Kummacon 2015 – Pikkuconi ja puolikas vesimelooni

Hellou ~

Now I've finally gotten around to writing this short summary about my Kummacon experience!
I pardon for the lateness (the con was on 14th June so yeah, more than one week ago) but I must admit that the culprit this time wasn't laziness or busy-ness or any of the other commonly used excuses – it was honestly just me playing way too much Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate with friends. xD I'm seriously addicted to this game to the point that checking internet doesn't even feel tempting and well, that's saying a lot because hey, that's normally one of my top daily priorities! When opening the computer doesn't interest me then there's something horribly wrong lol. I just sit and slay wyverns and pink farting monkeys all day instead, huehuehue. I'm past 110 hours of gameplay and I've had the game for like, less than 2 weeks...? Oops.

Okey so, ehrrm, yeah, Kummacon. Let's get back to that!
So yeah, in case someone reading this doesn't know then I'll just fill you in and say that Kummacon was a small first-time convention held at Oulu in northern Finland; it had free entrance. It's a mixed fandom event (anime & manga, Western movies and comics, cosplay, literature, airsoft, zombie walk etc) that was held on the 14th June which, when you look at the calendar, you will notice is actually a Sunday. Yep, now that's unusual!
Oh, and before someone –who doesn't understand Finnish– wonders what the other half of this post's title means it translates to something like "a small con and half a water melon". You'll understand why soon enough... and yes, I do like goofy titles.

This time only me and Hasakitsuki attended the event; Jäätynyt Enkeli would have come too had he not had a trip to Germany a few days after. I did know though that Sairu-chan was attending, so I didn't leave for the con with the "I'll see no familiar faces" mindset.
As per usual my awesome aunt provided us two a free sleeping place because she lives in Oulu, duh. We arrived at le aunt's place on Saturday evening and yep, everything went smoothly. There's not really anything to say about my pre-con experience, expect that I played on my new New Nintendo 3DS XL, which I had put to use mere days before the event. It was a good choice to actually start playing on it now; I finally feel a bit updated in the gaming scene, hahaha. (but srsly, who came up with that name? New Nintendo 3DS. ._. It's so clumsy in everyday speech to specify that it's the "New" all the time, hurpdurp – "yeah I want to buy the new New Nintendo 3DS. :-DDD The new new....... pew pew. chew chew)

Sunday morning came. I don't know why but I had regained consciousness several times during the night, as if my sleep kept being really hacky or something. There was not anything to disturb me that morning and I never actually got up from bed or opened my eyes nor anything, it's just that I recall being aware that "hey, I'm not dreaming right now and it's the middle of the night" kind of thing. Con hype or nervousness, perhaps?
Whatever kept me from having a normal sleep wasn't only after my sleep – it wanted to screw up other things too! Yeah, you can guess. -.- Directly after breakfast my stomach started making silly roaring sounds and it felt weird and, err, by the time I got to the point I had started putting on my costume and doing the makeup then, well, I spent way longer in the bathroom than I should have. No one wants the details so I'll just leave it at that lol. Worst part is that shitty issues (quite literally, at times) seem a recurring annoyance to me whenever I'm either preparing for an event or something else that's important and, especially, when I have a time limit to keep tabs on. I dunno if it's some kind of "stress stomach" case or what but boy is it annoying when it happens.

Oh well, I got my costume on and we were ready to head out!
Much to our luck the weather was actually appropriate for the month this time – it was fairly warm but not too much. I swear we've had shitty April/autumn weather all the time and the actually sunny and nice days have been so few that I could count them on the fingers of one hand...

Yamato no Kami Yasusada is ready to go!
(note: mirror photo, hence why my kimono is reversed)

When we got to the now familiar Valve building I first headed straight for the bathroom – I reaaaally needed to fix my wig because it was living its own life! Even though the clip-on ponytail is short it's still surprisingly heavy (much fibers, I assume) and during the whole walk through the city it kept pulling my wig backwards; I should sew on some clips to the wig the next time I wear it...
At the bathroom I took the wig off and what do I see? My wig cap isn't even on my head anymore lol. No wonder why my real hair was peeking out like parasites all over the place and didn't stay under the wig when I poked them back in. Oh well, it was an easy fix – I just put the wig hooks on and prepared for the obligatory wig headache that usually follows shortly. You see, normally I almost never use the wig hooks because I seemingly have a rather big head to begin with and, well, most wigs are small-ish on me anyway so there is rarely a need to use them.

Valve building entrance.

Valve as a con hosting place is pretty okay... but it's still rather small and it feels crammed and narrow – wherever you look there is a mass of people constantly on the move; there is not much in the name of a breathing hole, unless you go outside of course. But Valve has its charm and I've started taking a liking to the darn place, hahah. I guess the crappy "let's have a con at the library!" experience adds to that feeling somehow... :'D

This is the sight you were met by as soon as you entered the front doors.

