Back to school, Okita! – Hakuouki SSL ~Sweet School Life~ photoshoot

Hello hello ~

For quite some time now I've been gathering all the clothing parts needed for SSL Okita's summer and winter uniforms! It's a bit ironic that the last piece of clothing I found was technically the simplest and should-have-been-the-easiest-to-find one – namely a plain white long-sleeved shirt. All the other parts were easier to find than a dang white dress shirt that fit me. xD Oh well, the search is over now and yesterday on 18th May I went out with Hasakitsuki as the photographer to have a photoshoot as well as a cosplay preview on school boy Okita. Yep, you're totally getting a sneak peek on my Desucon 2014 Sunday cosplay, woot woot!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita)
Photographer: Hasakitsuki
Photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai

It's a bit funny because we were actually shooting late in the night; around eight or something and well, it was still surprisingly bright outside – ah, the joys of midnight sun approaching. Cosplay photoshoots are possible 24/7, eff yeah!
Actually, it was a bit cold towards the end but nothing too bad. Spring weather is coming, otherwise I wouldn't even have been able to go outside this lightly dressed without turning into a frozen fish stick, hah. Oh, and this surface I'm lying on is a bit risky to, well, lie on. If I roll too much and fall off I'd likely die... or at least get badly injured, oops. It's pretty high up haha, and there's only asphalt and poles down there – and a car or two, sometimes. But it looked cool on photos so it was worth being hazardous! And I'm careful anyways.

I keep thinking if I should still trim this wig slightly but I don't knoooooow. We'll see. I might style it as well when the con creeps closer. Oh, and this is random but I spent forever doing the makeup, especially the eyes. I keep experimenting to find what looks cool. And of course I took some obligatory selfie photos to show off my eyes more clearly. Have one!

That's all that I had to say. :) I'm out of here!
Valkoinen Samurai says sayonara ~

Cosvision cosplay plans – Shinsengumi time!

Hiiiii ~

Cosvision is closing in with big steps and it's about time that I decide on my cosplay plans, don't ya think? Okay, actually I've had my Saturday cosplay set for pretty long already but it's the Sunday cosplay that has gone through a lot of different candidates and thinking. But hey, who cares about my babbling when there's cosplay plans to reveal? Let's go!

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

Character: Hajime Saitou

Eeyup, it's Saitou's time to shine again. Saitou is one of my absolutely most comfortable cosplays to wear (for many a reason) and the character is pretty dear to me so hey, I don't care if I reuse this cosplay a lot because it's one of the few I don't feel some sort of discomfort wearing or have issues with how I look in haha. I won't be alone though, I'll be maybe not so kindly accompanied by Hasakitsuki as oni!Chizuru. Spare me your bloodlust...

Sunday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Souji Okita (Trust & Betrayal / Tsuiokuhen version)

