Nekocon 2023 – Nostalgy and energy drinks

 Hello geeks of all flavors!

Nekocon was held this past weekend on 15-16th July in Kuopio, Finland. I've never been to Nekocon before but this year the stars aligned and I got a chance to visit! Oh and for those not in the know Nekocon was held in Kuopion musiikkikeskus (Kuopio Music Centre) which is familiar to many older congoers since Animecon used to be held there back when it still existed. This fit quite well with the con's nostalgy theme too, lol. But anygays, let's start from the beginning!

 

Nekocon's dates were quite perfect for me as the week before I had departed with mom and stepdad on a long road trip to southern Sweden to attend my cousin's wedding in a small city near Gothenburg. Mom had decided that, for a change of pace, on the return trip we would take a cruise liner over to Finland and drive from Helsinki back up to the north (Finland is less elongated than Sweden, so it's actually a shorter drive). This fit perfectly for me as mom could just drive through Kuopio and drop me off there while they continued the journey back to Tornio.

Seaside view inside our cabin on M/S Viking Gabriella.

On Friday morning we arrived in Helsinki and then started our 5 or so hours car trip to Kuopio. Firith had booked a hotel room for us two to share at Rauhalahti Spa Hotel, which is located roughly 6 km away from the event building. We decided that Rauhalahti was the best choice as it was about the same price (or even cheaper!) than most other normal hotels within a reasonable distance from the con and well, free admission to the spa and gym was included in the price so why the fuck wouldn't you choose it? :'D 

I arrived to the hotel before Firith (he got delayed because of neighbor's missing cat problems) but luckily I managed to get access to the room anyway. I was very much amused to find out that our room number was 313 – that's Donald Duck's car plate for the uncivilized. And within my group of friends some very special Donald Duck animations are like our holy bible – we quote them unashamedly like it's a part of our most primal DNA. 

Kääk!

By the time Firith arrived my parents had already left (they stayed to eat dinner in the hotel's restaurant) and I was just vibing alone in the room. It didn't take too long before the hotel room exploded as our cosplay stuff invaded every free surface! Ah, that organized nerd chaos took me back in time. *sniff*

We spent the night going for a quick dip in the spa, chatting, playing some Nintendo Switch and having a drink or two.

Ryyb ja pärr pärr et vanhukset jaksavat.

Then came Saturday morning. I slept quite well except for the fact that the air circulation in the room wasn't very good so yeah, at times I would wake up in the middle of the night because of sweating like a pig on a spit-roast. Thankfully morning showers clear up that greasy feeling. :))

One of the big advantages with having a hotel room over the con's own sleeping accommodation is access to hotel breakfast – my con morning isn't complete without Karelian pastries and scrambled eggs, no joke.

After hotel breakfast (and a Karen who got mad at me for having long hair) we went back into our room and changed into our costumes. I might or might not have chugged a Monster to function. Both of us had decided to honor the con's nostalgy theme – I did Kisuke Urahara from Bleach and Firith did the Just Be Friends version of Luka Megurine from Vocaloid. I'll admit that due to how pressed on time I was to finish my costume before departure I actually didn't have time to do any makeup tests prior. So yeah, I just had to improvise and hope I wing it enough to win it.

We drove to the con (it was very easy route!) and once we got there we looked around until we found one of those free parking lots as there were two different types and the other option was one that was free but only for 2 hours. We also noticed immediately that there was an absolutely massive queue to the ticket exchange booth and we both decided "fuck that shit" almost in unison and went to photoshoot our costumes instead while waiting for the queue to disperse.

 

Cosplay selfie! (photo by Firith)

I didn't keep track of time on how long we camera'd near the bushes but it worked out quite well because by the time we had wrapped up the shoot then the queue was also gone. I will post the photoshoot results in a separate blog post later, by the way. ^_^

We walked over to the booth to the right outside the main entrance to get our con tickets. It's been so long since I last had one of these on my wrist!

Nekocon con ticket.

Nekocon main entrance. Notice how the nostalgy theme is
wonderfully brought out on that billboard art.

The moment I stepped inside the building I felt a weird and wonderful sensation of new meets old – new con in an old building I had visited before. Exactly 10 years have passed since I last stepped foot here and I immediately remembered how suffocatingly hot Animecon was and that musty and moist eyepatch sweat from my Masamune Date cosplay in 2012. xD

I did immediately notice though that, although Nekocon was also occasionally crowded, it was never as crowded as Animecon was (at Animecon it literally felt like you were running out of oxygen indoors lol). I even heard that Nekocon didn't manage to sell out all their tickets so that does explain things but yeah, imo it's better when it's not overstuffed cuz that's quite anxiety-triggering.

