Kemi's manga day summary 2012 + photoshoot x2

So yesterday I attended Kemi's manga day.. or well, this time it was labeled as "Cosplay meet-up" but, honestly, it felt just like any other manga day before it. I don't think there was any more cosplayers than normally. lolololo Oh well~
Err, so my company to the event this time were Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli, as Chizuru Yukimura and Keisuke Sannan from Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan respectively. I cosplayed Toshizo Hijikata but I kept the wig untied because I didn't feel like having a melee with it and I know my face more often than not end up looking derp with tied hair.. so I let it be for now.. until I get a wig head.

On the morning me and Jäätynyt Enkeli woke up 08:00 Finnish time and started to put on our cosplays. I was so tireeeeeeeeeed. I thought I could be ready for 09:30 but, well, I gravely underestimated the time it takes to put on all make-up for Hijikata as well as put on hakama and everything else.. aka I was roaming the house in just the purple kimono, wig and make-up. No pants TROLOLOLOL. At this time I had been texting our Chizuru when she would be here because we had originally planned to gather 09:30 at our house and photoshoot outside before leaving for Kemi. Well, some errors happened and we all three were together first at 11:00 more or less. I didn't mind that much because Hijikata got more time to dress himself properly. LOL Of course having more time to photoshoot would have been nice butbutbut.

Now some few photos taken at our yard before going to Kemi. It did drizzle a bit outside but by no means much considering it's been raining all week more or less.

Cosplayers: Valkoinen Samurai & Sairu-chan
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

 And now some less representative photos... Derp storm!

Truth be told, almost all photos were incredibly derp, this is just a fraction of it. xD

Both failed to keep a serious face and cracked up. 

BITCH I'M FABULOUS

Örhörhörhör

After that it was time to leave.
We got to the place the event was being held in and yeah, it's a very chill hang-with-friends type of event. There's not much to do except watch the cosplay competition (which we did watch) and the cosplay date (which we didn't watch). I didn't really buy anything because nothing really caught my eye (and most merchandise seems to be bootlegs anyway..) but we three went to a food store nearby because Chizuru wanted to buy a coke and chocolate. Most of the time we three were hanging together, derping and whatnot but we did bump into a lot of familiar faces during the day. It was a pleasant experience even though it was pretty, well, let's just say not so much happened. People were there to hang around and relax with friends, not really to dress up in awesome cosplays and get their photos taken. It was nice nevertheless. But the best part was by far when I decided that we all go find some decent photoshoot location outside, close to Kulttuuritalo, and have a second Hakuouki photoshoot.We found a nice leafy bush place I don't know and it worked well for our purpose. Puskajussit pusikossa paskantaa~ eiku.

Cosplayers: Valkoinen Samurai & Sairu-chan
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

 

(I took this photo)

And of course photographer was our lovely troll!Sannan. <3

I must say... this second photoshoot... oh lord I can't remember when I've last had so much fun. So much ridiculous derps were shared, everyone was laughing until they cried.. and my stomach hurt. XD Hakuouki photoshoots are the best breeding grounds for hilarious moments.. <3

Oh, and lastly.

To sum up the amount of derp and the numerous amounts of brain cells we lost, well, let's just say that we all had our derpilicious codenames *BADUMTSSH* and those were as fabulous as:

HERPKATA

CHIZUHURR

OPPA SANNAN STYLE

 I'm outta here!

The start of Falkner

 Hallo!

Not so long time ago I went to the attic and picked up some suitable fabric for my Falkner cosplay. Also during the last weekend I cut out the two body parts for Falkner's blue sleeveless kimono-style top. This time I didn't strive for making it very accurate to a genuine kimono, because, while you can see his outfit is very much inspired from Japanese clothing there are some not-so-authentic qualities to it. So well, I came up with some kind of hybrid kimono pattern.

Looked like this after being cut out.

