Way back on 1st September last year I went to mom's place and continued working on Masamune's swords. I didn't get all that much done that day but I at least started sanding and filing down the tsuka (sword's handle) with a rasp and rough sand paper. The blade I had filed and rougly sanded already earlier. I only had time to sand one of the swords because I was helping Hasakitsuki with her cosplay as well.
Tsuka untouched.
Filed and roughly sanded.
I still need to give the remaining five swords the same treatment but I did ask my stepdad if I could borrow the rasp and rough sand paper – it was green lights!
Okay, fast forward to a weekend in the middle of February 2014 when I finally got to work on the swords again; I have no idea where the time went but I know for sure that it's about time I continue this mission!
I spent 14-16th February at mom's place and took with me the swords and equipment for woodworking. I filed and roughly sanded the tsuka's end round-ish. Rinse and repeat for the remaining swords over the duration of the stay, until all six had gotten the same treatment. I must say it's rather tiring to do this process all by hand but that's how I roll.
Even more sanded and filed.
All six done.
But when I was done and checked the swords over –for any spots that I had missed– I saw this unsightly view instead:
Hey wait, what's that...?
*zooms in*
IT'S A CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.
I have no idea when it appeared but I know it wasn't there in the very beginning – it must have appeared at a later point, possibly during the last days. Oh well, I need to fix it somehow and the safest bet is to wait until mom and stepdad returns and ask him what to do about it...
So on 2nd March, while I stayed at mom's place over the weekend for Kitacon, I took with me the swords there. I showed the crack to stepdad and after getting some possible explanations for how it could have appeared he said he'd fix it for me. After the anime convention but before I left to return to my apartment he had repaired it and I could take it with me home. This is what it looked like:
Mended crack.
He said that he filled the cavity with some glue and then used car putty/filler on top. It's repaired now which means that I can continue the finer sanding work of the swords. Yes, I need to sand all the swords once again – but this time with even finer grit sand paper. I want it to be really smooth before I put any paint on them...
On 7th March I decided to start doing the final sanding of the swords (tsuka and the whole blade length) and this time I did it outside my apartment with some borrowed sand paper... from stepdad of course, who else?
Finer grit sand paper. (this brand is nostalgy for me because
in old woodworking class in school we had the same brand)
I only managed to finish 2 swords before my arms wanted to quit though; it's more tiring than what it looks like and I pretty much only sand with my left arm because of the finer precision (I'm left-handed) and it just feels less clumsy so yeah, when my left hand gets tired it gets annoying because my right hand just won't do the work as well. Blah.
On 10th March I sanded two more swords and on 11th March, aka today, I finished the last two.
Here's some comparison shots of both sides of one of the swords:
Top photo of roughly sanded side, bottom photo of finer sanded side.
Top photo of roughly sanded side, bottom photo of finer sanded side.
And finally a close-up photo of one finished blade next to one unfinished:
Top sword finely sanded, bottom roughly sanded.
Sweet Jesus, I'm done with the sanding! Now I just need to find something to use as a base coating before I can get on with painting these things. I was thinking that gesso would be good but I have to find some first... otherwise I'll just use ordinary white primer. We'll see.
So not so long ago, on the weekend of 1-2 March, Kitacon was held in Kemi. Of course me and my company would drag our asses there because c'mon, it's the closest con to where we live and free entrance!
About Kitacon: this year it was a 2-day con. Actually, the later Kitacon events have for some reason, as far as my crappy memory goes, been only one day but this year they went back to having it last both Saturday and Sunday. I say sweet!
Kitacon poster.
So, back to the beginning. Friday evening me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Hasakitsuki went over to mom's place to sleep there over the Kitacon weekend because, well, it's closer to Kemi + free ride to the con and back, wopee!
On Saturday morning I woke up, went to shower, had breakfast and started changing into my Sannan cosplay. Too bad for me it took forever to get the goddamn eye makeup to look decent (I had to redo parts of it a lot) and so everyone had to wait for me while I was battling in the bathroom a very serious fight – because cosplay is not so serious business.
