Throwback Thursday: Amari Nobunaga cosplay from InuYasha!

Hello mah friends!

A while ago I started a new Throwback Thursday themed blog series on which I'll go through some of my early cosplays. In last Thursday's post I talked about how Byakuya from InuYasha was my debut cosplay and today we'll stay in Feudal Japan and fight youkais. Today's showcased costume is actually one that pretty much no one knows that I've done, hehe...

Ever since I found some really old cosplay WIP photos in the deep dark corners of my laptop I've been wanting to do something with them – like, for example, show them to the world because we all started somewhere. Yes, I totally took progress photos before I even started cosplay blogging. 

This means that, once a week, on Thursdays (because it's called Throwback Thursday for a reason), I will invite you all to experience a 'blast of the past' with me – featuring old cosplay photos, WIPs and stories ranging from late 2009 to 2011. Fasten your seatbelts, we're gonna be riding the time machine and you'll get to backtrack into my cosplay history and see some never-published-before photos on this here blog!  
Be warned that this, naturally, means a lot of (potential) embarrassment for me and highly varying photo quality for you. ;) I only had a crummy compact camera back then and didn't even notice if a photo was blurry or not...

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Amari Nobunaga. InuYasha.

Holy fuck. This guy. I guess not many people remember him from InuYasha and, well, understandably so – he only appears in one single volume in the manga (early in the beginning) and one episode in the anime and is never to be seen again after that. He was my third cosplay and don't ask me why I decided to cosplay him; it was a spur of the moment combined with being nostalgic, rereading early InuYasha volumes and also wanting to wear my hipster frames to do a cosplay that, likely, no one else has ever done before. :'D
Oda Amari Nobunaga is a really obscure character from a popular series and if anyone remembers him it's probably either because his pet monkey stole Kagome's underwear or that he was the guy in the episode with the toad demon and the princess. Kagome also at first thought that he was the famous Oda Nobunaga but... he's definitely not.
Actually, Amari is a very different character from the usual character archetypes that I cosplay – he's clumsy, kind, naive, idealistic and honorable and, despite being weak in combat he still tries his best to protect those he loves. He's also a comic relief. I can't help but like him – he's hilarious and yet so human. 

I sadly have no memory of when exactly I started working on this cosplay but it must have been around mid to late 2010. I made all three layers of clothing (the undermost white kimono was my Bleach one recycled) and the hakama myself. I skipped making a sword exclusively for him since his sword is so generic that I could just use any katana and call it a day.

Almost done with the violet and the outer kimono.

This was also, just like with Ichigo and Byakuya, done during a time when I didn't either know (or care?) about seam placement regarding kimono accuracy. I knew a fair amount of other pieces of information about kimono construction but I just did my shoulder seams without a second thought and lived my life happily. Needless to say that nowadays it bothers me because it's actually important if one cares about an authentic look. Oh well, we learn from our mistakes.

Ribbons and stuff attached.

All those brown decorations are made of bias tape. Also, regarding those white 'window squares' all of them are appliqued on. I made a base of plastic and then used it as a template to draw and cut out a lot of identical squares. I didn't count them or anything, just went by my own judgement. I sewed them on in the exact same way as I did with Byakuya's haori applique, aka a very wide yet narrow zigzag.
On each square decoration I ironed on some interfacing fabric on the backside so that it wouldn't be wrinkly once sewn on – it made for a really neat appearance.

Close-up image of one of the squares.

The hakama were my first try at making accurate hakama for a cosplay – I had learned from Byakuya's ripping fake hakama and wanted to do it right. Or well, not 100% right because I didn't bother to handsew the whole thing and I didn't follow any specific "authentic measures" or  such, I just went by eye measures. I also happened to find in one of mom's old pattern maps a pattern for some really humongous 80s pants and well, after widening them even more they were good to use for a hakama base.

Hakama in progress.

To make the side openings I just folded the 'corners' in and sewed them in place; I made sure to take in the same amount from both the front and the back so that the slits would match and be equally deep. I sewed straight stitches across the ties to strengthen them.
Of course I sewed on all those squares before I started pleating or doing any sewing.

Close-up. Notice the pins. I had just finished pleating.

After pinning the pleats in place I ironed them; I used steam and water (aka placed a wet rag on top) for them to be crisp and last longer. In case you didn't know hakama have five pleats in the front and two in the back.
I did notice afterwards that I should have made my hakama even wider because in the end the pleats weren't quite as deep as I would have wanted, but it still looked okay when worn so it's not too bad.

Close-up of the back. Finished hakama.
(note: flash photo)

For the koshiita insert I cut out a piece from a plastic candy box, glued craft foam on both sides of it and wrapped the whole shebang in a lot of jesus tape duct tape. I left one side of the koshiita open so that I could insert the... insert. Hurr. :DD I sewed it closed afterwards.