 There's a left and right body side.. I didn't want shoulder seams, not even for this. It would have bugged me. I did skip making an okumi panel (that overlap panel on kimono) though, I just widened the front parts for this. Falkner doesn't have a visible okumi seam what I've seen anyway... not like most fictional kimono-wearing characters have it either. *shrugs*

Today I decided to sew together what I had cut out. First I zigzaged around the part on both left and right pieces which was going to be the back seam. Then I sewed them together at the back.

Back seam sewed

After that I zigzaged the sides and sewed them together.
Then I just ironed the seams open and tried it on.

So far my weird pattern idea seems to work rather well.. except that I made one small mistake; I shouldn't have cut the neck part (where the back seam start) as deep. It falls kinda low if I align the shoulders right when I wear it but luckily I will add the collar and thus get some extra width for it, which should make it look alright. If it doesn't I can just wear the thing with the shoulders off-centered so that the collar sits right, no one's going to notice anyway because the shoulders of this thing won't be seen when the whole cosplay is on ~

Camera face censor ftw

That's it for now.. I can't progress further before I cut out the collar and I need mom's help for that; we need to make sure that when we cut out the collar there will be enough fabric left to make his mini hakama. Not sure how much of this fabric there is left on the bolt (doesn't look like much) and hakama eat a lot of fabric so we need to play it safe just to be sure. trololo

Bye byee ~~

Skecon 2012 cosplay plans!

I've been thinking about what to cosplay at Skecon the last weeks or so and I think I've finally decided. There's still a slight risk that I might change plans, but this is what it looks like currently:

Friday

Character: Falkner

Series: Pokémon (HeartGold/SoulSilver)

Ah, Falkner, the first Gym Leader in Johto who uses Flying-types.

Truth be told, this was a veeeeery spontaneous cosplay choice.. it came out of the blue. Falkner wasn't even on my cosplay list and that's saying a lot because I have craploads of characters in my cosplay list and I list pretty much all characters who I have even the slightest interest to cosplay. Somehow Falkner wasn't there, even though I remember having the thought that "if I ever wanted to do a Pokémon trainer cosplay it would likely be Falkner" but I shrugged it off because it was very low priority and Pokémon cosplays just wouldn't be as fun doing alone... until my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli really wanted to do something new for Skecon and that 'something new' turned out to be Silver (aka the rival) from HeartGold/SoulSilver. The "AMG I WANT TO DO A (JOHTO) POKERMANZ TRAINER TOO" reaction was triggered... and Falkner was the obvious choice. Ah, this will be a trip to nostalgic times ~

Lawdy lawd someone explain to me why I'm so hopelessly stupid? My cosplays get less and less clothing the further away from summer we get. :'D I sense perfect logic here.

Saturday

Character: Toshizo Hijikata

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

Toshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ~~ <3

What is there to say? It's Hakuouki, a con without a Hakuouki cosplay is not a con! >8D

Also I've managed to get a few friends to have a mini Hakuouki group on the Saturday; we'll have a  Chizuru, Sannan, Ibuki (if I've got it right) and me as Hijikata. Of course it will be my newer version of Hijikata as seen here, only with the wig in a ponytail.

Luckily I might not freeze to death in this cosplay at least...

Sunday

   

Because Sunday is the last day and the con ends 14:00 (at least according to their website..) I don't really feel like it's worth it to put on a full cosplay. Also if I did cosplay I would need to sit in that cosplay the 4 hour bus trip home, not sure if gusta because I would worry so much about getting the wig tangled etc. So I think I might just put on a kimono and possibly haori (no hakama because that means murder if I have to go to the toilet xD) from my vintage kimono collection or go in casual clothes with some traces of geekiness something different.. depends on the weather and how cold it is. We'll see.

Weekend BRS Saitou photoshoot

Hello!

