Cosvision 2016 – When the hotel breakfast is more interesting

Good evening everyone!

I've returned safely from my trip to Cosvision in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and now I'm writing to tell you all about the con. I honestly still have the "con hangover" but I just want to get this summary done and out as soon as possible, haha.
Soooooooooo... let's roll!

So, for those not in the know, Cosvision was held on 23-24 April and I went there with our kakkaravut trio of me, Frozen Angel and Sacchan. Awesome company always makes things better!
We had decided quite early on that we'd carpool southwards with Sacchan's car and that's also what happened. The road trip down went well and although it was long and occasionally tiring we didn't run out of shit to talk about – we're seriously such a close-knit bunch that we always have loads of fun together, no matter what!
I think the traveling took around 8 hours. I don't feel such long car trips anywhere because I'm so damn used to sitting in a car for hours and hours upon end; once when I was a little kid dad even drove all the way from southern Sweden to goddamn Italy. Beat that. That was, by the way, one of my most memorable childhood experiences.

Start of our journey. Nice weather graced us!

We were blessed with good weather when we started and it stayed good all the way down. We had all kinds of hilarious discussions to kill time and there was never a boring moment – our topics included everything from shit that only dads say to cosplay group plans and literal shit stories. There was also something really bizarre about waving baguettes around...
We also laughed hard at a car with a roof box that read "qualit box" – much qualit, such wow. :'D Another one was a Hesburger logo with only the Hesbur part lit up and the ger was occasionally blinking; it stayed as a joke for all Hesburger restaurants we saw afterwards. "Look, there's a Hesbur-ger-ger-ger-ger!" *insert Taking the Hobbits to Isengard here*

Oh and yeah, of course whenever we passed some town or whatnot with a possibly-funny-name-if-we-change-a-few-letters we of course pulled crappy jokes about it. You know, Mikkeli naturally turned into Kikkeli (lit. dick), Kinkomaa turned into Kinkymaa (lit. kinky land) and so on. No ragrets, hihi. We also bust a gut when we saw a resting place called Haarakangas (lit. crotch cloth) above Oulu – people who have watched Hetalia will understand.
Oh and also, a road called "Makkarajoentie" (lit. sausage river road) had us all howling with laughter. When I first saw it (we passed it by fast) I had a realization of "WAIT A SECOND. DID I JUST READ RIGHT?" and then Frozen Angel confirmed that he also read it. Oh lord the laughs that ensued.

Sunset! (and the obligatory river, because we're in Finland)

We stopped for a snack break at a Hesburger somewhere past Oulu and, although I didn't buy anything, I need to say that the service was so painfully slow I was cringing all along. There was like max two or three customers in front of our trio and it felt like it took way more than 15 minutes before that damn young woman working there got to us. She did everything so goshdarn leisurely I wondered how the heck she even got the job in the first place because it felt like watching a fucking sloth preparing french fries. Seriously horrible. I normally don't complain but it was just plain bad and frustrating – I even felt the need to leave one of those feedback papers to complain when we left because oh god, seriously? ._. Oh and yeah, Sacchan and Frozen Angel ordered smoothies and it was just too good when, after placing the order she said, all politely, that "it's just gonna take a short moment" and I couldn't help but roll my eyes as soon as we sat down waiting – a "short moment" was, of course, not short at all. :)) Geez.

Night-time driving.

Night fell and somewhere past Jyväskylä but before Hämeenlinna, in the middle of nowhere, the car in front of us suddenly came to an abrupt halt. We were really weirded out and wondered what was going on! Of course we had to stop completely as well when closing in and that's when we saw it – there was something on middle of the road that wasn't moving.
From a distance I first thought that it was some kind of light colored rock but as soon as we got a bit closer it became obvious that it was an animal. And it was.
...
But it was not the kind of animal you'd expect.

Hoot hoot, motherfucker.

This cute little owl was just sitting there, completely blocking the road and it didn't budge an inch (it was like a statue, seriously) nor open its eyes. It was weird and I really worried what was wrong with it; I've always loved birds and even after we passed the owl I could not stop thinking about it. Why was it there? Was it hurt? Did someone come to save it?
I saw that the woman in the car before us called someone; I really hope she called the animal protection peeps. I hope it survived. Poor thing. ;_;
Luckily it was close to midnight and on a calm road so maybe everyone else saw it on time too.

The clock was around midnight when we finally reached Hämeenlinna, our destination. We had been keeping in touch with Firith all along the journey because he was the fourth member of our group and the one who had booked the hotel for all of us. We found the right place, parked the car in the hotel's parking lot, checked in and pretty much immediately went to sleep because we all were so tired. I shaved my poor beard before going to bed because yeah, gotta be smooth for the sake of cosplay ~

Third floor hotel corridor showing the two rooms we had.

Me and Sacchan shared one room (number 330) and Frozen Angel and Firith shared another room just next to ours (332). The hotel was Original Sokos Hotel Vaakuna. Pretty nice hotel, nothing to complain about. The huge amount of pillows was appreciated and, especially, the mega-sized one lol.

Our hotel room on the morning.

