Screen printing for Date's coat symbol pt.5

Yesterday I finally printed the symbol on the back of Date's coat in school. I won't go into details how the printing process works because I already explained that in part 4. I'll mostly just post photos this time and explain some things I didn't (have to) do when test printing.

Preparations..

Before printing I remember those little.. well, faults on the print frame which I didn't bother with while test printing but I wouldn't want them on the real deal. I first thought about handpainting carefully with a pencil over the frame and avoid the "leak points" but that would be more tedious than needed.. so the teacher said I could just cut super small tape strips and put them over to cover those "frame leaks".

Like this!

Next thing to do was to put the frame exactly where I wanted it. This took quite some time to get right because I kept getting confused where exactly the center point was.. and it didn't help that the symbol on the print frame itself was off-centered and I didn't notice that until later. Derp. Oh well, after measuring the distances all over the place with the measurement tape I was.. sort of.. confident it was in the center.

Center pleaseeeeeeeee

Then I just took some paint and the squeegee and.. ta-dah!

Sure I had my doubts the paint wouldn't stick because of this fabric's weird plastic-y surface and whatnot.. but it went okay. On the other half of the symbol's edges it looks like either the frame moved a tiny bit during the printing or that the fabric's surface doesn't take paint so well and it "flowed out" a little. I don't know how to explain that. xD But it looks fine unless you're looking at it from an ALMOSTINYOURFACE distance.

Next thing to do? You guessed it, make it dry quicker. Hair dryer to the rescue!

Drying drying..

Then I just took it home and today (Tuesday) I ironed it to set the symbol. Knowing that this fabric rolls up when heated I decided to put weights at both sides.. namely my Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable in their protective cases. lol

The last mission - setting the print.

With that the symbol is ready and I can get on with sewing the coat together, booyah! That sure will be interesting! But before that.. Närcon Vinter is coming up this weekend and I need to prepare for departure on Thursday. AAAWWWW YEEEEAAAA excitement!

Hijikata contact lens test feat. eyeliner

 Hello hello!

Last time I tried on my violet contact lenses for the first time. I didn't put on any makeup back then but today I decided to try using eyeliner and also try how it looked with the wig (excluding ponytail) on. I also got a new authentic dark purple kimono earlier this week and today on the morning I did some kimono kitsuke and, because this kimono is the same one I had planned to use for Hijikata (I keep on upgrading this cosplay!), I decided why the hell not go experimenting with the contacts when I still had the right kimono on? :D

Excuse me for bathroom shots, the lighting is a bit yellowish. Mom probably wondered what I did occupying the toilet for an hour or more. xD I tried to look Hijikata-ish but not sure if successful...

Close-up photo that shows contacts rather well

Tilting head...

.. and I ran out of pose ideas so have some KÄSIIIIIIIIIIIII
and borderline derp-smile. OTL

I don't know why but this time I had a lot more problems with getting the contacts in... but I managed, heh. Also my eyeliner is kinda sloppy, sorry about that. I'm not sure if I should have my eyebrows like that (aka naturally) or if I should cover my eyebrows and draw on new ones; I'm leaning towards the latter because it looks more anime-ish.

And here's a bonus black-&-white photo in which I edited the eyes:

I don't have so much more to say except that half-way during the photo taking I noticed the contacts didn't bother me as much – I guess my eyes got used to them because I didn't feel them as much as earlier. Yay!

Bye!

Lightning bolt belt

 Whazzup? ;)

Earlier today I thought about starting to make Masamune's pants but then I decided against it; I didn't feel like working with patterns. Instead I did the belt, figured it would be more fun.

Reference picture

I went to the attic to check for any elastic black fabrics.. found none so I went back inside and decided to use the pvc fabric because at least it's elastic.. but I wasn't so keen on having to use it because it was a bitch the last time I worked with it. Oh well, free fabric is better than having to go buy fabric so I decided to give it a try... and here's the rundown!

First I took a measurement tape and measured about how long and how wide I wanted the belt to be. I made it double the width because I would be folding it in half later.

I marked cutting lines on the wrong side of the fabric with a white pencil...

... and cut it out.

I cut off that non-pvc part at one of the egdes and put right sides together and sewed the ends together, with a simple straight stitch. This fabric doesn't fray so no need to zigzag it.

The ends are sewed together here..

