A new wig + fabric for Masamune

So today I went to the post office after school and picked up two packages. It was a white juban and a new wig I will use for season 2 (aka short hair version) Hijikata from Hakuouki. Funny thing is I was searching for a Hijikata specific wig but didn't find anything I thought looked just right so I wondered "what other characters have a similar hairstyle as Hijikata?" and BOOM instantly Sebastian Michaelis from Kuroshitsuji popped into my mind.

Sebastian Michaelis - Kuroshitsuji (aka Black Butler)

I found a Sebastian wig I thought looked really nice and it wasn't very expensive either so I bought it for Hijikata. Now I must admit there is something about Kuroshitsuji which captures my interest; I've been feeling for quite some time now that  I want to watch it even though it's rather mainstream. Also I heard from Sairu-chan not so long ago that she already has a Ciel cosplay and a Kuroshitsuji cosplay group planned with her friends who live around northern Finland. Group cosplays are always great so that is even more a reason to watch Kuroshitsuji so I could hang around with them in some northern con.. not to mention I've always liked Sebastian's design - red eyes me gusta mucho!!, hairstyle, "penguin coat" lol (seriously I want a coat like that.. if I do him a get a reason to make one hohoho~) and yeah, there just is something interesting about him. If I now watch Kuroshitsuji and end up liking Sebastian I will do him, I would already have the wig too and I need to buy red contacts anyway *coughrasetsucough* so I would get more use out of them also. XD We will see ~

I tried the wig on quickly (read: no cosplay make-up) after I got home. At first I was all "not sure if gusta" but after I arranged the fibers around a bit it was rather awesome.

I also went to Eurokangas with mom before getting home and she bought me some fabric for Sengoku Basara's Masamune Date cosplay. I will use this fabric for the coat and pants.

Masamune reference

The fabric is some kind of denim with 5% elastane and it has this.. interesting touch to the surface; a bit like it would have a thin coat of some kind of plastic on it. It is also a bit heavier and drapes rather well. I think it will be great for Masamune's coat especially. I just really need to start working on this cosplay for real; it needs to be done and documented before next summer vacation I'm going to die. If you remember it was a school project so it's really important I get this done in time before I graduate.

Kenshin wig + Masamune chainmail brainstorming

Remember my Cosplay Challenge from earlier this year? Well, some few days ago I received the wig I ordered for a future Kenshin cosplay. I bought it because the site had a sale and I just couldn't pass it up.. and I already know pretty dang sure that I will end up wanting to cosplay Kenshin anyway after I've read the manga and/or watched the anime. It's just one of those series I've been highly interested in for years (I'm a samurai/history/kimono/sword geek.. how can I not be interested in Rurouni Kenshin when it's such a praised classic?) and.. I just need to start reading/watching it. I plan to do it soon enough. *looks at the 5 first volumes of the manga in my bookshelf that has been there for over a year now*

Kenshin Himura

The wig looks like this right out of the bag and I must say ME GUSTA MUCHO!! <3

Just looking at this wig makes me so excited to read/watch Rurouni Kenshin haha. I love how I pretty much already happen to have everything I need for a blue kimono version Kenshin cosplay except the reverse blade katana. You all can be pretty sure I will do it next year ~

And now over to Masamune. I've been wondering about one part of the costume for quite some time.. namely the chainmail.

Masamune Date reference

As you can see he has chainmail covering his arms. Well, I surely don't have the time, money, knowledge nor the dedication to make my own chainmail from scratch.. at least not right now. It would take months and be very tedious.. I don't have that much time to put on a single part of the costume which isn't even that noticeable. So I thought about cheaper, less heavy (chainmail weights a ton, no lie. lol) and faster options.. I read around on the internet and found that you could buy a knitted shirt and spraypaint it silver. It would only look believable from a distance though. Seemed like a good idea until I realized it would likely be way too hot to wear during the summer time (main con season) and probably too bulky too. Then I remembered seeing in mom's fabric attic this one fabric that looks like.. silvery netting or something; I don't know what its proper name is. But I thought maybe it could work if I backed it up with some silvergray-ish base. The problem was that mom's version of that fabric had too big "holes" so it wouldn't look right even if I folded/layered it double...
So uhm, today I went to Eurokangas after school. I saw that there was a 20% sale on all fabrics currently and there I found this same type of netting fabric although with smaller "holes", more dense. Bingo! Truth is, I had seen it before but didn't buy it because I wasn't sure back then...

