When a decanter makes you ridiculously happy...

Some time ago I was searching all the corners of the internet for a glass bottle, with a glass cork, that would have a resemblance to ochimizu, as seen in the Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan anime. I checked eBay, Tradera, random googling and everything I found was either widely different from what I wanted and if the bottle itself happened to have the right shape then the cork was waaaaay off... and if both were okay it was always over 25 cm in height and thus a no-no... and I didn't want anything bigger than 20 cm at most, preferably around 15 cm. So after searching several days for a close enough decanter I admitted to myself it indeed was a pain in the ass to find a good one and that this search would take me quite some time... but then I stumbled upon one auction at Huuto.net that made me go omfgyayafghdafghd! It qualified for all my requirements; it was cheap, it was small, it had a glass cork and both the cork and the bottle had a close enough resemblance omg so lucky in general to what I was looking for... so my feelings were like this:

Luckily I had a good friend who could buy it for me and then Jäärä delivered it to me before Chibicon, yays~

Aaah, pretty little thing that I thought I'd never be so happy to own.

Now I'm just wondering.. I need some red liquid to keep in it when I'm cosplaying Souji Okita at Desucon in Lahti. I will use it as a prop.

Bright liquid is bright.

So yeah, I need to find something that looks like that... and it's a bonus if it's edible. Yay for carrying around ochimizu... but I'll have to resist the urge to drink it at the con... resist the urge to drink it... lol

Anyone have any ideas what I could use? ^_^ (I should be able to buy it in Finland/Sweden)

Chibicon 2012 behind + Next con

Chibicon came and went. It was a not-so-big con held at Oulu's Pohjankartano, Finland. Finally a con in the north, big plus for that from me.
I must say I was surprised how big the con building was, it was amazing to hold a con in! Hmm, let's see.. the con itself was nice and I had a good time. Nothing really to complain about. Although I must say the number of cosplayers was surprisingly small.. needless to say the camera running was minimal because, well, there simply wasn't so much to photograph. Oh well, it was to be expected because it was Chibicon after all.
About the merchandise, well, it was the standard con merchandise pretty much - mangas, plushies, figures, doujinshis and a booth for ramune and other Japanese treats. I didn't buy anything because I'm saving money for the summer cons and because I didn't find anything that made me go OMGMUSTBUYNOW.
 I also went and watched the FFFight and it was entertaining.. although I noticed the same people participating twice... *shrugs* I also attended the Sengoku Basara panel which was nice.

I went there with my friend Jäärä who came up to my place late on Thursday. On Friday we con prepped and tested our Chibicon cosplays; we had a photoshoot outside. Most photos turned out pretty high on the derp scale but I think we got some decent ones too. Here's a few pictures:

The Kuchikis and their plushies.

FLY. REACH THE HEAVENS SEAWEED MAN!

Jarmo, the Seaweed Ambassador, went flying. Yes, we named him Jarmo. At one point I accidentally tossed him over our terrace field... good thing he didn't fall into that hole behind the snow and the fence itself... would have been harder to get him up. lol

Yo, I'm fine man.

I will upload more photos to my cosplay.com account slowly the coming days, so if you're interested be sure to check it out.

•Next con•

The next con I'm going to attend will be Desucon in Lahti, 8-10 June. I'm already longing for it! Gotta continue working on the cosplays...

It seems Kemi's comic/manga day will be held 18-20 May so I will be there too. What cosplay I will wear I have not decided yet.. most likely I will recycle an older cosplay. I will inform later when I've decided which one.

Started working on Ichito

Pfhah. 

I Finally stopped procrastinating working on cosplays and actually did something.
Oh sweet, I have the whole April, May and beginning of June to fart out an Okita and Ichito cosplay from scratch.. here goes!
I decided to tackle Ichito first because he is the more complicated of them two and will take longer to make. Surprisingly when I showed mom a picture of him she went "oh god that's SO PRETTY!!". You know, I was pretty sure she'd kill me because it was yet another kimono wearing character.. but nope, she didn't.

Okay, so to my joy we already had 3 meters of white fabric lying around in the house that I could use for his "kimono jacket". It rocks to have a mom who used to own her own fabric store and be a former sewer... that means we have an outside storage full of leftover fabric and more sewing supplies than I can use up in my whole lifetime. XD Love you mom. lol

So, this is what I'm trying to make:

The game he is from is very unknown and err, I don't have many references to go by. But I'll find solutions to everything~

And well, this is my new friend, say hello to mom's overlocking machine!

Saumuri on hyvää puuta~

I've never used one of these things before and I was scared to use it at first but gosh, this thing makes sewing so much easier! It cuts of excess fabric automatically and it makes the seams look professional and stuff. I'll need to use it more in the future.