Time for a Bakumatsu Renka: Shinsengumi Hajime Saitou photoshoot. Me and my twin decided to spend last weekend on cosplay photography, hueheuehe. It was fun although my feet got bit twice by some... insect... and it itched so much... me no gusta cosplaying characters without tabi socks in a forest-ish yard. ._. Oh, and my obi got loose during the shoot, lololo I'm happy it didn't fall off.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

BONUS PIC!

I HAZ A LIGHT SABER KATANA!!1

That's all for now, more photos will be uploaded to cosplay.com over time ~

Ciao!

Toshi makeup test (aka photo spam!)

 Hi all.

I got home early today so I had several hours of being home alone to derp around in cosplays and what-have-you. I've been having an urge to try on my upgraded Hijikata cosplay for quite some time now so yeah, I did it. At first I was feeling very lazy to do any makeup but after thinking about it I decided to go all out; I needed to come up with some fitting makeup for Toshi anyway. Toshi sounds cute.
I didn't even try to tie the wig into a ponytail because 1) I can't style it alone 2) even if I somehow magically managed to do a nice ponytail it wouldn't hold the shape until Kemi's manga day. Why bother? Besides, Hijikata does have his hair untied at least at the beginning of Sekkaroku's opening and in one of the game CG's so it's not terribly inaccurate either ~

OH GOD WHY is his hakama so SHORT here??? It bugs the living crap out of me... rofl

 

*nods* *nods*

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now it's time for photo spam.

Here's the results of my derping ~ 

Again most photos are mirror photos, sorry 'bout that. I dislike mirror photos because it makes kimonos go corpse mode. Eew. Also most photos are a bit blurry and my hakama knot is lolrepsderp on some photos. *facedesk*

Like a walrus :'DDD boss

I think that's my usual camera grump face. lol

I'm fabulous

Angst? I dunno..

Dirty mirror, Toshi does not approve...

I don't even

Adjusting kimono...

Onks se jotenki väärin että saan kicksit keksit tuosta ilmeestä? X'DD

Me gusta ~

 I think this is my favorite face shot:

Pfsfhgdshgf <3

 And when I thought everything was all rainbows and awesomeness...

Something's not right here...
...
.........
............
...............

"FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUCK!!1" roid rage LOL
(aka I noticed I had the swords on the wrong side.. cosplaying Saitou too much.. Orz)

I think I wanted to kick myself in the face. OTL 

Oh well, switched the swords over to the other side. and then, for some reason, I didn't get any good photos anymore – except maybe this one, lol. So typical or what?

trolololo

I also noticed later that I had completely forgot his white sword-holder-obi-whatever-thing too. Oh god, why do I fuck up with all those smaller details? Urgh. Oh well, luckily this was just a kind of 'test', as long as I don't screw up when it's the real deal (cons, events) then it's alright I guess. Still bugs me though. *shrugs* Well well, now I at least know how to do the make-up for Toshi.

And now I guess everyone wants to vomit on me if I post any more photos for now so...

Awaiting Kemi's manga day ~

My final con for this year is set: Skecon

For some time I've been thinking about going to Skecon, a small anime convention held for the first time at Skellefteå in Sweden 2-4 November this year. Seeing how Skellefteå is in the northern part of Sweden and thus not far away from me (read: cheap train/bus tickets!) I decided some minutes ago that "HELL I AM GOING THERE". Gonna support those smaller cons in the north too. <3 They are selling 200 tickets and I think Skecon will be a nice last mini convention to wrap up my con-adventures for this year! Ooh I can't wait! I don't think I can go to ConFusion in Gothenburg this December. :'( But I'll try to go to winter!Närcon 2013.

I have some ideas on what characters I could cosplay there but there's still some slight I'm-not-sure-yet so I'm not gonna announce my cosplay plans quite yet. Stay tuned though, there will be Hakuouki! >8D

Tracon 7 - Chicken nuggets, bunk beds and train fails

Sorry for this slightly late Tracon summary post - let's get on with it!