the net fabric in question

I just hope that this idea will work and look as nice in reality as it seems to do in my head. I bought half a meter of it, I hope that's enough... I'm not good at calculating how much fabric I need. xD

That's all for today. I really need to progres further on Masamune the coming days.. I've planned to do a mock-up test of the coat's upper half to see how it sits before cutting the parts out of the real fabric. Oh well, stay tuned for more updates!

"Help! I want to cosplay a kimono character!"

"What is this?" You probably think now.

Tetsunosuke Ichimura and Souji Okita from PeaceMaker Kurogane

Well, I decided to do my first "tips and guidelines" blog post to help other people out.
During my years of cosplaying I have several times run into people online asking the same questions about cosplaying a kimono wearing character and what to do, how to wear it etc.. and I have probably just as many times given them a helping hand. That said.. I've felt for some time now that I know enough about kimono in general to share my knowledge with others who wants to cosplay characters wearing kimono but are lost on the way. As you probably have noticed by now I'm very biased towards cosplaying characters who don a kimono, for many reasons. But I will not talk about those reasons.. I will talk about something more helpful; I will share what I know, as a cosplayer and as a kimono enthusiast, what I think might be what cosplayers who look to cosplay a kimono wearing character would like to know and also go through the most common errors I see at cons.. aka a basic kimono introduction. I don't claim that I have any kind of ultimate knowledge, I will just share what I have learned and picked up personally over the years. :)

This will be in a kind of question and answer form to avoid a wall of text.

 Here goes! ~ 

1. Is there any difference on the kimono depending on the gender of the wearer?

When cosplaying a character with kimono it's important that you know the main differences between how a man, respectively a woman, wear kimono and the differences in the garment itself.

A woman’s kimono has freely hanging sleeves that are left mostly unattached to the body of the kimono. Why the sleeves are like this is because it is better suited for the wide obi (belt) that is tied around the waist. There is also a small opening in the armpits... although this for some reason is almost never drawn in manga/anime what I’ve noticed. Men's kimono have the sleeves almost completely attached to the kimono, with only about 10 centimeters free.
Another distinctive trait for women’s kimono is how it is worn; women wear the kimono with a waist fold to adjust the length to the wearer. This waist fold is located slightly under the obi. Because men wear their obi on their hips (and because the obi is much narrower) there is no need to have the sleeves hang freely.

Here is a picture showing what I mean:

Of course if you crossplay and the character wears kimono you just wear it the same way as they do. Same thing goes if the character crossdresses.

2. Which way are you supposed to cross the collars?

Wear your kimono like a living person would, also known as always cross the collars left over right. Right over left is reserved for the dead only. I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH. Don't make yourself look like a complete idiot at the con who didn't even bother to do a simple Google search to find out which way to wear it. Crossing the thing right over left is like the biggest no-no you can do when it comes to how to wear a kimono. Yes, it is worse than wearing both your pants and shirt inside out if you hadn't figured that out yet. Of course if the character is dead somehow and actually wears their kimono reversed, then by all means go for it.

You know, I can honestly say that at probably every anime convention/event I've ever been to so far I've always seen at least one person donning a kimono the corpse style and I do a mental facepalm. I have to resist the urge to go up to that person and politely give them a short lesson on kimono knowledge. Needless to say it practically kills the cosplay for me personally, no matter how nicely sewn and perfect it is otherwise. Yes, it's one of my pet peeves.