In front of Valvesali. If you turned left after passing this first "door" you
got to the merchandise area.

The one and only merchandise seller.
There was also a "visitor's selling table", aka where con visitors could
leave stuff they didn't want/need anymore for sale, during con time.

Of course there was the Artist's Alley as well.
Notice the seller closest to the camera – she's selling self-made colorful kanzashi
hair decorations! Now that's something out of the ordinary!

Kummacon in itself I didn't have much expectations for in terms of entertainment value – small cons in the north rarely provide anything spectacular. When you've been 20 minutes in the con you had seen it all.
Most of the time I spent hanging around with both old and new friends, going on a stroll in the city (scout for a lunch place!) as well as playing on my Nintendo 3DS. omg the Mii army I got on the StreetPass games, it was awesome!

Time to sit down and play! :D

Of course that there were a fair amount of more-or-less-interesting panels of many different subjects but, err, I'm not the kind to attend several panels in a row because it just tires me out and then I lose concentration/interest (been there, done that) and yes, that's totally why I ended up only attending one panel, even though there would have been at least one more that was interesting; there was the armor-making panel by Sheriff's Anvil (which I definitely wanted to attend) and then there was a cosplay photography panel. The problem was that both of these were placed in the same room and right after one another.
I ended up choosing to go only to the armor panel because that one I thought that I'd be more likely to learn something new from – after all, I did attend a photography panel at Kemi's manga day last year.

The entrance seen from above.

The Artist's Alley area (and the cafeteria to the far left) seen from above.

There was also a gallery for comics in the same building. This is
the Kiroileva Siili comic (lit. swearing hedgehog) which is well-known
in Finland.

About the armor-making panel itself I can say that it was a good one. It seemed to be targeted towards people who are new to armored cosplays (I still don't know if I count myself in that group or in the not-quite-so-newbie one, haha) and while it mostly had a "how I made this specific cosplay of mine" focus the panelist took up the step-by-step process of making the costume come true, which, in turn, can be applied for many different types of armored characters; he gave good starting pointers and all of that.
I personally found that dragging my hakama-clothed ass to the panel was a good investment and yes, it kept me interested through the whole run! The guy holding it was also funny and spoke in this kind of way that was entertaining, at least in my opinion. I do think that panelist holders who are expressive, pull jokes and use a lot of different voices are much more fun to listen to, haha. Also, this guy was clearly passionate about his work and about inspiring others and that was a pleasure to see.

Panel photos!
If you want to read the text I recommend that you open the image in a new tab to get the full-size version, in case your computer shows a resized image when you click on them through the blog.

The panel was held in Valvesali. Before the panel started there was
the Kummacon logo on the big screen.

He took off his cosplay and put the pieces on the scene, so that everyone who
wanted could go and take a look at how they were made. Really nice!

Sairu-chan and Karri showed up a bit later and I spent most of the con being around their company. I did a quick photoshoot for Sairu-chan outside and... eheheh... it ended up being a rather glorious passing of time because of all the photobomb tries that were provided by Karri and another guy. Karri just kept running into and crashing half the photos, it was golden. x) He also imitated Donald Duck's voice and said different things in said voice, including "feels good man" as well as some other lines from that really silly "Akun kakkaongelma" (lit. Donald's shit problem) video on Youtube that has gotten well-known in Finland by now. xD

Photobomb success! (provided by Emil, if I remember his name correctly)

Karri ninja photobomb!
(and he kinda got photobombed by the leaves, which means
photobomb in a photobomb. yo dawg)

This was actually just Karri being funny and picking up Sairu-chan but
it ended up looking like a scene from a cheesy romance movie. xD

Oh, and let's not forget Karri's awesome super crouch walk up the steps!
LIKE A BOSS. (yes, he walked up all the steps like that)

At some point after the photoshoot derping we passed by a nearby area of Valve and there we saw something bizarre and totally out of place – half a water melon left at the whatever park-like thingy!
It was so unexpected that we all went completely "WATER MELOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN" over it and did hilarious fake gasps and surprised faces at each other.. and then we started half-running in another direction. xD Too bad that I don't have picture proof of the melon but it definitely got the gold medal in the "surprise motherfucker!" category.

Towards the end of the con our group of four headed towards a pub that Karri knew – one of his friends worked there. At the pub I felt quite uncomfortable (I'm not a drinker and the atmosphere is not really to my liking) and I considered leaving when Sairu-chan left, but Karri cheered me up and made me stay. He and Hasakitsuki played chess and I just watched and was more or less bored... until a mention of Skecon was uttered and Karri took great interest in wanting to attend the con with us! Yep yep, we might very likely have a new face attending Skecon this year – OMGYES!!
By the time we left the pub the con was close to over so we just took a quick look inside and then headed back to aunt's place. Karri followed with us back for a visit and we ended up playing Super Mario 3D World all three of us and, duuude, was it fun!