Near the main entrance (cloak room to the right).

Upstairs you found the Artisan's Alley and some dealers.

The first thing we did was go up the stairs and check out the Artisan's Alley. I first thought it was the Artist's Alley until someone pointed out the difference to me, namely that apparently the artisans are invited by the con to sell their art while the artists have to apply through a system and hope they get chosen..? But the way they sell stuff and what they sell is otherwise indistinguishable from each other.

Artisan's Alley upstairs.

Digimon booth upstairs. I'm soooo Gomamon!

Not all booths in the Artisan's Alley area were art and craft sellers, there were a few that were organization booths like one for the local tabletop/roleplay community. There was also this one charming Digimon themed booth although I'm still not sure what its purpose was? Maybe it was some kind of recruitment booth for a future stage production or something, I really have no idea I'm sorry I'm such a pleb.

Upstairs were also a few dealers like Puolenkuun Pelit and if you went up another set of stairs you found the official photography booth and there was also a polaroid camera booth that you could use for a fee of I think 2€.

Dealer's Hall upstairs.

There weren't really any panels or lectures that interested either of us on Saturday so we actually didn't spend all that much time at the con. We mostly just checked the Artisan's Alley and the Dealer's Hall both upstairs and downstairs and then we thought we had seen enough for the day and went back to the hotel. Although if I had known already on Saturday that the other half of the con was located in the Lumit building, including the video game room, then I probably would have stayed a lil' bit longer. Please don't ask how I managed to miss that; I didn't check the con's information booklet that closely I guess and I was kind of in a brainfog all day ngl. Besides, I was quite tired (I've been on sick leave for two months because of mental health difficulties) and the idea of going to take a dip in the spa was very tempting to wind down after a hot summer day.

 

Dealer's Hall downstairs, aka main floor.

More dealers.

If you wanted books or manga there was a dealer for that too.

And there was a dealer for retro games!

Just next to the Dealer's Hall on the main floor was a cafeteria I think.

I have no recollection of what the clock was by the time we left the con but it can't have been much more than late afternoon or the early evening hours. We both just really wanted to peel ourselves out of our costumes and jump into the pools. Thankfully Urahara as a costume was pleasantly cool to wear, the samue style outfit I made from cotton fabric so it breathes well and it's not thick either. Maybe finally, in this wise and ripe old age, I have learned to not wear three layers of kimonos to a summer con.

But before we could run to the spa we had to deal with one issue – namely hunger. As we both are quite short on spending power we drove out to Kuopio centrum to look for a place to eat. We originally wanted to go to this sushi buffet place we saw online on Google Maps but when we arrived there we agreed on that it was a bit too salty for our wallets. I really didn't want McDonald's and the other places we found either looked very sus, had already closed or didn't have anything interesting on the menu for an agreeable poorfag-verified price. So we drove back to Rauhalahti, defeated and disappointed... Until we remembered that there was a Scan Burger grill at the spa. And the prices were affordable joten läskeiltiin. :D Gotta give my respect to the customer service guy (I think he was the chef too), he was so chill and funny and the food was really good too! 10/10 worth it.

After eating we jumped into the spa again and just relaxed there until it closed and then we went back up to our room.

I finally found the Käärijä drink!

It was so nice to come back up after melting away in the hot pool and the jacuzzi. We had some drinks and I tasted the Cha Cha Cha pina colada for the first time and I gotta say it was pretty tasty – it's quite soda-like and mild but you can still clearly taste the pina colada flavor. Of course a proper pina colada is better but this was very refreshing and bubbly and I would buy it again.

Sunday morning came and I was dead once more. Luckily a trip down to the breakfast buffet makes me temporarily human again. No Karen this time, thank god. Although there was a kid screaming for full lungs and I'm not sure how much better that is lol.

Once we were done eating we returned to the room to finish packing our bags for departure. And had another energy drink. We decided to leave the room a bit earlier as we needed to be at the con 11:30 anyway as I wanted to attend the Tolkuton Plays Muumimetallia music program. We ran into Sallukka and Don and the former was a sweetheart and helped me reserve a spot for the Moomin metal as I did not have Kompassi logins and was a bit paniccc as it had not been informed that one needed a ticket, thank you. ;_; 

But we were a bit early still and needed to kill some time and this was when Sallukka told us about the Lumit building, which held the actual Artist's Alley and the video game room, and so we rushed over there. Luckily it was super close, almost behind the main building.

 

Nerd alert! No but really, people played TCGs here.