Finished hakama. Front.
(note: flash photo)

Finished hakama. Back.
(note: flash photo)

The ties in the front are notably longer than those on the back – that's how it's supposed to be. Oh and yeah, the blue fabric that I used is a medium-ish weight cotton. It's actually the same fabric I used for my Team Aqua cosplay. When it comes to Nobunaga's wig I was still dumb – meaning that I had a medium length wig that, of course, couldn't be put up in a high ponytail just like that. So needless to say I did the low ponytail shit that I did with Byakuya as well. Eww. :DD But, unlike with Byakuya, I barely have any cosplay photos of Nobunaga and that's simply because I only ever wore him to Uppcon 2011 and that year was a warm one and, well, three layers of kimonos is equal to being a portable sauna! So yeah, I could only wear this cosplay for a few hours before it got too hot to bear and I really had to go back to the hotel to change out of costume. That said, I have no photos to show of me actually being in costume because since then I haven't touched it... :'(

Recently finished hakama properly folded, for storage.

I still of course want to rewear Nobunaga because hell, I've spent a fair amount of time and effort on this cosplay and it'd be a waste if that short-lived Uppcon debut was to be its only chance to come out of the closet.

Regarding props I already mentioned that I didn't go out of my way to make a generic katana for him... but instead I went out of my way to find a white monkey plush. You have no idea how fucking hard it was to find one! xD I plowed through all local toy stores and whatever other stores carried plush dolls, on several occasions, and luck finally hit me at former Barnens Hus (nowadays Barnens Land). There on the shelf I found what I was looking for – my much needed pet monkey prop!

I found you, Hiyoshimaru! :-DD

It's stupidly cute and just the right size! ;U; I love plush dolls, okay? I could probably pin him to my shoulder the next time I wear Nobunaga out – good thing one of my newer wigs will work just fine for him! I just need to do some minor modifications on the sleeves of the kimono (I've realized they're inaccurate), namely sew the sleeve mouth closed since I had originally left them open, just like on Bleach shinigami kimonos and that's simply because I wasn't sure since the manga references didn't show clearly what his sleeves looked like; I decided to leave them fully open so that I could alter them later, if needed.

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So there you have it, my third cosplay and my second InuYasha cosplay – even to this day. I still of course plan to do more InuYasha cosplays and Nobunaga will definitely see the light of day again, hopefully in a near future. Nobunaga is one of the most obscure cosplays that I've done, but probably still not the ~most~ obscure one. ;) I just like to give some cosplay love to characters that haven't gotten any instead of doing characters that have been done to death. Not like it's wrong though and I've done some really popular chars myself but hey, sometimes it's fun to enter hipster mode; it's a cool feeling to know that you just might be the only one in the whole world who has done a certain character... hahah.

Current status of this cosplay: Needs some minor modifications.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's episode!

Shiro Samurai out.

Throwback Thursday: Byakuya cosplay from InuYasha!

Hello everybody!

Last Thursday I started a new Throwback Thursday themed blog series on which I'll go through some of my early cosplays. In case you missed the first post I wrote about my Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach) cosplay I mentioned there that, even though I started making Ichigo first, he actually wasn't the first cosplay that I was seen wearing at a convention – and that cosplay, my debut one, is what today's post will be all about!

Ever since I found some really old cosplay WIP photos in the deep dark corners of my laptop I've been wanting to do something with them – like, for example, show them to the world because we all started somewhere. Yes, I totally took progress photos before I even started cosplay blogging. 

This means that, once a week, on Thursdays (because it's called Throwback Thursday for a reason), I will invite you all to experience a 'blast of the past' with me – featuring old cosplay photos, WIPs and stories ranging from late 2009 to 2011. Fasten your seatbelts, we're gonna be riding the time machine and you'll get to backtrack into my cosplay history and see some never-published-before photos on this here blog!  
Be warned that this, naturally, means a lot of (potential) embarrassment for me and highly varying photo quality for you. ;) I only had a crummy compact camera back then and didn't even notice if a photo was blurry or not...

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Byakuya. InuYasha.

Byakuya, I did him before it was cool. Or well, it was never really cool to cosplay him (he's a rare character to see done) but what I mean is that I did him way before the Final Act anime came out and when he had only recently shown up in the Finnish release of the InuYasha manga. This means that when I originally did this cosplay, back in mid 2010, I had really limited references to go by and only one or two colored images (manga cover/back), if even that. This means that back then I didn't really know what his lower legs and shoes looked like and thus it's a bit inaccurate; I couldn't even find another Byakuya cosplayer to check how they had done things, lol.