But yeah, Kummacon was an overall nice experience in my book – I would likely attend it again if a second edition comes. Even though for most part it felt the same as Animeseminaari because it was in the same building, except that Kummacon was a bit more varied, haha. I didn't notice any clumsy or lacking arranging of the event (seeing how it was a first-time con) but I heard that the cosplay competition had issues and some weird solutions going on. By "weird solutions" I mean that I've heard from others that because the competition had some time issues it was decided that the audience shouldn't clap their hands at all for the contestants when they were on stage.
Why, I wonder?
To save time, I heard.
That's just so weird and not okay that I can't but raise the nope flag. Just... why? ._. Surely there must have been better solutions out there than to cut out something that barely takes time and is a rather important way of encouraging and showing appreciation to whoever is on stage... boo.

Oh well, I don't have much more to add. I am always happy to see that new geeky events are sprouting, especially in the north. I hope that Kummacon won't be one of those "one time only" cases and that it will grow and be held in the future too.  
Psst! I didn't get a wig headache! :-DD

See ya!

Kummacon 2015 – Cosplay plans!

How's it going guys?

Remember how I implied earlier that Skecon would be my next convention? Well, that's not quite true anymore! ;)
You see, some time ago I was swimming around on the internet and then I happened to end up on Kummacon's website. Thing is that I already knew about this con... and I had completely forgotten about it, until now.
I guess that back when I first learned about it I just went like "oh, it's too close to Desucon so I can't be bothered" and then it left my brain completely, without a second thought. Now that it turned out that I didn't attend Desucon this year Kummacon suddenly turned a lot more interesting!
Sure that it's a one-day event but it's in Oulu (aka close, "only" ~100 km away), in the now familiar Valve building and my awesome aunt has informed that it's possible to stay at her place and BOOM – Kummacon, here I come!

I'm curious about Kummacon (lit. "weird con") because it's a new con that will be arranged for the first time this year – I'm always happy to see new geeky events sprouting in the north!
It's a mixed popular culture con so yep, there's the usual anime & manga and cosplay of course, but also board games, literature (Harry Potter books etc), television series & movies, comics and so on.
Kummacon welcomes both Japanese pop culture along with western fandoms, in other words – there's even space for zombie fans and other fabulous weirdos! ;)

...

But yeah, now to the cosplay plans!

At first I thought that I'd just do some random fancy non-cosplay outfit but, the more I thought about it the more I started feeling like I wanted to cosplay, after all. Been having a lot of on an off cosplay feelings lately. A quick thought about possible cosplay candidates (recycle edition) first ended up with Battousai version Kenshin, mainly because it was pretty long since I last cosplayed him, aka summer 2013, oops. But then I thought that Kenshin might be a bit too cumbersome to wear because I'm planning to attend panels (if I laugh the scar might start to peel off etc) and well, taking the swords off and putting them back in place several times seemed like a hassle I wasn't too keen on.
So yeah, I wanted something without props.. and preferably something new; something that I was currently into and that would be extra fun to cosplay. I've lately kinda been in a "cosplay rut", as if some of the excitement just wore off and I'm trying to find the fun again, idk? Because of this I wanted something fresh and new to wear – something that I'm currently hyped about and into; maybe it would help with getting the cosplay mood back on track...?

And what could that new and exciting series be?

– TOUKEN RANBU, of course. ♡

Character: Yamato no Kami Yasusada (uchiban version)
Series: Touken Ranbu

Yep, so this will be my debut into Touken Ranbu cosplay land!
I've been so into this shit ever since I first heard about it! I just love so many of the character designs to no end – perfect cosplay fodder for me lol; it's never gonna end. x) Yamato no Kami Yasusada is one of the favorites and was so from the very first time I saw him; he's just too cute haha. What makes him even more awesome to me is the fact that he is one of Souji Okita's swords – one of my favorite historical persons, yes please!

Nothing more to add.
A summary about Kummacon will follow after the con is over! Stay tuned!

Touken Ranbu uchiban cosplays, bits & pieces!

Hi there!

I've slowly started gathering stuff for some Touken Ranbu cosplays! Yes, I'm seriously in love with this online game (even though I haven't actually played it yet; blame shitty internet and a crashy laptop for that) and all the gorgeous character designs! There's way too many cool characters that I want to cosplay and so many are totally the style that I tend to gravitate towards when choosing cosplays anyway, agjhdfsjhahkj! ;w; I just... can't... stop... having horrible cosplay cravings towards Touken Ranbu, hnng!

Okay so, I've gone ahead and bought fabric for Mikazuki Munechika's uchiban (casual) outfit, namely for the yellow headband thingy. I've also bought fabric for the tasuki sleeve cord that both Kashuu Kiyomitsu and Yamato no Kami Yasusada have on their uchiban outfits as well. If anyone wonders what a tasuki is for it's to tie up the kimono sleeves so that they aren't in the way.

Fabrics!

