Skecon 2013 - Awesome little con & photoshoots galore!

I have returned home safely from Skecon and I've barely had time to recover from the after-con lag but I must get this con summary over with soon because Animecon is already knocking at the door - next weekend it's here!

I will try not to write a textwall about Skecon but it will turn into one anyway, promise but there will be lots of photos, seriously. Fasten your seatbelts now because here we go!

Friday

My Skecon journey started on Friday when I, Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli headed for Haparanda bus station on the morning. The bus trip took around 4 hours and we were in Skellefteå around 13:00, aka the same time Skecon would open its doors. We weren't in a hurry so instead of walking directly to the con we went and ate lunch in a nice Chinese restaurant close to the bus station. We actually didn't eat Chinese food there but their daily lunch offer.. which was minute steak with pommes frites and parsley butter. It was cheap and surprisingly good, like, really.
We took our time at the restaurant and then we decided to go search for Folkparken, the building Skecon was held in. But.. seeing how none of us had been there before and shit we had to ask over ninethousand persons well, not really along the way about directions. After some confusion and derps in the form of escaping sleeping bags along the road we found our way to the con.

Skecon sign next to Folkparken's entrance

Our trio headed in and we got our con ticket arm bands and then we split up to change into our cosplays in the bathrooms.
I had planned to originally cosplay Hijikata on Friday but the weather forecast had promised rain and shit so I decided to wear Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi's Okita and switch Hijikata to Saturday instead because, well, silk kimono and rain is not a nice combination and also I was so out of energy that I couldn't be bothered to put on contacts and whatnot so yeah.. Okita ftw.
When we all had our cosplays on we walked around the building and checked the dealers and activity rooms and stuff. Soon enough we decided to go outside and let my new camera shine - photoshoots!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita) & Sairu-chan (Suzuka Sakuraba)
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

Of course I got a solo photoshoot too!
Again photographer is Jäätynyt Enkeli.

Folkparken had some really nice outdoor locations for photoshoots; small flower park areas and that fountain thingy. My camera was singing hallelujah!

After the photoshoots we headed back inside because the sky had turned gray and soon-to-be-rainish so yeah. We found our way to the video game room and every cell in me screamed "NOSTALGY!!" when I saw the Super Nintendo there with some of the games I grew up with! I just had to play some Super Mario Bros. 3 with my twin because the Super Nintendo was free at that moment; most other game consoles people were playing on. Oh my god my childhood all came back for a moment when we played through the first two worlds, ah. <3

I approve!!! <3

At some point we also went to watch those convention record competitions. The first one we saw was the "put as many marshmallows as possible in your mouth" competition and god was it entertaining to watch. xD

Dan (the standing guy) took the record, I think it was 34 marshmallows, holy crud!

We also watched the next record competition, the "fold a paper air plane - but you are only allowed to use your head" competition. It looked pretty hard.. and you had to toss your loltacular airplane over 7 meters to get a record.

Paper airplane folding going on

There was some few other incredibly hilarious convention record competitions too, like the "eat 5 marshmallows as quickly as possible - with a dish brush" one which I do not have any pictures of. It was really entertaining to watch these though and I hope Skecon will hold something like this next year too.. and why not other conventions too? :'DD

Oh well, we later on went outside again to check if the rain had stopped -which it had- so we headed out again quickly to take some photos. Didn't really have a proper photoshoot but I snapped some obligatory ego photos. xD

When it started to get late we thought about going out to buy some food from the nearest food store.. which turned out to be a 15 min walk or such from the convention. We did get some people to draw us an awesome map but we didn't end up going because 1) it could have started raining again 2) we were tired and feet hurt 3) food store wouldn't be open for long 4) we still weren't 100% sure where to go. :DD

The awesome map <3 xD

Because we stayed we didn't miss Shimbukan's budo performance. *happy dance*

Demonstration of kendo tsuki against guy with samurai armor

Kendo match

They showed some iaido kata and a kendo match and then everyone who wanted got to try out kendo.. or well, more like picking up a shinai and taking turns hitting a kendoka with bogu (read: armor) on with either men or do strikes. Of course seeing how I used to practice kendo years ago I just had to take the chance to freshen up my rusty skills a little -even if just for fun- and pick up a shinai. After the try-out was over one of the Shimbukan members (can't remember who) came up to me and asked if I had practiced kendo earlier, I replied "yes" and his comment was "it showed". Felt pretty good to hear that after all these years I haven't practiced. ;A;

When it got late we all were hungry so we bought some toast and went to sit down and eat. You know, when you are really hungry even a toast with just cheese and ketchup tastes awesome!
The only bad thing was that the toast guys forgot or something so it took like forever until we got our toasts but yeah, it didn't bother me all that much.