"I see dead people..."
(Kenshin demonstrating my inner rage face when I spot someone doin' it wrong)

Oh, one last addition to this. I've seen people saying that they have heard from someone else that men and women cross their kimono differently. That is NOT true and those who go telling others that need to check their facts before they spread false information around.

3. How are kimono constructed?

Kimono consist of one left and right panel, front overlap panels (okumi), collar and sleeves; therefore kimono have a back seam but no shoulder seams. In cosplay it is not the end of the world if you do not sew your kimono the traditional way, but it is a nice bonus if you want to at least mimic the way it's cut to have it look more authentic, so to say.. even if you don't handsew the whole thing like it's traditionally done. xD

Hard to understand what I mean?
Here is a picture (note: woman's kimono) to help you see the pieces a kimono consists of:

4. "How do I wear this thing??? It seems so complicated!"

First of, look at how your character is wearing his/her/their kimono. When you cosplay you will want to wear it in a character accurate way more often than not.. and fictional characters tend to break and bend most real kimono dressing rules anyway. But as a general rule the ideal kimono shape is like a cylinder more or less for both sexes; you want a straight silhouette. Also normally you want the kimono to fall to your ankles.

Not looking for a straight silhouette here nope. lol
It's Kongiku from Muramasa: The Demon Blade

There are lots of really helpful videos on Youtube showing how to put on kimono. Even if you watch videos meant for authentic kimono wearing you get a better understanding on how to wear a "cosplay kimono" and have it look crisp and nice too. If you want to invest in learning how to wear a kimono try searching with these words for a start:

• kimono kitsuke (how to dress in kimono)
• ohashori (name of the waist fold on women's kimono)
• obi musubi (different knots for the belt)

There are lots of different ways to tie the obi and some fictional characters have their obi tied in a way which has no exact real-life counterpart.. thus can be a headache to figure out.
Luckily many characters have their obi tied in an existing knot and I will also help you by naming a few of the different ways to tie an obi.. so that you can search online to find how to tie them, if you would need to.

Men's obi knots:
Kai no Kuchi musubi
Katabasami musubi

Women's obi knots:
Otaiko musubi
Tateya musubi
Fukura Suzume musubi

There are other tying variations as well, just do a Google search! (especially for women)

5. What to do if the character you want to cosplay has "trims" around the collar and sleeves?

Well, first of.. THEY ARE NOT TRIMS. It's very very likely that the character is wearing a juban underneath; it's an under kimono meant to guard the outer kimono from being in contact with your body and getting stained. Usually kimono are made of silk, which is delicate and expensive, hence the need to have something shielding it from getting ruined easily. KIMONO ARE NOT MADE OF SATIN.
In most anime/manga/video games characters tend to have a white juban.

Kazuma Sohma from Fruits Basket wearing kimono, haori and juban.

However. With yukata, a cotton kimono which is very informal, you don't wear a juban. (it's possible to "dress up" a yukata by adding juban though, but it's not really common..)

Masato Hijirikawa from Uta no Prince-sama wearing yukata. Notice the lack of juban.

But of course, when cosplaying you most likely won't be making a silk kimono so the need to make a juban too, just to have like 2 cm of the collar showing and have the sleeves peak out from inside, might feel like wasted sewing work to most. It's understandable. But still, if your cosplay character of choice seem to be wearing a juban underneath.. don't skip it. Heck, you can just make a fake kimono collar and it will give you the right look! Easy peasy and certainly looks better than having a trim of fabric running all the way down the collar, like seen on the majority of all the mass-produced Bleach shinigami outfits.

Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki from Bleach

Do you notice the difference? Also on the picture with Ichigo and Rukia you can see that the white can be seen on the inside of the sleeves too. If you just used trim the inside would be black...