I started making the sleeve tying.. well, tie, first. I took no progress photos because it's simple as hell.

I had bought like 26 cm of a 150 cm wide fabric and I cut it in half so that I got two 150 cm long strips. I then just zigzaged the edges, sewed one end of each piece together to get one 3 m long piece. Then I just folded it in half, ironed and sew the whole shebang closed. When done I ironed the whole shit once more so that it wouldn't twist itself like a retarded sausage, which it did before ironing.

The annoying thing was that even though this was a super simple thing to do I had ridiculous problems with the sewing machine I was using in school. I was using the oldest one and well, last time I used it it was kind to me but now... lolnoep. I had the needle breaking once, the thread getting pulled and snapping off in the middle of sewing God knows how many times and that's not even all! When I put the new sewing needle in place it literally just fell off (even though I had screwed it in place) and IT FELL INSIDE THE GODDAMN SEWING MACHINE. Yep, right through that tiny little hole under the presser. I was like "are you kidding me? ._." but nope, there it went and there it stayed! I even tried to lift the whole sewing machine (with the metal part removed, so that all the dust inside stared at me) and shake it, upside down, but the only thing that came out was an older already broken needle. Fudge muffins.

Finished tasuki being worn.

Seen from the back. Mirror photo, it's reversed!

I did cut the tasuki shorter by one meter before I took the photos; I realized when doing a test-run that there was way too much length to it and I couldn't hide it nicely.
I know that on the official art neither Kashuu nor Yamato seems to have a visible knot in the front but hey, that's the only way I know how to tie the tasuki so that's how I rolled. So far I haven't found an official illustration showing what the back looks like so yeah, if the knot is actually in the back on either of them I'll figure out how it's tied and do it that way in the future. :)

Next I made Mikazuki's headband thingy.
Nothing special to say about this quick project either, except that I used fake leather for the emblem (that I stitched on) instead of fabric paint; the main reason for this because I had scrap pieces of fake leather lying around after making Kojirou's tekkou and well, I couldn't find the black fabric paint anywhere (if I even had any) and the school didn't have any either and well, I'm cheap.

Emblem leather cut-outs placed on the fabric, before being sewed on.
Enjoy the cellphone quality! :'D

Annoying thing was when I was done with the whole shit and held it up to look at it. Yep, that's totally when I saw that one damn loose thread was INSIDE THE FINISHED THING; I had somehow missed to brush it off like the rest. Hnggnhejgfdhjhd!!

You see that fucker? ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ

Yep, I had "inside problems" this turn around. OTL Sewing needle falling inside the sewing machine and loose thread inside my completed headband, geez...

Oh well, with the help of some mad ninja skills I managed to move the thread to the very edge of the headband so that it disappeared from view. Mad ninja skills include poking a needle through a spot before were I started stitching (to avoid having to undo the sewing) and moving the needle around repeatedly until the thread moved along with it. :'D enjoymyclumsyexplanations.com

Tried it on my head. Excuse my face, I have zero makeup on...

Yep, that's my Mikazuki wig which recently arrived; I just took it straight out of the bag and put it on my head. I will need to style it later – this is just a quickie to see how it fit with the headband.
At one point I was seriously worried that the headband would be too short to actually be possible to tie, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Even with the wig on it's still okay!

Actually my Yamato no Kami Yasusada wig arrived together with the Mikazuki wig and yep, this is totally why I'm actually wearing Yamato's outfit on the Mikazuki headband pic and the other pics. ;)
I did a super quick outfit test (aka zero makeup) to see what it would look like; I already had everything needed for his uchiban outfit now that the wig showed up, woop!

Sorry about my weird expression and that it's a mirror photo, I
was home alone. Enjoy the Wario cap in the background.

I took the wig straight out of the bag and put it on.
The white hair ribbon I have yet to add...

I guess this would count as some kind of closet cosplay because I had the hakama already from earlier cosplays (Kenshin & Hakuouki's Hijikata) and the kimono is from my vintage collection, aka my kimono kitsuke hobby. x) The scarf I stole borrowed from Hasakitsuki. Only the wig I needed to order and well, the tasuki I made. No shit, Sherlock.

Psst, I have a wig for Kashuu as well that arrived recently! I just might need to cut and style it a bit and, of course, add the white hair tie. But I'll save that for another post!

That's all for this time! Bub-bai ~

Should I offer to do (paid) cosplay photoshoots at cons?

So yeah, what is this?

– Well, it's exactly what it sounds like, but I'll explain anyway!

For a long time now I've been noticing that some of my friends, along with some other congoers have, along the years, been asking me to photograph their cosplays more and more often at cons. People seem to appreciate my photography skills, although I can't claim to be a professional or anything of the sort, but I'm not a camera-know-nothing either! I've gone a photography course in school (that I got the best possible grade in) and I don't really think that people constantly compliment my photos for no reason either.
I do have an artistic eye and I'm willing to try new and crazy ideas to get good and unique shots – I mean, photography is a form of art as well! 
Yep, so while most people know me as a cosplayer I am a photographer as well.