When everyone finally was ready mom drove us to Kemi and there we stepped into a building we had never been in before. See, Kitacon has all these previous years been held in another building. I must say that Sauvotalo is pretty cool.
It didn't take long before we found Sairu-chan dressed as Sieni Shiemi!
(random mirror picture and yeah, I have beautiful camera face censor)
We also ran into the epic werewolf guy from Oulun animeseminaari, also known as Karri. He is just too awesome for words and we spent quite a lot of the con hanging with him!
Karri feat. borrowed pink hat
Except for striking chats with familiar faces, photoshooting Sairu-chan's cosplay, checking out the building as well as the Dealer's Hall and Artist's Alley I didn't do anything else on Saturday. There were some interesting panels on both Saturday and Sunday but I either missed or saw the time it was held too late. :( Also I must say that the air inside was pretty bad; I couldn't stay inside the con for very long before getting a major toast effect and needing to go outside to cool down.
Kitacon is mostly a hang-with-friends con for me; it just feels very relaxed, slow-going and chill compared to the bigger and more ambitious cons with a lot of panels and people crowding everywhere.
Random con picture feat. Dealer's Hall &Artist's Alley.
At some point we got bored so we went up to the second floor, occupied an empty table and played some Monster Hunter. It's always a good idea to have a handheld gaming console or something else with you in case you need entertainment!
Gaming time, gaming time ~
We did look for a location to have a sort of "creepy!Sannan feat. ochimizu" photoshoot at some point but it quickly fell through when it became obvious that we were in the middle of the city and Hakuouki and modern buildings just don't work well together... at all. Also, the weather was very dull and gray and I wasn't eager to walk in waraji on more or less stone-y and slippery roads to go see if there would have been some less modern areas nearby.
One thing I did though was buying a Tracon ticket! Yeah, you could buy them in advance at the photo studio for a cheaper special price, namely 15 €.
Tracon ticket bought! (and Okita plushie photobombing wanting to be on the pic)
Not so much more to say about Saturday because we barely did shit. We did go eat at a Chinese restaurang when we got hungry during mid-day; otherwise we stayed at the con until they closed the first floor and that's when we went back to mom's place to eat salmon soup and sleep.
On Sunday when I woke up early I felt so laggy, lazy and blööörgh that I highly considered not cosplaying at all and just going casual to the con. I probably experienced all possible stages of "can't be bothered" and whatnot but after having my breakfast cereals something magical happened – I felt like I maybe could be bothered to cosplay after all.
So yeah, I put on my Gin cosplay and soon enough our Bleach cosplay trio arrived at Kitacon. At the con we just walked around until Sairu-chan showed up, aka Rangiku Matsumoto and our final cosplay group member. With everyone together we went outside to have a photoshoot... and I can only sum it up by saying "ei siitä tullut helvettiäkään". :-DD
And, if you wonder, the quality was something of this caliber:
I don't even.
Gin demonstrating how to eat cereals!
Everything was hilarious. Even stupid things.
HURR. Gin approves photographing Rangiku.
Yeah, herpsis derpsis everywhere and beyond. My cereals must have been drugged because I couldn't be serious to save my life. The so-called photoshoot was nothing else but glorious photobombs that I failed to eternalize (provided by Jäätynyt Enkeli, of course), laughter, so-bad-it's-good faces and horribly frozen fingers.
Oh well, some hours later it was time for FFFight, this time an improvised one – the pre-planned one was on Saturday if my memory serves me right. I admit the main reason I went to watch it was because Karri would participate and the other reason because there wasn't much else to do.
