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.

Pokéballs! + Falkner progress

Earlier today I decided to check if I could find my old candy container Pokémon figure pokéballs.. and I did. Now I at least have some kind of fitting prop to go with my Falkner cosplay, yay! It's kinda hard to come up with poses when you don't have props.. I also decided that if Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan want to borrow a pokéball I'd lend them one each so that we all would have different but still matching pokéballs!

I thought that Jäätynyt Enkeli could use the Lure Ball (left) because it's.. well, blue, and kinda similar to a Great Ball which Silver has in this official art. Also it was introduced in Gen 2 of Pokémon so it kinda fits. Sairu-chan could borrow the Repeat Ball (middle) because it has the same color scheme as Erika whom she will cosplay. I would use the Heavy Ball (right) because it was also introduced in Gen 2 of Pokémon and it fits Falkner's color scheme somehow too.

Today I also finished Falkner's kimono style shirt. Not so much to say because it's really simple and straight-forward. I took some few pictures though.

I hemmed the arm openings, nothing special.

Cut out the collar pieces, sewed them together at one end so I got one long piece and ironed it.

Pinned the collar in place and started sewing..

Collar done

After I had hemmed the bottom. Finished.

That's it for today. One part of the cosplay finished, yay! And I love how my camera fucks up the colors. None of these pictures show the real color of the fabric, trolololo.
Hopefully soon I'll start sewing Falkner's mini hakama.

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*

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~

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.