So yeah, the thought of doing some kind of more "official/public post" about the fact that I'm open for cosplay photography at cons has been lingering around in my head for months, maybe even years. Yep, I'm basically saying that it would very well be possible to hire me to be the camera man for you!

Just don't have any super unrealistic expectations – I'm a hobbyist who loves photography, not a professional who does it for a living. At least not yet, hahah.

I can also offer to do the photo post-processing (aka editing) if you either can't do it or don't feel like doing it for whatever reason.

Just showing my current camera!

You can see a few photo examples of my work over at Hasakitsuki's and FankiKitsune's blogs etc. Don't take these as a limit to what I'm capable of though, just as general examples – I can and am willing to try many new things, the sky's the limit! I'm constantly improving and trying to challenge myself! (note: all these photos were taken back when I only had the default Nikon 18-55mm f/3,5-5,6G lens)

I don't have any assistants though so it's a bit limited what I can do, because I assume that I'd be photographing alone most of the time. :/ It would be convenient to have an assistant... But nonetheless I'm all up for helping any cosplayers (everyone is welcome!) getting photos of their costumes and improving my camera skills along the way! Win-win!

But then... there is that last question, the one that is rather touchy to bring up – should I or should I not charge for my service?

I've gotten the impression that there is quite a lot of talk about this and mostly in a negative tone. People, especially cosplayers, seemingly expect all photographers to always work for free (because their friends and some others photograph them for free) and if they charge then they are stupid or just not worth it. We photographers do find it fun to photograph but just because we enjoy it doesn't mean that we should always do it for free, now should we? It's kind of the same as expecting wig stylers/commissioners to style your cosplay wigs for free because they find it fun and are good at it. Same thing with art commissions etc. See where this is going?

In a way I feel like it's a bit too much to ask for any really proper payment because I don't have any high-class education or anything that would justify me charging money for my time and besides, most congoers are young people who probably don't really have much money to spend and might not be willing to pay a photographer...?
But at the same time I don't think it's all wrong to ask for a small sum ("vaivanpalkka" as we say in Finnish, if nothing else) for a photo session –say, for example 5 €– with a minimum duration of approximately 1 hour, or is it?
From a general standpoint – the thing with paying a photographer is that they would be willing to shoot anyone, not just their best friends. So would I – if you pay me I will photograph you to the best of my abilities, no matter if you started cosplay yesterday or if you've been at it for years; I won't shut down anyone's offer. I will also make sure that you like the outcome (aka taken photos) before I call it quit for the day.
Also, speaking generally again, if you pay it shows the photographer that you are serious, value their work and that you are interested in getting good photos of yourself and that you are damn likely to show up during the planned time too. And of course the photographer will "pay you back" by sending you the final photos in a timely manner, doing their best to make sure that both are satisfied etc. I think that charging a fee –even if it's a small one– is a way to make a sort of contract that both the photographer and the cosplayer will do their best to make the experience as hassle-free and pleasant for both parties.

Sorry for this post being a bit fuzzy and all over the place, but I guess you understand what I'm trying to get at. >°< By the way, if you are curious there's a very good post here about why some cosplay photographers charge for their time and I think that it's definitely worth a read!

I really don't mean it to come off the wrong way; it's just that when you do your work it's nice to get something back in return – I think everyone agrees on that. It doesn't even have to be money! Yeah I know, it's not really my "work" because I am a hobby photographer but it's still something I pour my heart and passion into – and I do make sure that everyone I take photos of is satisfied with the final product.. even if I end up standing behind the camera longer than planned.

I really want to hear your thoughts on this!

Should I charge for photoshooting someone or not and, if I should, how much do you think is a reasonable price for a non-pro/hobbyist/aspiring photographer?

Suggestions welcome – don't be afraid to tell me what you have in mind! Would you be willing to pay a con/cosplay photographer in general, if at all? What reasons/criterias would you have?

Whatever the outcome is I am available, in case some cosplayer out there wants nice photos and doesn't have a camera savvy friend around and well, I happen to attend the same convention and they happen to read this. :) Just contact me either by commenting on this post or, preferably, by sending me an email. My contact email can be found to the left on the blog!

That's all for this time. 
I would really appreciate any comments regarding this, even if spoken from a general standpoint and not targeted at me. :) I'd love to hear your opinions!

Depending a bit on what feedback I get I'll make a follow-up post.

Thank you for reading! Bai bai ~

Making Kojirou's not-so-identical tekkou!

Hello everyone, how's it going? :)

During the final days of April I went to buy some fabric to make Kojirou's tekkou, aka hand guards. I had luck with me this time and Eurokangas had everything that I needed – black fake leather, dark brown fake leather and golden bias tape!

Fabrics!