Saturday morning came. Holy crud it felt horrible to wake up after such a long journey and with only like 6 hours of sleep. I'm just really not a morning person, at all. Ugh.
I kicked up Sacchan, we put on our travel/casual clothes and went to knock on our double trouble's door and then we headed down to eat breakfast buffet together. The hotel breakfast was better than I expected; there was actually a lot of really tasty stuff and the variation was good! I even managed to eat a lot without feeling overly stuffed and getting the whole "feel nauseous in the morning" crap. Thing is that on con mornings I tend to be unable to eat much at all (especially hotel breakfasts, which is frustrating) because I'll just start feeling sick and, well, it sucks.

After breakfast we started putting on our cosplays for the day; I was to do a Darkrai gijinka from Pokémon and Sacchan did shiny Umbreon. I had some trouble with the eye makeup so Sacchan did the Jack Sparrow eyes for me, haha. ( ; 3;)
When we were done all four of us started walking towards Verkatehdas, which ended up being really close to the hotel. We took the slightly longer shore way to check for photoshoot locations and just outside the hotel there were this really cool stone ruin things and I, of course, wanted a quick shooting there.

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Darkrai)
Photographer: Sacchan & Frozen Angel
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

When we got to the con area my first impression when I saw the outside was "uhmm, looks a bit dead"; I was somehow expecting there to be a bit more life outside. Then again, it's not really alarming because you just kinda assume most people stay indoors anyway.

A view of Verkatehdas' entrance. The building Cosvision was held in.

As soon as we stepped inside we went to get our con tickets from the table in the entrance – it went very quick and without issues. What surprised me though was that the con bands were not fabric and not paper either. They were plastic and looked like those wrist bands you get in hospital when you're stuck there with some serious disease. What the fuck. I was honestly kinda disappointed. The ticket made me look like I had just escaped from some asylum, lol. It didn't feel like a con ticket.

Cosvision con ticket.

My first two impressions as soon as we got to the main area of the con were "confusing" and "comme ci comme ça". It felt like there was something missing. I was honestly kinda weirded out when the first thing I saw was groups and groups of con attendants just filling out the stairs doing nothing; it instantly gives an impression that people are bored and have nothing else to do than engage in idle chitchat with their friends. It was disappointing because there was not much to do and you could tell on the people that pretty much everyone seemed to be thinking the same things you were, aka that the con felt half-assed and overhyped. I mean, the location/building is great and very fitting for a con but some placements were poor *coughartistalleycough* and it felt a bit confusing. The main issue though was that there simply was nothing to do unless you liked to play board games or stuff like Twister or something. There was no video game room, no anime karaoke, no crafts room, no activities, nothing. Time went by so slowly because you just spent time staring at the clock and walking through the merchandise hall over and over again, although you had nothing to buy.
I can sorta understand that because it's a cosplay focused con they maybe didn't prioritize activities for whatever reasons (hard to sit in elaborate costumes etc) but seriously, if there's nothing to do people just end up sitting on the floors and stairs and the whole con atmosphere disappears or feels like a "hang out with friends con", no matter how big and pompous the con's original idea was. Honestly, Cosvision ended up feeling like a Kitacon in the south with some top-class cosplays. Really disappointing and especially so because the last Cosvision was a success.

I spent almost all of my con time just sitting around whenever wherever and just chatting with my friends and photoshooting outside. It was so dull and if I had gone alone I would have been bored out of my mind in, like, 10 minutes. Once again it was my company that saved the con experience and my Nintendo 3DS. I also really enjoyed that I got to see some con friends I hadn't seen in a couple years, like Ri-kun.

Random photo of the main area.

Entrance view.

Oh and yeah, the merchandise hall was kinda... lackluster. There was like below 10 shops and they were all those basic ones that you see at every Finnish convention and which products you've already plowed through more than enough times. Only Bard & Jester was refreshing to see and their stuff is always inspiring to look at anyway. Oh and yeah, there was this one little shop there where you could buy slush and cotton candy – that was a cool surprise that I wasn't expecting.

A big selection of Ramune flavors. Too overpriced for my taste though.

Merchandise hall.

Merchandise hall. The shop to the left (Bard & Jester) was the best/coolest one!

I need to say that the placement of Artist's Alley was meh. I honestly completely missed it on the first day because it was placed in a spot where it was hidden by the entrance area's wall, no matter which direction you came from. There was no signs either telling people that it was there; the only sign pointing to that direction said "ticket information spot" or something like that and it didn't even cross my mind to check it out because I didn't have any issues with my con ticket, lol. I think the cinema was there too but yeah, never saw a sign for the Artist's Alley.
It felt like Artist's Alley probably suffered from the bad placing; they were kinda separated from the rest of the building where stuff happened, you know, the "dark corner" effect. Why wasn't it put in the same place as the merchandise hall? It would have been better because then the merch hall wouldn't have felt so empty.
Artist's Alley was small (approximately 6 sellers) and I didn't really find the items for sale that interesting – almost everyone sold necklaces/jewelry, for some reason. I did find a nice Megaman necklace that I bought as a present for my big sister but I didn't buy anything for myself.

One of the Artist's Alley tables.
OMG SILLIS MERCH.