So, regarding the costume... me and mum cut out the pieces for his "jacket" today and it's starting to look as it should, but I still need to fold in the hems or what you call them, the edges. The collar is attached but the sleeves are not. No decorations are done yet and his flap thingy we haven't cut out. I'm sorry but I don't really have any progress pictures more than one shot of the sleeve.

Wide sleeve is wide.

Sorry not so much more to say, hopefully more progress photos next time!

Desucon 2012 cosplay plans!

Alrighty. Here comes my cosplay plans for Desucon in Lahti, Finland, 8-10 June 2012!

Friday 

Character: Jushiro Ukitake

Series: Bleach

It seems our Finnish Bleach group decided Friday to be our group's "main day" so I'll bring my signature cosplay, Ukitake, then. He is my favorite character from Bleach! I will do the default captain version complete with shikai swords.

Saturday

Character: Ichito

Series: Asaki, Yumemishi

Oh sweet Jesus. This will be one of the most obscure cosplay choices I'll ever do... but I don't care because I drool buckets over his design, period. I don't care that he's a cursed psychopathic immortal missunderstood forever alone spirit... he is awesome.

Sunday

Character: Souji Okita

Series: Hakuouki

Ah, Okita. One of my favorite shinsengumis, if not my favorite. I decided to do this version for now because it's a chill "Sunday cosplay" and yeah, Ichito will be quite some work... and I'm a procrastinator.

Hijikata wig

A wig for Saitou wasn't the only one I ordered from Moemall, ordered a wig for Hijikata too because I know for sure I'll cosplay him someday too... although when and what con is a question mark. I've been thinking about Animecon in Kuopio this year, but I have no clue if that's even possible.. so expensive to travel to the south... train tickets to Kuopio and back would cost me around 120 €... ugh. I probably won't have any summer job (lol never had) and thus no income.. and it's not like I can fart out money either. Too many cosplays to do but not enough cons to wear them too... and not enough moneeeeeeey.

Oh well, have a Toshizo Hijikata WIP photo.

derp

It's mostly just a wig and make-up test. I need to make a dark purple kimono.. I used a light one I had from an earlier cosplay as a substitute. I also need gray hakama and shinsengumi haori for this one too. I might need to trim the bangs... we'll see.

Got my wig for Saitou

Whoops, just realized I forgot to make a blog post yesterday about my Saitou wig... sorry about that, ahah I will do it now instead. Two posts a day, wow.

So err, what to say... got my Saitou wig yesterday and because I got home pretty early I had to try it on. Hey, no one was home and I was simply too excited, couldn't resist!

Most of this cosplay is actually done, I just need a juban/shitagi/under kimono/whatever (I'm just using a random white t-shirt as a substitute on the photo) and fix his white hair tie... I had one but it fell off after a while and I didn't bother to tie it back again. I do have the scarf too, but it kept being mildly annoying so I took it off.
I still need to make the iconical sky blue shinsengumi haori of course and the headband thingy that he only wears when wearing said haori. Otherwise than that I'm done. It was a pretty easy cosplay because I managed to find a good condition cheap vintage tsumugi silk kimono.. and a black one at that that was of a decent length for me to wear. Yay. You know, men's kimonos have incredibly boring color choices 85% of the time, if you find anything else than blues, grays and browns you should grab it. Black kimonos are often formal and have kamons on them.. but I found one without.
I already have two swords (metallic, but dull) that should work decently for it even though they are dark blue and not standard black and I have shoes and the sash too. At least it seems that the con where I'll debut Saitou at accepts dull metallic weapons (seems most cons don't) as long as you only unsheath it for photos and yeah, not swinging it around and being a threatening noxious idiot. Common sense.

Sengoku Basara second season finished... and Hanbei.

Finished watching Sengoku Basara's second season and it was pretty awesome.

But Jäärä trolled me, haha. At one point when we watched the anime we said something about Hanbei, I don't remember what exactly but she said something along the lines of "You will end up relating to him and liking him anyway. I promise." and I was all "Why?" and a bit confused. Well, he was kinda semi-cool and all but not like instant OMGWOW. Of course I had my suspicions what it could be but err, I couldn't really believe it would be that... but it was... and I was like "OH SHIT WHAT THE HELL MAN??" to say the least. OTL Dafuq. Totally didn't see that one coming...

Hanbei Takenaka

But yeah, I must admit Hanbei was the most likable of all the "bad guys" to me, even before knowing about  *coughcough*, he had the coolest clothes too and white hair and well, now when I know that I guess I feel a need to cosplay him. XD But one thing...

Jäärä, have you been planning all this too from the start?

I guess it's just really easy to figure out how my brains work when it comes to possible cosplay candidates... xD Oh well~

And I actually wonder if there even is any "bad guys" in Sengoku Basara, I mean, everyone were fighting with everyone for different reasons and sometimes two fighting clans would suddenly be allies. *shrugs* I guess Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were seen as the main evil ones, but about the others I don't really know... except for Matsunaga, he was a disgusting ass.