Toast is toast

A cool self-photo I took during the toast waiting..
I really like the "half shadow" thing going on! 8D

You maybe noticed or maybe not that on the toast pics I don't have the armor on. I took it off after the budo performance because I got all warm and stuff. So much more breezier with just the white kimono and hakama and more comfortable too! I'm not saying that the armor was uncomfortable because actually it wasn't really bad, only slightly annoying if I wanted to sit down.

Just a random non-armor photo I took just before I changed out of cosplay

Oh well, when it got damn-we-are-tired late we decided to go to sleep. Luckily one of the Skecon workers asked if we were heading for the con sleeping accomodation place (aka a school's gymnastic hall) and if we wanted a guide.. hell yes! He showed us the way and thank heavens for that.. we would have gotten lost had we tried navigating our way there by ourselves all tired and stuff.
At the sleeping place we pulled out Metapod, Pinkpod and Emo Kakuna (read: our sleeping bags) and I fought with the new purple air matress.. I didn't get how the foot pump worked tired brain is tired so I resorted to blow it by mouth; it took forever and my respiratory tracts and shit hurt but I got it done. No way in hell would I sleep directly on the floor... I crawled into my sleeping bag like a worm -because the zipper had gotten stuck- fell asleep after an hour or two and then came Saturday.

Saturday

"Hey, wake up, the clock is 09:00"
In the darkness I probably thought "fuck that, I'll sleep some more" and crawled deeper into my Metapod's comfy inside. I woke up 3 hours later or such and noticed Sairu-chan hadn't got up either but le twin had left... without cosplay. I sat up, super laggy, and zombie'd over to the bathroom in my silk bathrobe. I'm pretty sure I heard someone say "it's so fun to see how people look when they've just woken up" when I opened the door that separated the gymnastic hall from the changing room.. aka where the bathroom was. I dressed soon after that, took my blue suitcase and sword bag and headed towards Skecon with Sairu-chan. At the con we directly went to change into cosplays again and I warned my friend that I would take forever to get done with transforming myself into Hijikata. Fair warning.. and true.
After forever and a bit more I was done and I was pretty pissed too.. mostly because while I did get my contacts in easily this time one of them decided to be an ass and fall out more than once afterwards when I was applying the make-up. I sure wasn't smiling when it flew right into my face powder thingy aghjdshj, fuck!
Well well, when I was finally done I found Sairu-chan and we went to buy some breakfast at the con - a banana for me and an orange for her. We soon enough found Jäätynyt Enkeli, who had picked up his cosplay stuff for Sannan, and so we had to wait for another forever to pass before he was in full cosplay too.
When we all were done we headed out to photoshoot our Hakuouki cosplays. Of course the first thing I do is take some ego photos again.. because I can! xD

Cosplayers: Valkoinen Samurai (Toshizo Hijikata) & Sairu-chan (Chizuru Yukimura)
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

And because Sannan-san (photographer) was getting too close and doing questionable poses.. xD

"Eff off Sannan-san, it's my private time with Chizuru" :'DDDDDD

We took turns photographing each other so if you want to see more of the photos please check out Sairu-chan's and Jäätynyt Enkeli's Skecon con summary posts too! I will only post photos I am in on my blog post. :) And with that said we continue the photo storm..

ahjkdsahjkfd ;A; <3

Look at dem expressions oh mai

Random fixing hair photo..

We took a lunch break between the photoshooting and headed for Korvgubben to have some.. hamburgers. Korvgubben translates to "sausage man" but they had mostly burgers, how misleading. xD I ordered some hot cheese burger I dunno, never had one before but it was pretty cool with green jalapeno in.