The photo above was by far the best thing with Artist's Alley – I honestly mentally died of laughter when I saw it. xD Non-Finnish people won't get it but those weird Donald Duck things are a huge meme in Finland (Finland is a Donald Duck country, fyi) that was made by SilliS. Pretty much everyone knows them –at least if they've spent time on Youtube's weird side– and they are absolutely hilarious, if you have that kind of humor of course. The guy selling those presumably had some contact with SilliS himself (probably friends) and they had teamed up to create those merchandises. Yes, I asked him and he told me that it was a collaboration project with SilliS so yeah, they were as official as they could be! I was sad that the Donald ones had sold out because I would instantly have bought a necklace with "AQ-sedä" on it, hihi.

Around 16:00 or something all four of us headed back to the hotel to eat some provisions and some of us changed out of cosplay. Me and Sacchan then got hungry and we headed out with the car to go find a Hesburger. It turned out Hämeenlinna, aka Hämärälinna, is a confusing place to drive in – we got lost and just went around in circles and then we ended up accidentally exiting Hämeenlinna and going into the main road. Oops. Luckily there came an ABC shop/restaurant/gasoline station (it's all three of them, lol) where we could turn our car around and then, much to our luck in misfortune, said ABC had a Hesburger! It didn't quite go as planned but we got our burgers so we were happy, lol.

Obligatory con diet. #heseläski

After stuffing our faces with cheeseburgers we headed back to the hotel to leave the car and then we decided to go back to the con. Much to our surprise we quickly learned at the con's outdoor area that it had already closed for the day. Excuse me but... what the actual fuck?
The con closed its doors 18:00 on the goshdarn main day and I had a hard time believing it. Seriously, I paid 25,70 € for a two-day weekend ticket and it closes at fucking six in the evening?? Urrrrgh. >_> What a waste of money! I'm an evening person and that's about the time I get started and into the con mood but lolnope, you pay a high ticket price for a con that closes in time for the kiddies to have supper and go to sleep. The disappointments just kept coming, I swear.
I'm used to even small cons in Sweden being, first off, three days long and, secondly, both cheaper and open 24/7. Finnish cons are such a joke in comparison and everything's overpriced and adghsadsjhafjh – it's just not worth it. I guess I'll keep to going to cons in Sweden in the future because every time I give a Finnish con in the south a chance lately I've just ended up with a huge hole in my wallet and nothing to make it worth all the travel expenses etc all the way from the north. Bah.

So yeah, we stayed outside to photoshoot Firith's cosplay and then he and Frozen Angel wanted to do some Hetalia pairing photos. We had a lot of laughs because things escalated quickly but it got cold past sunset and I ended up freezing so bad I had trouble pressing the buttons on my camera. On the way back to the hotel I also somehow twisted my left knee (I have weird joints) and it hurt like living hell. I'm not normally the person to complain about pain but it was seriously so bad I could not bend my knee at all and thus had to walk with my left leg completely straight.
We made our way back to the hotel, most of us disappointed and annoyed with the overly early closing time. Me and Sacchan stayed outside to photoshoot my Darkrai costume more properly now that I got to borrow FankiFox's long black gloves. The photoshoot pictures will be posted separately.

The remainder of the night I spent chitchatting with Sacchan and we came to the conclusion that Cosvision really was a bummer or, as we said in Finnish, "mitäänsanomaton ja juostenpaskattu". Seeing how early it closed it's not worth it because we seriously spent more time in the car driving to the con than at the con itself, lol. It's just so weird because they had two years to make it good and still it feels like the arrangers just pooped and the execution fell short. The whole con just felt so lackluster and indifferent and it didn't make things better that panels and lectures were cancelled left and right, including the one by Panther's Tear Forge about cosplay against bullying, which I had looked forward to the most on Saturday. There were few panels to begin with and that also made for the feeling that there was nothing to do and it only got worse because stuff got cancelled and nothing replaced the gaping holes in the schedule. Then again, it's not really the con's fault if a lecturer informs super late that they can't come, but still. The amount of bore was too much, especially considering the ticket price – take off 10 € from the price and it would have been acceptable.

Sunday morning eventually came and we woke up at seven. I noticed early on that my eyes were living their own life and because of it I decided to skip cosplaying Hatori on this day. My eyes were seriously watering so much I could not even keep them open; I was squinting and rubbing and my eyes just cried non-stop for hours and it was horrible. I've never experienced anything like it. The corners of my eyes were super sensitive too and wearing any kind of makeup was out of the question.
Normally going without a cosplay would have felt like going naked but now I didn't even feel bad about it, mainly because of the disappointment – it felt like it didn't even matter. Sure that I would have loved to take pair photos with Firith as Ayame but oh well, no can do when my eyes took the early checkout ticket.

Me and Sacchan headed directly for the hotel's breakfast buffet as soon as we put on our clothes and I'm not gonna lie – the hotel breakfast was more interesting than the con itself; I looked forward to it more. The food was surprisingly good and varied (I've eaten at a lot of restaurant breakfasts) and it was the highlight of the day, lol. Going to the con wasn't exciting at all and we didn't even care about being there early because there wasn't anything to do anyway.

