Lightning bolt belt

 Whazzup? ;)

Earlier today I thought about starting to make Masamune's pants but then I decided against it; I didn't feel like working with patterns. Instead I did the belt, figured it would be more fun.

Reference picture

I went to the attic to check for any elastic black fabrics.. found none so I went back inside and decided to use the pvc fabric because at least it's elastic.. but I wasn't so keen on having to use it because it was a bitch the last time I worked with it. Oh well, free fabric is better than having to go buy fabric so I decided to give it a try... and here's the rundown!

First I took a measurement tape and measured about how long and how wide I wanted the belt to be. I made it double the width because I would be folding it in half later.

I marked cutting lines on the wrong side of the fabric with a white pencil...

... and cut it out.

I cut off that non-pvc part at one of the egdes and put right sides together and sewed the ends together, with a simple straight stitch. This fabric doesn't fray so no need to zigzag it.

The ends are sewed together here..

Folding the belt in half I started sewing it closed, starting from the seam I folded in the sides of the fabric a bit while I sewed it closed.

While sewing it closed

After I had sewed over half of the belt closed with no problems it suddenly started to pull diagonally every time the needle/presser moved forward. It was like the fabric was being bunched up or something, something was pulling it the wrong way. I was worried if I kept sewing the fabric would wrinkle itself while under the presser so I took it off and looked at it. It was hard to get the error to show clearly on photos but I marked the problem area with a red circle:

To the left I'm holding the sides of the fabric folded in. (the remainind part which has not been sewn closed yet)
To the right the fabric is lying down naturally/relaxed.. the pulling is still there.

I decided to undo a few centimeters to check if the problem would go away.. after all it appeared pretty suddenly; everything had been working like a charm before. Because the seam ripper has disappeared I took a mini scissor to undo the stitching. After I had undone the part where it started the whole pulling problem I carefully continued to sew.. I passed the problem area and luckily nothing happened this time and I managed to sew the whole belt closed.

The belt closed

Now I just had to add that little lightning bolt decoration to the front! I stared at different references of Masamune and on some pictures it seemed silver but on most of the time it was gold.. so I went with gold. Up again into the attic I went with scissors and a measurement tape. I found a small roll of golden fabric and decided to use it so I cut out a small square at one of the corners. While cutting it I noticed the fabric didn't fray, awesome! I took the square with me and went back inside.

The fabric (it had that white part all along the top and bottom edges)

I went to get a pencil and started to draw a lightning bolt on the backside of the fabric. The backside was shiny and had an almost plastic-y touch to it.

The backside of the golden fabric..

After I had drawn the lightning bolt I noticed it would of course be mirrored because I drew it on the wrong side! So I drew it again, but this time reversed to how I wanted it and when I cut it out it was the right way.

Lightning bolt decoration cut out

The fabric was pretty floppy by itself so I decided to use some interfacing fabric to make it a bit sturdier. I cut out a small bit of interfacing fabric and ironed it on, obviously the sticky/glue side against the lightning bolt's wrong side.

Prior to ironing..

After ironing and after i had cut off the excess.

Now I just had to attach it to the belt itself. My first thought was to try using the newly bought fabric glue:

Fabric glue...

I tried gluing it on and noticed pretty fast that it didn't stick to the pvc fabric at all. The bolt decoration just slid around. I was back to square one... with sticky glue everywhere. The glue stuck especially to the interfacing fabric and it was just eww. I tried to get it off with a moist paper tissue but nope, the only thing that happened was that the lightning bolt lost some of the support the interfacing fabric gave... so needless to say it turned floppy again. Argh.

Interfacing fabric side feat. sticky glue remains...

After some thinking I figured that adding another layer of interfacing fabric on top of the old one wouldn't hurt and probably could restore it. Said and done!

A new layer of interfacing fabric ironed on. (before cutting off excess)

With that the lightning bolt decoration looked as if new.. and even slightly sturdier than it was at first. I decided no more gluing and went to get some golden sewing thread.. I found some embroidery thread but hey, it's thread too so why not? I did some test stitching on a scrap piece of the golden fabric (aka what was left of the square) and every time the needle went down the fabric gave a slight "crispy plastic" sound and I was like:

But I decided to try sewing the lightning bolt on anyway. Even if it would end up looking ugly at least sewn in place it would hold better than with glue...

Sewing it on.. I sewed in slow-motion and veeeery close to the edges...

To my surprise it ended up looking pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself!