I had started working on Ichigo when I suddenly, around midway, decided on a spur of the moment that I wanted to do an InuYasha cosplay for the upcoming Uppcon in Sweden. Back then Uppcon was Sweden's biggest convention, sadly it doesn't exist anymore – the last one was held in 2012, R.I.P. ;_; But yeah, I'm not sure why exactly I suddenly wanted to start another cosplay project while I had an unfinished one still in the works; the only possible reasoning that I can think of is that the tenth Uppcon (2010) was to be my first big convention (I had only been to Kemi's manga days and possibly one Kitacon before) and I might have wanted to cosplay from my first manga, as if to honor it. Now, InuYasha wasn't technically the first manga that I ever read but it was the first one that I got into and the first one that I started collecting. I own every single volume in Finnish. InuYasha will thus always have a soft spot in my heart.

I'm not even sure if I had any specific reasons for wanting to do Byakuya of all possible characters. The only ones I can think of is that he intrigued me (and he was a new character) and had a pretty design – I guess I wanted to be a little hipster as well. I remember that originally I wanted to start with Sesshoumaru and, well, I can only say one thing to my old self – THANK THE HEAVENS THAT I DIDN'T. Sesshoumaru is a really precious character to me and his outfit is quite complicated and, well, I wouId have ruined my husbando had I done him back then. I'm so fucking relieved that I decided on saving him for a later time, heck, even today I feel like I'm still not skilled enough to do him justice... :'D But yeah, Byakuya's not the easiest cosplay to pick either, especially as a cosplay beginner, but thankfully I already knew how to sew and make swords out of wood; I've always been creative with my hands and Byakuya's costume required me to think to figure out some of the problems that it presented once I started working on it. 

I don't remember of I started sewing or making the sword first. I remember that back when I made the sword it hadn't been revealed in the manga yet that, in actuality, Byakuya's sword doesn't even have a blade until he uses it. I couldn't have known this back then and thus I made the sword with an ordinary blade... and not even a katana-style one but more of a western one. Not like it matters anyway because when I cosplayed him I never drew the sword, mostly because it hadn't been revealed yet what it looked like and thus I kept it sheathed at all times, for the sake of accuracy. Good thing I did. xD

Old photo of the finished sword.

Close-up of the handle.

It's made completely out of wood, all self-made. That golden paint that I used on the tsuba sucked elephant dong and I remember that even back then I hated it because it looked fugly and, no matter what one did, it didn't apply neatly. Sadly it was the only gold paint that I found in all the local shops back then and so I had no other choice... >_> 

A recent photo showing the sword in its sheath, all props attached.

I made a gourd for him. The dents are damage it took during Uppcon.

The sheath is made of some kind of thicker fabric, the kind that is water-resistant, has an obvious texture and is synthetic. It's not the best but it's easy to do and it fills its function. Luckily with Byakuya the floppiness, if I took the sword out, wasn't a problem because I didn't have to unsheathe it at the con. I used a violet textile cord to carry the sword over my shoulders.

The brown gourd I made by taking two styrofoam balls, carving out the bottom of one with a knife and then gluing them together. I used some red bias tape as decoration and to hide the attachment spot (and to fasten it to the sheath). The little 'mouth' of the gourd is actually a cork from a wine bottle. x) Recycling for the win!

Regarding the sword I feel a need to mention that it broke into three pieces after Uppcon, thanks to Arlanda airport's (Stockholm) carelessness. I flew to Uppcon with my brother and mom (I was underage and Uppcon was really big) from Kallax aiport, in Luleå, and there they were kind enough to have the aircraft workers personally taking it into the aircraft, to assure that it wouldn't break during transit. Please note that my sword was only stored in a sword-carrying bag and thus would likely have broken if, for example, a heavy suitcase was placed on top of it. Kallax special luggage service was amazing, I can't complain because they went out of their way to make sure that my prop would get to Stockholm intact. The same I can't say about Arlanda, they told me it would be fine at the special luggage counter and then just proceeded to flung it into the same space as all the other passengers (heavy) stuff. I think I might even have paid extra for special treatment. I even saw from the window, later on in the terminal, when they shoved all kinds of luggage into the plane, including trolleys and bigass sport bags... and then I saw my puny sword bag and got a clump in the throat. Back at Kallax when I went to claim my prop from the conveyor-belt I could see already from a distance that it was broken. It was disheartening and frustrating at the same time. I went to complain and the woman I talked to gave me a number and told me to call it and ask for a compensation for a broken hand-made item. I tried calling it later and never got anywhere and yeah, I'm still kinda annoyed by it all because they gave me a number that wasn't even up to date...

I sadly, once again, don't have any progress photos – only pics of the finished product. All of these costume detail photos ahead are recent. For Byakuya I didn't originally take any outfit photos (just like with Ichigo), save for those first two sword photos and the one farther down that shows the fake flower that I got for him.

Byakuya's kimono and haori. Front view.

Back view.

Just like with Ichigo I made Byakuya during the time when I either didn't know everything about accurate kimono construction or, alternatively, didn't think (nor care) that seam placement was that important. *smacks former self* :) Luckily because the haori is so dark in color one doesn't immediately notice that it has shoulder seams –and the yellow applique covers a part of it– and the haori itself, in turn, always covers the light blue kimono's shoulder seams. Phew. Otherwise I might just have been pulling my hairs right now.

