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!

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!

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.

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.

Started working on Ichito

Pfhah. Finally stopped procrastinating working on cosplays and actually did something.
Oh sweet, I have the whole April, May and beginning of June to fart out an Okita and Ichito cosplay from scratch.. here goes!
I decided to tackle Ichito first because he is the more complicated of them two and will take longer to make. Surprisingly when I showed mom a picture of him she went "oh god that's SO PRETTY!!". You know, I was pretty sure she'd kill me because it was yet another kimono wearing character.. but nope, she didn't.

Okay, so to my joy we already had 3 meters of white fabric lying around in the house that I could use for his "kimono jacket". It rocks to have a mom who used to own her own fabric store and be a former sewer... that means we have an outside storage full of leftover fabric and more sewing supplies than I can use up in my whole lifetime. XD Love you mom. lol

So, this is what I'm trying to make:

The game he is from is very unknown and err, I don't have many references to go by. But I'll find solutions to everything~

And well, this is my new friend, say hello to mom's overlocking machine!

Saumuri on hyvää puuta~

I've never used one of these things before and I was scared to use it at first but gosh, this thing makes sewing so much easier! It cuts of excess fabric automatically and it makes the seams look professional and stuff. I'll need to use it more in the future.

So, regarding the costume... me and mum cut out the pieces for his "jacket" today and it's starting to look as it should, but I still need to fold in the hems or what you call them, the edges. The collar is attached but the sleeves are not. No decorations are done yet and his flap thingy we haven't cut out. I'm sorry but I don't really have any progress pictures more than one shot of the sleeve.

Wide sleeve is wide.

Sorry not so much more to say, hopefully more progress photos next time!

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.

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...

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...

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...