Lumit is not a really spacious building, there was like one open area for all the TCG and board game enthusiasts with video games towards the wall and the other half of the area was occupied by the Artist's Alley. I was very happy in my geeky little heart to see how Nekocon had amassed quite a large variety of both new and old game consoles!

The right corner was for newer game consoles...

... while the left corner was for the beloved old-timers!

I was tempted to play a few rounds of oldie goldies but it was a quite popular activity and I didn't have a lot of time before the concert would begin so I let that nostalgic desire fade out for now and went to check what the artists were selling.

Beginning of the Artist's Alley in Lumit.

Other half of Artist's Alley.

I gotta say the air circulation in Lumit was a lot better than upstairs where the Artisan's Alley was in the main building; I didn't feel like I was running out of air and my clothes were sticking like glue to my skin. There were both new and familiar faces among the sellers and there was a pleasant vibe going on.

The clock was nearing 11:30 and I had to extract myself from my company and run to watch the Moomin metal show. I was the only one who wanted to see it (Sallukka and Don had seen the debut at another con; this was Tolkuton's second gig I think) because the others preferred to go to the guest of honor Seppo Pääkkönen's lecture about his voice-acting career.

Tolkuton to the left and Hevimuikkunen (as Hobgoblin) to the right.

MÖRKÖ! Every Finnish kid's nightmare fuel.

Tolkuton is a charismatic and funny guy and this is his one-man music project, as in that he's the only musician. Hevimuikkunen was there to make it interactive, whimsy fun and he would set the mood by appearing and disappearing in different iconic Moomin character-inspired costumes for every song – we got to see Snufkin of course, the Groke, a burglar Stinky and the Hobgoblin along with a few others. It was quite ambitious and I found the whole number entertaining and full of heart. 

Tolkuton would most usually wield his electric guitar but he would use a keyboard a few times too. Of course, because Tolkuton is the only musician, it meant that there was a pre-recorded tape that he would jam along to but it worked sufficiently well and you gotta give props to his stage presence and ambition. He would interact with the audience between the songs too and I swear to god he sounded a bit like Allu Tuppurainen's Rölli character a few times. x) I would say the whole spectacle was like 70% show and 30% music as Hevimuikkunen stole the show as you'd sit there and eagerly await what his next act would be – the Witch 'Clarissa' in spicy high heels and a corset with a C3PO face mask or a massive inflatable Hattifattener with crudely drawn eyes billowing up with the help of an air fan and then having said Hevimuikkunen in witchy drag violently puncturing it with a broom. You never knew what kind of wacky shit was coming next and that was the best part of the show. XD

The only slight gripe I had was that there was a discrepancy in the Nekocon information booklet about how long the show would last – the actual visualized schedule showed 11:30 to 12:00 while the program info said 11:30 to 12:30, but the show actually went overtime and didn't finish until 13:00. Personally I didn't mind much as I wasn't in a hurry to another panel or lecture, but for those who had other programs lined up it might have been a headache.

Once I came out from the Concert Hall I waited around a bit for Sallukka, Don and Firith to resurface from the Seppo Pääkkönen experience. Apparently it was amazing. 

We had one hour to kill before Bardic Inspiration would start, another music program. 

Bardic Inspiration!

I realized my expectations were soooo off the mark the second I stepped into Kamarimusiikkisali. I don't know why I even thought it was realistic but I was expecting like a ragtag bunch of people in LARP costumes rolling into the scene with hurdy gurdys, cellos and mandolins lmao. Instead we got a lady with a gorgeous voice in a red dress and a pianist. Not what I expected but a high-quality performance nonetheless! 

I gotta say though that I was quite disappointed because in the information booklet it mentioned Monster Hunter but not a single song from said franchise was performed (and that was lowkey the main reason I attended). :'( I didn't know over half of the songs but the singer was so good that it didn't really matter tbh. My favorites were Snake Eater from Metal Gear Solid and Weight of the World from NieR: Automata, neither of which I was previously familiar with.

Bardic Inspiration only lasted for roughly 30 minutes, as scheduled, and once it wrapped up it was time for me to leave Nekocon behind. Big thanks to Sallukka for providing the car ride back home as we live in neighboring towns. <3 The Škoda was so much better to sleep in than mom's Nissan lol!

Shit, I forgot! Here's my con loot:

Archon Zhongli charm by qpeura, Alhaitham and the
orca I'm sorry but I don't remember. ;-;

These two prints and the above same chara charms all by si3art.

 

To sum it up my experience with Nekocon was very positive. I might not have spent a lot of time at the con but the time I did spend was very enjoyable. The buildings were utilized well and the overall feeling and mood of the con was safe and pleasant. I also appreciate that there were not one but two music programs as I'm not too interested in traditional panels, lectures, AMV competitions etc but will likely jump at any concerts! This means I had something to look forward to aside from just hanging out and meeting friends. I would definitely consider attending Nekocon in the future too, especially if it stays in Kuopio as it's not too far south, hehe.

