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.

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.

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~

New kimono for Saitou!

I bought a new solid black vintage kimono for Hakuouki's Hajime Saitou weeks ago but I've not tried it on until now. I think me gusta mucho!!

I put it on, along with my juban (also authentic), a white sash and le Saitou wig and went to take some photos. I didn't put on the scarf or any extras because they would just block out the kimono which is the thing I'm trying to showcase here. xD
Excuse me the photos are mirror style (home alone..) and I look like a trainwreck because I have no make-up on except that I darkened my eyebrows slightly... truth is, I've not even had breakfast yet even though I woke up a few hours ago. lol

Notice how far down the sleeves reach with my hand down.
Also the juban doesn't peek out from the sleeves.. which is some sort of awesome considering it's a very common kimono kitsuke problem and is not desirable.

Kimono wingspan. It's awesome! <3
It's rare vintage kimono have sleeves this long.. aka not far from perfect wingspan. :')

This kimono has a nice front overlap.
And I notice I might need a longer sash... xD

Side shot

 With the earlier kimono (which was also vintage) I had the problem that it was not very wide.. which would result in me flashing my legs while walking in anything quicker than semi-snail pace.. along with some other things. But this new kimono is wider, no more do I need to worry about having my legs showing while sitting or walking.

This is just to show how much apart I can keep my feet without showing the juban/my legs.

This new kimono is superior in almost every aspect: better length (aka pretty much my ideal kimono length), better width, longer wingspan. Also this kimono's silk has a solid surface which in a way is more accurate because Saitou's kimono doesn't seem to have any texture to it. My other kimono is tsumugi silk; tsumugi is woven by unevenly spun silk thread so it has texture and is always informal/casual because of its humble origins; Don't think it's actually appropriate for Shinsengumi 3rd division captain lol. But it is cool too and whether or not you want a kimono for cosplay with textured or solid silk (or other fabric, but silk is most common when shopping vintage and vintage = cheaper) is kinda personal preference anyway I guess. I like both.

I will be wearing this kimono for Saitou from now on because of the advantages I listed. But there is one thing that can be a problem - this new kimono is hitoe, meaning it is not lined unlike the other one. This means if I want to cosplay Saitou to a late autumn or winter con it will be cold. The white juban is not lined either so it wouldn't really add much extra warmth. I will have to use my other kimono for the colder months but otherwise this new one will be the default to wear.

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*

Hijikata wig

A wig for Saitou wasn't the only one I ordered from Moemall, ordered a wig for Hijikata too because I know for sure I'll cosplay him someday too... although when and what con is a question mark. I've been thinking about Animecon in Kuopio this year, but I have no clue if that's even possible.. so expensive to travel to the south... train tickets to Kuopio and back would cost me around 120 €... ugh. I probably won't have any summer job (lol never had) and thus no income.. and it's not like I can fart out money either. Too many cosplays to do but not enough cons to wear them too... and not enough moneeeeeeey.

Oh well, have a Toshizo Hijikata WIP photo.

derp

It's mostly just a wig and make-up test. I need to make a dark purple kimono.. I used a light one I had from an earlier cosplay as a substitute. I also need gray hakama and shinsengumi haori for this one too. I might need to trim the bangs... we'll see.

Got my wig for Saitou

Whoops, just realized I forgot to make a blog post yesterday about my Saitou wig... sorry about that, ahah I will do it now instead. Two posts a day, wow.

So err, what to say... Got my Saitou wig yesterday and because I got home pretty early I had to try it on. Hey, no one was home and I was simply too excited, couldn't resist!

Most of this cosplay is actually done, I just need a juban/shitagi/under kimono/whatever (I'm just using a random white t-shirt as a substitute on the photo) and fix his white hair tie... I had one but it fell off after a while and I didn't bother to tie it back again. I do have the scarf too, but it kept being mildly annoying so I took it off.
I still need to make the iconical sky blue shinsengumi haori of course and the headband thingy that he only wears when wearing said haori. Otherwise than that I'm done. It was a pretty easy cosplay because I managed to find a good condition cheap vintage tsumugi silk kimono.. and a black one at that that was of a decent length for me to wear. Yay. You know, men's kimonos have incredibly boring color choices 85% of the time, if you find anything else than blues, grays and browns you should grab it. Black kimonos are often formal and have kamons on them.. but I found one without.
I already have two swords (metallic, but dull) that should work decently for it even though they are dark blue and not standard black and I have shoes and the sash too. At least it seems that the con where I'll debut Saitou at accepts dull metallic weapons (seems most cons don't) as long as you only unsheath it for photos and yeah, not swinging it around and being a threatening noxious idiot. Common sense.