Here's two photos of the finished super hero belt:

That's it for today, see ya!

A whole new experience – cosplay contact lenses! (Super Pinky Violet review)

 Hi hi!

// EDIT: This post is a review for the Super Pinky Violet circle lenses, as well as me talking about my very first experience with contact lenses //

For quite some time now I've been thinking about starting to use colored contact lenses for my cosplays.. or well, at least for those characters with unreal eye colors (red, golden, violet etc) or otherwise very vibrant eyes or just, whenever the hell I feel like I want to use contacts. xD Yeah, seemingly my brother Jäätynyt Enkeli had thought about doing the same thing, so we decided that for our Närcon Vinter Hakuouki cosplays we'd take our cosplaying to the next level!
I had done a lot of research prior to buying my first lenses so I knew what online stores were safe to order from and had a pretty good general idea about lens care, how to put them in and take them out, what brands were recommended for light eyed people etc. I knew what I was getting myself into... and I was excited.

A few weeks ago me and Jäätynyt Enkeli placed an order together at HoneyColor. I purchased a pair of violet contacts, namely the Super Pinky Violet, for Toshizo Hijikata because –let's face it– violet is not even an eye color that's possible to have naturally. And for some reason it bugs me more personally when I cosplay someone with unnatural eye color if I don't have said color; it's more noticeable or something just because it's, well, not normal. OTL

Toshizo Hijikata as seen in Hakuouki anime

I decided to go with the Super Pinky line because I had read that those had a smaller pupil hole than your usual circle lenses and one of my main concerns with getting contacts –as a light eyed person– was that because of a bigger pupil hole my real eye color would show like a ring around the pupil and clash with the contact's color and look off. ._. Circle lenses are mostly made with Asian people in mind and with dark eyes I can't imagine this pupil hole problem being hardly a problem at all, because brown is much closer to black (aka the pupil) than say gray or blue is, so brown "blends in" much better.
Oh well, back to the contacts. Except the contacts lenses I also got a random free cute animal lens case – in my case a blue elephant one.

I must admit they are quite adorable...

Enough rambling. Okay, so I had already taken the lenses out of their original vial bottles and done the preparations earlier so I won't go through those. I mostly followed PinkyParadise's Wear and Care Guide and had no issues. Before starting I washed my hands thoroughly with some mild liquid soap and I just followed the guidelines. Oh, I had also marked the bottom of my lens case earlier to be able to know which container was for the right and left lens. It's seemingly not recommended to mix the contacts up, like if you once use a lens on the left eye you should always use it on the left eye... or so I read.

This is what the lenses looked like in the lens case.. (bathroom light)
Sorry about bad quality photo.

 

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.8 mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

I know new contact lens users often have problems getting the damn things in but it didn't take so long for me, maybe 5-10 minutes in total for both eyes. I did have that "the contact won't stick to my eye" problem but after a few tries I got them in. But the most bothersome thing was trying to keep my goddamn eyelids from not blinking out of pure "ohmaigerd-something-weird-is-touching-the-eye!" syndrome. It wasn't the most pleasing feel having a new object touching your eyes; sure I had expected it would feel really weird at first but I didn't think it would be so hard to keep my eyelids open because normally I have no problems touching my eyes. Oh well, after some iron determination and mentally yelling "GODDAMMIT EYELID CALM THE FUCK DOWN. IT'S JUST A CONTACT, OKAY?" ... yeah. I'm weird.
When I got the contacts in I just blinked a few times to have them adjust themselves to the right place. For a few seconds my eyes got really moistened and it just felt really weird and a bit uncomfortable (no scratching, "dirt in my eye" or burning feelings though, so nothing bad) but that makes sense because this was my first time ever. After a few minutes it didn't feel all that weird anymore – got slightly used to it I guess. I noticed it felt the most weird if I moved my eyes hastily. Oh well, nothing impossible to overcome, it's just a question of getting used to it.
By the way I had no problems removing the lenses, I just slid it down to the whites of the eye and pinched the contact very carefully with my thumb and index finger and took it out.

And now for some pictures taken in your usual yellow-ish bathroom lighting.
EDIT: Sorry for the absolutely horrendous photo quality. OTL These first photos were taken with my old shitty digital camera.

Different-pair-eyes. o_o It's a flash photo, by the way.
Uploaded this just for comparison.

Bathroom light, both lenses in.

Flash photo indoors.

 

The color is pretty noticeable, not all over your face but violet for sure. The diameter is 14.8 mm, which is on the average bigger side, as far as circle lenses go.