Thanks for reading, have a great upcoming weekend!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Nekocon 2023 cosplans!

Hello everyone!

I will be attending my first Nekocon this year. The decision to go started rather spontaneously but after Kummacon I've had that convention spark reignited and yeah, I'm trying to catch up with this old passion and get back in the weeb crafting groove!

Nekocon is a two-day con in Kuopio, Finland. I had quite the struggle bus experience trying to come up with what to cosplay at first because few of my older cosplays are currently wearable without repairs and I'm not in the mood to fix anything up right now. Besides, after all these years I kinda wanted to make a new costume. So yeah, after a lot of flip-flopping between cosplay candidates I ran out of gas and turned to my friends for some hivemind activation! I was then reminded by Nekocon's cosplay theme, 'nostalgy'. That's such a good theme, would be a shame not to use it!

So what is my cosplay then? 

– It's the sus hat guy. 

Character: Kisuke Urahara

Series: Bleach

This started as a half-assed suggestion, kinda. Yet it hit the right requirement buttons and thus it stuck. I mean, I'm far from updated on Bleach (I've read up to maybe the middle of the Arrancar arc, don't judge) but a lot of my first cosplays when I started were Bleach characters and yeah, the series is nostalgic to me and probably for many others too. :) And Urahara is a pretty cool guy so why not? Especially because I remembered that aeons ago I bought his hat from I think Närcon, just for fun, and now I could use it for an actual cosplay! I also wanted to make something easy (to ease back into sewing after a long break) and, most importantly, something heatwave friendly. And on top of all that I needed a costume that I could complete in a week, at most, because that's the time I had available.

Spoiler alert — the cosplay is finished but I'm going to be away from home until the Nekocon weekend so yeah, the WIP post will be posted after the con summary! 

I thought about a second cosplay too but due to my long traveling and other reasons I felt like nahh, not worth the hassle as I likely won't be at the con for many hours on Sunday before the trip back up north starts. So yeah, only one cosplay for me this time boo but at least it's something new and something I won't be stir-fried alive in! Hopefully, hehe...

That's all folks! See you at Nekocon~

Lens review: RevoColour Yellow Manson

Hello nerds!

It's time for another circle lens review and we'll go with the RevoColour Yellow Manson lenses this time! Manson styled lenses have been around for ages and made by several different brands, they all share the same simple base design though. 

Let's rock!

 

 Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm  

Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

So this style of crazy lenses are as simple as they come – it's a solid single base color with a medium thin black limbal ring and that's it. It's so simple but so effectful. These kind of lenses exist in quite many different colors but not all brands carry the same color choices. I took the yellow ones as yellow lenses are quite uncommon and I wanted to see how bold and funky they looked on light eyes.

One lens in.

Okay, so the intensity is obvious. With such a minimalistic lens it's bound to look unnatural but that's the effect one is usually going for with lenses like this so yeah, it's a desired trait to look a bit whacky and mad for once. xD But the color is crisp and screamingly yellow, it's bold and bright and will surely be visible even when viewed from a distance. I do notice though that RevoColour's variants of Manson lenses are not hyper opaque, there is some very slight indications of transparency. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although it depends on how ultra omega crazy you want your eyes to look. Regardless, I doubt dark eyes would shine through.

 

Lens photos below!

All photos are taken by yours truly during sunny weather. All close-ups are free from color filters and the like and that's so that the colors would appear as true to life as possible.

Natural room light, indoors.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo, indoors.

Facing a window, not sun side.

Unlit corridor, weak distant natural light.

Outdoors, back against sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun.

I can't really say much about comfort as these lenses were also part of my forgotten oopsie box. I feel like such a broken record always repeating what happened in case someone new to the blog is reading a lens review from me for the the first time but the tl;dr version is that I forgot I had a big box with unopened lenses and when I found it again everything inside had expired. *insert sad emoji here* So instead of just discarding everything and wasting precious moolah I figured I'd at least review them on this 'ere blog so that someone, out there, might find it helpful. 

I don't recommend wearing expired lenses (please don't) but for the sake of the review I wore these long enough to get the necessary photos taken (roughly 10 minutes) and what little I can gauge of comfort is based on that short time-window wearing them. I can't grade them properly nor fairly but what I can say is that based on my first impressions they seemed thin albeit slightly itchy and a bit drying. Then again I have naturally very dry eyes so it's hard to tell when it's the lenses and when it's just a bad eye day.