Hamburger time

When we were eating at one point a lot of seagulls gathered next to the table and I was sure they'd come take our food or something but they flew away luckily... good for them because I would have turned rasetsu on them if they stole my burgerrrrrrrr.

Oh well, guess what we did after we got our stomachs filled? More photoshooting of course. This time with Sairu-chan behind the camera! Because Sannan-san got fed up with photographing. :DD

Photographer: Sairu-chan

Demon Vice-Commander ~

We then moved over to the fountain thingy and ahjfdskjh I'll just let the photos speak for me instead because I'm so in love with these!

Photographer: Sairu-chan

I photoshooted Sairu-chan's Chizuru cosplay too and before we headed back inside I just had to try take a few photos myself with both of us. It was some trial and error but after I found out how to get the camera's screen to show what the camera is seeing it all got so much easier!

Inside we lagged around until it was time for Tezya, one of the two invited (guest of honor?) Japanese artists to sing. I had never heard his music before but got myself a surprise - a good one. He was pretty great actually and I totally ended up buying Tezya's "Life My Babylon" CD that I got signed too, wiee!

Tezya singing

A few hours after Tezya it was Akeboshi on scene. They played some very nice somewhat relaxing kind of music and I really enjoyed it but too bad we couldn't stay during the whole performance because I noticed Sairu-chan was crying. Turned out she had a very sad memory of a late friend linked to Akeboshi's songs and she couldn't stay inside so we went outside to calm down, away from all people. I ran to get paper towels and took care of her as best I could.. that's what friends are for. <3 I don't regret missing a part of Akeboshi's performance.. I'd rather take care of my friends and make sure that they won't be alone when they need support.

We did end up taking some more photos to ease the mood -after the saddest phase was over- and weirdly enough some photos turned out good even though we weren't really focusing on getting anything decent, we mostly just.. were. It certainly wasn't the most ideal moment to shoot but nevertheless it wasn't that bad either.

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

I'm not the best at cheering people up..
... but even I succeed sometimes it seems ;_; <3

I had no idea I could be of so much help.. I've always had the impression I'm useless at cheering people up, I seldom know what to say or do and I just stand there awkwardly but now.. now I had to do something; seeing a really good friend breaking down completely like that really tugs at my heart and I actually ended up crying too (and I'm not the one to cry easily)... especially after Sairu-chan told me the details, oh god. ;_;

After everything was alright again we headed back inside and spent the rest of the time lagging around in the bean bag chairs after we found them at the pub. Bean bag chairs are full of awesome and I would have been a bit disappointed if there hadn't been any at Skecon this year because they were like... eh, the best thing with Skecon last year. xD Oh, and while we lagged at the bean bag chairs I spotted an unopened Dumle chocolate! MINEEEE ~

Free candy, not-so-scary demon commander approves!

We lagged some more at the bean bag chairs, bought some yummy mango flavored Pocky and then we decided to go sleep. Oh, and speaking of the mango Pocky! After I had finished one of the two plastic bags inside it I took it out and when Skecon started playing the 10 hour version of HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA I randomly started singing (couldn't resist dammit!) and noticed -to my amusement- that the plastic bag worked as a voice changer and oh my God was it hilarious. xD

Sunday

Ah, Sunday. The last and super laggy con day. I almost couldn't be bothered to put on my Kenshin cosplay but I did anyway because my hair looked horrible and it was a must to wear a wig. Again we woke up around 11:00 and soon enough got informed by the guys in charge for the sleeping accomodation that they will close the gymnastic hall 12:00 so we couldn't lag there. We woke up, packed our stuff and me and Sairu-chan walked to Skecon in our everyday clothes while Jäätynyt Enkeli already changed to cosplay at the sleeping place and thus joined us at the con later because we didn't feel like waiting and shit. :DD At the con we two changed into our Rurouni Kenshin cosplays but we did lazy versions because I just had no energy whatsoever to put on any make-up except color my eyebrows, some eyeliner and do the scar the quick-'n-easy way. Besides I forgot my tekkou gloves at home so couldn't do any proper photoshooting anyway.

