My to-this-day undebuted cosplays

Hello folks!

Here it now is – the list of all my yet-to-be-debuted cosplays, as of now. I think every cosplayer is guilty of this one and what I mean is that we all start cosplays and then life happens and we just don't... finish them, for whatever reason. Sometimes we lose interest, sometimes we get other costumes in the way (that we want to finish first) and sometimes we just get lazy. Or something. :D

Regarding my own list I want to say that fear not, all the characters on the image below I still have an intent to finish and wear to a con. I haven't forgotten them! It's just that, for various reasons, all of these guys have ended up on the backburner – finished or not. I will detail below the status of each listed character.

From top left to bottom right:

Sanosuke Harada (Hakuouki, western outfit): Mostly finished. Looking for the right wig.
Team Aqua Grunt (Pokémon, RSE version): Finished, I might have lost my gloves though. Waiting for the right summer con because this is a very light costume.
Invoker (DOTA 2): In progress. Currently on a break.
Rentarou Satomi (Black Bullet): Need new shoes, otherwise finished. Hoping for a group/pair cosplay as I'm not too interested in doing him alone...
Leon S. Kennedy (Resident Evil 4): In progress. Hoping to get him finished early next year.
Mikazuki Munechika (Touken Ranbu): In progress but on a break. I have the wig and headband.
Tsurumaru Kuninaga (Touken Ranbu): In need of upgrading/repairs. Making the sword. Currently on a break.
Kenshin Himura (Rurouni Kenshin): Need to style the wig and fix the sword, otherwise ready. Currently on a break but plan to get back to him soon.
Hotaru (Samurai Deeper Kyo): Finished. Just need to learn to walk without faceplanting with his tengu geta. Waiting for a summer con.
Cheshire Cat (Yume Oukoku to Nemureru 100 nin no Ouji-sama): Needs some small fixing. Currently on a break.
Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki, rasetsu): Finished, except that I kind of want to find an even better wig for him. The juban needs some repairing before wear and the waraji shoes need to be strengthened.
Masamune Date (Sengoku Basara): My eternity project. ::DD Seeing how I last worked on him in 2014-2015 I might want to remake most of the armor parts by now, seeing how some of them aren't even comfortable/possible to wear. Currently on a break.
Shin Kazama (Area 88): In progress. Working on his flight suit. Hopefully finished for next summer.

There you have it. :) Although I must admit that I did not add all characters in there, mainly because either a lack of reference images of the particular version or because I'm highly considering scrapping them from my cosplay list altogether. Look at the list below to get an idea of what characters I left out and what their fate looks like.

Here's the "invisible list" of the second-grade cosplays:

Eren Yeager (Attack on Titan, casual): I actually started making this costume in January 2015 and got like halfway done before I suddenly lost interest. Don't get me wrong – I still think that the show is good but because of bad experiences I don't think that I want to cosplay from it anymore.
Levi Ackerman (Attack on Titan, suit): I still kinda like the character but I just can't look at this cosplay the same as before. The costume is finished but I doubt I could ever get past the mental barrier to actually wear him out, seeing how this very cosplay worsened my already existing insecurities. I know that my friends would tell me to not let anonymous hate stop me from cosplaying him but honestly, I don't want to risk getting bullied for wearing a cosplay again. Especially one that is not important to me anyway... 
Masamune Date (Brave 10): I did actually do a wig test in like 2012 but haven't started working on this cosplay. I later sold the wig but I still plan to cosplay this guy eventually – especially if I could get a group together.
Rokuro Unno (Brave 10, kimono): I was about to wear him to Desucon 2013 but just did a quick photoshoot outside the hotel and skipped actually debuting him. On hindsight I'm happy about that because the costume needs some updating, aka a better wig and eyewrap. Still plan to cosplay him one day, hopefully.
Yuuto (Original Character): One of my early OCs. I wore him for a home photoshoot in 2010 (holy shit that's old!) but since then I've been wanting to improve this costume and rewear him.
Jushiro Ukitake (Bleach, original suit): Did this for Valentine's Day 2012 and for Desucon Frostbite's "iltabileet" the same year. I kind of want to have a proper photoshoot of this costume one day.
Chikage Kazama (Hakuouki): I think I bought a sayagata patterned collar to use for his haori in 2012 and then just... forgot about it. xD I still want to do him but it's probably gonna take a while.

