Desucon 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. *slaps face*

Byakuya's scarf finished

So after dinner I started working on Byakuya Kuchiki's scarf. Oh lord we had this whole pretty white fabric at home and I ran around the house wrapping several meters around my neck in front of the mirror, with the bolt in my left arm, testing it and asking mom if it draped good enough. I probably looked silly. ._.
Oh well, then I just measured around 2,5 meters of that fabric (yes, the whole width, huge scarf is huge) cut it out and sewed it, very easy. Damn it feels like I'm having a curtain or something wrapped around my neck! xD Oh my, I hope this thing doesn't get hot... and it keeps slipping of my shoulders. I hope I won't need to pin it in place. lol
Damn you Byakuya and your über-precious-family-heirloom-crème-de-la-crème scarf...

Byakuya test + Kenseikan tutorial v.2.0

A few days ago I modified my kenseikans for my Byakuya cosplay and now they sit much better and are easier to attach.. although I could use a friend's help to fasten them.
Here's a tutorial how I made them: Kenseikan tutorial

I took some more test photos yesterday and I'm actually pleased with how they turned out, even though I'm not quite done yet; I'm surprised how disturbingly easy it seems for me to pull of his typical facial expression... even though he has as many expressions as a potato...

I don't have so much more to say more than I can't wait for Chibicon!

Chibicon cosplay plans changed...

Remember I said I was going to bring Ichigo back? Well, plans changed.
I'll do haoriless!Byakuya to acccompany Jäärä as Rukia instead. I'm too scared of doing Ichigo and bringing huge-ass Zangetsu with me because it might end up collecting dust all con day in the... eh, "narikka" (that place you leave huge props and other stuff in during the con) and that would be kinda uncool. Actually, very uncool, Ichigo just isn't Ichigo without his oversized butcher knife. Chibicon's rules don't like big props it seems... so I figured to hell with it and play a safe card and do Byakuya instead; I only need to make the kenseikan and the scarf and voilá - first appearance version done. I don't have time to do the haori because the con is less than a month away and a captain's haori is a pain in the ass to make. I'll do it for Närcon this summer though.

I made those kenseikans, or as I like to call them - "hair bananas" - today as soon as we had discussed the change and agreed. lol And oh god how troublesome they were to attach, I guess I'll need to modify them and maybe shorten them too so they fit better... afghdgsdhag.  The scarf is just a random scarf, I need to make a proper one too.


Here's a WIP photo. Yes, I'm holding my hand to keep it in place. lol
Tested out some make-up and yeah... I think it is decent enough... considering how much I suck at make-up, ahaha...

Chibicon Oulu tickets!

Okay, so a few minutes ago I ordered a ticket for Chibicon in Oulu, yay so now I'll go there 100%! (cosplay is supposed to be Ichigo Kurosaki still)

The ticket cost 4 € (shipping price excluded), not bad. You can buy them here at Urumi's shop. I hope my friend buys one soon.
I will go there by train most probably because for once it wasn't ridiculously expensive.

Next con - Chibicon á la Oulu

Yeah, the next con I'm planning to attend is Chibicon. It's held at Oulu 7th April.
Good for me Oulu is not far away from my hometown (100 km maybe?) so it won't take a day to get there and cost my ass to travel. According to what I checked up the train tickets from Kemi would only cost me about 8 € one way and the same amount back again. OMG CHEAP. Well, compared to the 140+ € my train tickets to Lahti and back went on... Oh, and one of my mom's sisters lives there so maybe I could sleep over at her place. Hopefully. I don't know if the con has an entrance fee.. I guess it will...