Cosplayers: Valkoinen Samurai (Kenshin Himura, aka Hitokiri Battousai) & Sairu-chan (Tomoe Yukishiro)
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

We were super tired and it shows.. xD But I don't think it butchers the photos though considering how dark the OVA is and how subtle all interactions between Kenshin and Tomoe are.

I had a quick solo photoshoot too. Jäätynyt Enkeli as the photographer.

The con ended at 14:00 and we decided it's better if we are a little extra early back at the bus station. I went and changed my Kenshin wig into my Hijikata wig because le Kenshin wig is annoying because of the wig getting in my eyes all the time. But I couldn't be bothered to erase the scar so I was some random Kenshin and Hijikata hybrid.. and Sairu-chan dubbed me the "Gay Lovechild". xD

I must say we were really lucky because this one awesome Skecon guy with an awesomely big car offered to drive us and another person to centrum. Seriously, thanks, you saved our lives. ;_;

At centrum's bus station ~

We had some hours to spare so we went to a game store and I bought a fabulous Wario cap (no, not the one he wears but a blue and yellow one with Wario on!) and Sairu-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli bought some PSP games. After that we decided to eat some dinner so we returned to the same Chinese restaurant we were at on Friday. This time we bought Asian food and man was it good!

Lilla Kina ("Little China") restaurant, the one we ate in

After eating more than enough we asked directions for the closest food store and there we bought a big bottle of Lemon Fanta, candies and Swedish punch-rolls. I know, super healthy con diet strikes again. 

With our bus snacks bought we headed for the bus station and there we lagged for an hour or something. 

Bus waiting, super tired style

While we were waiting for the bus a few LARP guys -at different times- came to say hi because they noticed we also were dressed weirdly. :DD We had some nice chats about LARP and conventions and stuff and two of the guys even took the same bus we took!

One of the LARP guys who took the same bus

I don't feel like talking about the bus trip more than that the bus was crammed as fuck and we all got separated until Piteå or something. When most of the other people had left we all nerdy folks gathered in nearby seats and talked and lagged and shared punsch-rolls the rest of the journey. It was pretty awesome.

Our bus arrived at Haparanda 23:25 and our trio steered our tired asses towards our apartment the LARP guys stayed at Luleå and especially my ass was a zombie along with some other not-so-nice things. Oh well, we got to the apartment safely and that's all I had to say about Skecon. :)

...

BUT YOU ARE NOT GETTING AWAY JUST YET. 

I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST, BE PREPARED BECAUSE THE DERPS ARE COMING IN!

This is now officially my "gorilla face". xD
I seemingly look like that when I scratch my head..

RAWR sisäkumi shinsengumi haori face censor mursu attack!

victoryherpsisderpsistroll

I CAN HAS SWORDSSSSSSSS
(and Chizuru looks pretty terrified..)

AAAAAAAWWW YEEEEEAAAA

 We three also did a "Draw me like one of your French girls" challenge and here's my take on it!

I'm sexy and I know it ~

Oh, and we totally had a quick Hijikata x Sannan photoshoot just for the lulz but it was all hilarious shit in shitland and we totally suffered fatal brain cell losses.

Hijikata: OH GOD NO NOT SANNAN-SAN OF EVERYONE
Sannan: *pleased trollface*

Hijikata: You know.. this is pretty awkward... go away...
Sannan: hurrdurr~

Hijikata: I. Fucking. Can't. Take. It. Anymore. *headdesk*

Yeah. Hijikata would so rather date Chizuru...

And as the end climax have a photo of our fabulous Sannan-san. <3

I'm outta here before Sannan eats me!

BRS Souji Okita preview

Today a few hours ago I decided to do a quick BRS (no, it's still not Black Rock Shooter..) Okita preview because I was.. bored. I didn't bother with any make-up because I'm pretty laggy right now and stuff. Oh, and before I start there's one thing I noticed - inconsistent references!! It doesn't help that there are very few references of Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi characters available online in general but that they have to be inconsistent too.. aghjdgjs.