I might be forgetting someone but I left out a few new (or old-new) cosplays that I will soon start working on and want to keep secret for a lil' while longer. x) Also, I chose to skip adding all the different versions of Hakuouki's Souji Okita and rasetsu versions of other characters that I have more or less started working on because yeah, they would quickly take up a lot of space – I only added Saitou and western Harada on the list because those I actually got far enough to costest, haha. I bought perfect red fabric for Okita's regular version in 2014 and it has been waiting for its day since then. I also have red leather fabric for his gloves etc.

~~~

There ya go. I hope you found this little post of interest, hehe. ^_^

Thanks for reading and see you!

~ Shiro Samurai

Lens review: ColourVue Crazy Lens Emerald

Hello lovelies!

As I promised on the last crazy lens review... here's the next one!
This time around I'll be showing you all the ColourVue Crazy Lens Emerald, which is a pretty interesting lens that gave me a couple surprises.

Now let's roll!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm

Water content: 45%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

I have to say that photographing these lenses in their vials was stupendously hard!! They always turned into this weird light fluorescent blue-ish green on camera when they have a richer, darker shade when viewed in real life. The photos above are the closest I could manage but it's still not 100% accurate to show what the color looks like...

One lens in.

My natural eye color is a light blue-gray and these crazy lenses turn a really interesting color on my peepers! They are not completely opaque –and the little amount of transparency that there is– makes a really cool effect and attempt in making the lenses appear slightly more... realistic, I guess? It's a bit hard to explain but the way these go over my eyes makes them look a bit more believable than those 100% opaque single color crazy lenses that are quite popular and have the same base design. I really dig the effect the lenses create – it would be super cool for doing stuff like zombies, virus or possessed humans, supernatural beings and the like. I see the Crazy Lens Emerald as a pretty versatile lens, partly thanks to its transparent effect.

Lens photos incoming!

All photos taken by me during a December morning with a sun that barely rises above the horizon line so yeah, polar night is a bitch. :D
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Facing window. Sun side.

Facing window. Not sun side.

Natural apartment room light. (only window light)

Flash photo.

Outdoors, back against sun.

Outdoors, facing sun. (the sun barely rises from the horizon
and a roof was blocking it from my view)

I love how bright these lenses are – the color looks so unrealistic but in a super cool way! Also, because these lenses are slightly larger than my real iris there is this thin colored rim around my eyes that shows the true, unblended color of the lens and it's a nice touch; it's almost like some sort of 'halo effect' but for single color lenses, hehe. I could totally see these work for cosplay and crazier alternative fashion styles!

I was really surprised when I put these lenses on because they felt so thin – I literally didn't feel them in my eyes! Most times crazy lenses tend to feel a bit thicker than your average circle lens but these were super thin (without being flimsy) and invisible to wear, meaning that I don't feel them in my eyes. These lenses don't obstruct my vision in poorer lights by doing the "colored corners" effect either, which was a positive surprise as I was expecting it, considering that these don't have the typical large pupil hole that circle lenses normally have; crazy lenses tend to have smaller pupil holes and thus obstruct the vision. These don't scratch, sting or do anything of the sort – although I must admit that I did experience having my vision blurred during night-time when sitting indoors with poor lights.
Regarding wear time I guess, with my extremely dry eyes, it's not that bad – I would say anything between 1-3 hours, although if your eyes are not dry I would guess that these could easily go past 5 hours. These lenses are generally really pleasant to wear except that, in my case at least, I did experience semi-regular dry bouts every hour that stung my eyes for a couple or so minutes (it felt like I really needed to take them off) but then the irritating feeling went away, as suddenly as it had come, and the lenses were perfectly fine again. After the third hour clocked in they started to feel legit dry and that's when I gave up.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 

Single color lens with an awesome but weird green shade that really pops!

Design: 8/10 

Simple single color design but the transparency makes it stand out from other similar lenses.

Opacity: 8/10

These don't have perfect coverage but instead shine through a bit, creating a fluorescent effect that's really intriguing.

Enlargement: 2/10 

Barely noticeable but enough to give a small green rim around my eyes, at least.

Comfort: 4/10 

Really thin and generally invisible and pleasant to wear (save for occasional dry bouts) but, on my super dry eyes, wearing time is around 3 hours at most. Might blur vision slightly in poorer lights.

Naturalness: 1/10 

The color screams fake but I'll give one point for the blending... in crazy lens standards. ;)

Thanks for reading! One more contact lens review coming this month!

~ Shiro Samurai out.