Hotel breakfast, showing the options of "what to put on your bread".

Cookies, nuts and muesli etc.

My first plate. The Karelian pastries were awesome.

14:00 I headed for Cidi's and Hitsuwa's lecture – at least it wasn't cancelled. I liked it, it was fun and nice to listen to what they had to say. The bad thing is that the person keeping track of time (a con worker) fucked up and so their panel ended at least 15 minutes ahead of time because she was stressing them up, even though they would have had plenty of time. ._. Seriously...

Panel start.

We left the con around 16:30 because my mom called me while I was in the food market with Ri-kun (buying something to eat) and asked if we had left Hämeenlinna already. I told her that we were about to leave and she told us to hurry up because absolutely horrible weather –and thus driving conditions– was coming our way; seemingly it had even been announced in the news that anyone going out with summer tires should stay home or take public transports like train or bus. It was supposed to be that bad but, honestly, we drove all the way home and not a shit happened. Then again, maybe we were just master ninjas and magically avoided the bad weather somehow, who knows?

~~~~~~~~~~

But yeah, I don't even know what more to say about the con itself. The whole con was such a mess and it lacked anything to make it entertaining and worthwhile, save for amazing cosplayers. It really needed more activities, more panels, more sellers, more everything. People really put on their best outfits but the con itself was such a drag and a huge disappointment. :( I remember the first Cosvision fondly but this was just so bad that I don't even think I'd attend the next Cosvision unless some real improvements happen; it simply was not worth the money and time it took for us three to travel there and back. 

It was sooooo disappointing that I don't even know what to say! So much wasted potential because seriously, they had all the time and means to make it amazing (I mean come on, the only cosplay-focused con in the whole country!) and still it managed to end up so bland and insignificant. It's just sad because I at least had high expectations and hopes for the con and then it ended up being such a mediocre "hang with friends" con, except with amazing cosplays.

One of the best things of the con was that I got Elffi's signature!

That's about all that I have to say. Thanks for reading. 

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Hatori Sohma quick outfit test

Good evening folks!

Cosvision is really close now and I'm honestly kinda panicking here; I haven't even started packing yet and we'll leave on Friday morning or afternoon, oops. I'm just a bit all over the place and I'm currently super stressed about a shitlot of things, argh! But yeah, with this post at least I get one thing less to fret about, namely knowing that my Hatori costume works and looks as it should. Mostly.

Hatori in the anime. Just to show what color reference I'm going with.

It's heavily implied in the manga at least that Hatori is pretty much never seen wearing anything except formal wear. He also wears very expensive designer's suits but yeah, since I'm a poor student I can't do the same, obviously. ( ; 3;) I do have a few suit jackets but they're all second-hand findings so ssssch about that. I went with a black one since that's the standard color and at least he has a black one on the screenshot above.

This one looks dark brown though...

But yeah, I decided to roll with black this time since black is always black and my pants were black anyway. Hatori should technically have other colors too if that's the only things he wears lol; I'd be bored out of my mind if my whole wardrobe only consisted of black suits...!

I did a super quick outfit try-on, to check that everything looks okay, and luckily at least it doesn't look like shit, lol. The wig might need some further styling but as I said on the wig post I'll do that at the hotel. ^^" Oh and yeah, I completely skipped all makeup (sorryyyyy) because I honestly couldn't be bothered just for the sake of one crummy mirror photo. I had no photographer available. I'll just improvise the makeup on the con morning and pray to the cosplay gods that it succeeds...

Note: Obviously (dirty) mirror photo.
Hence why the covered eye is reversed.

I crappily blurred out the whole background, since it was really distracting because of the mess and yeah, blended in too much with all the black too. Oh and yeah, ignore the blank stare please – I guess I did the 'memory suppression' on myself, lolololo.
I haven't decided yet if I'll keep the jacket open or closed; Hatori does both though so it doesn't really matter in terms of character accuracy. Oh well, whatever I do Hatori does not really have any signature traits that makes him stand out from all the other "handsome and properly dressed men" in anime so yeah, I might not be recognized anyway. x) I guess the only thing really making him a bit less generic-looking is the blocked left eye but yeah, that's about it. I hope having Firith running around as Ayame Sohma with me will help people know that I'm supposed to be a Sohma family member too and not just a random guy in a suit, lol.

This is the last post you'll see from me before Cosvision! Hang on and I'll be back after 23-24th April with a con summary! 
~ Shiro Samurai out.

Hatori Sohma wig

Hello peeps!

Cosvision is really close now and I thought it's about time that I finish Hatori up! I actually have the whole costume ready, save for the wig. Closet cosplay, ssch.