My eyes do look a lot more anime-ish with contacts – me gusta! I'm really happy with these contacts actually, I just need to try them some more times to get used to them. Oh, and my real eye color is a blue-gray with hints of green, for those who wonder.

Here's two more photos of the lenses.
Both taken outdoors by me during summer, with a notably better camera. 

I also have a bonus close-up cosplay photo!

Hijikata cosplay photo. It shows quite well how
the lenses look from a distance.

 

Check out some other colors of the Super Pinky line and how they look on light eyes!

Reviews made by me here: Red, Green, Wine Red, Black

Short summary:

Color: 7/10 
Noticeably violet, even from a distance. The shade is quite cool.
Design: 5/10 
Kinda generic design but it's not bad.
Opacity: 7/10
The violet is pretty opaque, hides my real eye color nicely.
Enlargement: 8/10 
These are enlarging. It's between a natural and unnatural look and yeah, they occasionally look creepy on me.
Comfort: 6/10 
Okay. Sometimes feels uncomfortable for a while when I put them on.
Naturalness: 2/10 
Doesn't look very natural because of enlargement and color but still not super freaky either.

Bye bye and thanks for viewing ~~

Zigzagin' all around

Hi hi!

Today I should have printed the back symbol on Date's coat but.. I wasn't in school. I will do that next time instead.. I figured today I could at least zigzag all around every part.. not like it's really needed because the fabric hardly frays at all but yeah, I just do it as an extra precaution and because I want to be able to press the seams open later.

Zigzaging is such a basic thing to do so I don't feel there's any need to explain the process or take many photos. The only thing I can mention is that because the fabric I'm working with is a bit elastic I decided to use the "stretch zigzag" stitch instead of the usual one.

Zigzaging ~

I saved the spiky lower part of the coat for last.. I figured it would be the hardest one to zigzag because of the spikes that have pretty sharp angles. I also had to watch that the very tips of the spikes didn't fold themselves under the presser or anything else unwanted.

While zigzaging the spiky part..

I found myself turning this piece around a lot when zigzaging it.. it was a bit annoying but it all went well in the end.. and what's surprising is that I managed zigzaging all the pieces without even once running out of bobbin thread! *winner feeling*

It was full when I started and this much left when done :'D

Next time I have art class I'm going to print the symbol on the back I can't start sewing the coat pieces together before that.. or adding the trims either.

See ya!

Start of Masamune's coat!

 How's it going? :D

Decided to cut out out the parts for Masamune Date's (battle) coat/vest thingy or whatever it's supposed to be. I did a prototype version earlier of the coat's upper part so I feel confident enough to cut the real fabric now.. or do I? -_- Oh well, here goes!

Preparations.. all patterns are in a pile

Patterns pinned in place, ready to cut.. (back and spiky piece will be cut at the fold)

I cut everything out after that. I did do a small modification before cutting out the front pieces though, I added some extra length to the bottom center because now when I think about it I thought the prototype version looked a tad too short there.. like the tips wouldn't touch just enough above where the belt will be.

Front pieces cut out with the small tweak

I'm not sure if it will work together with the rest of the pieces but I decided to add the extra width just in case. I can always cut it out later if it doesn't fit together with the spiky "butt cape" and the back piece attached.

Oh, I only left seam allowances on the parts that will be.. well, sewed together somehow. I skipped them on most parts that will have the white trim running along the edges.

Reference image

Here's an example:

As you can see no seam allowances on the collar's upper half
and the front part because there will be white trim..

Ah, and speaking of the collar.. I will do it double for extra strength (and probably put interfacing between) so I cut out two pieces more.

Pinning done collar pieces on fabric..

.. and after cutting the (second dose of) collar out I now had all pieces ready. YAY!

I then took the back piece and goofed around with it in front of a mirror and noticed I might want to trim the shoulder points a little because they looked.. well.. kinda exaggerated and I'm not sure if I like them that way. So what to do? I matched up the front pieces with the back piece at the shoulders, pinned them so that they wouldn't move aaaaaand..

Pinned and ready for modifications...

.. cut!

And that's about it. I then just took off the patterns from all the fabric pieces, folded them and put them away. I also noticed that the fabric hardly frays at all, cool. Then again it's some weird denim fabric with a plastic-y touch to the fabric's "right side". Oh, and speaking of this fabric's weirdness.. I wasn't sure how well it would take ironing so I took one of the scrap pieces and put the iron between 1 and 2 dots and tried first to iron at the "wrong side", aka the side that feels like denim, and well... the fabric's reaction was:

Except that the fabric rolled itself like hell I could see no damage done by the ironing. I could iron on top of the "right side" too. But I don't think I want to risk using the iron on any higher heat because this fabric sure isn't your usual denim.