Also, due to the narrow pupil hole there is some colored corners at the edge of my vision field in poorer light conditions, but that's to be expected when the opening is so small and honestly, it's something you get accustomed to quite fast so I'd say personally that it's a non-issue.

 

All in all this type of lens is just silly fun and works for both cosplay (especially if you want your lenses to be visible from afar) and other fashion looks – not limited to rockers, punk folks and monster themed parties. There's quite a lot you could wear these lenses to and I'd say only your imagination is the limit, although these are as far from natural as one can get so you might want to avoid wearing them to your baptist grandma's family dinner lmao.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 8/10  
It's screamo yellow! It's a very bold and intense color, funky and exhilarating.

Design: 7/10
Classic Manson style lens. It's very minimalistic in design but very effectful in creating a deranged look.

Opacity: 8/10
Very opaque but not as hyper covering as this kind of crazy lenses tend to be. Still gets the job done with ease.
Enlargement: 3/10
There's some minor enlargement but it's not really that noticeable tbh.
Comfort: 5/10
It's hard to say but they were thin and okay-ish, although slightly itchy and possibly a bit on the dry side.
Naturalness: 1/10
Bro, I don't think so.

Thank you for reading my blog~

Shiro Samurai says goodbye.

Sastamalan cosplay-päivä 2023

 Hello everyone!

I attended a mini cosplay event at Sastamala's library this past Saturday (27th May) and thought I'd do a quick summary about it. The event has also been called "Sastamalan cosplay-tapahtuma" but it's the same thing – dear child has many names and yada yada. This was a rather spontaneous trip on my part as I happened to be dwelling in a nearby town at the moment the event was held. 

 

Let's go!

Event poster.

As this was a one-day event (roughly 6 hours duration) it didn't really require any planning except for waking up during a reasonable time and driving there. As I'm quite far from home I also didn't have any costumes with me and so I went in casual gear. My company and driver for the day was Firith. It took us roughly 50 minutes to drive to the library on this bright summer day.

Sastamala library entrance.

I'll admit I've never been to Sastamala's library before – heck, I've literally only briefly visited Sastamala once before for a friend's after-wedding party. So it's almost completely unknown territory for me but yeah, it looked like a comfy town. 

It was easy to find a free parking lot just outside the library and after I had Pokémon Go'd the immediate surroundings (the library was conveniently a blue gym with space for us xD) we walked in. My instant reaction was that it didn't look that much livelier than it would on your average library day, except for some kids in colorful outfits. And I gotta say I almost felt like a fossil in comparison to the age group of the other visitors – mainly school-age children. There were some who looked like teens, possibly young adults but fuck I felt old lmao. That, or transported back to 2009 when you'd still see kids in Naruto cloaks and Miku Hatsune outfits running around. It was charming though and weirdly nostalgic. The kids will be alright. :')

General view of the location.

We actually arrived just in time to watch the cosplay competition. They had some technical issues and yeah, the contestants who were mostly small kids were obviously very shy to be on stage and to speak into the mic so, umm, it goes without saying that the whole competition was over very fast considering that a full hour had apparently been reserved for it on the schedule. I can't blame the kiddos though, they were clearly nervous and intimidated to be in front of a lot of parents and other visitors watching them. Heck, I have stage fright too I once almost fainted the one and only time I tried to sing karaoke in front of my mom and cousins. xD There were four winners and I gotta say I was surprised by the quality of the prizes – huge plush dolls were given out to at least the second and first place I think? I mean.. *prepares old man voice* back in my day you'd get like a pack of poker cards if you placed in Kemi's manga day. For real, for real.

No but really, the contestants were all adorable and I think it's great that there's this kind of first-timer friendly events that are aimed at the younger population. A lot of cosplay competitions in other, more well-known events are very high-threshold and it can feel like there's a lot of requirements placed on you. Small and free events like this cosplay-day is a great gateway for newcomers to try out competing with almost no pressure, few to no restrictions (bought costumes were clearly allowed) and in a fun and stress-free environment. 

After the cosplay competition we checked the little spot reserved for the Artist's Alley and merchants. I was surprised there even was any sellers at all because the event was so tiny. And I was even more surprised to see a big-shot like Bard & Jester here, I mean these guys are famous and tour events outside the country borders! I've seen them in Närcon in Sweden.

 

A combination of Artist's Alley and merch sellers.

Bard & Jester had some sick steampunk gear etc for sale!

There were two Artist's Alley tables, of which one of them I immediately recognized from Kummacon. I did notice that there was a third table that was completely empty, which made me wonder if there had been a last minute cancellation? I did buy a few things too from aroaava.