Folding the belt in half I started sewing it closed, starting from the seam I folded in the sides of the fabric a bit while I sewed it closed.

While sewing it closed

After I had sewed over half of the belt closed with no problems it suddenly started to pull diagonally every time the needle/presser moved forward. It was like the fabric was being bunched up or something, something was pulling it the wrong way. I was worried if I kept sewing the fabric would wrinkle itself while under the presser so I took it off and looked at it. It was hard to get the error to show clearly on photos but I marked the problem area with a red circle:

To the left I'm holding the sides of the fabric folded in. (the remainind part which has not been sewn closed yet)
To the right the fabric is lying down naturally/relaxed.. the pulling is still there.

I decided to undo a few centimeters to check if the problem would go away.. after all it appeared pretty suddenly; everything had been working like a charm before. Because the seam ripper has disappeared I took a mini scissor to undo the stitching. After I had undone the part where it started the whole pulling problem I carefully continued to sew.. I passed the problem area and luckily nothing happened this time and I managed to sew the whole belt closed.

The belt closed

Now I just had to add that little lightning bolt decoration to the front! I stared at different references of Masamune and on some pictures it seemed silver but on most of the time it was gold.. so I went with gold. Up again into the attic I went with scissors and a measurement tape. I found a small roll of golden fabric and decided to use it so I cut out a small square at one of the corners. While cutting it I noticed the fabric didn't fray, awesome! I took the square with me and went back inside.

The fabric (it had that white part all along the top and bottom edges)

I went to get a pencil and started to draw a lightning bolt on the backside of the fabric. The backside was shiny and had an almost plastic-y touch to it.

The backside of the golden fabric..

After I had drawn the lightning bolt I noticed it would of course be mirrored because I drew it on the wrong side! So I drew it again, but this time reversed to how I wanted it and when I cut it out it was the right way.

Lightning bolt decoration cut out

The fabric was pretty floppy by itself so I decided to use some interfacing fabric to make it a bit sturdier. I cut out a small bit of interfacing fabric and ironed it on, obviously the sticky/glue side against the lightning bolt's wrong side.

Prior to ironing..

After ironing and after i had cut off the excess.

Now I just had to attach it to the belt itself. My first thought was to try using the newly bought fabric glue:

Fabric glue...

I tried gluing it on and noticed pretty fast that it didn't stick to the pvc fabric at all. The bolt decoration just slid around. I was back to square one... with sticky glue everywhere. The glue stuck especially to the interfacing fabric and it was just eww. I tried to get it off with a moist paper tissue but nope, the only thing that happened was that the lightning bolt lost some of the support the interfacing fabric gave... so needless to say it turned floppy again. Argh.

Interfacing fabric side feat. sticky glue remains...

After some thinking I figured that adding another layer of interfacing fabric on top of the old one wouldn't hurt and probably could restore it. Said and done!

A new layer of interfacing fabric ironed on. (before cutting off excess)

With that the lightning bolt decoration looked as if new.. and even slightly sturdier than it was at first. I decided no more gluing and went to get some golden sewing thread.. I found some embroidery thread but hey, it's thread too so why not? I did some test stitching on a scrap piece of the golden fabric (aka what was left of the square) and every time the needle went down the fabric gave a slight "crispy plastic" sound and I was like:

But I decided to try sewing the lightning bolt on anyway. Even if it would end up looking ugly at least sewn in place it would hold better than with glue...

Sewing it on.. I sewed in slow-motion and veeeery close to the edges...

To my surprise it ended up looking pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself!

Here's two photos of the finished super hero belt:

That's it for today, see ya!

A whole new experience – cosplay contact lenses! (Super Pinky Violet review)

 Hi hi!

// EDIT: This post is a review for the Super Pinky Violet circle lenses, as well as me talking about my very first experience with contact lenses //

For quite some time now I've been thinking about starting to use colored contact lenses for my cosplays.. or well, at least for those characters with unreal eye colors (red, golden, violet etc) or otherwise very vibrant eyes or just, whenever the hell I feel like I want to use contacts. xD Yeah, seemingly my brother Jäätynyt Enkeli had thought about doing the same thing, so we decided that for our Närcon Vinter Hakuouki cosplays we'd take our cosplaying to the next level!
I had done a lot of research prior to buying my first lenses so I knew what online stores were safe to order from and had a pretty good general idea about lens care, how to put them in and take them out, what brands were recommended for light eyed people etc. I knew what I was getting myself into... and I was excited.