Okay, I finally set on debuting Okita at Cosvision. Actually the main reason why I decided to do him is because I went and asked Anniilaugh if 1) she was going to Cosvision and 2) if she had decided on her cosplay plans yet. Turned out she asked me that if I would offer to do Okita on Sunday then she would do Battousai version Kenshin. It was decided quicker than quick so it's Rurouni Kenshin time and a photoshoot ahead!

~~~~~~~~~~~

That's it for my cosplay plans – who else is going to Cosvision? See you there!

Walpurgis and OC cosplay photoshoot!

Hello and happy May Day!

Yesterday was the perfect excuse to put on funky clothing, aka cosplay, and go out in town without being stared at like you were from outer space. See, in Finland on 30th April and 1st May there is the celebration of Walpurgis (Vappu in Finnish, Valborg in Swedish) which means that you drink a special drink called sima in Finnish, eat donuts and some people go and get very drunk. But the most appealing point of celebrating Walpurgis is that it's also a sort of carneval/masquerade event and many people dress up and well, if you are a cosplayer then now is the perfect time to go out and have a photoshoot and actually sort of fit in into the mass of people!
Eeyup, so for the sake of Walpurgis I threw on an Original Character cosplay and went with Jäätynyt Enkeli and Hasakitsuki to the close-to-the-river shore road. Actually, without us knowing beforehand we arrived just at the time when the Swedes were about to lit the huge May bonfire (tradition in Sweden) so we got to watch it burn – and got a free fire to run and warm up next to after/during the photoshoot because we weren't dressed the warmest and it was pretty chilly. Awesome.

Bonfire, your heat was appreciated during the shoot ~ <3

Okay, back to the photoshoot. As I said I dressed up as an Original Character –OC for short– of mine who is called Minoru. He's a warrior who is not quite human because he sports pointy ears. He's an icy man of few words, aloof and has a noble aura. Minoru doesn't think too much of others because he doesn't really believe that he needs anyone and, as far as means of survival are considered, he says that he needs only one human weapon – his trusty tantou.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Original Character)
Photographers: Jäätynyt Enkeli & Hasakitsuki
Photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai

This character has the hair loosely braided in the back but we kind of forgot to take any back photos, oops. Oh well, I'm sure I will photoshoot Minoru again and hopefully wear him to a con as well because I'm enjoying this character surprisingly much!

That was all for this blog post.

Valkoinen Samurai leaves!

It's the train to Cosvision, after all

 Hi! Just a quick update!

Late yesterday I noticed that I had received a bad news message from the carpooler regarding Cosvision. Seemingly some sudden stuff happened, which made it so that she can't go to Cosvision at all, which also means that I'm without a carpool again. Shit happens but I decided that since I already bought the con tickets with Hasakitsuki –and we both really want to go anyway– so we will just take the train. Sure thing that because Cosvision is very soon it also means that buying advance tickets from VR won't be all that cheap anymore. :( I checked; if we buy advance tickets now it would be 140 € for Turku and back for one person – that's the same what it cost us both in total to get to Desucon in Lahti and back! Outch!
Oh well, it could still be worse and at least we have a free sleeping accommodation over at Ri-kun's place, whoope! So yeah, I'll just bite my lip and go ahead and order the train tickets now, even though it's gonna crack my wallet open and bleeding...

...

......

*orders train tickets*

BOOM, done!

Now nothing can stop us bwoahaha, I'm coming for ya Cosvision!

Yeaaah. See you guys there!

Cosvision, I'm coming!

Guess what guys? I am coming to Cosvision!

I found a con carpool and it seems to be secured now and last night I also went ahead and ordered con tickets for me and Hasakitsuki so yeah, we are heading there! Cosvision cosplay plans should be revealed soon enough ~
Oh and also, a few days ago we ordered the train tickets to Desucon so that's fixed as well! Happy day, summer con season is drawing near!

This is a mini post but just wanted to spread the news!

See ya!

Desucon ticket rush

Hi again!

As most people (at least in Finland) might know, Desucon released their con tickets today at 18:00 Finnish time – I was ready in front of the computer 30 min before the release. I was prepared that the tickets would sell like nothing else so when the Desu-shop opened I immediately tried to order myself and Hasakitsuki a ticket each. Of course the site was slow and lagging like hell and I got "gateway timeout" errors and "server is overloaded, try again later" messages more often than not when I refreshed the page. Frustrating!

Desucon's beautiful "server overload" message. (screenshot)

It was very stress-inducing and the few times I actually managed to load the shop-page and write in all the information I failed the next step, aka confirm/send the order. Yep, it took me around five or so tries before I could successfully proceed past the shop-page and when I did I got the message that the fabric tickets were already sold out. Damn, that was barely 10 minutes after the release!
Oh well, my heart nearing my throat I kept refreshing and trying to order two of the remaining new PDF-tickets and after a few more tries it finally went through, yes! I swear my pulse was racing during this intense ticket buying session, never before has it been so hard to buy a con ticket! Desucon is ridiculously popular, it sold all 2900 or so tickets in approximately 30 minutes. Sweet Jesus. I'm glad I got a ticket, now to just wait for it to arrive in the mail and then to book the train to Lahti and back and come up with what to cosplay...

See you guys there who were lucky enough to grab a ticket in time!

VR, I love you

What's up with the title, how is it related to cosplay?

Well, sit back my dear readers and see, I'll explain to you... ~

How much haven't I been raging about outrageous train ticket prices before? 

Well, it's history now.

Earlier today when I was doing my daily internet round I checked my email and noticed that I had gotten something from VR, aka Finland's main train company. Normally I wouldn't be too interested because usually it's just a sale mention for specific routes that only last a short time or such –but– this time it was different. It wasn't a sale that would last a week, or maybe a month. No no, better than that. It wasn't even really a sale but a price drop on pre-bought train tickets that is here to stay!! What makes it better is that seemingly the whole Finland is included, which means I can travel from anywhere within the country and the earlier I buy my tickets the cheaper it will be – so much win!
I promise when I saw these news I was about to dance on the ceiling of joy because my brain immediately drew the link, aka I can from now on travel to whatever anime convention in Finland I please and it won't cost me all my limbs and belongings anymore. If you buy your tickets, say, 2 months in advance the price difference is HUGE; I actually checked for Desucon just for the hell of it and with the new cheap advance tickets I would only have to pay around 67 € instead of a whopping 167 € or so for both ways, crazy!
Yeah, so this pretty much means that my chances to get to Desucon as well as Animecon just skyrocketed! Yep, earlier I had thought that I might end up having to pass them by this year because of bad economy. No more stress of trying to find a carpool (except for Cosvision cuz it's kinda too late to get super cheap tickets now) because hey, I can actually afford the trains now, whoopee!! :D Also I can now just comfortably take the train to Tracon (already bought con ticket!) without having to think "damn, the train is too expensive, I have to look for other options" – feels so good man! Oh, and this also means that there is a higher chance that I can visit cons in Finland now that I haven't been to before because it would have been too expensive and/or not worth it for the expenses. My con limits almost disappeared in other words!

ASGJHDGHJS;DJKGS I AM SO FRIGGIN' HAPPY I CAN'T DESCRIBE IT! 

VR, I LOVE YOU FOREVER. <3

That's all I had to say. Ciao ~