I hand-painted the flames with fabric paint.

I'm sorry that the whole outfit (and especially the sleeves) are so wrinkly – this cosplay has been untouched and in storage ever since 2010. I quickly took it out to take these photos before the sun went down. Hello kaamos my old friend ~

Side-ish view of the haori.

As I mentioned above those yellow parts are appliqued on. I originally cut them out as complete wobbly oval-ish shapes with those 'inner lines' but, as I started sewing them on, they started to misalign/shift themselves because of the big size of the applique and the large area that I was sewing them on to. Of course this only started happening once I had already partly sewn on the yellow details and the only thing to do, to keep the original intended placement, was to cut the design into pieces at specific areas, align/replace them and sew them on – this created seams around the design.

Close-up photo of the seams of the yellow design, aka
where I had to cut it to get it to align properly.

Sewing on the yellow shapes to the haori was by far the most tedious and hardest part of the whole costume. It took a really long time and a fair share of patience and carefulness.
On the back of the haori I made a slit, lined it with bias tape for a neat finish and I also added that little ribbon at the top, which sometimes was visible on Byakuya in the manga. A cute little detail.

Showing the back slit and the little ribbon.
(this is a flash photo, hence the color difference)

The kimono and the haori are made of cotton fabric, the yellow parts are perhaps a cotton blend (I'm not sure) and same thing for the wannabe-hakama pants.
Speaking of which, I'm still not sure what the fudge I was thinking when I made these pants. :'D I mean, I did know what hakama looked like (I was practicing kendo for fuck's sake!) but still I decided to not make these in a proper way and instead made them.... hakama inspired. *dun dun duuuun* Just let me cringe for a moment. No but really, I decided to completely skip the side openings and the koshiita. I could have made a more proper tattsuke hakama but no, I didn't. I'm still not sure if it was just pure laziness, a weird expectation that real hakama would be sooooo hard to make or a case of "the sides will never show because of the long haori so I can't be bothered to go the extra mile". I was horrible. :)) So yeah, while these atrocious pants have five pleats in the front and two in the back, just like regular hakama, that's pretty much the only thing they have in common. The ties on these start from the sides and the legs have elastics in them. The sides are sewn close like on regular pants.

My horrible wannabe-hakama. :DD
This is mighty embarrassing to show...

Fun fact is that I think that the Hakama Gods™ saw what I was doing and took revenge on this blasphemy of a creation. You see, during one of the two cons that I wore Byakuya to, can't remember which one, one of the sides on which the ties were attached literally ripped. And no, I don't mean that the seam gave in, I mean that the actual fabric tore next to the seam – most likely because of too much strain. Ouch.
So yeah, the sin punishes itself it seems and, if anything, then that was the ultimate way of showing my older self that if you need to make hakama, make them right or your fake-ass pants will tear.
I can attest that ever since this failure I've never even considered lazying out if I had to sew a hakama. You learn from your mistakes and yada yada.

One iconic thing with Byakuya is that he's almost always holding a flower whenever he appears. A flower that, to my untrained eye, looks like a peony. I could be horribly wrong likely am but whatever the case I found a really suitable fake/plastic flower from a Finnish store called Tiimari back in the days. Tiimari has since then disappeared, which is a shame because it was a good mixed craft/hobby store for cosplayers... although it was expensive at times.

An old photo showing the prop flower.

I have no idea where this flower currently is. What I do know is that I've sold my original Byakuya wig though. It was a black Ivy from the old Cosworx, aka cosplay.com's own wig store. The thing is that the wig was good quality and all but I was a stupid sack of cucumbers who didn't know that you can't just simply by a long wig and expect to be able to pull it up into a high ponytail just like you do with real hair. :) Needless to say that at the con I only managed to keep the wig in a loose low ponytail and I was too scared and clueless to even cut the bangs into the right length.
So yeah, the costume itself might have been impressive but the wig and my face really made it crash and burn. Heck, this was during the times when I strictly refused to wear any kind of makeup, except for powder. *vomits profusely* The truth is that I didn't even know how to use makeup and, even though I could pull the man card, it's not really an excuse because even guys do use makeup for cosplay – everyone is recommended to use makeup for cosplay because it really does one hell of a difference.
You know what makes it even worse? I didn't even know that filling in your eyebrows was a thing and well, just imagine a black wig and my naturally light-colored eyebrows... :) Add to that a makeup-less face and... just no. Fucking no.

I managed to find some old photos of me wearing Byakuya at Uppcon 2010. This was the 10th Uppcon and it was held in Uppsala, Sweden, in a big building called Uppsala Konsert & Kongress. I have really fond memories of the con itself (we had an InuYasha cosplay group!) but I'm so goshdarn ashamed of how bad I was at doing facial expressions for photos and yeah, I just had to censor my face on these two images below as well. Even if I had some really basic posing knowledge I had no idea how to position myself and, especially, not what to do with my face. Half the time I was either staring into the camera or staring away from it in such a way that it looked like I had spaced out into the moon or something. A third variant was an unintended(?) killer glare. It was really that bad. Killer glare was almost like my neutral face for years, no wonder people were afraid to approach me.