About FFFight I can say that sometimes it was hilarious and sometimes pretty meh. The final fight between the Dubinators –holders of FFFight– and The Challengers –including Karri– though was something so awesome. I kind of hope it was recorded because it was really funny and I'd like to see it again! "Ylipaino on ylivoimaaaaa!"
such quality. much violent. wow. (FFFight)
I don't remember when exactly it was but at some point in the Dealer's Hall/Artist's Alley someone started a "letkajenkka" and soon there was a long line of people following the leader who was blasting at least the What is Love song from a cellphone and walking around. xD It was beautiful.
Part of the "letkajenkka" line.
I don't have so much more to say about the con itself – it was nice and relaxed just like previous Kitacons. I did hear though that the cosplay competition was pretty bad (I didn't watch it this year) or well, more like that the judges were inexperienced and that some competitors got more attention than others and that it basically was very unprofessional. I hope for the contestants that this will be fixed in the future because hey, even Kitacon's cosplay competitions have had the quality of the costumes rising over the past years and so the judges need to level up to the next level as well and have some actually knowledgeable people judging, so that it's fair to everyone.
Oh, and speaking of other cosplayers here's a little shitty photo video I quickly put together with a few cosplay pics and randoms:
I don't have more to say. Bye bye and thanks for reading ~
Le Samurai is out.
Another contact lens review incoming – this time Dueba VolteBrown. Seemingly they are also known under the name Dueba Twinkle Brown. I've reviewed the Volte Green earlier so for more details/comparison go check it out. ;)
Lenses in solution, taken in bathroom light.
Sorry about the horrible photo quality.
Lens on my finger.
Base curve: 8.6 mm Diameter: 14.5 mm
Water content: 38%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)
With just one lens in. (bathroom light again)
Indoors, natural daylight.
I bought these some time
ago (as usual, I have a bunch of contacts yet to wear and review) and
by cosplaying Sannan-san I got some use for them earlier than planned.
The first time I used these I wore them for the Sannan photoshoot.
I'm
really fond of the design of the Volte series. It just looks plain cool
with that swirl and black outer rim. The diameter is 14.5 mm – same as on the green ones. These look almost golden-brown when not worn!
The first time I put 'em on I got in the first lens just fine but the other one stung like hell immediately so I had to take it off. I don't know why it did that but when I tried putting it on again –after cleaning it of course– the same thing happened. This time it wasn't as unbearable so I just waited a while to see if the discomfort vanished and so it did. I don't know what was up with that but it has happened with other lenses before as well. *shrugs*
Oh well, while in my eyes they were comfortable; they don't hinder my vision or anything and I get no random colors at the corner of my vision. Then again that might be because these let a bit of my natural eye color through the pupil hole; my blue-gray eyes blend pretty well with the brown and it comes off as a light brown shade, almost with a golden tint. I really like this shade, it's pretty much what I was hoping for.
Oh, one thing though. I don't know if it's just me or what but I found these getting the "dry feeling" in my eyes earlier than the green ones do. I took them off not long after the photoshoot because they felt dry. For some reason –at least so far– it seems to me at least that the green ones are more comfortable long-term... oh well, I can't tell for sure yet because I haven't worn the browns many times. A bit weird though. xD
Distance photo.
Enjoy Sannan edition without glasses!
These look sort of natural –as far as circle lenses are concerned– because the enlarging effect is quite small and these sport no kawaii-desu-bling sparkles or anything of the sort. Pretty subtle if I do say so. So yeah, these are not all over your face but noticeable nevertheless. Personally I think the brown ones show up better on my eyes than the greens do, but that might be because green is closer to my natural eye color than brown and thus the difference is more striking with brown contacts. I occasionally have my eyes look green-ish in some lights anyway, hence why sometimes I call my eye color blue-gray-greenish.
Want to see how other colors of the Volte series look?
Short summary: Color: 9/10 A gorgeous shade of golden-ish brown that looks awesome on my eyes. Design: 8/10 I'm a fan of the swirl design, also black outer rim looks really good and gives anime look. Opacity: 7/10 The edges have nice color coverage but the center blends with your real eye color a bit. Enlargement: 4/10 Doesn't seem to enlarge much but this is how I prefer my contacts. Comfort: 9/10 Highly comfortable but for some reason I found the green equivalent even comfier. Naturalness: 4/10 Ignore the black outer rim and these look surprisingly natural.