I'm thinking about bringing my first or second, depending on what you count, Ichigo was the first I started making but second I debuted cosplay back to life after... err, a 2 years pause? I think my Ichigo Kurosaki cosplay last time saw daylight in December 2010. Oh booya that's some time ago man! You know, getting that 150 centimeters huge butcher knife from place A to place B isn't the most easy and convenient thing to do, especially not when the destination is at the other end of the country. -.-" That's why Ichigo has been forever alone in my closet, waiting for his time to shine, his huge-ass sword severely limits what cons I can take him to... But yeah, now when Oulu for the first time gets a con (although temporarily I guess because Chibicon seems to move from town to town now..?) I think I can bring him out... it will be interesting to travel with that sword though; I think I'll put it in my kendo sword carrying bag while at the train... it's a bit too short for it so the handle will stick out though.. but as long as it doesn't look overly suspicious I think it'll do.. you know, can't carry that thing open in public without getting stares, need to hide it. XD; Oh, and Jäärä will hopefully accompany me as Rukia Kuchiki from Bleach.

Kitacon drawing closer

Yay free day from school today, and mom worked until very late and stepdad had evening shift... house for myself most of the day... and that can only mean one thing.. cosplaaaaay~
Heck, I needed to test ponytail!Ukitake (aka Turn Back the Pendulum version) again because that's my Kitacon cosplay and err, maybe it's just me but I find I look totally durp with hair tied back. Oh well, I've said to myself to cosplay all canon variations of Ukitake (and some originals) so yeah, must do that version at least once too, no matter how silly I look... or not. People say it looks alright though so maybe I'm just being a self-critic again... *shrugs*

Preview photo!

Weekend's cosplay photos

During last weekend I tried to ease my depression by taking some cosplay photos... it actually works; I won't be telling any details about said depression but yeah, I think I got some pretty okay photos of my Jushiro Ukitake and Sojun Kuchiki costumes... both from the series Bleach. I will post a few photos here and if interested the rest can be found at my cosplay.com account, there's a link to it in my blog at "Other sites you can find me at".

Jushiro Ukitake

Weird angles wuhuuu! No but really, normally my face ends up looking ridiculous in more extreme angles but this one was kinda cool. Besides it shows off my tsukamaki (read: handle wrapping) really well. I should have taken more outside photos but the sun set so fast it became too dark... *shrugs*

 

Jushiro Ukitake, Captain of the 13th Division... aka Captain Tuberculosis by fans of the series/him. Yeah, he occasionally coughs up blood... end of story. Love him anyway, he is so gentle and the kindest captain of them all. *coughnottomentionthemosthandomecough*

Sojun Kuchiki

Yay Sojun! Yay proper photos! Kind of. Okay, so this time I tried slightly different make-up (lol I suck at it) than what I do for Ukitake because at those WIP photos I just thought I somehow looked like Ukitake trying to look like someone else. Faaaaaaail. :I I've cosplayed Ukitake so much I see myself doing his expressions all the time... OTL Oh well, doing my eyebrows a bit differently and using a little eye-liner seemed to do the trick.

Sojun Kuchiki, late Lieutenant of Division 6.

The Kuchikis are one of the four great noble families in Soul Society and even though he smiled more than his son Byakuya Kuchiki, at least according to that only official reference (yes, he is so obscure I wonder if I'm the first person outside Japan to cosplay him...) picture there is of him: ref.

Oh well, about this photo, he is a Kuchiki after all... and we all know that a Kuchiki needs to do the I'm-better-than-you face at least once.. hey, they are nobles after all! xD 

Kenseikan

Yeah, said to myself I would finish them before this weekend earlier and today I got the thumb out from my ass and made them. It didn't take so long actually and was pretty easy to make. Here's some in progress photos (excuse me for bad lighting..) and short descriptions.

 

First I just took these hard paper (poster board?) whatever and cut out pieces that seemed an okay size. I cut out two similar so I could layer them over one another for strenght. I also marked the middle...

Then I just bent the middle to get that V-shape. After that I glued them on top of each other and proceeded to repeat the steps and make one kenseikan more...

When I had both kenseikan pieces cut out and glued together I just used duct tape in the inside to get the two separate pieces to be one whole...