6. What are these different Japanese garments called? 

Kimono is actually an umbrella term meaning basically any T-shaped ankle length robe with collars and wide sleeves. That means there are different kimono types which each have a name - yukata and furisode to just name a few. Furisode are known for their very long sleeves that can be almost floor-length. You can pretty often spot a young-ish female character in manga/anime/video games who wears a furisode. Yukata kimonos are also often seen in anime; it's a very casual informal cotton kimono worn to summer festivals, cherryblossom watching, hot springs, possible sleepwear and the like. Yukata are the only kimono to which you don't wear a juban.. so if the character has no second collar peeking out it is likely they are wearing a yukata. Both men and women can wear yukata but it will have the sleeve differences and stuff I mentioned in the beginning of the post. Oh, and occasionally characters (especially males) might wear a waist/hip length jacket over their kimono that is open at the front - this is called a haori and it isn't meant to close. Also sleeve rules applies for men's and women's haori too, although what I've seen on authentic kimono men's haori often have the sleeves completely sewn to the haori's body. But again, look at your cosplay references first to see how their garments are.

Also especially male characters often wear hakama. It's a type of pleated pants/skirt (depending on the style, both varietes exist) with long ties that are wrapped around the body and secured with different knots. Most people know them as "samurai pants". Also regarding hakama and fictional characters I've noticed that quite many shows have a hakama wearing guy with his hakama tied knotted in a floppy ribbon or a knot with the ends hanging free in front. This is actually not an accurate way to tie them, as far as I know, but even in famous series such as Rurouni Kenshin and Bleach you will see hakama tied like this. 

Kenshin Himura from Rurouni Kenshin wearing hakama.

Oh, and regarding hakama.. if you plan to make hakama be sure to check out some photos of real hakama to get the hang of what they actually look like. Also.. MAKE PLEATS, preferably pleats that hold their form too, not just big poofy pants.. it looks cheap. Oh, and hakama have 5 pleats in the front and 2 in the back. There probably are exceptions but I won't dig into that. Don't make more pleats than that or it will look... funny. Oh, and don't forget the side openings and, if the character has one, the backboard. Note: women's hakama don't have a koshiita (backboard) and are worn higher up than men's. Also some anime/manga/video game females like Chizuru Yukimura from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan and occasionally Kaoru Kamiya from Rurouni Kenshin actually crossdresses.

Chizuru Yukimura from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan

I guess that's the most basic things one would need to know. I might have forgotten something though. Remember. Follow your character references first and adjust accordingly if needed; it's possible the character's clothing or way of wearing it might go against the normal kimono dressing rules. This is all just general guidelines about basic kimono knowledge to help you out with your kimono style cosplays. :) Some characters do wear very inaccurate or heavily modified kimono to which these guidelines might not be of as much help. 

For example Nouhime from Sengoku Basara

I hope this was helpful to someone out there and if you have any questions about this post or kimono and cosplay in general feel free to contact me (my email can be found to the left on the site) and I will try my best to answer you! I can help you identifying what exactly a character is wearing etc.

Want to know something more about cosplaying kimono wearing characters? Send me a request and I'll see if I can write about it!
 

Thanks for reading ~

Cosplays for Närcon Vinter

I think I finally settled on what to cosplay at Närcon Vinter, 22-24 February 2013, my first con for the coming year. My Saturday cosplay has been decided for some weeks now but the Friday cosplay has been a question mark... until now. Here goes!

Friday

Series: Rurouni Kenshin

Character: Kenshin Himura

I finally started watching Rurouni Kenshin late yesterday and I'm already hooked after 5 episodes... I had expected nothing less haha. As you might know I got myself a (manga color) Kenshin wig not too long time ago and I already happen to have passable clothes, for a blue kimono version Kenshin, thanks to previous cosplays so... why the hell not? :'D Besides I'm itching for a new make-up/special effects challenge.. namely creating his cross-shaped scar. This will be fun.

Saturday

Series: Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan
Character: Toshizo Hijikata

The Hakuouki roll continues. I'll probably never get tired of cosplaying from this awesome series. <3 Why Hijikata? Because two of my new-ish Swedish con friends plan to cosplay Chizuru Yukimura and Kazama Chikage and they really wanted me to join in as Hijikata so that we would have the complete trio. I happily accepted!
and it seems we will have a few more characters too, a group yay!

