Fabrics for Ichito

 Hi all.

I'm bored right now and mom was watching icehockey recently and today she doesn't really feel like helping me finish that 'flap' thingy -with its lining problems- so I went and checked what leftover fabrics we had in our 'clothing room' more like sewing supply room lol instead because I'm in a cosplay progress mood. I tried to search for that light gray fabric that I used for my hakamas when making my Byakuya cosplay from Inu Yasha year 2010. Yes, my first cosplay. I had a faint memory we had scrap pieces of that fabric left but it seems we did not.. crap, I could have used some for Ichito's eyepatch thingies. That fabric isn't finito though, the bolt is in the storage if I'm not mistaken.
Oh well, instead I found a dark blue fabric that could work for Ichito's kimono. Although it's a bit darker and lacks a violet-ish touch to it -as I would prefer- I still think I will use it.. but mom said this piece probably isn't big enough for the kimono so I have to pay a visit to Eurokangas (where we bought it 2010 too, also originally used for Byakuya cosplay's haori) and check if they have it left. I also found a piece of dark brown kinda stretchy fabric that mom said is one of the many fabrics that's left from her own fabric store. She said it's used for pants and it would work for Ichito's hakama-ish pants. She thinks there's enough fabric and I hope she's right, save money hohoho. I think this piece is all that is left from that fabric bolt, she probably sold the rest years ago so if this isn't enough we need to go buy something else...

Lastly a picture of the fabrics:

(flash photo)

I love how cameras never show the actual colors... both are darker in real life.
Oh, and I noticed I only have a month on me to finish my Desucon cosplays. Shiet, need to start working for real now!

Bye!

Hijikata wig styling

Today after school I went to the post office in town and picked up two items, one of them being wig stands. Yay now I can finally start styling wigs! I've been thinking about cutting the bangs on my Hijikata wig shorter for some time now because I thought they were a bit too long... so I decided to plunge into a new challenge today and cut and style a wig myself for the first time ever. I must admit I was hesitating at first and scared to screw up. It doesn't really help that I'm bad with scissors either... I'm left-handed and I've always used right-hand scissors and some angles are really hard and/or awkward to cut in... I can't use left-hand scissors because those are even weirder for me. lol I tried once when I was young and quickly decided to use "normal scissors". Before cutting the wig I had of course read and watched some how-to tutorials earlier so I knew somewhat what to do and not do.

Pardon the lighting again.. we have pretty sucky lamps in the house lol, they make everything yellow when taking photos...

Started cutting... lol super uneven or what? Orz

Looks a  bit better now...

Sorry I don't have photos of the 'spiking' process but here's a WIP photo after the styling. If you want to compare before and after photos check out my earlier Hijikata wig blog post.

Please don't mind the wrong color kimono, I know it's too light.
I have yet to make a darker one so I used a substitute...

It's annoying when trying to take photos of yourself and you end up with a derp or semi-derp face on 80% of them... OTL I'm so photogenic. lol

That's all for today, see ya folks!

Ichito's 'flap' pt.3

 How's it going? :)

Today my youngest cousin was here and I had to 'babysit' him or whatever, we played Nintendo DS and mom sewed him a cushion cover so he could make a coming mother's day present to his mom. So while he was painting on it I ran back and forth the house trying to work on my cosplay. He's 9 btw.

So today's progress.. well, first off I had to iron the flower designs to set it and then I went to cut out the lining pieces.

Lining cut out. (back piece)

Front piece lining. Edges are zigzaged.

A while after I had zigzaged the pieces the little kid left with his dad and after that mom decided to take a nap while I continued sewing. But before I went and paid the sewing machine another visit I decided to take a photo...

Yeah, a face censor again... sexy me gusta.

Ignore the fact that I'm wearing my everyday clothing underneath, I don't have the kimonos or pants done yet as you know... oh, and the jacket's front derps because I lack the obi too.
After closing the side seams I was afraid that the 'flap' would get stuck half-way up my ass.. luckily it didn't and it seems roomy enough (it doesn't fall of when walking though) I will be able to wear that dark blue kimono and hakama under it.

After that I went to sew on the lining. I had a hard time figuring out how to attach it but after some help by mom I went and tested sewing it on...

afdsasghjs

I dunno how visible it is on this photo but one of the lining side seams didn't match up with the 'flap' side seam. So I had to take in around 2 centimeters of the lining to get the seams to be aligned... but...

Oh snap...

Turned out the rest of the lining was waaaay too short after that seam modification. Urgh, just as mom worried it would. I had to unstitch the whole thing. Back to start... not my day today. After that I got stuck watching tv and celebrating Walpurgis...

Bye!

Ichito's 'flap' pt.2

 Hi all!

Today after dinner I decided to hand-paint the design on that 'flap' thingy. So first of I needed to have a reference picture of Ichito at hand and I also happen to know what those designs actually are supposed to be - higanbana - aka spiderlily.