Taken outside Uppcon's entrance. I cropped
out my brother.

I used to be proud of that photo above and now, whenever I see the uncensored version, I feel a violent urge to slam my face into a wall. :DD During the 7 years that I've been cosplaying I have, after all, improved quite much and it's really noticeable when I find this kind of old shit and compare them to the new stuff that I do. It's maybe not an astounding lot of improvement in terms of sewing but, even more so, in posing and using makeup.

Only back view photo that I have. Notice
the low ponytail and the props.

I'm not sure how noticeable it is on these two oldie pics but I actually bought high-quality pointy ears for this cosplay. I find it amusing how, back then, I could pay a lot of attention to some small details while I chose to ignore others – especially if I didn't consider them important enough for whatever reason.

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So there you go, my debut cosplay. I'm still happy with it in general (except for a few things, lol) and I would definitely rewear it once I have remade the hakama, bought a new wig and fixed some other stuff. I want to have an updated photoshoot with this cosplay because I obviously don't have any presentable photos of it currently, thanks to it being of an embarrassing 2010 model and thus before I realized the importance of makeup. >.< Byakuya will definitely be seen at a future convention!

Current status of this cosplay: In need of repairs/update and a new wig.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's episode!

Shiro Samurai out.

Lens review: Flora Brenda Blue

Hi everybody! ^_^

Here comes the first circle lens review of the year for you all to enjoy! I will show you guys a really pigmented and vibrant blue contact lens that is perfect for cosplayers – it's the Flora Brenda Blue! This is a lens that, as far as I know, is only available at HoneyColor. I must mention though that when I checked for the lenses today I noticed that the whole Brenda series wasn't to be seen anywhere on the site ... maybe it's discontinued? I really hope not. :'(

Let's go!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 15.0 mm

Water content: 55%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

These lenses have a really pretty and densely pigmented flower pattern, meaning that the color pixels are really close to each other. The print itself is fairly simple but it's really effectful and eye-catching. There's also a bold black limbal ring that has some jagged "spikes" towards the center, making the design look like flower petals. Around the pupil hole is a tiny spiky pattern that runs around the opening, differentiating the blue of the lens from where it will meet with your real eye color. It's a cute print, I have to admit.

One lens in. Notice the enlargement.

As you can see the color coverage is indeed impressive (I have naturally light blue-gray eyes) and the blue is a really vivid and beautiful shade. The color is nothing short of amazing and this is definitely a lens that cosplayers will enjoy! Actually, the design seems to give of an 'anime eye' effect and it comes with a decent enlargement too. By decent I mean that it's actually quite the perfect size because it's not small but it's not overly big either, which means that it's a versatile size and will work well for cosplaying both male and female characters. :) These lenses are not too big and I can actually wear them without makeup and it doesn't even look out of place, despite the lenses clearly being one of the best cosplay lenses that I've come across so far, at least in terms of color and design! I seriously love that blue color, it's so damn good.

Lens photos below!
All photos taken by me during a January 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.

Apartment room light.

Apartment room light, only natural (window) light.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Facing a window in the corridor. Not sun side.

Extremely yellow light in the corridor.

Yellow light in the staircase.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (aka facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun. Cloudy.

Outdoors, facing the sun.

Regarding comfort I must mention that I opened these very late, and by very late I mean I took them out of their vials a couple months before they would have expired. This means that my comfort grading might be inaccurate and/or unfair and thus I recommend that you take it with a grain of salt. Of course everyone's eyes are different as well but I do suspect that a late opening affects the comfort because I've always had lesser comfort on late-opened lenses, so far.
So yeah, when I first wore these they were a tiny bit uncomfortable for the first couple minutes but it went away. I do feel that I have them on and I notice that they occasionally blur my vision (especially indoors) – it's nothing bad though and I could imagine wearing these to a convention. It might just be me having a bad eye day (my eyes are generally dry and sensitive) but these started to feel drying already after the first hour had passed. My estimated wearing time is around 3 hours, without eyedrops.

So yeah, even though I can't call these natural by any stretch I must admit that I'm surprised how well they go without makeup; I did this whole lens review au naturel, lol. I was sure that because of the black limbal ring and the intense color these would look weird with my makeup-less face but... they didn't. So yeah, in a way I can see these being used as a semi-casual lens, assuming that your fashion style fits with the lenses of course. But I'd still say that for me the Brenda Blue are first-hand an awesome cosplay lens! The color is so impactful and will surely stand out even from a distance. I love these lenses.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 10/10
Highly impressive, colorful and vivid blue. A perfect cosplay lens!