Now you're probably thinking something along the lines of "what Kojirou?" and that's right, the name is a historical one and he was a famous swordsman living during the Sengoku and early Edo period; he was most known for having battled Musashi Miyamoto. 

Though the Kojirou I'm cosplaying is one from a visual novel and on this one he is a faithful bodyguard of Hana-hime, the main heroine.

I was studying my limited references and after staring at them long enough it became clear to me that his tekkou were slightly different on each arm, for some reason. At first I had thought that it was just inconsistent references being at it again (as always), but, after some closer inspection I did notice that they were indeed different. Wut.

Oh well ~

I jumped over to the textile/hand-working class in school to make these because hey, my apartment is way too small for a sewing machine... and I don't even have one anyway.

The first lesson I had at 29th April and what I did first was draft my base pattern with the help of a tekkou I already had saved me some trouble. I then did some modifications on the pattern and –when it seemed like it might even turn into something that works– I made a quick prototype out of fabric scraps to check the fit. It fit!

Sure that it was a bit loose but seeing how it will be made of fake leather (that doesn't stretch) and there will be a folded kimono sleeve and wrappings under, I, well, thought it better to make it a bit more roomy.

With the prototype working I cut out the parts from the black leather.. and that was when I noticed my first problem – I had miscalculated the width of the tekkou and thus I was a few centimeters short. Oh well, nothing much to do than cut it out anyway and pray that the few centimeters weren't a deal-breaker.

After having cut out the leather pieces I sewed on the golden bias tape around the edges. Of course this was a troublesome episode – I had to rip up my stitches and redo three times, always because it didn't attach on the opposite side. Blargh! 
I have a love-hate relationship with bias tape...

Bias tape, I love sewing you so....... not.

One tekkou bias tape'd, other one still au natural.

Next I added the golden fake leather to make the thicker "rings" around the tekkou's upper half. After that I sewed one of the tekkou shut (aka so it takes the tube form) and then I proceeded to make the brown leather details that are on the lower half of his tekkou.

This is the best picture I found that shows what the hand guards
look like on the underside.

After looking at the references for a short moment I got an idea of how to do them. Let's start!

I started taking some measurements and then drafting out the design on the wrong side of the leather fabric. I then just cut them out and shortened each piece a bit because 35-36 cm in length was a bit too much. When doing the shortenings I accidentally cut one piece too short, or more like, each end wasn't even at one point, even though I swear to God I cut the same off on both sides! After a moment of "what the hell went wrong and where??" I noticed that it wasn't my fault – the person who sold me the fabric had cut horribly non-straight. Urgh. ._. Yep, so I had to redo one of the pieces (the thickest, aka solo one). 
I added bias tape to the needed areas again – this time it went smoothly!

A lot of bias tape sewing later I ended up realizing that I didn't have enough bias tape to finish my stuff – off we go back to the fabric store to buy 60 cm more!

In progress... and out of bias tape, fffuuu.

When I was done with sewing on the bias tape I did the "closing systems" on the underside of the tekkou... yeah, out of bias tape too. I folded it in half, sew a straight stitch on top and then just sew it on at each end; the other end by hand. Oh, and speaking of which, I sacrificed some accuracy on these because if I had put two closing ties on each piece (especially on the double smaller ones) it would have looked too crammed/busy and so –on the double pieces– I put one tie per piece, instead of two.
After that I did some "attachment spots" by hand-sewing on strategical places –so that the brown details will stay on the main body of the tekkou– and thus be less of a hassle to put on and wear.

Brown details completed, feat. "closing system" on the underside.

Example of hand-sewn stitch to keep the details in place, at all times.

With that done I was almost finished! The only thing left was to make the little loop for the middle finger (which I made out of some solid fabric scraps) and hand-sew it on. 

Finger loop done!

At this point I tried on the tekkou (it wasn't the first time) and for some reason it took me until now to realize that it was way too wide where my hand came out! Sure that I had made them bigger on purpose so that I can cram parts of the kimono sleeve –wrapped in bandages– under it, but still.
So what do I do? Take it in, of course! And of course because I did this by eye measurement (aka without measuring properly before) I ended up taking in too much at first and then I couldn't even get my hand through the opening... go me. ._. Luckily my oopsie run didn't leave too horrid holes in the leather, so I didn't ruin my almost-finished piece of work, phew.

Tekkou turned inside out, showing the original seam and the "take it in"-seam.

I repeated the process for the second tekkou and made sure not to accidentally sew a straight stitch on the brown detail parts (I had turned the whole thing inside out) because well, his tekkou are not identical and so the detail parts reach higher up on the other glove because there's two layers of them, overlapping slightly. I didn't want to do more silly mistakes and especially not because I had already stayed 30 min overtime in class and thus sacrificed half of my lunch break in school...

