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~

It's finished!

OH MY GOD I MADE IT!!!!
It's 23:35 here and I just finished wrapping tsukamaki for my Shinsō sword.. yeah, I'm going to cosplay Gin Ichimaru on Sunday at Desucon FrostBite. I'm so happyyy, what a relief! This day has been so crazy, so full of stress; I had to iron my cosplays, pack all stuff (yay for checklists) and finish Shinsō. Finally I'm done and can breathe out... I will have swords for both captains, FUCK YEAH.

 Now I'm off to sleep, need to wake up early so I don't miss the morning train to Lahti. Now that would suck. xD Goodnight and see you at Desucon FrostBite~

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.

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.