Lycoris Radiata

Ichito reference

 So knowing what I'm actually trying to paint is a little bonus. But I drew mostly according to the character reference and some artistic freedom.. because it would have peen a major pain in the ass to draw every damn flower and line exactly the same.
I did iron the fabric prior to painting so it was wrinkle-free. So yeah, here is today's progress photos and please excuse the crappy lighting again, the colors get a bit fucked up.

Sketched some "base flowers" on the fabric.

Started painting...

Painted some more...

Started doing the lines...

More lines. Half of it done pretty much.

Other half done and started painting the bottom "rings"...

Finished!

I didn't count the time but I think it took me around 4-5 hours to finish. Urgh. I'm sick of drawing lines now. XD Now I just need to sew together the front and back piece at the sides and fix the edges and probably add a lining to the front's backside.
Ah... now I've earned myself some chips and a bottle of påskmust. lol

Bye bye!

Ichito's 'flap' pt.1

Hellou!

Pfft, today mom got my depressed ass to do something instead of being a half-dead angsty sausage in front of the computer all day. Yeah, I had a shitty day today, didn't go to school etc...
So with her help I started working on Ichito's 'flap' thingy late during the evening instead of completely wasting the day.

Sorry again for the bad lighting but here's a few photos of today's progress:

Fabric cut out. Pattern still attached.

I zigzaged all around the 'flap' so the edges won't fray while I'm painting it later...

The fabric paint I will use. Slate blue.

Testing paint on scrap fabric.

To the right is only solid blue color and to the left is blue with some white blended in at the tips. I think I prefer the blended version so I will do the 'flap' that way, it looks better... not as boring, at least I think so.

Tomorrow hopefully I will paint the real thing, it's too late already and my eyes are going afdfghsgfh on me. *yawns* So tomorrow it is.

Goodnight!

Uppcon is green!

Today I got my Uppcon ticket! So now I'm coming! 8D (even though bad date, rush after school ends~)
I will be sleeping at my father's place a bit outside Stockholm and my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli will keep me company at the con. Dad might drive us every morning or otherwise we'll take the train, haven't planned yet how we'll get to Uppsala.

My cosplay plans aren't set yet, but this is what I had in my mind:

Friday - Gin Ichimaru (Bleach)

Saturday - Ichito (Asaki, Yumemishi)

Sunday - Toshizo Hijikata (Hakuouki: Shinsengumi Kitan)

I might change Hijikata for Okita, not sure yet.. it depends. And Ichito is not 100% sure either, but I want to do a BOOM unique/cool cosplay for Saturday. XD Yeah.. we'll see but this is what my plans look like at the moment.

"Projektarbete" change

So today after school I went and checked if my former Swedish teacher was still at her working room. She is one of my two supervisors (normally you only have one supervisor.. but I'm trololo so I have two, my art teacher being the other one) for this one big "projektarbete" (project work) every student has to do during the 3rd and final year of "gymnasiet" or "lukio" for you Finns. Upper secondary school for ages 16-19. So well, due to personal reasons I will go a 4th year in school and that means I'll also get an extra year to do this project work. It's a big task, you chose one thing you want to work with (it's pretty free but it has to connect to the program you've chosen to go in some way) that you have to work on independently and I think you got around one year to finish it. We got to choose what teacher we wanted as our supervisor too.

- Wait. Why am I telling you all this boring non-cosplay crap you ask?

Well, I'll come to that now. Me, being the herpderpgeek I am decided one year ago I wanted to do something unique as my project work. Something I would feel inspired to work on instead of the opposite. So I asked my supervisor if I could do a costume... yes, a cosplay costume... and it was a yes. Yay. Actually my supervisor (aka former Swedish teacher) has an interest in Japan and I've been showing her some of my cosplays before with positive feedback, haha. My art teacher, the second supervisor, used to be my sewing teacher in "grundskolan" ("peruskoulu" in Finnish, nine-year compulsory school) as well as my art teacher for many years so she has been helping me sewing original character clothes years ago. xD

Okay, so this all is old stuff. But what is new is that today, as I said in the beginning of this blog post, I visited my supervisor. I asked her if it was possible for me to change the chosen character because I had not started working on the costume properly yet and because I already had other cosplay plans set for this year (and some for 2013 even) and I probably wouldn't have time to work on this "project work cosplay" between the other ones. So the former character was Kai from the Luminous Arc game and the new one is... Masamune Date from Sengoku Basara. Yes, that armor version I mentioned earlier I'll do for Porukka Kasaan!'s Sengoku Basara cosplay group next year. It was a good move to switch because now I can kill two birds with one stone. I'll need to cosplay Date anyway because I signed up for the group and now it's also my school work. Now I will really have to do the armor version for the group and get it done too, if not by anything else then by school pressure. Yeah, damn sweet.

So my plans went from this...

... to this:

I'm perfectly sane. :'DDD lolnope

And I will do Kai someday, just not now.