June 11, 2012

I got stuff for Hijikata!

I went to town around 12:00 clock something, I think, with Ari. Oh my god I was so tired but I wanted to go and get the town visit over and done with...
I went and picked up two packages from the post office and bought some white thin fabric so I can make a shinsengumi headband for coming Hakuouki cosplays. From the post office I picked up yet another vintage kimono (yay!), which, despite looking dark purple on the site it was this weird blue-gray-black with a purple-ish tint. Interesting. The lining is very dark black-purple too... but the whole thing seems to photograph purple anyway. xD I'll use it for Hijikata for now because I don't feel like sewing a kimono in stress again in one day not to mention mom is sick of me making kimonos lol. Tomorrow I need to do some finishing touches on my Hijikata cosplay and pack my suitcase, that's enough to do. *yawns*

I took some WIP photos of Hijikata so far. Excuse mirror photos again..




What's left to do is the headband and add haori himo ties to the haori. The swords are at Jäätynyt Enkeli's place already. The hakama and shinsengumi haori are commissioned by my friend Hasakitsuki's mom. Thank you so much. <3 I could never have made it myself in time for Uppcon because I was busy finishing Desucon cosplays and blah blah. So this cosplay is mostly commissioned and/or bought.

It seems my Uppcon cosplay plans will change too, I'll make a blog post about that later. Gin Ichimaru and Toshizo Hijikata are set though. It seems I'll change Ichito for Hajime Saitou but I'm not sure yet. I can't take Ukitake because the swords got damaged from the Desucon trip.. the golden paint rubbed against and transferred on the black parts of the blade. I need to repaint it and fix one of those ribbon holder square things because it broke already last year at Närcon by accident but so far it's been held together by Jesus tape.. but now it's giving in. Need to make a new one.

Bye bye!

Desucon 2012 summary

Pfhaah, I'm finally back home from my first summer!Desucon ever. Desucon was held in Lahti 8-10 June 2012. I had a blast, it was so much fun despite more-than-usual breathing problems, ME GUSTA VERY MUCH!! I'm so going there next year again!

My journey to Desucon started on Thursday morning by train. I managed to finish my cosplays in time for the con, although last minute and mom and stepdad modified Ichito's shoes for me because I was busy packing my stuff. :'D It looks a bit ghetto but it works lol.

Yay shoes.. and thus my cosplays were ready ~
I slept in Omenahotels with Jäärä, Ri-kun and Sukka from Thursday to Sunday. So much night derp and fun oh my god. xD PILLS!

I cosplayed shikai!Jushiro Ukitake on Friday and hung out with our Bleach cosplay group. We went to eat in a Chinese restaurang together a bit after the con started. I must say I wasn't too fond of the food. I do like Chinese food in general but I've eaten better.. but maybe that's because me and two others sat in another table from the rest and most of the different foods were on the other table and I didn't bother to go there because I was feeling very weak...

On Saturday morning and earlier daytime I cosplayed Ichito from Asaki, Yumemishi but I changed into yukata!Souji Okita from Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan later because, even though I really liked my Ichito cosplay it was quite uncomfortable and I'd rather not have a headache during the whole main con day. Jäärä cosplayed Miku from the same game and changed into Chizuru also.

On Sunday we had a Hakuouki group with Jäärä as Chizuru, Zkitsune as Harada, Ri-kun as Saitou and me as Okita. I think Sunday was my favorite day in terms of hanging-with-friends-fun. Even though shikai!Ukitake was, again, my most popular cosplay during the con.

Photo by Miika Ojamo
I didn't attend any panels or even buy any merchandise I have so much stuff in my room already.. but the con was very very nice anyway. Lots of nice cosplay costumes and friendly people. I took quite some photos so if you remember being photographed by shikai!Ukitake, yukata!Okita or Ichito (aka white long-haired eyepatch guy) give me a shout and I'll see if I have a photo of you! If you don't know what those characters I cosplayed look like you can have a look at my earlier Desucon cosplay plans blog post. I have photos of Okami cosplayers, Hakuouki cosplayers, Bleach cosplayers, Sengoku Basara cosplayers, InuYasha cosplayers, Digimon cosplayers and some few more like some hobbits from Lord of the Rings (names escape me gah!), Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur and Gakupo from Vocaloid. So if you cosplayed something from these series there's a big possibility I have a photo of you~ I have some photos too of characters I didn't recognize but I thought the costumes were really nice/interesting.

Oh, and of course if anyone has photos of my cosplays I'd really like to have them! My email can be found under the "contact me" text to the left. Thank you ~

Hmm, what more to say.. one thing's for sure.. Desucon was probably my most derp!lungs con ever.. dafuq. Weird it fucked so much now when it has been over one and a half year... *shrugs* Oh well. I think I ended up lololo-can't-almost-breathe 5 times.. 2 of them when going to sleep and the others when walking either to the con or back from the con damn ascents. Not cool... and ironically enough I think all bad breathing derps happened when I was cosplaying Okita or Ukitake.. OTL
lololo someone took a photo when I was recovering and I ended up getting a random chest pain just when the photo was taken.. so needless to say a random person probably got a very in-character Okita photo of me. ._. derp

I'm now suffering this after-con lag hahah (yyyh want more Desucon!) and I'm so friggin' tired right now, I hardly slept in the train back home and ahgjfsgfs. I got home a few hours ago and need to start packing again for another con, this time Uppcon in Uppsala next weekend. I'm leaving 13th June so need to pack my stuff again... but I need a bigger suitcase because I will be staying at my dad's place for some few weeks after the con.