My journey to Tampere actually started already on Thursday 6th September because I and Jäätynyt Enkeli had decided to carpool with some other congoers from Oulu. It was soooooo much cheaper than going by train.
The driver picked us two up from Kemi 12:00 and then we drove to Oulu where we picked up two other con people. I soon opened up to these new people and the car trip was rather enjoyable.
At night we arrived to Tampere city, got lost but then found our way to the right sleeping place. It was some kind of campground with some small cottages one could hire. When we got to the campground I got the impression that only 4 people were allowed to be in each cottage, so at first there was some talk that me and Jäätynyt Enkeli might have had to use some mad ninja skills to get a bed to sleep on.. but luckily there was no one checking the amount of people passing to the campground at least not that late so it was safe, ahaha.
I must say it was COLD inside those cottages... but maybe that's because I picked the bunk bed right in front of the door. Not the smartest choice. *shrugs* Oh well, I solved that problem by sleeping with my clothes on... and a scarf. It was extra cold too because I didn't have any duvet covers.. no one told me I needed those...

Friday morning finally came after a rather cold night (but it was cheap so I can't really complain) and I woke up and decided to eat my breads I had made yesterday for the carpool. I was worried they might have gotten moldy already but they were still fresh.
After breakfast I played some on my Nintendo DS and then everyone wanted to go to a foodstore to buy coffee and whatnot. After the foodstore trip me and Jäätynyt Enkeli got a ride to Tampere's train station where we awaited Ri-kun's arrival. Ri-kun soon came and we then started our trip to the Omenahotel. This time we had the one Omenahotel farther away because we were pretty late on booking. (last year me, Ri-kun and LittleOcean had the closer Omenahotel with the emocorner. <3)
We got to the hotel and later Mira-kun finally showed up, yay everyone is here! 
The rest of Friday evening was random hotel derping.. until it was time to go to bed. We didn't find the duvet covers for the two extra beds so we decided that everyone sleeps in the double bed! :'DD Well, it was an experience in itself, ahahah. Buuutttt. Being that close to 4 people soon turned on the sauna effect, not to mention it felt pretty crammed and whenever I managed to find a comfortable sleeping position a certain someone was moving away my legs so I always woke up.

At one point I decided I needed more room to sleep so I migrated over to one of the pillow-less and blanket-less extra beds. Again, it was cold. But I slept anyway.

Saturday morning came and when I woke up I noticed Mira-kun sitting at the table while everyone else was still in their beds. Oh well, we had our breakfast and then it was time to put on Saturday cosplays, Tracon's first day! 8D

I cosplayed Hajime Saitou from Bakumatsu Renka: Shinsengumi.

Tracon studio photo by Emilia Lahtinen.

Saturday was a rather rainy day... con weather brought to you by Desucon. lol
Most of the day our hotel group hung together and derped but we bumped into familiar faces too!
Around lunch time something we decided to go search for the ramen restaurant Hanabi. After a lot of searching we found out that it didn't exist anymore.. and I think a part of me died. No more Shingen Takeda ramen or Oda Nobunaga ramen. (yes, ramen dishes were named after famous historical persons, it was fucking epic)

I HAD BEEN LONGING TO EAT AT HANABI SINCE LAST YEAR

Oh well, we went to a Chinese restaurant instead and then we went back to Tracon. Back at Tracon, the usual wandering alone and looking at everything continued. My usual con routine because I'm too lazy to attend panels (not interesting enough and if it's something that would interest me there's one hell of a queue...) and I mostly go to cons to spend time with my friends.. even though I end up only walking around until either my feet dies or my back breaks. lol
Our hotel group decided to leave Tracon a bit earlier than usual because everyone more or less was in some kind of pain and we decided that we had already seen what there was to be seen today.. and we wanted to spend time hotel derping again. XD Although this night everyone slept in their own beds.

Sunday arrived and it was time to put on the Hakuouki cosplays! For some reason our Hakuouki group always decided on Sunday being the Hakuouki day and that also makes Sunday the main day for us. The day you look forward to the most. So yeah, on with the cosplays and it was time to dress up as Isami Kondou!