I gotta say I liked the overall feeling of the event, it was really chill and casual. There might not have been a lot to do, when compared to a more typical con, but that's to be expected. There were plenty of different kinds of crafty stations like a table for perler beads, decorate a sakura tree with origami flowers, a lucky wheel and there was also a much appreciated table with free coffee, tea, cookies, pocky sticks and even popcorn. Now that amount of generosity gets two thumbs up from me!

Some kind of lucky wheel thingy?

Decorate the tree activity booth.

The snacks and drink booth, all free. #bless

I read that there was supposed to be a place where you could try on a VR headset but I didn't find it. Was lowkey bummed out as that did interest me a bit and it would have been fun to try out. Then again, maybe I should just have looked through things a bit more thoroughly but yeah, we didn't stay there for very long in the end.

Just for fun me and Firith participated in a lottery draw where you could win event merch (like those mugs on the picture below) just before we left.

 

Event merchandise. This had me surprised as well.

I gotta give compliments to the library workers who went all in on this day. There was this tattooed dude with amazing spiky punk-rocker hair and he was dressed at some point in a lab coat and something that looked like a homemade mask that resembled some kind of creepy green-eyed mosquito or something. Yes, it had the sucker made out of like part of a vaccuum cleaner or something lmao. It was weird, intimidating and awesome at the same time. 5/5 best outfit.

I don't have so much more to say. I enjoyed the event and how relaxed the atmosphere was. It was fun to watch the reaction of ordinary library visitors (grannies unaware of the event etc) when they saw youngsters roaming the area in fursuits and colorful wigs lol. I also gotta say that considering the scale of the event I felt like it must have had a decent budget to have as much activities as it did. I know libraries are often short on money as they're funded and dependent on the municipality and are sadly a very low-priority instance at that too. But libraries are one of the few safe havens left for (vulnerable) people in society – one of the few remaining welcoming public spaces where there's no pressure to buy anything. So yeah, it's very nice to see events hosted in libraries too to give these important places some much needed visibility and traffic. I definitely approve of the so-called "kirjastoconit", aka 'library cons'. These small events are great stepping stones for newcomers to enter the geeky community of cosplay and anime so yeah, let's keep these in the future too. <3

Thanks for reading, see y'all around!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Kummacon 2023 – Stop, working time!

Hello geeks!

This year's rendition of Kummacon was held this past weekend in Oulu again, during 20-21.5.2023 and yes, this effectively means that I've attended Kummacon back-to-back with no other con inbetween. :'D That's because last year's Kummacon was held so late and this year's was pushed forward to be on the first half of the year! Anyways, as most people probably know by now Kummacon is a small, low threshold anime and literature convention held annually in Oulu and it's one of the few popular culture events with a free entrance.

Let's dive in!

Kummacon host building, aka Oulu's International School.

Kummacon is one of those cons that change host building almost every iteration and where it ends up comes down to things like budget and such. This is the second time (I think?) that it's held in Oulu's international school – last time was back in 2018. And I gotta say that this is one of my favorite locations because of how well-lit it is and it's very close to the train station and centrum as well, which means it's easy to find and to get to and from.

Kummacon info desk. Very visibly pro-LGBTQ+ vibes.

Already by the end of last year's Kummacon I had signed up for to return as a con worker this year. I figured why not as it gives me something fulfilling to do and well, non-profit free events like these need all the extra hands they can get to be able to go around; no people willing to donate their time equals no con and that is big sad. :'( And I knew from last year that Kummacon struggled with last-minute worker cancellations and I have plenty con worker experience under my belt by now so I didn't need to think twice before applying for round two. Except this year I ended up at the Kumma Kahvila (cafeteria) and not as a general con worker.

Entrance viewed from inside.

As I mentioned above Kummacon has been in the international school before and I felt instantly familiar when I stepped in. I think most of the layout were used similarly to 2018 – the Artist's Alley was split in two halves with one half downstairs and the other half upstairs on the second floor. There were quite a lot of artists and some I had not seen before, which is always nice! Sadly I am quite poor at the moment so the only thing I ended up buying at the whole con was a Diluc (Genshin Impact) keychain from one of the sellers upstairs for myself and two other characters as gifts.

 

Half of Artist's Alley was on the main floor.

And the other half was up the stairs. (sorry no pic)

On Saturday I worked from 13-17 local time at the cafeteria upstairs. We sold some sweet and salty treats like vegan 'härkis' burgers and sandwiches, homebaked buns and peanut butter cookies, coffee, Japanese snacks, homemade 'sima' (a traditional Finnish Easter drink similar to mead) and some few others. 