Hajime Saitou derp.. err, I mean update

ARGHJGGJHGDFJHS SAITOU WIG I WANT YOU SO BAD, Y U NO HERE YET?
 Eh, sorry about that. Great way to start a blog post neh?

Well, anyway... home again from school early and a ridiculous desire to try on my vintage kimonos that I ordered from eBay some time ago. What I do? Put them on.
It seems they both would work for my Saitou cosplay, but I think I'll go with the tsumugi black one. I don't have the wig yet (like you noticed...) and I still have the shinsengumi haori left to make.. but I tried what I had on anyway, just to get an idea of how it will look when finished and if there is anything I need to fix. 
WARNING FOR A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE BELOW.

Oh god ain't I pretty? lolnope.

Eww mirror shots. Do not like. But there aren't other options to take full-body pics when home alone...
Yes, I censored my head with a meme face because it was derpin' herpin'.
Ignore the weird pose and the valrus that is me. I put everything on very quickly and so it looks like crap. Oh, and yes, if anyone noticed I didn't take off the basting threads.. too lazy. I noticed I will probably need to make a new white juban/underkimono/whatever for this because the sleeves are too big on my current one and they bunch up and won't behave and just generally looked fugly. Oh, and the black kimono's sleeves are kinda short on me and they look extra short on this shot because I'm holding my hands awkwardly, but it's hard to find a perfect match vintage kimono... *shrugs* And there's no kitsuke police at conventions anyway.
I'm surprised my random long cotton sash thingy held up both my (metallic) swords... but I guess it will loosen when I walk around a whole day at the con.
And if anyone have missed it Saitou is one of my coming Närcon cosplays for this year.

Chibicon ticket arrived and other stuff too

I stayed home today from school because of, err, personal reasons and when I finally woke up at around 13:00 Finnish time I went to grab the post before my stepdad got home. It's awkward when my parents bring home my post because whenever I'm ordering stuff from overseas my mom at least gives me these "Again you have a packet from USA/Japan/whatever??", "What are you ordering?", "How much did it cost?" and "Don't you already have enough wigs/kimonos/whatever?" questions and let's say it's just... awkward. So I just try to take in the post first if I know I'm waiting for something to avoid those questions.
 There was a letter from Urumi and it contained my Chibicon ticket to Oulu, yay!
There also was this huge packet in there and by huge I mean huge, it took up the whole mailbox pretty much, lol. So it was from Japan and that meant it had to be my two black vintage kimonos. OMGYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
Now if only my wig order from Moemall would arrive soon so I can go take some WIP photos of my Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki) cosplay. Granted, I won't cosplay Saitou before Närcon (read: late July) this year but it doesn't hurt to be early...

New anime obsession...

Ahaha, gosh... so today I started watching the Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan anime... and I'm hooked! I've been watching episode 1 to 9 pretty much without pauses and AHRGSHHAGDJADGS must cosplay Souji Okita! He is just too awesome! Ugh I feel bad for him, I have a feeling he'll die of his illness... Hajime Saitou I will probably also cosplay, he is cool... oh boy, my cosplay list sure keeps on growing man...

But yeah, truth be told I've known and been interested in Hakuōki for a while already, but it was only until some few days ago when I got really really interested. See, I happened to hear that the game had been released in America for PSP recently and so of course I had to order it when it now was available outside Japan and I can understand the plot. lol (I've been planning to get it anyway)
Then I watched the anime because I was so curious and it seemed pretty... and now I'm sfihufgufihuihuuh I love animes like this! It's awesome it is based on historical persons, shinsengumi etc. I like that kind of stuff.

Now I need to decide who to cosplay first, Okita or Saitou? I guess it'll be Saitou because he is easier but I love Okita more... oh well, I get more time to do Okita just right, and besides I'll think I'll go with the more complicated game version of him because he has that beautiful golden ring patterning on his kimono's left side in the game, it's absent in the anime.

UOOORGH, I already find myself looking for wigs for Saitou and references and whatnot... lol the life of a cosplayer, my wallet probably hates me. XD