What I will cosplay on Sunday, if anything at all, remains a mystery for now. The con ends pretty early on Sunday morning (as far as I remember) so maybe I can't even attend it the last day.. it will depend heavily on when I have to leave Linköping; after all I have a long journey home. We'll see.

Special effects: Scar testing

Just a warning beforehand, if you are very sensitive to scars (even if not real) you might not want to scroll down.


Okay, I bought some Rigid Collodion almost two weeks ago and it was in the mailbox today after I got home from school. I've been waiting anxiously for it to turn up so I could get to experiment with it! Mom also left so I got to scar myself alone without getting the weird looks or asked why I'm locked in the toilet for an hour. lol

If you don't know what Rigid Collodion is it's a scarring liquid widely used in movies and stuff to simulate shapes of wounds and scars.

I've never used this stuff before but I've been digging information, so I had some ideas what to try creating with it. Okay, I obviously didn't want to put it on my face for practice because... well... it's kinda hard to hide your face without getting very suspicious looks in case I would make an error. So I decided to put it on my right forearm. (note: I'm left-handed, so it's easier for me to practice on my right hand)
I didn't put any base make-up on prior to testing so I can't know for sure how well Rigid Collodion will stick to that. But what I've seen it seems to work just as well.

I tried at first to draw the shape of the scar that I wanted (just a short slightly curved line) in a dark brown eyeliner pencil. I just drew lightly, don't use pressure or it will look unnatural. After that I just started by putting a layer of Rigid Collodion on where I had drawn the "scar". I let the stuff dry between the layers; it dries really fast, probably in under one minute. I must say that the feeling when it started drying was... interesting... xD It felt like something was nibbling and pulling my skin. It didn't hurt or anything but it would occasionally itch for a split-second.
I think I did around 3-4 layers on my first try and it looked like this:

Not really that good but it was a half-decent first try. To remove it you need to peel it off. If you have sensitive skin you can use spirit gum remover. I decided to try using spirit gum remover but when I opened the bottle it had this white cork patch thingy.. which I thought was one of those that you can't take off so you would have to turn the bottle upside down to get it to moisten the patch and then roll it against your skin.. so I turned the bottle and at the first second nothing happened so I thought "meh, weird.." but the following blink of an eye the goddamn patch flew its merry way and almost half of the (unused) spirit gum remover was everywhere in the bathroom. Fucking great. I tried to clean it as best I could but I think it left this weird coating to all the surfaces it hit.. oh boy...
Oh well, I then just decided to pinch my skin together to get one of the scar sides to peel and then just rip it off. It left a red mark but it's very logical seeing that the Rigid Collodion was pulling at my skin.

I decided to try the same technique again but this time with a dark red eyeliner pencil as a base. It came out too cartoony. But during the second try I realized I could use some light powder between every three or so layers to get it to shine a bit less.

And so on the third and final try I decided to blend dark red and brown eyeliner together for the scar base, dust some light powder over it and then start applying layers. This time I put a lot of layers.. I think maybe 10 or so and well, it made a world of difference comparing to the first try! Now I actually think I managed to make what looked like an old deep scar... 3D too. What's good is that it doesn't hurt (I've been "wearing" it for over an hour now I think and I barely even feel that it's there) and it seem to hold really well, unless you move the scar area around too much because then you risk having it peeling and thus ruining the effect of it looking real.

But now. Photos.

I think I love this stuff now, it is awesome. I'm very impressed...
Next time I think I'll definitely try it with my Kenshin cosplay! Ohmaigerd I can't wait to take preview photos! <3

Sakabatou + Kenshin make-up test

Today I got a sakabatou sword from one of my best friends. She had planned to use it for her own Kenshin cosplay originally but the sword is pretty... damaged/derp/I don't even... so she wants a new one and when I told her I will cosplay Kenshin this year and have everything else ready except the sword, well, I got it. xD It doesn't have the same tsuba and stuff like Kenshin's sword but it is reverse bladed so it's okay. I've been trying to figure out if there is any way to fix the many errors it has but I'm drawing blanks. It seems to be constructed very weirdly (read: not like your usual katana) and it also seems there is no way of taking it apart to reassemble it and check where the faults are. *shrugs* Oh well, it looks decent half-way out of the sheath but if I draw it I will have to check so that it doesn't go major herpaderp.