I gotta admit I was quite nervous at first when I arrived at my work station. I had slept poorly and tried to mask my growing anxiety as good as I could but luckily I was fretting for nothing as it was a pretty chill job and there were never any rushes or massive customer flows. My workmates were also friendly and there were no weird situations that cropped up, except for the obligatory technology hiccups with the card reader refusing to connect with the app and such. But we also took cash so when it did act up there was always a plan B to fall back on. And apparently the card reader hated my phone more than the other phones cuz no one else had it act up as much as I did lol.

Kumma Kahvila looked like this on Sunday.

As I spent the majority of my time at the con behind bars at the cafeteria working I gotta admit that I don't actually have so much to say about the convention itself. I saw some friends briefly but as I was the only one who worked I couldn't join them for some juicy shenanigans and thus I don't have any fun stories to share as, well, nothing out of the ordinary had a chance to happen. So I'm sorry but this summary might come across as a bit more dull than what I usually write. :')

 

Selfie with Firith! Yes I was in alt casual gear.

I did meet the lovely Firith in some Hatsune Miku inspired setup and we shared our sleeping accomodation as he and I have a mutual friend who so happens to have a study apartment in Oulu where we could crash over the weekend. Saved my ass because yeah, as I said I'm poor right now and on sick leave so the money ain't saying clinkety clink right now.

 

One of the staple vendors, Manga Cafe.

Some other geeky merch seller.

 

On Sunday my work shift were from 10-14 and it went by much the same as on Saturday, except a bit calmer still. I have no idea how much leftovers there were as I didn't stay until the closure of the con (I had to leave earlier) but I do assume that whatever were left from the cafeteria were handed out to the Green Room and to con workers to take home. 

Next year I will most likely apply to be a con worker again as I find it quite an important and delightful little side hustle and well, I do appreciate Kummacon staying as a free entrance event and for them to be able to stay that way they need volunteers to make the con happen year after year. :)

The obligatory art wall. Notice the 'poorly drawn Sasuke' meme. xD

 

I found this year's Kummacon experience to be a pleasant one. I did not attend any panels or programs or the like and spent like 90% of my time at the con working but I don't really feel like I missed out on much either as I'm a very lazy goer on any kind of activities and I'm trying to refrain from buying stuff as I feel like I own so much shit by now that I don't even know what to do with it lol. 

It doesn't take that long to traverse the building and see what the con has to offer and aside from the occasional crowding and the building being packed with people in lines waiting for popular programs to start (like the cosplay competition and cosplay date) then it was easy to navigate and move around in. I did feel some slight annoyance because upstairs there were a few cases when people would randomly sit or just stand next to the stairs for a longer time and clog up the passage, which wasn't that wide to begin with. Maybe there was a lack of chairs to sit on, I'm not sure? I didn't check every corner of the con but I know there were chairs in the same corridor where the Kumma Kirppis (second-hand store) was, although I'll admit I didn't step my foot in there.

Upstairs also had pretty crummy air flow/quality, I felt a bit nauseated several times while working and had to take breaks to go outdoors to get some fresh air; I heard that the windows upstairs couldn't be opened and that was one of the main reasons it was like that – luckily on Sunday someone brought a portable air conditioner to the cafeteria so it was a bit more manageable. Air quality was fine downstairs.

All in all Kummacon is a worthwhile con to visit if you happen to live in the north. It boasts a welcoming and safe atmosphere, a decent amount of activities to keep you entertained and it's just a breath of fun to liven up a dull week. We need to hold on tight to what few cons we have left with free entrance because yeah, I personally believe that low-threshold cons like this are a great way to get new and young hobbyists into the scene – it's a great first step to gauge if it's where you feel a sense of belonging. 

Thanks for reading and stay fresh out there!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

RE4 Leon Kennedy costest update

 Hello!

What is this, a cosplay post? You bet! :'D No but really, I know it's been literal years since I last made any cosplay progress post or anything that's not a circle lens review lol but I promise I'm getting back on track! The past weeks I've been really getting back into the cosplay groove and I actually have regained motivation to do stuff, wow! I have some moderately ambitious plans for the future and I should start cranking out more costuming content towards the summer, if everything goes as planned.

But anygays, back to the topic at hand. So yeah, a part of this reignited cosplay hype transferred over to me wanting to fix some almost-completed cosplays so that I can debut them at future conventions. I have quite a bunch of undebuted cosplays that need some small fixing before they're show-worthy. My Leon cosplay is one of them – I'm only missing props. That, and that I've wanted to slightly modify the wig a bit more as it started to bother me over the years. 