I decided to sacrifice my old Hijikata wig for Hatori since I've bought another pure black wig for Hijikata, to match with the ponytail clip-on. You see, this wig, while it may look black on first glance, is actually a super dark brownish black and it looked horrible with the clip-on because, in some lights, you could clearly see the color difference – it started to annoy me more and more over the years, lol. So yeah, seeing how I'm not using said wig for Hijikata anymore I thought I could give it a new life! I don't like having perfectly usable wigs just lying around and collecting dust...

Wig before cutting. Front and side.

Hatori actually changed his hairstyle slightly in both the anime and in the manga; I couldn't find any manga references on a quick search so I decided to go with anime images since there is no difference, as far as I can remember – I'm pretty sure the only notable difference on the manga and anime portrayals is his eye color.
I decided on doing the long-haired (the first version) instead of the short one, mainly because I like it a bit more. The short-haired version somehow looks so generic; I always thought long-haired Hatori was more recognizable in some way.

Hatori with long bangs...

... and with short bangs.

The reason he's covering his left eye is because he's almost blind on said eye. Fuck you, Akito. Hatori is a tragic character and I guess that's why I like him; I tend to prefer the more calm, quiet and kinda cold characters anyway and Hatori totally fits the bill.

Regarding styling the wig I didn't have to do all that much. I mainly shortened the bangs, straightened the sides –since they were wavy– and cut them shorter as well. I'm aware that the wig is not super accurate but I decided on leaving the sides a bit longer than what he has, mainly because I need something to frame my face because otherwise I look like shit... and then I feel uncomfortable.

Wig after cutting.

I will probably need to put in some more styling products and use some pins to keep certain parts in place but yeah, I'll save that for the con – don't want the styling to wear off before I even get to the hotel, lol. Might need to thin it down a bit too but yeah, we'll see.

Sacchan helped a bit with the cutting too, mainly to get both sides the same length since I have tendencies to fuck that up, haha.

Not so much more to say. I still need to do a preview test for Hatori, oh shit!

Shiro Samurai says see ya later!

Darkrai gijinka preview test!

Good day everyone!

A few days ago I posted my Cosvision plans and, because both of my chosen characters are new cosplays, I felt like I needed to do some quick test runs before the con, to see if they even look presentable! Actually both Hatori and Darkrai are, in a way, "closet cosplays", because both of their outfits I could put together from stuff I already own. Sssch, I'm cheap. Darkrai mainly consists of parts from other cosplays but I still have to admit that I am surprisingly satisfied with how it turned out.

But enough blabbering, now I'll treat you guys to a couple test run photos! ~

Photographer: Sacchan

I'm sorry about the overexposed white wig but
there was no saving it.

I most likely won't change anything on the outfit itself (unless I can find longer gloves) but the makeup was just a test and it's not the final look that I'm going for. I actually had no idea what to do and the preview shooting was kinda sudden so I just threw something together quickly, in terms of eye makeup, and prayed that it would look decent at least. I have some ideas now, after brainstorming with Sacchan, on what I want the makeup to look like and I hope it'll work out at the con. If anyone's curious the real eye makeup look is hopefully gonna be something along the lines of Jack Sparrow style. Fuck yeah!

Oh and yeah, the long ponytail will be tied in some way at the con because seriously, I can't stand having such a long thing hanging free – it feels like it tangles if I just look at it. It's gonna be in some kind of braid or something because that's just a lot easier and more convenient. I seriously don't have the patience to detangle long wigs and keep them neat, although I wish I had because there's several characters that I want to cosplay who has long hair...

Just a close-up selfie.

I plan to use different contact lenses too. The ones I'm wearing on these pics are the EOS Bubble Blue's and, while they'd be great for Darkrai's eye(s), they have dropped in comfort since I opened them back in October last year. I think it's better I open another bright blue pair because yeah, I can't stand wearing lenses at a con if they dry out my eyes already on the first hours; I need something comfy for a full day event.

Just a Darkrai reference for those that don't
know what it looks like.

I just hope that I'll be somewhat recognizable as Darkrai, even though Pokémon gijinkas (aka humanized versions) are not always that easy to tell apart from some random Original Character, a-character-I-don't-know or whatnot. Oh well, whatever the case I won't be gijinka-ing alone because Sacchan will do a shiny Umbreon gijinka to accompany me – we'll be edgy af together! :'D Dark types ftw!

That's about it for this time. A Hatori test run post is coming up before Cosvision too!

Shiro Samurai says bye.

Cosvision 2016 cosplans – Be black and cover your eye!

Well, guess what guys?

My next convention will be Cosvision in Hämeenlinna, Finland, on 23-24 April. I'm not sure if I've revealed it anywhere but there ya go – I'm coming after all!

The con is less than two weeks away now and yeah, I thought it would be about time to finally decide on what I'm going to cosplay there since, honestly, I've had a lot of problems with my cosplay plans changing every other day. ^^" I'm still not 100% sure that this is the final line-up but it should be – assuming that no sudden cosplay malfunction happens or such.