That's about it, if you have any questions about the contacts just leave a comment!
Today I decided to put on my Sannan cosplay for a preview but it quickly turned into a cosplay photoshoot instead. I swear these glasses had something against me because, sweet lord, how hard it was to put them on! Either my head is huge or the glasses are ridiculously small (well, they are antique) because there was just no way I could get them to go over both of my ears – even just one ear was a hard task. Somehow I still managed to get them on after a lot of laughing and helping hands.
Also, I must say that wearing waraji in the snow is nothing short of suicide – my feet turned into no-feel pieces of meat at the end and the photographer even stepped on my toes at one point. xD Totally worth it because my feet aren't even visible on a single pic... *shot*
It was around 0 °C outside and a bit windy and at the end I couldn't feel my fingers anymore either (they were screaming red!) but it was actually worth it this time.
My next con will be Kitacon in Kemi, Finland, held 1-2 March. This of course means that Kitacon will kick off my con year 2014 and I dare say it's about time! I've had quite the con withdrawal syndrome since Chibicon in November and I'm happy to finally see an end to it. Finallyyyyyyyyyy.
So let's get back to the purpose of this post, namely revealing my cosplay plans because hey, there's only one week left until the con! So here goes in 3, 2, 1...
Saturday
Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Keisuke Sannan
Yep, I'm going to cosplay RILLI Sannan. I do like him (I don't understand the haters, c'mon he's pretty awesome in his own way) and ever since I did that one quick test with the green kimono and glasses –that I helped Jäätynyt Enkeli order– I've wanted to know what it would look like if I cosplayed Sannan properly; soon enough I will know! I must admit I'm very excited for this one and hey, Sannan-san needs more cosplay love! <3 I will borrow some cosplay parts from Jäätynyt Enkeli for this – namely the wig, glasses, green kimono, blue "vest", swords and the black sash.
Oh, also I'll likely end up doing a cosplay preview before Kitacon so prepare for that!
Sunday
Series: Bleach
Character: Gin Ichimaru
Wow, I've only cosplayed Gin twice and the last time was at Uppcon 2012 – it feels like forever ago. Damn I miss Uppcon. ;_; For quite a while I've wanted to wipe the dust off him and give him another appearance and well, now is the time! It turned out that me, Jäätynyt Enkeli, Sairu-chan and Hasakitsuki will have a Bleach group as well so that's probably gonna be fun!
Last month I made this cosplay decision process post and –as some might remember– at the end of it I asked if there was interest for a follow-up about how I personally choose my cosplays. Well well, seemingly some peeps were curious so I'm gonna go ahead and make a hopefully not-too-long post about what kinds of character qualities and such tug on my "need to cosplay" strings!
Before I start I'd like to apologize in advance for eventually messy text coming through but oh well, it shouldn't be too bad I hope.
So, where to start huh? Hmm well, if we take it from the start; when it comes to series that I end up watching/reading I wouldn't be lying if I said that a big chunk of them have some sort of roots or at least references to Japan's history. I'm a sucker for history and historical figures to begin with so of course any series that has this will have additional appeal points from me! Oh, and we need not mention samurai series, these especially catch my interest before anything else does. But of course I still end up watching/reading other stuff – everything from Digimon to Uta no Prince-sama and Wolf's Rain. I can get interested in pretty much anything as long as there is at least something in the series that catches my interest, be it character design(s), art/animation style, plot or even a single badass weapon.
Inuyasha's Tetsusaiga sword is epic, hands down.
But when it comes to the characters themselves in any given series there are indeed some more or less specific things that can add to a more secure place into my ever-growing cosplay list.