A few weeks ago me and Jäätynyt Enkeli placed an order together at HoneyColor. I purchased a pair of violet contacts, namely the Super Pinky Violet, for Toshizo Hijikata because –let's face it– violet is not even an eye color that's possible to have naturally. And for some reason it bugs me more personally when I cosplay someone with unnatural eye color if I don't have said color; it's more noticeable or something just because it's, well, not normal. OTL

Toshizo Hijikata as seen in Hakuouki anime

I decided to go with the Super Pinky line because I had read that those had a smaller pupil hole than your usual circle lenses and one of my main concerns with getting contacts –as a light eyed person– was that because of a bigger pupil hole my real eye color would show like a ring around the pupil and clash with the contact's color and look off. ._. Circle lenses are mostly made with Asian people in mind and with dark eyes I can't imagine this pupil hole problem being hardly a problem at all, because brown is much closer to black (aka the pupil) than say gray or blue is, so brown "blends in" much better.
Oh well, back to the contacts. Except the contacts lenses I also got a random free cute animal lens case – in my case a blue elephant one.

I must admit they are quite adorable...

Enough rambling. Okay, so I had already taken the lenses out of their original vial bottles and done the preparations earlier so I won't go through those. I mostly followed PinkyParadise's Wear and Care Guide and had no issues. Before starting I washed my hands thoroughly with some mild liquid soap and I just followed the guidelines. Oh, I had also marked the bottom of my lens case earlier to be able to know which container was for the right and left lens. It's seemingly not recommended to mix the contacts up, like if you once use a lens on the left eye you should always use it on the left eye... or so I read.

This is what the lenses looked like in the lens case.. (bathroom light)
Sorry about bad quality photo.

 

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.8 mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

I know new contact lens users often have problems getting the damn things in but it didn't take so long for me, maybe 5-10 minutes in total for both eyes. I did have that "the contact won't stick to my eye" problem but after a few tries I got them in. But the most bothersome thing was trying to keep my goddamn eyelids from not blinking out of pure "ohmaigerd-something-weird-is-touching-the-eye!" syndrome. It wasn't the most pleasing feel having a new object touching your eyes; sure I had expected it would feel really weird at first but I didn't think it would be so hard to keep my eyelids open because normally I have no problems touching my eyes. Oh well, after some iron determination and mentally yelling "GODDAMMIT EYELID CALM THE FUCK DOWN. IT'S JUST A CONTACT, OKAY?" ... yeah. I'm weird.
When I got the contacts in I just blinked a few times to have them adjust themselves to the right place. For a few seconds my eyes got really moistened and it just felt really weird and a bit uncomfortable (no scratching, "dirt in my eye" or burning feelings though, so nothing bad) but that makes sense because this was my first time ever. After a few minutes it didn't feel all that weird anymore – got slightly used to it I guess. I noticed it felt the most weird if I moved my eyes hastily. Oh well, nothing impossible to overcome, it's just a question of getting used to it.
By the way I had no problems removing the lenses, I just slid it down to the whites of the eye and pinched the contact very carefully with my thumb and index finger and took it out.

And now for some pictures taken in your usual yellow-ish bathroom lighting.
EDIT: Sorry for the absolutely horrendous photo quality. OTL These first photos were taken with my old shitty digital camera.

Different-pair-eyes. o_o It's a flash photo, by the way.
Uploaded this just for comparison.

Bathroom light, both lenses in.

Flash photo indoors.

 

The color is pretty noticeable, not all over your face but violet for sure. The diameter is 14.8 mm, which is on the average bigger side, as far as circle lenses go.

My eyes do look a lot more anime-ish with contacts – me gusta! I'm really happy with these contacts actually, I just need to try them some more times to get used to them. Oh, and my real eye color is a blue-gray with hints of green, for those who wonder.

Here's two more photos of the lenses.
Both taken outdoors by me during summer, with a notably better camera. 

I also have a bonus close-up cosplay photo!

Hijikata cosplay photo. It shows quite well how
the lenses look from a distance.

 

Check out some other colors of the Super Pinky line and how they look on light eyes!