Haori himo.. (aka white ties that crosses at his chest)

No haori himo D<

So what do?
I dunno, I tried both variations but I'm not sure which I like more. I might be leaning towards doing the no haori himo version at Skecon because they kept moving around in derpy ways (off-center and such) and looking uncool when I had them on.. I don't know... probably because of the armor adding extra bulk..

Oh well, here's two photos. Sorry for the mess in the background, crappy lighting and yeah, mirror. I didn't put on any tabi socks or shoes by the way.. I didn't feel like searching for them..

With haori himo..

.. and without.
I swear my hakama are dark blue btw.. they just look black because of the bad lighting. ;_;

I must say the armor isn't the most comfortable to have on, at least not when sitting down. I really hope my swords won't rub against the armor so much during the con day that the red paint comes off though...

Oh, and one thing. I had problems taking the armor off. I had somehow tied the two knots at the back super tight and my twin had to free me and it took.. forever. It wasn't that far away that I would have had to have it on until Saturday because le twin started to get pissed. :DD Lesson learned: ask someone to tie a ribbon knot in the back, don't try tying it yourself. trololo

Well well, not so much more to say than that SKECON STARTS IN 3 DAYS, JAG ÄR SÅ TAGGAD!!

Dokuganryu, you have too many swords - pt.1

On 21st June I started working on Masamune's six "dragon claw" swords while I was at mom's place over the Midsummer.

Masamune Date, "Dokuganryu" (One-eyed Dragon)

The first thing I did was a sword pattern on cardboard paper so that I would get all six swords as identical as possible. To my help I used a decoration katana to trace the curve of the blade.

Blade traced

I drew the tsuka (handle) by free hand and then I marked where the blade starts and tsuka ends with a line across and cut the pattern out.

Cut out sword pattern "they see me rollin' they hatin'" style

My stepdad went outside to find some usable wooden planks for me and he cut and trimmed them to a fitting size with a machine. When I got the first ready plank I took it inside, picked up a pencil and tape and taped my sword pattern on it and traced it to the wood. I made sure to avoid the "branch spots" as much as possible when tracing because those are weak points...
Oh, I added a few millimeters width to both sides of the tsuka on all the swords to make it stand out a little bit more; my paper pattern had blade and tsuka same width.

One sword shape traced into wood

Soon enough he was done fixing the planks (yay thanks!) and I had seven sword-to-be's to, well, turn into swords.

Yes, there's one extra just in case I mess up.. and if I don't I'll save it for a future cosplay instead ~

I traced the sword shape to all the wood planks and then took them outside for sawing.. with a jigsaw.

Hello my friend <3

Sawing in progress..

One sword cut out!

The first two swords took some time to saw out but then I figured how to place the plank and stuff and so the remaining ones went much quicker. Of course when I had the three first ones done I had to try Masamune style sword wielding!

It works but it's pretty uncomfortable at this early stage... xD

At this point I got called inside for Midsummer dinner so I took a break and good that, my back was hurting. I returned some time later to saw out the remaining three more that I needed. The seventh extra sword I didn't cut out.

Sword gathering!
(all swords are spruce except the one farthest to the left which is black alder)

That was all the progress I did on the first day. I worked on some other cosplay parts the following days but on 26th June I continued a little. I took one of the swords and with a rasp in hand I started filing the blade shape onto it. After the blade shape was okay I took some rougher grit sand paper and sanded the blade edge nicer.

Blade taking form (rasp use)

The sword in the front has been filed and sanded (blade edge only)

That day I didn't feel like fixing the other swords because I was doing Okita's armor at the same time and it had an earlier deadline (read: Skecon 5-7 July) than Masamune, so yeah. But today on 29th June I went ahead and filed and sanded the remaining 5 swords and gosh do my hands hurt now! Yes, I did it all by hand because I'm dumb and want to do it the way I'm used to. :DD There would have been tools (like a mini/hand-size carpenter's plane and a machine-sander-thing, you know, those that look a bit like an iron and I mean that iron you iron clothes with. lol) which would have made it easier but lolnope, I always do things the hard way and now my sore arms thank me for that. But I can't help it that I prefer to have maximum "hand/touch/feel/whatever precision control" when working with wood, if that even makes sense. But at least I got the job done!