And now my tekkou are finished! o/

That's all for this post! Shiro Samurai out! :'D

[Sponsored] Lens review: Lenspop Bunny Color Brown

Hello! (｡◕‿◕｡)/

I'm writing today because I want to share another circle lens review with you all! o/ 

Yeah, I know, I've done quite a lot of lens reviews lately. OTL One of the main reasons for this is because while con season is about to start I haven't gotten my costumes ready to the point that I could post about them just yet (still waiting for some wigs and shoes to arrive etc). That's why I'm doing lens reviews so that this blog wouldn't be suffering from the dead blog syndrome, haha. Another reason is that, well, I'm sponsored nowadays by some circle lens stores so of course I will be chucking out reviews every now and then when I receive new lenses from the sponsors! ^.^ And also, I reaaaally love circle lenses and love reviewing them as well so yeah, my cosblog will in the future contain lens reviews more than it used to during the last year and before. I hope you don't mind too much, dear readers, ahaha ~

After all, cosplay and colored contacts do go hand in hand –at least according to me– and I've talked about that before. ;)

  The pair of lenses up on the plate today are sponsored by Klenspop – a circle lens and beauty store that I will tell you a bit more about later, hang on!

The lenses I will be reviewing are called Lenspop Bunny Color Brown and yes, they are of Klenspop's own brand and seemingly popular for the moment – hence why the store is promoting said lenses.

Even though the lenses were sponsored it doesn't change anything about my review – I always only share 100% my honest opinion to all my readers and followers.

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm

Water content: 38%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Lenses in vials. Held up close to the window on a sunny day.

Before getting to review the lenses I first want to pop out a few words about Klenspop's store!

You see, they actually contacted me asking if I was interested in a sponsorship offer. At first I was quite surprised because I had recently gotten my first sponsor and yeah, I just hadn't expected a second one in such a short time frame! But after having taken a look at their site I remembered that "hey, I've seen this store before!" and then I recalled having seen another blogger do a review for Klenspop a long time ago. I also remembered the review being a positive one so –despite my first impression of the store looking a bit unprofessional– I thought that I'd take the opportunity!

I also googled for reviews on the Bunny Color Brown lenses and up came plenty – and all good ones! Besides, I had been wanting more natural-looking lenses for a while anyway. :')

About the store itself they carry mostly circle lenses (brown and gray, especially) but also cosmetics – eyeshadow, eyeliner, lip gloss etc. The prices are cheaper than on your average circle lens store, so it's quite affordable if you don't have the dough to spend but still want to be pretty-on-a-budget.

Just remember to always be careful with circle lenses, no matter where you buy them from. If your lenses ever feel bad, hurt or make your eye bloodshot etc then don't wear them!! Your eyes are a priceless and irreplaceable part of you while a pair of colored contact lenses only costs you an average 20 dollars. Remember to treasure your eyes – the gift of sight is not something to be reckless with!

The lenses came packaged in a cardboard box; Klenspop sends their shipments from Korea!
Inside the cardboard box the lenses were safely inside their own separate little box yo dawg, wrapped around a shitlot of bubble wrap – having the lenses come in a box doesn't happen everyday! I only ever had my orders from HoneyColor arriving in a box before this! Most times circle lenses arrive wrapped in foam so the box was a nice little surprise that made the order feel a bit more personal somehow, haha.
Inside the box the lenses were in their own plastic thingy and with them came a lens case and tweezers. 

The box (empty) and what was inside it.

I put the lenses to soak already a few days ago buuuuut the weather decided to be a douche and be gray, moist and rainy several days in a row. UGH. Yes, that's the reason why this post has been delayed for about a week; friggin' weather. OTL Well at least my lenses got plenty of time to swim in the solution lol...
Oh well, today when I woke up I finally saw some rays of sunshine coming into my apartment when I woke up – now was the time. 

When I first took out the lenses from the lens cases I noticed that they were quite thin – not exactly flimsy but possibly thinner than average. Maybe that is why I had problems putting them into my eyes...
Yeah you see, when I tried to put in the right lens it just didn't want to stick to my eye. D: It kept flattening on my finger (even though my finger wasn't wet of the solution) and when I finally got it to stay in my eyeball it stung, folded itself in half (still inside my eye) and came right off when I blinked! But luckily a few more tries later it finally stopped being a rebel and went in. It made my eye red and watery for some minutes.

The left one went in without much of a fight, funnily enough?

One lens in, notice the enlargement effect.

But I must say that in terms of comfort these are not very good – ever since I put them in I kept feeling that I had lenses on at all times; they give the dry-eye feeling very quickly and I kept blinking more than I do while wearing other lenses. Also soon after I had inserted both lenses the right one decided to sting like hell, out of nowhere, and it was bad enough for me to be tapping my eyelid and rubbing my eye rather furiously. I was on the verge of taking it off but just when I thought I'd seriously do it the stinging feeling calmed down. Left lens didn't do anything similar but –just as with the right– I obviously felt that the lens was there and after only two hours of wear I already went to take them off. They felt dry and the constant "piece of plastic in the eye" feeling just got unbearable for me. :<

The comfort is disappointing and I kinda wish they would be more comfortable, because then I would like them a lot more. :/ I just don't like wearing colored contact lenses if I feel clearly that I have them on; it starts to bother me rather quickly if the feeling doesn't go away.