Then I glued some scrap pieces to the ends to create some dimension.
And when I was done I went and took some WIP photos of one of my coming cosplays because now it's done. Yes, done. The kenseikan was pretty much the only thing I needed for it. XD Mhmm lazy budget cosplaying, I had everything else already.

derp

I'm herpderpin' around. lol I need white pins to hold kenseikan in place, black ones are too visible I think... and no, IT'S NOT BYAKUYA. It's Byakuya's dad, Sojun. Aww yeah, obscure character from a popular show. <3 There's only like... one official artwork of him and it's only showing his face from the front, heheh the rest is up to my imagination, woo. I will debut this cosplay during the summer first so yeah, I finished early. Although I need to test character make-up...

Next con I'm planning to go to...

... is Kitacon 4 in Kemi, 11th February 2012. Finland, duh.
 Seriously, why wouldn't I attend Kitacon when it's close to me? Omg, close, read that? It's almost I can't believe it. Close. I live like... maybe 25 km away from it and well, it's the world's most northern con so EFF YEAH FINALLY SOMETHING CLOSE TO ME. Wuhuu! Okey, it kinda sucks to live in the north sometimes, ahaha.. I have to travel to the other end of Finland to attend cons and some people believe we don't have internet access here and ride reindeers to school... waitwhat?

Cosplay plans you ask? Well, if my awesome friend Jäärä (not real name) manages to get up here it will be so much AWESOME, so much awesome I can't sit still just thinking about it. I'm planning to not be a durp this time and actually do Turn Back the Pendulum Jushiro Ukitake, aka ponytail!Ukitake... and I will bring my shikai... because I can, no problems transporting them this time. Car rides yesssss! Oops, I'm too hyper I see.. and well, Jäärä would be my Turn Back the Pendulum Unohana-taicho feat Minazuki! And yes, TBtP versions to match, no time-fucks. Fdgsffgdsagdfshfdshgfd, shikai duo! <3 I'M SO HAPPYYYY~~

Oh, and special thanks to my twin who made my new cosplay-logo-thingy-whatever in the top. =)

Desucon FrostBite over

Yeah, FrostBite is over.
It was a great experience and I'm pleased with the con. I was part of the Bleach cosplay group as I mentioned earlier and they all were wonderful people, thank you for the time!
I won't really write another long summary about the weekend here because I've already written one over at my deviantArt and besides I'm tired, so just follow this link http://chigami.deviantart.com/journal/Desucon-FrostBite-summary-279774448 if you want to read about how my mildly crazy con weekend went.
Both my cosplays seemed well-received and I got quite some hugs and photos taken of me, even though it seemed, at least for me, that not so many people ran around photographing cosplayers... maybe because the con was crammed with people inside all the time because of the cold weather outside or something. At least I don't like taking photos and having 94389392 people in the background... but maybe that's just me...

But yeah, little about my cosplays: I was a durp and forgot to tie my wig back as Ukitake into a low ponytail as I was supposed to do... eeh, so I was just the standard version of him instead of the Turn Back the Pendulum version which I was supposed to be. Agh!
My Gin cosplay went over well for it's debut (better than I had expected actually), especially because I had a wonderful Izuru-fukutaicho with me and we walked around the whole Sunday as a duo.

I took some photos of other cosplayers too but didn't get so many, maybe because there wasn't really all that many cosplays that gave me a wow-factor seeing I'm not really into the currently popular stuff like Kuroshitsuji, Ao no Exorcist, Hetalia and those. But of course I did take photos of those cosplays I liked and found at a proper time... don't really want to bother people when they are eating or busy, ahah.

I have some FrostBite cosplay photos, so if anyone remembers that an Jushiro Ukitake cosplayer on Saturday, or a Gin Ichimaru on Sunday took a photo of you then comment and I will send it to you!

Thank you for a great con and bye bye~

I'M STRESSED!! + Shinso progress

First of all.. that earlier "fuck you paint" incident ......................... it was oil paint. "OTL
Stupid me didn't read the description on the can like I normally do, I somehow took for granted it was normal water-based paint... it didn't even cross my mind that oil paint even existed. No wonder it was sticky as fuck, took probably over 24 hours to dry completely and water didn't wash it off. I got scolded when mom and Ari found out... I felt like a big huge dumb idiot asshole. Great.
Oh well... you make mistakes to learn... or whatever...