And last but not least:
Thank you everyone for a wonderful Desucon experience! <3

June 6, 2012

yukata!Okita preview ~

As I recently wrote in the earlier blog post I got Okita done in time for Desucon and I promised some preview photos.. so here they are ~




Bleh mirror photo..
So this is what I'll be wearing on Sunday. We will have a mini Hakuouki cosplay group with me, Jäärä, Zkitsune and Ri-kun. I'm so excited! Although you guys have to deal with lolrepsderp Okita. XD

Bye bye!

Okita's yukata finished!

So I woke up early today to finish sewing Okita's yukata. After lots of ffffffuuuuuu moments, rage and more rage I managed to get it done. I hate lining forevermore with a passion, it will always fuck up somewhere and then everything fucks up and it's slippery and pain in the ass to sew and just GRAH KILL IT WITH FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I didn't take many progress photos because I focused on getting it done as fast as possible. Today is my last day to get all Desucon cosplays done because I will be leaving tomorrow early. Here you have the few photos I actually took:

Sides had just been sewn together
Lining sewn to the same point as earlier photo
Something just ate my arm!!
Ah, it was just the okumi panel being pulled rightside out...
Oops
Finished
I'm not too happy about it because the lining is too short and creates random folds and bumps at random places... ugh. Oh well, it's still usable so it will have to do for now.

Soon I will upload some Okita preview photos, stay tuned ~

June 4, 2012

Head accessories + Ichito WIP

 Hi guys!

I've been sewing on Okita's yukata today, but I didn't take any photos of the progress so I'll make a blog post about it later when it's finished instead.

I made Ichito's eye wrap thingies and hair piece today. Not so much to say, pretty easy to do.




Making of the hair piece.. (it's covered craft foam)
I also got my commissioned wigs today so I could finally take some WIP photos without face censors lol. I had one problem though, the wig is very short in the back... or I have a too big head? I don't know, maybe my hair was at fault because I styled it pretty heavily on the morning and very quickly put the wig cap and stuff on.. maybe works better if I pin my hair up (so hard to pin short hair..) and/or flatten it with water. We'll see, otherwise I have to use those head wraps to cover what can be seen of my real hair under...

Oh well, have some WIP photos. Pardon shoes are not done and I was too lazy to put on blue nail polish and I don't have white face powder yet... lololo derp.

I don't know why my hands always end up so close to my face somehow...
I'm fabulous.. err...
ICHITO, Y U NO STAND LIKE A MAN?
Did you notice.................. DOTTED SOCKS BLASPHEMY??! Badumtssh ~

Oh, and one thing. This cosplay already earned the following titles:
• Ultimate everything-falls-off-every-minute cosplay
• Ultimate I-look-like-a-walrus-in-this cosplay
• Ultimate it-feels-like-I-have-no-pants-when-I-actually-do cosplay

Uhum, I'm outta here!

June 3, 2012

Okita's yukata parts cut out + Ichito obi

 Hi everyone.

Mom helped me cut out the pieces for my Okita cosplay.. but... she made a measurement mistake and we ended up with a knee-length kimono instead of an ankle-length. OTL Mom told me she had earlier been thinking "I'm surprised we haven't done any cutting mistakes yet", you shouldn't have thought that. lol Oh well, I will have to add extra pieces to the front and back panels to get the full length and that means I'll have to make an extra seam where there should be none; I have no other choice because this particular fabric was a leftover piece from the store and only 2,8 meters long and yeah, no extra fabric available and no time either. If I had wanted the body of the yukata to be 'whole' after that error we would have had to put seams in the upper part of the sleeves instead. Eeew. I'd rather have those seams a bit under my butt on the yukata itself than on both sleeves...
Oh, and I have to line this thing too because the fabric is a bit thin and to help it fall better and well, to make it a bit warmer because Okita only has one layer..

Most of the parts cut out
I got lazy so I didn't start sewing it.. I'll do it tomorrow because I have no school...

Some time later I figured I could at least sew Ichito's obi so I'd be one step closer to goal. So first I cut out two long pieces (150 cm each) of that fabric I took inside earlier. I sewed them together at one end and zigzaged around and then I folded it in the middle and ironed to create a middle fold. Then I started folding in the sides all the way. Also folded in the ends.
It was very easy to do, didn't take much more than maybe 15 minutes ~

After I had ironed everything ready
Sewing it closed
Finished obi
That's all, see you!

Modifying Ichito's "jacket" + found last of the fabrics

 Hello!

A few days ago I tried on Ichito's "jacket"-whatever-it-is and noticed that it needs a slight make-over. I needed to cut those front panels into a more triangular shape because I noticed just hiking them up didn't do it. I also needed to take in the back of the garment because it was too big.

derp
Notice triangular pointy front panels
So what do I do? Cut it.

Before any modifications. Poor thing thought it was con-ready..
Marked cutting line
Test photo after cutting and hemming
Took in the back seam and ironed it..
Folded in front panel sides too and sewed around them
Testing after the operation with a substitute sash (blue kimono under)
Back side (näytän niin mursulta! :'D)
I think it'll have to do, I can't take in so much more from the back part closest to the collar.. so it's bigger up and narrows slowly the farther down it gets.

I also helped mom moving her former fabric store's leftover fabrics (those that had been stored in big black bags in the old storage house) to our attic and I found some fabrics I can use for Ichito's obi and shoe covers. Yay, free fabric once again. <3

That rib knit fabric just doesn't want to photograph its real color... it's closer to an army green...
When mom is done outside she'll help me cut out the fabric for Okita's yukata so I can start sewing it. There will very likely be another blog post about it later today.

Until then, see ya!