Then again, I've been extremely tired the last days (my eyelids feel like bricks at least half the day, it's horrible) so that might have contributed to the discomfort of wearing lenses; my eyes could have been extra sensitive, dry, tired or something...

Here comes now the usual close-up photos of me wearing the lenses. All photos are without color filters to show you how the lenses really look when worn. All photos are taken during a semi-sunny afternoon with plenty of clouds around.

If anyone wonders my natural eye color is a blue-gray with a slight greenish tint (depending on light) and a golden circle closest to the pupil.
All photos are taken by me, Shiro Samurai. As per usual.

In my apartment, facing the window.

In my apartment, with only natural light. All lamps are off.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo indoors.

Right under a very yellow light in the corridor.

Next to a weak yellow light in the staircase.

These lenses have a surprisingly nice shade of brown to them even though the design itself is rather basic, which isn't really a bad thing. The brown color shows up well and makes even my light eyes look almost as if they could have been naturally brown. :) There is a very slight hint of orange in the lenses too.The center of the lens seems to blend/fade very slightly into my eyes and you can see my real eye color peeking through the middle. I think that the contrast this gives is rather cool-looking!

Outdoors facing the light, but being under a roof so that the sun
doesn't hit me directly.

Facing the sun directly.

Facing the sun when it was partly covered by clouds.

Back against sun.

Facing a corner of the building outside, back against the sun.

The limbal ring has a kind of fuzzy look to it so when worn it gives a smooth overall effect and doesn't jump at you; I would say that these lenses are definitely meant for natural or soft makeup everyday looks rather than for the vivid lens needs of a cosplayer and –if not for the subtle design and color– then for the very small enlargement effect. You just won't be turning many heads –both near and further away ones– with these because they don't give the dramatic 'oomph' extra push that some other bigger and more vivid/patterned circle lenses give, at least according to me. These lenses are definitely for subtle looks and are probably best fit to wear to places where you don't immediately want people to look and go all "hnn~, are you wearing contacts today?" at you.

Yes, naturalness is the department where these lenses shine!

Lastly, distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 6/10

The lenses have different shades of brown in them, which makes for a natural light brown blend. Color is nice.
Design: 5/10
Rather basic-looking design but that's okay, it's pretty in its own way. It just doesn't fall quite into my tastes; I'm more into bolder and artistic lens designs.
Opacity: 7/10
Not super opaque but they definitely deliver – I mean, my eyes clearly do look brown with these!
Enlargement: 2/10
There's not much enlargement to be spoken of here. These are really small circle lenses but that's for the better, considering the strong point of these is looking natural, after all.
Comfort: 3/10
I really don't find these comfortable to wear. :( I kept feeling them in my eyes at all times and after only 2 hours I took them off because they felt dry and I couldn't stand it.
Naturalness: 8/10
These are pretty damn natural, what more do I need to say?

That'll be all that I have to say for this time!

Thank you Klenspop! ♡

Summer/Autumn convention plans 2015!

Hellouuu!

The summer con season is about to start and I thought that I'd make a quick list of where I am likely to be seen this summer. Let's go!

First off I want to give a heads up in case you aren't following me over at Facebook (do iiit~), where I already made it clear that I AM NOT ATTENDING DESUCON THIS YEAR. I'm sorry for all those who wanted/expected to see me there but I have my reasons not to go. :( One of the most obvious ones is that the tickets sold out lightning fast (I heard within 6 minutes??) and I completely missed it, boo. And then there's the rest...

Okay so, no Desucon. Where am I going then? (or at least trying to go)

– Here!

★SKECON 3-5th July http://skecon.se/  

★NÄRCON 23-56th July http://2015.narcon.se/

★NERDCON 14-15th August http://konvent.se/nerdcon-2015/

★ TRACON 5-6th September https://2015.tracon.fi/

That's about it for the main ones; Närcon is not yet set in stone (I'm still considering it) but the others I'm 95% sure to attend, except for Tracon which is also on the still-considering list, although slightly more likely than Närcon. Because Närcon is butt expensive for me in terms of travel costs.

The Finnish Kitacon is not on the list because it's seemingly still unsure if the whole event will even be held this year – if anything it's gonna be during autumn (instead of the usual winter/spring) but as far as I know it's still rather uncertain and no dates have been announced. But if Kitacon will be held then I'm likely to go there.

I'm reserving myself for any changes to the plans. I don't guarantee that I will end up in all of these but that's the plan (you never know if anything happens that makes it so that you suddenly can't go etc). I also might have missed to mention other events for various reasons...

That's all for this time!

What conventions will you attend? Tell me in the comments! ~