Reviews made by me here: Red, Green, Wine Red, Black

Short summary:

Color: 7/10 
Noticeably violet, even from a distance. The shade is quite cool.
Design: 5/10 
Kinda generic design but it's not bad.
Opacity: 7/10
The violet is pretty opaque, hides my real eye color nicely.
Enlargement: 8/10 
These are enlarging. It's between a natural and unnatural look and yeah, they occasionally look creepy on me.
Comfort: 6/10 
Okay. Sometimes feels uncomfortable for a while when I put them on.
Naturalness: 2/10 
Doesn't look very natural because of enlargement and color but still not super freaky either.

Bye bye and thanks for viewing ~~

Zigzagin' all around

Hi hi!

Today I should have printed the back symbol on Date's coat but.. I wasn't in school. I will do that next time instead.. I figured today I could at least zigzag all around every part.. not like it's really needed because the fabric hardly frays at all but yeah, I just do it as an extra precaution and because I want to be able to press the seams open later.

Zigzaging is such a basic thing to do so I don't feel there's any need to explain the process or take many photos. The only thing I can mention is that because the fabric I'm working with is a bit elastic I decided to use the "stretch zigzag" stitch instead of the usual one.

Zigzaging ~

I saved the spiky lower part of the coat for last.. I figured it would be the hardest one to zigzag because of the spikes that have pretty sharp angles. I also had to watch that the very tips of the spikes didn't fold themselves under the presser or anything else unwanted.

While zigzaging the spiky part..

I found myself turning this piece around a lot when zigzaging it.. it was a bit annoying but it all went well in the end.. and what's surprising is that I managed zigzaging all the pieces without even once running out of bobbin thread! *winner feeling*

It was full when I started and this much left when done :'D

Next time I have art class I'm going to print the symbol on the back I can't start sewing the coat pieces together before that.. or adding the trims either.

See ya!

Start of Masamune's coat!

 How's it going? :D

Decided to cut out out the parts for Masamune Date's (battle) coat/vest thingy or whatever it's supposed to be. I did a prototype version earlier of the coat's upper part so I feel confident enough to cut the real fabric now.. or do I? -_- Oh well, here goes!

Preparations.. all patterns are in a pile

Patterns pinned in place, ready to cut.. (back and spiky piece will be cut at the fold)

I cut everything out after that. I did do a small modification before cutting out the front pieces though, I added some extra length to the bottom center because now when I think about it I thought the prototype version looked a tad too short there.. like the tips wouldn't touch just enough above where the belt will be.

Front pieces cut out with the small tweak

I'm not sure if it will work together with the rest of the pieces but I decided to add the extra width just in case. I can always cut it out later if it doesn't fit together with the spiky "butt cape" and the back piece attached.

Oh, I only left seam allowances on the parts that will be.. well, sewed together somehow. I skipped them on most parts that will have the white trim running along the edges.

Reference image

Here's an example:

As you can see no seam allowances on the collar's upper half
and the front part because there will be white trim..

Ah, and speaking of the collar.. I will do it double for extra strength (and probably put interfacing between) so I cut out two pieces more.

Pinning done collar pieces on fabric..

.. and after cutting the (second dose of) collar out I now had all pieces ready. YAY!

I then took the back piece and goofed around with it in front of a mirror and noticed I might want to trim the shoulder points a little because they looked.. well.. kinda exaggerated and I'm not sure if I like them that way. So what to do? I matched up the front pieces with the back piece at the shoulders, pinned them so that they wouldn't move aaaaaand..

Pinned and ready for modifications...

.. cut!

And that's about it. I then just took off the patterns from all the fabric pieces, folded them and put them away. I also noticed that the fabric hardly frays at all, cool. Then again it's some weird denim fabric with a plastic-y touch to the fabric's "right side". Oh, and speaking of this fabric's weirdness.. I wasn't sure how well it would take ironing so I took one of the scrap pieces and put the iron between 1 and 2 dots and tried first to iron at the "wrong side", aka the side that feels like denim, and well... the fabric's reaction was:

Except that the fabric rolled itself like hell I could see no damage done by the ironing. I could iron on top of the "right side" too. But I don't think I want to risk using the iron on any higher heat because this fabric sure isn't your usual denim.

That's it for today and tomorrow I will take the back piece with me to art class so that I can screen print the symbol on it!