Filed (aka shaped) and roughly sanded blade edges

More progress should get done soon enough and feel free to kick me in the butt if I don't so stay tuned!

Samurai style torso armor

On 24th June I started working on the torso armor for Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi's Souji Okita.

Character reference

I decided to go with polystyrene even though I had a not-that-good experience with it earlier. I think I've learned some things about the material along the bad experience as well as the successful one. A bit wiser from earlier tries I thought polystyrene should be suitable for Okita's torso armor. I decided to do the armor similar to kendo armor, this because the backside and shoulders aren't shown anyway and it has pretty much the same shape.

Kendo armor - do

So I picked up my polystyrene sheet roll and started taking some measures and drawing on it. I drew one of the sides free-hand and used baking paper lol as a pattern to trace on and get the other side identical to the first.

Tracing

I must say cutting polystyrene -at least the width I have- is quite hellish.. especially curves.

Soon finished cutting

After cutting it out I went in front of the mirror and bended it over my body and OH GOD I DON'T EVEN. While the length and width were fine I had completely screwed up the "arm hole"/side curving and the placement of those two rising front.. things-or-whatever-they-are. I wondered why in hell I hadn't checked the fit in front of the mirror before cutting it out..? ._. Needless to say I couldn't use this one so I had to make another. I repeated the procedure with the necessary changes added. When I was done I had this:

Seems much better

I tried this one in front of the mirror and success!

After that I went up to the attic to check for any possible close-enough fabrics for the armor's upper pattern. I didn't found anything very similar but I thought this one snake skin-ish fabric was pretty cool for it. It has a nice sheen too and should look pretty sweet with the red spray paint under it. I didn't work on the armor any more for that day after getting the fabric.

Today (26th June) I continued working on the armor. The first thing I did was cut out a test piece of the fabric and take a scrap piece of polystyrene and well, hot glue the fabric on it to test if it would stick and stay.

Sits like a mountain, success!

Then I went ahead and made a pattern of the armor's upper part, where I wanted the fabric to be.

Pattern cut out

Fabric cut out

Next it was time to sand around the edges of the whole armor to get them nicer. After that was done I drilled holes into the armor for the ties because hey, I need to put it on somehow!

Armor after sanding edges and drilling holes into it

Luckily I happened to have almost a full can of red spray paint over from like... uh, 4 years ago when I did my first cosplay - Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. I had used red spray paint for his sword chain thingy and now I got to use it again for Okita's armor. So with the spray paint at hand I went outside, put up a working table and used a cardboard piece as cover and sprayed.  Many coats of paint later I had this:

I didn't waste much paint on the upper part because it would be covered anyway..

I let it dry for a few hours just in case and took it inside. While inside I noticed the armor had some sort of spray paint dust on it so I wiped it clean with a wet kitchen paper. After that I started working on attaching the fabric to the armor. The hot glue gun was my friend.

After hot gluing the front

Preparations for gluing the back

A part of the backside hot glued

I must say the backside was a bitch to glue. I burned my fingers more times than I remembered to count and I got hot glue strings everywhere and agjdsj. The backside isn't the prettiest but who cares because it will be against my body and unseen anyway... I let the hot glue dry and then I poked holes into those front things that had been covered in fabric.

le hole

With the hot glue dry I took my metallic golden paint and started painting on top of the glue to get the border thing Okita has on his armor.

Paint paint paint paint...

It took forever because I was being super careful and shit. I noticed the paint was pretty awesome because when you painted it on it seemed this dull super light gold sort-of-pankake-dough color but when it dried it started turning into a real gold color, cool!

When the paint had dried I made the edge border around the armor's upper part with hot glue.

Glue glue glue glue...

... and paint paint paint paint some more.

The paint took some time to dry completely so meanwhile I watched some Digimon Adventure to make the waiting time go by faster. I'm watching the first season for nostalgic reasons, ah. <3 And besides as a kid I never saw all episodes anyway...

When the golden paint finally had dried I just had to put on the ties and call it done!

Tadaah!

It's not 100% accurate but fair enough, neh? ;) You'll get to see it worn and in action soon enough because I will do an Okita preview before Skecon!