Okay, so Desucon FrostBite is soon here. I used to hope it would come already but now I'm so stressed it's not even funny. Tomorrow is the last day I have to finish Shinso, iron my cosplays and pack all my stuff... and what ticks me off is that over half of the day will be wasted sitting in school not really doing a crap. Today I didn't do a shit at school, I went there and went back to sleep for like 3 hours, then I had an introduction lesson which like.. lasted for 5 minutes and then 2 hours free time before the next lesson, that I didn't do anything on either and err, the last lesson I didn't really have, argh.. I could have been home working on my sword instead. Okay, I'm going offtopic... but yeah, it's tempting to skip school tomorrow and focus on getting my cosplay stuff done. I'm not sure if I can manage to finish Shinso in time.
The painting process has been such a pain in the ass. First that whole oil paint fuck-up thing and not even the spray paint wants to work as I'd like it to.. stupid cold weather, stupid dark time of the year, stupid snow covering my usual "working place" outside. Makes everything problematic.
So I've been outside spray painting Shinso and err... I will need to do a second coating because the paint dried so slowly it got stuck on the surface I used (fgdshhfdjsajd, I hate when that happens!) and these annoying.. err, "bubbles" appeared and made the surface broken and mildly ugly. I probably need to sand them down and repaint the whole thing. Oh, and there's tsukamaki left to do... I'M SOOOO STRESSED. ARGHGHGHG.

FUCK YOU PAINT!!

ARGH I DELETED THIS SHIT ACCIDENTALLY SO NOW I HAVE TO WRITE IT ALL OVER AGAIN, FGGSGDHAGDAGFDAG!!!!!

Dear white paint,

Fuck you, fuck you big time.

Sincerely, extremely pissed off cosplayer

Okay... deep breaths... deep breaths...
So, remember that white base paint I mentioned earlier? Yeah, I've never used it before and I didn't know what it was like and OH MY FUCKING GOD I HATE IT WITH A PASSION NOW. Seriously, it's sticky as fuck, it takes forever to dry (and hair dryers doesn't help), smells like crap and is impossible to wash away no matter if you use soap three times and scrub it with a harsh brush. I tried to get it off my own hands... and it just smears the more I try to get it off! And it killed my good paintbrush, I had to throw it away because the paint wouldn't come off and I got pissed off because the more I tried to clean it the more it bled over on my hands and made them look like I'm a fucking Moomin troll, agrhsgdfhs!!!  I've never worked with a paint that made me this frustrated before. Okay, so this paint sticks like a bitch to everything, every fucking loose hair strand and every fucking surface it even touches for less than a second. I even got some on this high leather stool that I've been sitting on and it won't come off no matter what I do, yeah, mom will kill me...

I want to scream and piss on that paint or something, I hate it so much there's not enough words and I'm never ever touching it ever again. NEVER.

Oh, and this is what the base for Gin's sword and tsuba look like at the moment... yes, I had to put them in the washbowl to dry...

Gin tsuba progress II

Yay more progress! Ari fixed the cracks for me, he filled them in with this white-ish putty filler thingy. He's too kind.
Tomorrow he said I can coat it with white base paint, although it seemed the one I used before has been used up so I have to use another one that is slightly shiny... and he said I have to sand it after coating. Oh well, after that I will coat it in gold spray paint and then I can focus on finishing the rest of the sword.

It certainly looks better now, hahah.

Gin tsuba progress

So some few days ago Ari, my stepfather, told me I could make Gin's tsuba out of this 9 mm thick "vaneri" (plywood?) we had lying at home. So I did. I drew the design and he was kind enough to cut it out for me, yay! So after he cut it out for me I went outside to sand it down, oh my god my hands were so sore after that. I remember cursing Gin's tsuba because of it's weird-ish shape, it was so hard to get "inside" those stupid... hnnng, what's the English word for it? OTL Nevermind, you probably understand if you know what it looks like...