~~~~~~

Regarding the con itself I need to say that at first I was unsure if I would even attend Cosvision. I was on the very first one in 2014 and now that the second one is coming up I felt very conflicted about attending; one part of me remembered how much I enjoyed the first Cosvision and the other part reminded me of how uncomfortable I've felt at bigger conventions lately. In one way I had been waiting for the return of Cosvision very eagerly and, on the other hand, my anxieties were telling me that it's gonna be a waste of money because I might not even feel okay there. I felt so torn and it was horrible to try to decide on what to do.
One thing was sure though – I refused to go without a group of friends. And thus I quickly learned that my brother, Frozen Angel, really really really wanted to go. I didn't really want to let him down because he's been hyped about the con ever since I went to the first one and told him what a blast it was; I guess he regretted not going back then and now he wanted to make up for it. I also managed to get Sacchan interested and that made me feel safe and understood because now I had someone else who knew what I was feeling; we both were really uncertain about attending because we've both been feeling bad at cons lately, for various reasons, but then we just decided to gamble and went all "I'll go if you go and if we feel shit at the con then we'll just withdraw to a corner and play Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate together." – yaassss!
Originally Ronya was supposed to come with us too but she had to jump out a few weeks before the con would roll in because of health reasons. I still hope we'll get to go to a con together soon. :'(

Sorry about all the gloom but yeah, I'm really just hoping that Cosvision will be fun and that I won't feel shit there because, honestly, who wants to feel bad somewhere where you're supposed to feel safe and happy? I'm hoping it will have the same relaxed atmosphere as it had back when it was in Turku – I really want this to be a successful trip and not another Desucon Frostbite 2015.

But here comes the cosplay plans!

Saturday

Series: Pokémon

Character: Darkrai (gijinka)

This is the result of my "holy shit, I need to come up with a Saturday cosplay that I can pull from my closet!"-panic when I realized I had less than two weeks to go. Then again, I don't really mind because Darkrai is pretty cool and come on, he's like the Freddy Krueger of Pokémon, lol. Darkrai might not be one of my favorites (he's more Frozen Angel's type of Pokémon) because I prefer Cresselia and Arceus more from the same generation's legendaries/mythicals but yeah, I love me some black and spooky shit.

Sunday

Series: Fruits Basket

Character: Hatori Sohma

Hatori was not originally on my cosplay list (I had considered doing him once but that's about it) but then Firith asked me if I was interested in a Furuba pair cosplay –with him as Ayame– and I thought "why the hell not?". I mean, I haven't cosplayed from Fruits Basket in a while and Hatori is a very likable guy from the series – actually, he's my third favorite character from it. :) 