Design: 9/10

A flower petal inspired design. Simple but really effectful. Less is more, in this case.

Opacity: 9/10

Amazing color coverage. Very densely spaced pixels, my real eye color doesn't shine through.

Enlargement: 6/10

Decent and versatile size.

Comfort: 5/10

Quite average. Start to feel dry early on my sensitive eyes and occasionally blurs my vision.

Naturalness: 2/10

Way too colorful and flashy to pass for real eyes. Weirdly enough, these still look good without makeup.

Thanks a ton for reading! I hope you enjoyed this review! ^.^

Shiro Samurai out.

Throwback Thursday: Ichigo Kurosaki cosplay from Bleach!

Hello guys!

I will start this year by doing something that I haven't done before but have had in my thoughts since forever – namely a number of themed posts all dedicated to my first few cosplays! :'D Ever since I found some really old cosplay WIP photos in the deep dark corners of my laptop I've been wanting to do something with them – like, for example, show them to the world because we all started somewhere. Yes, I totally took progress photos before I even started cosplay blogging. 

This means that, once a week, on Thursdays (because it's called Throwback Thursday for a reason), I will invite you all to experience a 'blast of the past' with me – featuring old cosplay photos, WIPs and stories ranging from late 2009 to 2011. So yeah, we're gonna be riding the time machine and you'll get to backtrack into my cosplay history and see some never-published-before photos on this here blog!  
Be warned that this, naturally, means a lot of embarrassment for me and highly varying photo quality for you. ;) I only had a crummy compact camera back then and didn't even notice if a photo was blurry or not...

I must admit that I originally wanted to use a more creative/original name for this blog post series (TBT is so mainstream, lol) but yeah, I couldn't come up with anything short, funny and something that everyone would instantly know that it means flashback time. So yeah, it became Throwback Thursday anyway. xD

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Ichigo Kurosaki, shinigami version. Bleach.

Oh, haven't we all done at least one Naruto or Bleach cosplay back in the days? *nostalgic*

Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach was actually the very first costume I started sewing when I 'officially' started cosplaying back in late 2009 – November, to be exact. But if we count that I made a couple OC outfits way back in school's sewing class, before I even knew what cosplay was (I had seen cosplayers on internet but didn't know that it was a thing), then that would mean that I started cosplaying in, err, somewhere around 2004-2006 or some such, yikes! Regarding those OC costumes I never made other parts except the clothes themselves, I didn't know about wigs or anything (I wanted white hair thou) and I had never heard of the word 'cosplay' either, hence why I often consider that 2009 is my official cosplay debut year because at least then I knew that cosplay was a hobby that anyone could do, I got all the parts needed for my costumes and debuted them etc.

I don't think that Ichigo as a character needs any introductions – he's the main character from the popular shounen series Bleach and is also a really typical shounen lead. The reason I picked Ichigo was simply because I had recently started reading the Bleach manga and I liked it. Back then many characters hadn't been introduced yet (I think I was on volume 2-5 or such, lol) and I chose Ichigo on a whim, thinking that it'd be easy to do and really recognizable – which meant that I'd possibly get new friends at conventions. Yes, I had almost no friends before I started cosplaying and thus picking a well-known character/series to cosplay was sort of important. My reasons were simple. 

I also remember thinking that if I started with Ichigo I could easily use the same main outfit (the shihakusho, aka shinigami outfit) for cosplaying almost anyone from the cast later, which I did.

Sadly I have no actual progress photos of this cosplay, only shots of the finished product.

Finished Bleach shinigami kimonos.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

It's worth mentioning that I knew how to sew before I started this geeky hobby. I also knew about fabrics (thanks to my mom having had her own fabric store for a majority of my life) and thus I'm not actually cringing when I look back at my old sewing work... :D Of course I've improved since then but I can still easily reuse my first cosplays without feeling a need to burn them, at least not the clothes. Needless to say that I conveniently avoided the common mistakes that a lot of first-time cosplayers do: shining satin monsters, "bedsheet cosplays", poorly hemmed or outright raw/untreated edges, random threads hanging, wrong fabric choices etc. But of course I had my Experience Zero™ zones too, namely I didn't know nor care jackshit about makeup and was bad at posing as well as doing facial expressions. Facing the camera and staring into the distance, anyone? I also didn't style wigs early on and that ended up with a lot of fibers blocking my eyes etc...