It's under a week left to Desucon FrostBite and I still have to fill in all the cracks or whatever you call those parts where the top "part" of the wood peeled off. And then I need to paint the tsuba gold and then I need to paint the whole shoto that I bought as a base for it and do tsukamaki... yes, I'm lazy... but I just figured it's better to modify something close enough than to make it from scratch because the blade itself is normally formed (but short) and besides I somehow knew I would get to stress with it anyway. XD

Here's a photo of what it looks like at the moment:

Yeah, it looks crappy right now. All those lighter parts are those I need to fill in and there's more on the other side. The shoto is just a cheap red oak one. (yes, that's my old Pokémon bedsheets btw)

Argh I hope I will have time to finish this sucker, my school starts on the 10th January too and I need to leave for the con 13th January, eheheh...

Gin's stupid tsuba...

Gahaha.. it's under 20 days left to FrostBite and I haven't worked on my cosplays since I finished Ukitake's zanpakuto... heheheh... time is running ooooouut...
But yeah, I'm having headaches trying to figure out what material would be good enough to make Gin's tsuba out of because it has this... friggin' G-shape thingy. I'm afraid doing it out of wood might not be the best idea because it could very easily crack if I don't make it thick enough, not to mention what a bitch it would be to cut out. Plywood will probably be an even weaker option.. err. Maybe MDF could work.. or I could go looking around town if there is some other options, maybe some hard plastic or whatnot... ARGH.

Sealed state Sogyo no Kotowari sword finished!

Woo, I finished it today!
Did the tsukamaki (read: handle wrapping) some hours ago and recently I went and took some photos. Gosh how bad lighting we have in our house... the only place decent enough for photos is the shower/sauna room. lol

Next con: Desucon FrostBite

The next con I will attend is called Desucon FrostBite.
It will take place in Lahti, FINLAND, 14-15 January 2012.
This is the first Desucon FrostBite to be held, big sister Desucon has been held during the summers for some years (although I've never attended it myself) and FrostBite, as name implies, will from now on (hopefully) be held during winters to come.

My cosplays are pretty much set in stone for the weekend.
Both days I will be part of a Finnish Bleach group and naturally that means both my cosplays will be from said series.

SATURDAY - Jushiro Ukitake (Turn Back the Pendulum)

Surprised? I guess not...
I've made myself a challenge to cosplay all canon (and some original) versions there are of Ukitake because... he's my favorite character and I'm just destined to do it because... err, *cough* let's not talk about it. xD So yeah, next in line is the TBtP version, or ponytail!Ukitake as I like to say.
Our Bleach group's main day is on Saturday and of course I'll be Jushiro that day, seeing he's my signature cosplay.
Because the con is held during winter I won't bring shikai with me this time, so I will just make his sealed state zanpakuto instead and carry it around. It's just way more convenient to be able to carry a sword on your waist instead of having both hands busy holding EPIC_SWORDS_OF_DOOM all the time, although I can't deny I love those things to bits. 

Not to mention whenever I have to go outside I'd rather try and keep my hands warm under the haori (and cover my face with a scarf so I can breathe properly...) because, as everyone probably knows, Finnish winters aren't exactly mild.

SUNDAY - Gin Ichimaru (Captain)

Gin? Yes, Gin.
I'm going to cosplay that always-smiling-sarcasmic-creeper-face-guy. And ironically I suck at smiling...
This will be the first time I cosplay Ichimaru so, err, we'll see how it goes. I'm so used to cosplaying Ukitake (been almost exclusively cosplaying him this whole year, go figure) so I guess it will take some time to get used to acting like an eerie bad guy instead of a happy occasionally coughing candysleeve guy, haha.

COSPLAY ~ BLEACH & NANA

Well, these are Cosplay from Bleach & Nana. Enjoy^^



Bleach

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

 

Nana