I'll go with the random suit version instead of the probably-more-well-known vest and white doctor-ish jacket outfit. Oh and yeah, I'll do the long hair version and the manga portrayal instead of the anime version, which means that I'll have violet eyes instead of those weird dark greenish-gray eyes he has in the anime. Violet looks more fab, period. My reasoning though? The anime sucks and the manga is awesome and, besides, the manga is the original source anyway.

~~~~~~

That's about it for my plans. I hope to meet some friends at the con and I pray that it's gonna be worth it. I can say already now though that, as far as the cons in Finland go, I'm very unlikely to attend any other big con for the whole year; I'll still attend the local small cons but otherwise I'm really trying to save my money and prioritize some other things in life that are coming up this year. I have some Swedish cons in mind *coughnärconcough* that I want to go to but we'll see what my money situation says when the time is closer...

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for cosplay previews! Bye bye ~

Lens review: I.Fairy Star Blue

Welcome ~

Today I will treat you all to a circle lens review! I will be reviewing the super adorable I.Fairy Star Blue lenses! o(･ω･)o These lenses feature a really unique star-shaped design with a thick black limbal ring – perfect for big-eyed cute and magical looks!

Let's roll!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 16.2 mm

Water content: 55%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

As you can see my lenses came in different I.Fairy vials – but that's really nothing to worry about. It just means that the lenses are from different production batches; it happens every now and then and, especially, if you order lenses with different prescriptions. :) As long as you have the I.Fairy authenticity stickers on the vials you can be sure that you've received genuine and safe-to-wear lenses!

I put the lenses to soak the evening before I had planned on wearing them; you should take them out of the bottles at least 8 hours before wearing because the solution used to store them in the bottles is not the same you use.

One lens in. Shows enlargement effect.

Upon insertion the lenses felt very slightly irritating for the first minute, but that went away rather quickly. They are comfortable and don't block my vision in any way but, most of the time, I could tell that I was wearing contacts. They seem to dry out fast for me though; the first punches of dryness came already within the 1,5-2 hour range and after 3 hours had passed I really wanted to take them out. Please note though that I've had especially tired and sensitive eyes lately, which might be part of the reason why I couldn't stand these for very long. 
Another thing is that after taking off the lenses my left eye was really sensitive and stingy for about 30 minutes – it basically felt like there was an eyelash hair in my eye that I couldn't get out. My eye hurt if I put pressure on it, rubbed it or anything like that. Luckily it went away by itself but it was weird since I never experienced anything like it before. I think it might be because the left lens would have expired on June 2016 if I had not opened it. The right lens expired first on 2019 so yeah, might explain why it was only the left one that gave the "afterburn".

Lens photos coming up!
All photos taken by me during an April afternoon with a semi-clear sky. All close-up photos are free from color filters and such and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Facing window in my apartment. (sun side)

Natural apartment room light, facing wall. (lamps off)

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Standing in the corridor.

Under white corridor light.

Under yellow corridor light.

Yellow weak staircase light.

Outdoors, sitting under the roof/shadows. Facing sun.

Outdoors, facing sun directly.

Outdoors, back against sun.

Indoors storage room. (natural light)

Facing staircase window.

As you can see these lenses are rather big and they have a really prominent thick black limbal ring that gives you a cute dolly and/or animated look. ^.^ The lenses have a really unique star-shaped design and I think it's really cool! I've never come across other lenses with a similar print so I do like it a lot! What makes it even better is that the blue shade is really beautiful and it shows up well and does, in fact, blend rather nicely with my light blue-gray eyes; I didn't expect them to fit in with my eyes as well as they did, considering how vibrant the color is and how artistic and unnatural the design is!

The I.Fairy Star series might be better suited for j-fashion styles like decora, pastel goth, fairy kei and such rather than for cosplay. I don't intend to say that they don't fit cosplay purposes but I think that the design of the lenses complements cute fashion looks better and, I think, that the big pupil hole might not make the lenses jump out as much as needed for cosplay photography – especially when the cosplayer is seen from a distance and the eyes need to grab attention from afar.
A big pupil hole means that more of your own eye color shows through in the middle, which I know that some people with naturally light eyes finds doesn't look right and "clashes" with the color of the lens. Personally I'm neutral/indifferent to the look but I do acknowledge that a big pupil hole also means that the lens won't hinder your vision (colored corners when you move gaze etc) and this I really appreciate.

Distance photos!

I tried to go for a cute and timid candy-like look. I wanted to try to bring out a youthful, shy and innocent feeling. (◕ᴗ◕✿) wiee ~

Short summary:

Color: 8/10
Beautiful and vivid blue shade that shows up well and isn't overwhelming.

Design: 9/10

Really pretty and unique star-shaped design with a thick black limbal ring!

Opacity: 8/10

The colored parts of the lens do have good color coverage.

Enlargement: 8/10

These are big and give you a dolly look!

Comfort: 4/10

Comfortable for short-time wear but dries out fast for me (3 hours). Left lens burns my eye after I take it out, likely because of it being close to expiring before I opened the bottle it was in.

Naturalness: 1/10

Pffffft, think again.

 Thanks for reading! If you have any questions just leave them in the comments!

Shiro Samurai out.

Childhood nostalgy & dream cosplays!

Good day everyone! o(^◇^)o

For a while now I've been itching to make some kind of post about characters that I really liked as a kid and that, nowadays, have a sort of "childhood dream/nostalgy cosplay" status to them! Even though I feel like I can't call many of my cosplays 'dream cosplays' I guess some of these child favorites of mine do come rather close to it. :) Many of these served as childhood heroes and as characters that I related to, admired or just simply really loved when growing up. 

Okay so, even though these characters listed below might be more or less vastly different from one another, they all still have something in common and that's that they were dear to me during my childhood – and that also includes early & mid teenage years. Wow, that makes me sound so old.

What are we waiting for, let's gooooo ~ 

Series: Digimon

Character: Angemon

Oh man, good ol' original Digimon Adventure. ♥ As a kid I was one of those few (?) who loved Pokémon and Digimon equally, aka I never really understood the "war of copies" comparisons between them that other kids made and thus picked sides – saying that you could only like one or the other, not both. I always thought that even though both had some similarities they also had a lot of differences too!
 Patamon was always my favorite of the main Digimons because he was just so damn cute! I have at least two different Patamon plush dolls lying around somewhere. I remember watching the show as a kid for the first time and when Patamon finally evolved into Angemon I was so excited – he was so freakin' cool! *o* But yeah, everyone who watched Digimon knows what happens after that and yeah, the feels are real with this one. *gross sobbing*