I want to mention in the same go a bit about my top robes and what they look like and this is simply because, over the years, I've had surprisingly many people contacting me especially to ask how I made mine because "it looks accurate" and/or "you seem knowledgeable". Think of this as a bonus mini tutorial/guide for Bleach shinigami cosplays! Truth is that because of these multiple requests I've been wanting to make a post about my shinigami outfit already earlier but now, with this Throwback Thursday nostalgy series, I got a fitting post to bake it into ~

When I made the shihakusho robes (yes, there's a top and an inner one) I did a lot of extensive research to figure out what it was supposed to look like. I had seen so many cosplayers doing it in different ways and when you add horribly inconsistent anime/manga references then the following confusion starts hurting your head. I ultimately ended up picking out some selected images from the manga and sticking with them, which I'm glad I did. The images I used showed that the whole front of the sleeve was open, likewise the back; there was also an arm opening like those seen on real kimono and from which the white under kimono could be seen peeking through. Tite Kubo either had no clue what he was doing when he designed the shinigami outfits or he simply decided that "screw the rules" was the way to go.
It's worth mentioning that during the time when I made this cosplay I had no idea about how kimono were traditionally constructed and thus this costume has shoulder seams, no okumi panel and the like. Yes, if anything then that's a reason if I ever wanted to remake this thing. Then again, considering all the inaccuracies of shinigami outfits anyway (at least when compared to proper kimono) then it's not a big deal anymore, lol. I mean, why does both male and female characters have the underarm slits and open back sleeves? That's reserved for women only. *rolls eyes*

Fully open sleeve mouth.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

The sleeves of the white under kimono/gi/kosode/whatnot I made a few centimeters longer than on the outer black one, so that it would stick out like it does on all characters in the series. Even this little detail strays from general kimono kitsuke ideals. The white and black robes are identical otherwise, except for that I sewed the white one shut under the arm and the back of the sleeve is closed as well. No idea if this is accurate to the series or not (lol) but that's what I did because I didn't want to potentially flash my may-or-may-not-be-there armpit hairs to other congoers...

Just me trying to show what the armpit slits look like. Notice that the white
sleeve peeks out from the open back of the black kimono.
(note: this is a new photo but the outfit is the same)

The black kimono is made out of twill cotton and the white one is from some kind of bridal quality cotton blend that mom had a leftover roll of lying in the attic. A bit overkill perhaps, but it looked really nice. xD Oh and yeah, both the robes are mid-thigh in length (recommended minimum) and this is so that they'd cover up the side openings of the hakama, so to not have my bare skin showing.
Speaking of which – the hakama. I must admit that I lazied out on this and, because I practiced kendo at the time, I simply just decided to order a black budo (martial arts) hakama for the costume. This saved me a lot of fabric, time and effort – and looks better. I used a heavy cotton aikido hakama but of course you can order some cheaper polyester ones too, or make it yourself if you're up for it. Just remember that if you decide to make your own hakama that it has 5 pleats in the front and 2 in the back.

My black aikido hakama (folded) that I use for Bleach cosplays.
(note: this is a new photo)

This hakama that I use is a lot sturdier and stiffer than your average synthetic samurai pants. What I do to get the iconic white sash/ties that the shinigami have is that I use a separate white sash, approximately 2 meters long (can be shorter, depends on your body and preferences), that I put under the koshiita (backboard), tie the hakama's own ties as I normally do and then I just turn or twist the white sash so that it covers as much of the black ties as possible and, finally, tie it in a loose ribbon knot at the front. It's a bit hard to explain, hope you can understand what I mean. ^^" Please note though that for this to work you need to prepare/set the white sash in place below the koshiita and the back ties before you secure and tie the back half to your body – the white sash is supposed to get 'stuck' and be kept in place by the hakama itself; it's only there for decoration/accuracy. 
Of course one could always do covers for the black ties or replace them altogether but yeah, I did it the easy way.

I also have some really old photos of the Shikai Zangetsu –aka oversized bread knife– back when I had just completed it. I did it completely by hand with a little sawing help from my stepfather (the curved thin part of the handle, if I recall right) back in mid 2010, I believe. It's about 150 cm long, made out of a block of solid wood and thus it's rather heavy. I planed it down towards the edge (to simulate the look of a cutting weapon), used masking tape to get a crisp line between the silver and the black paint and used silk ribbon for the handle. It was a really big project for being one of my first wooden cosplay props. I had actually done Sesshoumaru's (InuYasha) swords at woodwork class in school a few years before I tackled Ichigo's Zangetsu – again, before I knew what cosplay was.

Finished Shikai form Zangetsu.

Zangetsu close-up.

The white ribbon was actually only fastened by a few nails and not glued on, which meant that after a few conventions it started to loosen (because of shifting when held for long times) and currently it's lose to the point it's almost hanging/unraveling at some spots, showing the bare white-painted handle beneath. This doesn't look really good and I've come to wish I had done it another way; maybe I can still fix it or at least replace it.
I'm still mighty proud of this prop –especially considering the quality and how long ago it was made– but it's such a shame that the tip cracked at Kitacon in Luleå, at the end of 2010. It was a really small local con held for the first (and only) time; I let someone hold my sword because they thought it was hella cool and they then proceeded to strike a pose, struck it to the ground (too carelessly), tip down, and once I got it back I noticed that the tip had a horizontal split in it. I was too timid and meek to really say anything and just swallowed it and acted as if nothing happened. The tip hasn't broken off but it needs to be glued to prevent it from breaking and, well, since then I haven't cosplayed Ichigo. Lesson learned: don't let (over-excited) people handle your props.

