the southern events and my northern standards were formed by Kitacon and Kemi's manga day, which felt small now when compared to Chibicon. Of course I don't mean to imply here that Chibicon is the size of Närcon (where I was last year) or something like that! It just wasn't very chibi to me, lol. Or it could be that the open layout of Pohjankartano made it seem a lot busier than it was.


Anyways I had a good time at the convention. Although I was I guess expecting there to be more cosplayers? There was of course a decent amount, nothing crazy. I don't particularly remember what I did aside from just hanging around and stumbling upon new people to befriend! I met a tall guy in the stairs called Karri who seemed like a cool bloke and I was also excited to see some people cosplaying from InuYasha, one of my favorite series! Oh and speaking of InuYasha, I met the cutest little Rin cosplayer, Sallukka, who complimented my Byakuya cosplay and we quickly took to bonding over shared fandoms! In no time had we built up the foundations of a budding friendship and I was so excited over having found a new friend! 

Look, I finally took a photo of the event itself! :D

Above you can see a photo taken from upstairs down towards the main area of the con – where all the vendors and stuff were. I think they call this the Dealer's Hall in English? One could find the standard anime con merchandise here: mangas, plushies, figurines, doujinshis and a booth for ramune and other Japanese treats. I didn't buy anything this time because I'm saving money for the summer cons. :') I have to practice self-restraint, lol.

I also went and watched the FFFight and it was entertaining although I did notice the same people participating twice...? *shrugs* Maybe it's allowed, I don't know? Oh well, I like the concept of Final Fantasy Fight and it's always entertaining to watch. :D I also attended a Sengoku Basara panel which was nice.

Before you know it the day's almost over – time flies when you have fun they say, and that's so true! I really hope there's gonna be more Chibicons held in the future because I definitely want to return to this place again!

Tired Byakuya in the back of the car. 

I left in high spirits, albeit a bit tired. The hype crash is real.
I had a ride back home so I didn't have to take the train, which was nice as I was still in cosplay on the way home; every cosplayer knows that using public transport while dressed up can be quite an interesting experience, lol. It took roughly one hour on the road to get back home and yeah, that's pretty much it for my Chibicon journey. 

I don't have much else to say, thanks for reading!
Shiro Samurai says bye~