That's it for today and tomorrow I will take the back piece with me to art class so that I can screen print the symbol on it!

Screen printing for Date's coat symbol pt.4

I should have written this already yesterday but I got home late and was tired as crap all day so.. lolnope. I will write it now instead but the actual process was done yesterday in school's art class. Oh, and excuse me most photos are a bit blurry...

Okay, so last time I said it's ready for test printing and this is what I did!
First up I cut out a fitting piece of black cotton fabric (from school) and then taped a piece of paper on the table where I would be printing to guard the table from.. well, getting paint on it. I used black fabric because then I could print with white fabric paint and that's better because Masamune's symbol is white.

cotton fabric and taped paper underneath

After that I put the fabric on top of the paper, stretched and taped it tightly along all corners. There was no iron in school so that was the only way to get the wrinkled fabric a bit less wrinkly lol. Oh, and obviously to hold it in place while printing.

Fabric taped in place

Okay, now ready for test printing! Here's the preparation and all items I would need. The white can is obviously fabric paint and those wooden things.. *googles* .. they seem to be called 'squeegee' in English. Sounds funny to me.. xD And then of course I'd need my printing frame.

Preparations complete

I took a spoon and put a row of paint at one of the edges of the frame...

The paint placed out (I used some extra.. you don't need that much)

And then took the squeegee and spread the paint so it fully covered the symbol.. wiped off the excess that was on top of the symbol and made sure there were no "paint lines". I left the remaining excess paint at the edge because I would be printing more than one.

It should look something like this..

When you lift the frame carefully the frame will look like this:

The symbol is almost transparent

I printed another symbol directly after the first. Can't wait too long between the prints or the fabric paint, especially the white for some reason, could clog up or something.. I'm not 100% sure of that but whatever. After the second test print my creations looked like this:

MAH BABIES 8DDDD

I had room to print a third one in the bottom center. Oh, and when test printing I put a paper on top of the already printed symbols so that the frame, complete with paint on it, wouldn't get on the already printed symbols. Then again if I were printing seriously (aka non-test) I would not do this because the paper catches up some of the paint of the already printed ones.. they don't dry in a second lol. If I wanted to print several ones close to one another I'd have to wait between each one so that the previous one would be dry. But yeah, because this was just a test to see that everything works as it should I did not care about slightly ruining my prints.

After printing the third symbol. Two previous ones still covered..

As you can see the printing is very exact and doesn't bleed or anything. Totally worth the extra effort at the start because after the printing frame is ready it's super chill; you could pretty much mass-produce almost perfect prints with little effort! Imagine how tedious it would be to handpaint each of these every time...

Oh, and after I had test printed enough I had to wash the frame. I used a sponge and just carefully rubbed the frame free of the paint under tap water. For some reason my tapes (which I put on earlier to conceal the holes) didn't peel off lol. I put it to dry in that same box I used earlier when developing the symbol with the water jet.

Drying drying.. (if you look close you can see the tapes on the other side)

And that's it. Next time I can print on the real thing!

Battousai wig styling + preview!

I got my wig for Battousai yesterday and today I decided cut it. It was originally sold for another character but the color was perfect for Battousai in my eyes and it also had a short clip-on ponytail, double yay!

The wig looked like this before my scissors attacked it:

le wig in its original glory

I cut off this much hohoh

I can't say I'm all that pleased with the wig, it's decent but could have been better.. I'm still really new to wig cutting and I hesitate a lot and doubt myself, hah. Oh well, maybe I can fix it a bit better when I have more proper hair/wig cutting equipment. Oh well. With the wig cut I decided to do a cosplay preview. The sun was about to set, but it wasn't dark yet outside, so I put everything on as quick as I could manage (while still looking decent) and went out in the snow. I must say.. wearing geta in snow was... interesting...

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli 

And those were pretty much the only decent ones.. OTL I will try to get better pictures after/during Närcon Vinter.

I find it a bit funny how when I earlier tried to be does-not-kill Kenshin I ended up looked super serious on photos and when I now cosplay Battousai I looked like I'd hug a squirrel before killing anything on most photos. Not sure if going the right way... x'D