So what do I do? Well, last weekend I headed over to spend some quality time with Sallukka and their boyfriend. Sallukka slightly tinted the wig by using brown markers to color some fibers by hand and after that was done I put it on my head and we trimmed it a bit shorter on the sides and thinned down the front because it was quite front-heavy (although it didn't look like it!). The wig felt so much nicer and breezier to wear after shedding some excess fibers! It feels like it sits better on my head now and doesn't look as bulky on the front as before.

I was a derp and forgot to take any wig styling photos (sorry!) but how the wig looked before can be seen on this post from... half a decade ago, omegayikes. Jesus Christ time flies. 

 

But what I did do was a quick makeup test late yesterday just for fun and to test out the updated wig. I'm quite excited for this costume not gonna lie, it's fun to finally get around to do a bit more video game characters as I've been a major gamer all my life!

I intend to debut Leon somewhere this year but I'm just gonna make sure I have some kind of props to use before then as I find it kinda awkward to pose if I don't have anything to pose with lol. I'd prefer to make the rocket launcher if I get a chance to do that, but if not I'll try to make at least a knife, grenades or any other small props that he uses in the game. I want to fill my pouches with stuff. :D I actually scouted Ikea for fake flowers that I could paint red for a Red Herb prop to carry around but of course with my luck there wasn't anything that fit the bill in terms of leaf shapes etc ffuu ffuu. Oh well, the search continues!

I think that's about all I had to say for this round. Stay nerdy out there!

Lens review: ColourVue Phantasee Yellow Artist

 Hi hi and hello!

I'm doing another special effects lens review, woop di doop! Today I'll show you all the ColourVue Phantasee Yellow Artist, a not so extreme crazy lens. This is ngl more of an artsy lens, if you may.

Let's-a go!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm 

 Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

 

On an unsuspecting quick glance these look quite normal for a sfx lens, as in that the print isn't that bold nor typically blocky and simple like it tends to be on crazy lenses. The print in fact is rather delicate and detailed and it's really pretty if you take a closer look! Another thing I noticed was that it seems like the yellow color appears a bit golden hued when light hits it a certain way, making it look almost reminiscent of a metallic glimmering color. Almost.

One lens in.

When worn and viewed from a slight distance these look almost semi-natural in terms of first impressions – if we disregard the yellow color, that is. It's a quite pretty design and the color payout is great too, it's not too bold and disruptive but the black detailing makes it look a bit more muted and.. respectable? I don't know why but these make me think of like baroque style and such dandy eras haha.

Overall it's a really pretty, somewhat toned down medium to dark yellow with an extravagant and fine artistic print.

Lens photos below!

All photos are taken by yours truly during sunny weather. All close-ups are free from color filters and the like and that's so that the colors would appear as true to life as possible.

 

Natural room light, indoors.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo, indoors.

Facing a window indoors, not sun side.

Unlit corridor, weak distant natural light.

Outdoors, back against sun. (facing a wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun.

As with my other "backlog lenses" these were also part of that damned box I had stored away and forgotten about for years. By the time I found it all the unopened lenses inside had expired, sadly. So I'm doing these reviews purely in case it helps someone out there and yeah, due to the lenses being expired I'm not willing to play Russian roulette with my eye health so immediately upon getting the lens photos taken I threw them into the bin, which means I can't grade comfort properly. What little I can say though is that based on my first (and only) impressions these were somewhat thin and decent-ish but I felt them for some while after insertion and they seemed a bit drying too. I do have naturally dry and sensitive eyes so I can't fully rule out that it wasn't my eyes having a bad day but yeah, it's hard to tell.

Anyways, this is a very unique lens in terms of print design and it's fun yet sophisticated at the same time. It doesn't quite pack that same punch as sfx and crazy lenses tend to come with but honestly, we don't all need to be the same. I find these lenses charming in their own way and they would go well with steampunk attire and such.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 6/10 

It's like a darkish yellow, doesn't show up all that well from a distance but retains a yellowish look.

Design: 8/10 

Very intricate and pretty artsy design, it looks magical up close although due to all the finer details it gets "lost" when viewed from afar.

Opacity: 9/10

Surprisingly opaque and covering when you consider how "fine" these are when compared to typical bold and wild crazy lenses. I was perhaps expecting more transparency but nope, these are covering!

Enlargement: 2/10 

The enlargement effect is negligible.

Comfort: 6/10 

Decent and somewhat thin. I felt them in my eyes for a while and they seemed somewhat dryish but it's hard to judge based on a one-time wear.

Naturalness: 3/10 

From a distance you might get a fleeting pass but otherwise these are too fancy and yellow isn't a naturally occuring eye color in humans anyway.

Thanks for reading my blog, see ya!

~ Shiro Samurai out.