Character personality: I have a rather noticeable preference towards more silent, calm, serious and/or distant characters, sometimes even outright "I'm better than you"-minded and possibly cruel ones like Sesshoumaru from InuYasha. Mysterious characters who you can't really tell if they are good, bad or neither tend to tickle my fancy... and so does anti-heroes every now and then as well. There are a lot of different character personalities that can appeal to me in all sorts of combinations so it's pretty hard to just say some traits because anime characters are sometimes very diverse. But I do often like characters who start off as almost emotionless/uncaring and cold and then gradually turn out to be or turn into a good guy in one way or another. Oh, and occasionally I will end up liking the seemingly mean/teasing/trolling one of the bunch, especially if they are anything like Okita from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan who's often cracking jokes at the expense of others and such – I tend to like the sarcastic bastards.
Okita, y u so awesome?
Character story/background: Well, this is a pretty hard one to answer because it can be anything. For me the character's past isn't the most important part if I plan to cosplay them or not but it can be a nice bonus. But I must admit I'm a bit more fond of characters who've had a tragically spiced past, something that evokes feelings and makes one feel for the character. But yeah, I'm pretty much open to anything when it comes to character backgrounds. Then again, I sometimes tend to be a bit "meh" about characters whose background stories are never revealed or explained/developed enough. But most of the time, cosplay wise, it's not an issue – design and character personality comes first.
Character design: Okay guys, everyone better go hide away from Captain Obvious who will land on Earth just about now and tell you the fact that I am indeed very biased towards characters wearing kimono or Japanese styled/inspired clothing. Hands up if you honestly didn't see this coming!
*insert long silence here*
– No one? Okay, good, thought so.
Also I do like stylish outfits in general with details, armored parts and stuff – chains, belts, wings and flowy clothing parts give bonus points as well as jackets with buttcapes and such. There's a lot design wise that I find awesome. I also like fantasy style clothes or what to call it, especially ones with cool details like Reyson from Fire Emblem, for example. Oh, and speaking of which I dare say I often end up cosplaying pretty boys. There, I said it.
Reyson.
Character props: Let's say this – if I like a character enough to consider cosplaying them it doesn't have any big significance anymore if they have a prop or not. Sure thing that a guy wielding a badass sword that eats half the universe because it's so awesome has a higher chance of ending up in my cosplay list than, say, someone who only has pockets to put their hands in but well, some characters are awesome as they are... even without a weapon or whatnot. So yeah, characters with props might be more interesting but I'm not gonna dismiss otherwise likable characters just because they don't have a weapon or whatnot to tell me how they are 20% cooler.
Yuan from Tales of Symphonia is one of my favorites in the game and one of the extra reasons I want to cosplay him is because of that huge epic weapon!
Hmm, I guess that about sums it up shortly. I have a feeling in my stomach that I might have forgotten something but anygays, I feel pleased with this for now. I hope those who wanted me to write this this found it interesting as well as whoever ended up reading this thing! :D
So this weekend I'm spending at mom's place together with Hasakitsuki. Mom and stepdad are currently in Thailand so the house is empty and we thought quickly that it would be awesome to go there and have some cosplay experimenting with no risk of anyone seeing us and getting scared shitless and well, just chill around in a house that is big enough to live in... for a change. So, while there on the Saturday 15th February, aka today, we decided to put on our Hakuouki cosplays and have me –as Okita– trying out something bloody...
Eeyup, I'm gonna use these things. See where this is going?
Blood capsules, yep. They are not mine but Hasakitsuki's but she kindly let me use some. The ones in the plastic round box are powder edition and the ones in the blisters are liquid edition. The powder capsules say on the packaging –in German– that they stain and you can't wash it off clothing and that it might take several tries to get it off your skin. We'll see...
I went outside far enough into the woods in the big yard so that when mom returns she won't immediately see some suspicious alarming red spots in the snow. Good thing we had already the day before walked in the snow and thus made safe "feet holes" to walk in without sinking through the snow all over again; I wouldn't have been all that happy getting at the very least ankle-deep and at best, knee-deep in the snow in cosplay. Okay, so when I got far enough into the woods which was, not that far I just put one capsule in my mouth –the liquid one– and put on my acting cap and let's go!