le sword ~

Oh, and because I now have everything I need for Kenshin I decided to try on the wig for the first time and do some kind of quick make-up test. Also did the scar but I didn't make it looks as deep as that scar test a few days ago; I didn't have patience enough to make it awesome just to take some test photos. I'll do the scar better for the con of course. This was also for experience... I must say it felt a little bit different having Rigid Collodion on your face compared to having it on your forearm. I was more aware of that it was there because I noticed I couldn't smile too much and such or I'd risk screwing up my scar. Good to know before the con. Guess I'm gonna be a pretty serious Kenshin..

I'm not sure if I suit him though.. it was hard to do happy/cute Kenshin-like expressions, I kept looking like I was about to kill someone maybe I should just settle for Hitokiri Battousai LOL and when I tried to look happy I looked way too derp. When I tried to look cool I ended up doing expressions Sanosuke would do rather than Kenshin, dafuq man. OTL

Oh well, here's my first try!  

I was lazy doing the base make-up.. mostly just focused on eyeliner and the scar.

Eye close-up

Scar close-up

My wig doesn't have a thick ponytail currently. I think I might add some volume to it later.. I don't really have time to do it right now (and I need to save money haha... ha...) so this cosplay will be upgraded sometime after its debut.

Also before I put the cosplay on I noticed I had nothing at hand that I could use to make my eyebrows orange. But then I remembered that back when I started cosplaying and did Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach, who also has orange hair in about the same shade, that I didn't color my eyebrows either lol well back then I didn't even know you could do that and it looked surprisingly okay. I'm not sure if I should still opt to color them though... any opinions?

Oh, and before I say goodbye for today I must share with you this..

... BONUS PHOTO!

KAORU-DONO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That's all for today.

Stay tuned for a possible Kenshin preview photoshoot during the coming weekend!

A third photoshoot

Actually, yesterday after getting home from Kemi's manga day and after eating dinner me and my twin had a third and final short photoshoot for the day. It was already too dark after dinner so we had to shoot indoor. I figured we could use the sliding doors as a nice background. Random info: there's one sliding door separating the guest room from the living room and another sliding door separating my room from the guest room. Yes, my room is linked to the guest room and you have to enter the guest room to get to my room.

The lights weren't that great so all indoor photos got a kinda blurry/grainy texture. Oh well,  I don't really mind because I think it fits the mood of the photos rather well~

After we had taken enough pictures I went to change back into everyday clothes.

Buuuuuuuuuttttttt.

Me, being the derp I am, I of course had to take a few *cough* "few" self-photos before reverting back to 'normal'. Like I ever am normal TROLOLOLOLOLO PROBLEM?

Sayonara~

Falkner wig

On Monday this week I went to the post office and picked up my Falkner wig. It arrived some days earlier but I couldn't go get it then. I didn't have time to open and try it on until recently but I must say I love the color; it's this awesome mix of a lot of different colored fibers like different shades of blues and grays.
The bangs could have been a bit longer but I don't mind because they're good enough (aka they cover my eye) and I was expecting them to be a bit shorter than what the character has anyway because this wasn't a wig specifically meant for Falkner or anything. XD

Now some try-on photos. I woke up pretty recently so I look like a mess.. oh, and I'm wearing my silk robe as usual.. I'm always wearing it on mornings and some hours before going to sleep. lol

Outdoor light

I don't feel a need to style it because it looks pretty good as is. It is very easily fluffable too so I can arrange the fibers, tease them and have them keep the wilder style without falling flat directly. I'm wondering though, should I roll with black eyebrows (like on photos) or should I go get something blue instead? I think black seems to look just fine but.. I'm not 100% sure.

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