Angemon seriously stayed as one of my all-time favorite Digital Monsters (Takeru/T.K was my favorite of the original children too!) and now that I'm into cosplay I really want to do him. I can't live with myself if I don't cosplay Angemon one day. It needs to happen, period.
Friendly note: I know that Angemon is quite heavily inspired by Christianity but, honestly, the religious aspects of his character have nothing to do with why I like, nor want to cosplay, him. 

Series: Digimon Adventure 02

Character: Ken Ichijouji

I want to cosplay at least one of the early DigiDestined (aka Chosen Children in the Japanese version) and I remember really liking Ken when I was young; I had some sort of early mancrush on him, lol. I never saw the complete second season but I rewatched it last year and when Ken finally snapped and hugged Wormmon I had a hard time keeping the tears in check – he's so precious. ;A; I hadn't seen that part of the anime before, so I had no idea that he'd actually revert back to being a good guy and, oh boy, did that dig him up from my childhood memories as one of my human favorites from Digimon!
I really want to cosplay him but I'm not 100% sure of which version I'd do; I am currently leaning towards his gray school uniform though. It's pretty dang iconic.

Series: Beyblade

Character: Ray Kon (Rei Kon in Japan)

I don't remember exactly when it was, but I guess around my early teenage years I suddenly got into a Beyblade craze. The original series aired on television and I saw some random episodes during a summer vacation at dad's; I later asked dad for money and went and bought some Beyblades to play with from the local toy store. xD I remember originally liking Kai more than Ray but afterwards I started digging Ray a lot and even more so when, last year, the wonderful Satu and Päivi from Leikkipuisto encouraged me to do him!
I never really told my friends that I used to like Beyblade but several toys, a GBA game and Beyblade bed covers speak for themselves, haha. I should really watch the original series properly one day. #closetfan

Series: Beyblade

Character: Kai Hiwatari

What should I say? xD We share the same name, I can relate to him in some ways and I must admit that I had a tiny mancrush for him too. :'D I just really liked him as a kid, okay? I dig his design surprisingly much too but I think one of his selling points to me was that his Bit-Beast was based on a phoenix and, well, I always had a huge fascination with birds. I also like his color scheme and I'm itching to tackle that wig because holy crud, that's gonna be one heck of a challenge!

Series: InuYasha

Character: Sesshoumaru

My first and original husbando, not gonna lie. I loved him so much and I still do!!

InuYasha was the first manga I started collecting/reading and I own every single manga volume (in Finnish) of it; it has a special place in my heart. ♥ InuYasha is what really hooked me into manga and anime for good and it's one of those series that made me realize that I had been into anime & manga *coughpokémoncough* long before I knew what it was. :D So yeah, aside from being one of my long-term favorite mangas I can say that InuYasha is very likely one of the series that also led me into finding out about cosplay. I honestly plan to cosplay a lot more characters from it but Sesshoumaru is the number one choice, by miles. I just feel like I must do him someday and I'm really relieved that I didn't decide on him as my first cosplay, lol. xD I'll do him when I feel that I can do him justice, haha. He's such a dear character to me, I don't want to mess it up.

Series: Pokémon

Character: Tracey Sketchit

Who remembers this guy?
I've been a hardcore Pokémon fan since the first games and TCG came out (I was around six years old I think) and my whole childhood centered around Pokémon, not gonna lie. x) I was one of those mildly obsessed kids and I'm still going strong about it, even though nowadays I don't require my birthday cake to be a big marzipan Pikachu, lol. Pokémon is what got me into manga and anime to begin with – Pokémon is what made me who I am today. ♥
Okay so, I honestly don't remember all that much about this guy but I remember liking him and that's mainly because he was an artist and so were I! His design is simple, nostalgic and very typical of early Pokémon and so I thought "why not"? :D Besides, he gives me a legit reason to bring along a drawing pad to conventions and actually practice sketching Pokémons... which I haven't done for years, even though as a child that was almost the only thing I drew, lol. Aaaah, memories... ~

Series: Pokémon

Character: James

Well, contrary to Tracey, James hardly needs an introduction! He's from the infamous Team Rocket duo who always tries to steal Ash's Pikachu or do some other mischievous shenanigans to mess up their day. The thing is that whatever they do and no matter how idiot-proof their idea might have been they will always end up... blasting off again.
I remember that even as a kid I thought that Team Rocket were way too predictable and annoying because you knew they'd always fail! But nevertheless I liked their silly tries and even sillier costumes they'd wear to try to fool Ash and his gang; sometimes they went to great lengths just to get that damn Pikachu and it just makes me wonder why they even bother when Pikachu is not even a rare Pokémon to begin with, lol.
But yeah, even though I did find Team Rocket mildly annoying I still always, somehow, liked James. Something about him that I can't put my finger on was interesting – maybe because he could be so goofy and fabulous at the same time. It was hard to dislike him!
So yeah, expect me to cosplay James someday, although probably not in that gorgeous af Moltres suit... xD

Booonuuuuuus!

Series: Rölli
Character: Rölli

In honor because it's my dad's birthday today I have to uncover this secret dream!
My dad got me into Rölli when I was really really young and this funny little troll (although it has been said officially that he's not actually a troll) stayed with me all my life – I still listen to the songs and I own the movies! The movies actually make me cry, no regrets.
Non-Finnish readers probably have no idea what I'm going on about because Rölli is an old Finnish classic television program aimed for children (read more about it here) but it's so quirky and entertaining that even adults love it, including my dad. ♥ The show does teach you a lot about important matters and in a funny way too, so that even kids can understand and relate to more adult problems etc. Dad always called me "rölli" as a kid and he still does it, lol.
The character Rölli himself is just so lovable (even though he'd say 'yuck'!) and I would love to cosplay him someday since he has been a sort of childhood hero and model for me – albeit a quite different one, haha. :') I'm unsure about which costume version I want to do of Rölli since there exists quite a few; I really liked the movie version pictured above because of those big fantasy helmets and all but yeah, the original Rölli has its charms too. Decisions, decisions...

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Please note that this list only includes characters with a humanoid appearance, even though I would have plenty of Digimon and Pokémon gijinkas to list. I'll save those for another time! ;)

Okay so, I think these are plenty enough to give you an idea of what my childhood was like. I am probably forgetting some characters, series or video games *cougharea88cough* but I'll just leave those for another time! Besides, it might be fun to keep some complete secrets, huehuehue ~

Thanks for checking out this post and please leave a comment if any of these characters interested you or anything! I'd love to hear about your childhood characters too and hey, I'm totally up for doing cosplay groups! *hinthint* 

~ Shiro Samurai out.