I must say the taste of this thing is not pleasant but it wasn't really bad either, at least according to me. Then again, who expected fake blood to taste strawberry cheesecake anyway? Not me for sure.
There's not all that much blood in one of these but still sufficient for a few coughs or whatever you want to do with it. Oh, and obviously because I was cosplaying Okita, who has tuberculosis, I was doing the coughing scheme but you can use these for other things as well.
In my case it's not all that hard to act like I'm sick but then again that miiiiiight just be because around this exact time 3 years ago I was hospitalized with a pretty bad case of pneumonia. *shivers* Sure that doing this, especially in February, gives me some rather unpleasant flashbacks of that time but oh well, what won't we do for cosplay and the love of a character?
Okay, so back on track about the liquid capsule. Except for the not-so-good taste it wasn't really hard to use – sure it needs some timing and acting skills if you want to make it look more realistic but it's not bad. Oh, and obviously you have to bite it whenever you want to use the capsule.
When I was done with the liquid one, which didn't take all that long, I decided to try the powder capsule right after. This thing requires that you use your saliva to get it to work because, well, it's blood powder. I didn't have any problem with this but what I did notice pretty instantly was that this thing tastes even stronger than the liquid one, if you ask me. Yep, still definitely not strawberry cheesecake for you...
Oh, and it's not really noticeable on the pictures but the powder one is a few shades darker as well. Actually, the blood ended up looking brighter on photos than IRL anyway, both of them.
I must say that personally I prefer the powder variant, mainly because it's a tad darker and also takes a lot more time to use up. I was actually pretty surprised how many times I could cough and still have a fair amount left in my mouth. To be honest even when I thought I was done I still kept getting more of it and it took quite a lot of spitting to get rid of the red afterwards. The only slightly hard thing with capsules is to not have it show on your face that you have it in your mouth because yeah, if you plan to scare the bejesus out of your friends they'd better not know you are up to something... ;)
I'm sorry about the photo quality but they are taken with my old camera, which is a lot lighter than my SLR to carry, and thus easier to take self-photos with.
Oh well, when I was done coughing blood I hurried back inside because staying around 20 minutes outside in a not-very-warm-at-all cosplay in 0 °C will eventually make you cold. Duh.
This is what the ground looked like when I was done...
Back inside I washed my bloody hand with warm water and yeah, the powder one seems to stain. It's not all that visible on this picture but IRL it's kind of easy to see. It seems to fade nicely after a few more washes though and all in all it's not bad staining at all if you ask me. I was prepared for worse.
Notice the stains.
Soon enough I was back in the cold again but this time for some quick pictures together with le Chizuru, aka Hasakitsuki. I was the one taking the photos and yeah, still with the old camera and it shows in lack of quality. Didn't really get any good photos because it had already gotten too dark but oh well...
Oh, and before I let you go I must tell you about a funny and rather awkward thing that happened. So when I had put on my cosplay I looked out of the living room windows (they're big) and saw a random man walking on the yard. I hurried to go hide in case it was this guy who mom had told to bring in the mail but......... it wasn't. So this unknown man rang the door bell once and I thought "let's pretend there's no one home" but then he rang a second time and some seconds later he was still waiting outside. I decided to go "fuck this shit" and went –in full cosplay– to open the door and guess? It was no other than this one old friend of stepdad who, more of less often, comes and asks if stepdad is home and I tell you, he does this whenever he pleases and yes, it has happened at least once in friggin'midnight!Another critical detail about this guy is that he is drunk 90% of the time and always asking for alcohol if you let him in. Love Finland. But yeah, I opened the door to this guy and told him stepdad is not here and frankly, he's far away in Thailand. I swear he was looking at me with a weirded out face and there was a moment of awkward silence before I just tried to get him to leave already. xD Yeah, awkward.
