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!

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...

Sealed state Sogyo no Kotowari sword finished!

Woo, I finished it today!
Did the tsukamaki (read: handle wrapping) some hours ago and recently I went and took some photos. Gosh how bad lighting we have in our house... the only place decent enough for photos is the shower/sauna room. lol