Tracon studio photo by Emilia Lahtinen.
Me as Kondou, Mira-kun as Okita.

 We had to take all our luggage with us to Tracon and check out. It wasn't so cool because my body decided to be weak as fuck already on the morning, before I had done anything WHAT_THE_FUCK again and trigger a lung derp. Wonderful. OTL Big thanks to Mira-kun for the help dragging my and Jäätynyt Enkeli's shit (aka luggage) to the con. ;A; <3
Oh well, we got to the con and soon we were trying to gather all our Hakuouki cosplay group members so that we could enter in the Välähdys cosplay photo competition. After that our group split into smaller groups again and I was hanging with Mira-kun, Ri-kun and Jäätynyt Enkeli, just like yesterday.
At one point I heard my phone ringing, it was one of those carpool congoers I had traveled with. She said they will leave 15:00. Earlier there had been some talk whether or not one of the two cars (aka the one me and my twin would take) would leave the con 17:00-18:00 but it seemed it got changed to 15:00 in the end. I think I died a bit again. Especially because this meant that I would miss the planned Hakuouki cosplay shooting and I would miss precious time to hang around with my friends whom I likely would not see again for the rest of this year...

Oh well, nothing to be done about it. I couldn't just go and take the train because it would have cost me an arm and a leg. 3 hours of extra con time is maybe not exactly worth 80 € after all. *sighs*
So the last minutes our hotel trio walked around Sorsalampi and we just had to stop to take a few quick shots like this one before we continued over to the other side to say goodbye to Jäärä, Zkitsune, Yamachu, Ellu and the rest. But. When we got there they decided to do a mega quick ALL TOGETHER NOW Hakuouki shoot. I'm so happy. <3 But I was stressed out because I knew those people were waiting for me and my twin and when we "finished" I ran like a mofo back inside. Lungs didn't like it, ahaha... It felt awesome when I noticed an Okita and a Saitou following. Totally warmed my heart. <3 We met up with the carpool people and I went and changed my Kondou wig into my Saitou wig because it was easier for travel and then I decided to take off my hakama too for the same reason. After that we left the con area, walked a bit to the cars close to the graveyard with Mira-kun and Ri-kun following even the last bit. Awwww. ;A; Some sad goodbye hugs ensued and the car was rolling........... to McDonalds. CHICKEN NUGGETS. IN THE CAR.
And then the journey up to Oulu started for real.
   On Sunday night we were at Oulu and me and my twin slept at one of our maternal aunt's place again because any trains to Kemi didn't go that late.

Monday morning came, we packed our stuff and Jäätynyt Enkeli went outside to meet up with one of the carpoolers because he had forgotten our train tickets in the car yesterday.
We got the tickets and headed straight for the train station, thinking we would be there just in time. When we got there and I looked at the train departure list something felt a bit off. I couldn't see our train's number anywhere... AND THEN I NOTICED THAT IT HAD DEPARTED ALMOST A FUCKING HOUR AGO. I HAD REMEMBERED THE TIME WRONG AND WE COULDN'T HAVE CHECKED IT EARLIER BECAUSE WE GOT THE TICKETS ALREADY TOO LATE.

I felt like I wanted to kill anything that moved when we stood there at rail 3 and waited for the next-to-depart Rovaniemi train's conductor to appear so that we could ask what the fuck to do now. The conductor came and we explained the situation without going into details and he was all "lol you can change the train tickets to this train."

BEST DAY EVAR

So yeah, we went inside the train, the conductor came and changed our tickets like nothing had happened and we went on our way to Kemi. It is during times like this when you are so fucking happy you bought the (more expensive) standard train ticket instead of the (cheaper) advance ticket because seemingly the standard ticket allowed for changes... just in case you miss a train like we now did. It saved us money in the end. <3

All's Well That Ends Well ~