I bought a short orange wig for this cosplay and used it straight out of the bag. I didn't know how to style wigs and the wig was, upon later realization, way too flat. I remember trying to constantly tease it during conventions to get it to be more spiky and fluffy but it always returned back into looking like a Kyo Sohma (Fruits Basket) wig instead. xD I tried to look for some really old cosplay photos to demonstrate but even though I lifted every nook and cranny of my computer I couldn't find a single one that I could use! The few (and I mean few) that I found either had another person on them blocking part of my costume, were a horrible red-eye-open-mouth-flash-photo candid shot or had an old non-blog watermark on them and the non-watermarked version was nowhere to be found. I might even have (accidentally) deleted all my Ichigo cosplay pics a few years ago when I stumbled upon them and acted on a spur of the moment... oops.

This is a cropped version of an old (already resized) photo.
It's just to show the red chain. Yeah I know, it's on the wrong side.

I want to make a special mention for the weird red chain, possible sword-carrier thingy, that Ichigo has going on. Fun fact is that I legit made it by taking a bicycle chain, taking off the grease and spray painting it red with car spray – it worked wonders! I don't remember if it was originally my idea or my stepdad's but whatever the case it was genius. Sad part is that ever since I moved into my own apartment I have no idea where the heck this chain is...

[edit] A few days after I posted this (aka on 13-14 January) I went to my mom's and, while there, I took the chance to start up her old laptop and check in the image folders if there happened to be any of my old cosplay stuff in there because I remembered that I used to store photos in it back then – bingo! I found a lot of reaally embarrassing photos, including those from my very first Ichigo photoshoot. I must admit that most were a lot blurrier than I remembered and thus unusable but yeah, I found this one joke pic which, ironically enough, is one of the few that doesn't make me cringe badly. By this I mean that at least I'm not lowering my chin enough for my neck to completely disappear or any other hilariously bad posing shit. xD Actually the only reason I can show you guys this one –without being ashamed to death– is because at least I was clever enough I think it was unintentional originally to block out most of my (horrible) makeup-less face with the sword. 
So here ya go, a really shame-inducing cosplay photo from early 2010! :'DD

Ichigurr durr.

Just... don't ask me about the pose. It was some kind of out-of-character joke about Ichigo being shy or whatnot, lmao. At least it showcases the sword and yeah, I'm holding up the ribbon because otherwise it would have been dragging behind on the ground. You probably also noticed that I'm wearing zori and not waraji and that's simply because I was afraid of making/wearing waraji because I thought they'd be uncomfortable, a lot of work to make and would break easily. Oh and yeah, I'm cringing at that wig – I mean, it's good quality and all but oh lord, do I wish I had spiked it... [/edit]

I don't have so much more to say about this costume, especially since I only ever used it at two conventions and both were really small local ones. I have some nice memories of it (mostly other congoers gushing over how badass my sword was, which felt really nice since I was a lonely beginner xD) and I actually competed at both the conventions I wore Ichigo to and, funnily enough, I placed both times. Second place and shared second place, lolwut. It was my first time ever trying a cosplay competition and I was horrified and so nervous that I don't even want to think about how awkward I must have been on stage; I've never been good at standing in front of people and during my school days I avoided oral presentations like the plague itself because I started shaking so much. The competitions were both of the "pose in the middle when it's your turn and walk away" kind and there were a shortage of competitioners anyway, hence why I got asked to participate, lmao. This was still during the early days when there weren't any hardcore armor cosplays in even the smallest cons but just good ol' Narutos and closet cosplays – aka if you had a big cool-looking prop you were almost sure to win. No way I'd ever stand a chance if I had competed with Ichigo in today's standards, hahaha... no. :-DD

Oh and yeah, before I forget! I actually made a Substitute Shinigami Badge a long time ago as well but I never got around to using it, sadly. It's made of wood (the base) and craft foam for the details. I'm not sure if I'll ever get use of it but at least below is some photo proof that I have indeed made one. This was one of those spontaneous projects when I had scrap materials lying around, by the way.

Substitute Shinigami Badge.

Substitute Shinigami Badge.

 __________________

So yeah, Ichigo Kurosaki was my first cosplay that I 'officially' started working on, back in November 2009, and although I started Ichigo first it's actually not my debut cosplay that I wore to a con – that would be Byakuya from InuYasha, which I'll talk about in another TBT post! 

My Ichigo cosplay will always have its place in my heart and even though I have no idea when, or if, I'll ever rewear him out to a convention again I still plan to at least have a photoshoot, to get photos that are up-to-date with my current standards.

Current status of this cosplay: In need of repairs/update and a new wig.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's episode!

Shiro Samurai out.