Days 746 - 751

I've been working on a big ol' chunk of nothing! I've found myself even more broke than usual, so I can't get any new materials. Though I do have materials for one cosplay (a semi-secret cosplay), a friend wants to work on it with me because she's doing something similar, and we haven't gotten together or even planned to get together to work on anything. I blame myself, I'm hecka lazy, haha.

To make up for this boring post, here's a pretty Gastrodon (Pokemon) gjinika.

I had a pink male Gastrodon in Pokemon Platinum, he was my bro.

Princess Pinky Twilight Brown Contact Review

I bought Pinky Paradise's Princess Pinky in Twilight Brown for my Yoko and Chi cosplays. After buying them, I became concerned that they wouldn't blend properly with my eyes. Circle lenses are made for dark brown eyes, and my eyes are green. I read a lot of reviews that said that the contacts didn't blend well at all with blue eyes, which I've seen, so I was really worried. Luckily, since my eyes are green, not blue, they blend pretty well. You can still see where the contact ends and my natural eye begins, but it's very faint, and I think you have to be looking for it.

Unfortunately, this is the best photo I have of them at the moment, I will try to get new, better photos as soon as possible.

They are not as bright as they are in the photo on the website, but I'm pretty okay with that. (Of course, now they have these contacts in gold, which is exactly what I wanted, but I really don't want to buy another pair, they're expensive.)

They're not very comfortable, unfortunately. I wore them for about an hour a day in the week leading up to the first convention I wore them to in order to get used to them, but they just don't seem to sit right on my eye. A lot of it is also that they make my eyes very dry, which makes the contacts feel scratchy.

I love these contacts, the color is great, though not as bright as the website photos, I just wish they were more comfortable.

Animation On Display 2012 Cosplay Report

Photo by Kei Tsubasa Cosplay Photography

(Read my full convention report here.)

I cosplayed Time-Skip Yoko from Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann to Animation on Display on Saturday, February 18th 2012. While my cosplay still needs some fixing up, it was met with an overwhelmingly good response. I had my photo taken quite a lot, by both guys and girls, and I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was with my friend who was dressed at Simon from Gurren Lagann. People respond more to people cosplaying in pairs or groups.

I did endure a notable amount of dirty looks from parents who were with their daughters. It was a hurtful, but not surprising, I understand that they were protective of their daughters, and that's actually a good thing, I just wish that people, adults especially, could hide their distaste better. I wasn't bothering them, most of the time, I wasn't withing five feet of them, but they felt the need to shoot me a dirty look. That level of hate is very hurtful, no matter the reasoning behind it. This was all made up for by the end of the day though, one girl's mother talked to me for quite a bit of time about my costume, asking if I made it, and telling me that I did a good job on it when I told her that I did. She seemed apprehensive of me at first, but by the end of our short conversation, after seeing that I am very sweet and polite and not a threat, she seemed much more comfortable around me. I'm so glad that she talked to me and took the time to get to know me a little, regardless of how I was dressed. Of course her daughter was also very sweet and took a photo of me. If I could tell the parents who gave me dirty looks one thing, it's that I don't dress like that every day, it's a costume that I wear only a few times a year out of love for the character and series.

Photo by Kei Tsubasa photography

My rifle broke yet again, as I expected, the scope came off. Despite the valiant effort of another cosplayer to help me save it by letting me use the hot glue he had on him, it came completely apart. Throughout the day, and before the convention, I was given lots and lots of different suggestions on how to make the scope more stable, which I did want to try out, but by the end of the day, I decided that the scope is just not stable enough for large crowds and being carried around all day. I decided quite a while ago that I wanted to add a Dai Gurren Dan flag to my rifle, and I'm going to do just that and leave the scope off. In the series, both the scope and the bipod are removable pieces, so I don't feel bad not having either of them.

In addition to my rifle falling apart, I also apparently left a trail of studs from my belt wherever I went. Apparently the way the rifle hit the back of the belt rubbed a lot of them off. I have yet to figure out a better way for them to stay on, but it was recommended that I use E6000 glue for my rifle, so maybe I'll look into it and see if it'll help with my belt.

I had a photoshoot with Weise Studios and my friend who was dressed as Simon. It was very short due to the cold and the lack of light (mostly due to the cold though, I think). We were told by staff not to sit on the rocks outside because the hotel didn't like it, which was disappointing, but we're not ones to be delinquents, so we couldn't get many photos on the most dynamic terrain, but we did get a few. We also took a few photos under a pagoda-type structure (I'm sure there's a more proper name for it, but I don't know it), but it was really, really cold under it because it was in a canyon-type area and the wind blew straight through it.

This was my first time wearing contact lenses to a convention. They were uncomfortable, despite wearing them for an hour or so a day in the week leading up to the convention, but not unbearable. Had they been unbearable, I would have just taken them out, I don't suffer that much for cosplay. My eyes got pretty dry a couple of times during the day, but I just took a break to put eye drops in, which helped a ton. I'm not sure how often I'll use contact lenses, since they are uncomfortable and make my vision pretty blurry. Also, they were pretty expensive, so I don't want to buy any more, haha. (I'm not wearing my contacts in the photos by Kei Tsubasa Cosplay Photography, those were taken at a time when I had taken them out for a couple of hours.)

Overall, my Yoko cosplay mostly survived Animation on Display 2012. There still needs to be some changes made, and some things fixed of course, but that's just the nature of cosplay!

AoD Stuff (Days 734 - 745)

Luckily, I got almost everything finished in time for AoD. I'm still not really happy with my boots, but the only thing I didn't actually get finished was the jacket details, which is very minor.

I managed to get the scope re-attached to the rifle, and it was surprisingly sturdy. I used two layers of cardboard with a layer of craft foam in the middle. Unfortunately, the scope was backwards. I took it apart and re-glued it, but of course it fell apart at the con (more on that later). I also put sealant on the rifle, which made it shiny and glorious.

I did touch up the jacket some, the flames were peeling off, and I glued them down. The boots are to the point that I could probably just remake them, but I don't have the money to buy more fabric, and I don't really intend on saving up for it. I'm currently saving all of my money for the hotel room for Fanime. Once I have that saved up, I'll start buying things for my temporarily on-hold cosplays.

Speaking of, I've pretty much made up my mind to not cosplay Ironette at Fanime. I don't have the money, and by the time I save up the money, I won't have enough time to make everything. I might cosplay something else that I already have the material for, or I might just wear something twice that weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chi says, "Happy Valentine's!"

Before getting ready for my Valentine's date with my boyfriend, I threw on a wig and makeup and took this picture to share. I don't usually take cosplay pictures for holidays, but when I cosplayed Christmas Chi and Yoko, I found out that it was pretty fun.

The technically behind-the-scenes of this that you don't see is about an hour of makeup and getting into costume. Putting on makeup takes forever, and I don't even know why.When I'm doing it, it feels like it goes by really fast, but then I check the clock halfway through and go, "Aaaah, how did that take twenty minutes!?" I do concealer, foundation, powder, contouring, eyebrows, black eyeliner, white eyeliner, curl my eyelashes, mascara, blush, and then whatever I put on my lips for the day (it changed between lipstick+liner, just liner, and lipgloss). So yeah, it's a lot, but I don't wear that much every day, just for cosplay.

The wig was tangled when I got it out, and of course I still haven't found the spools from the last time I used them (Fanime 2010), and couldn't be bothered to find/make a replacement for one photo. The shirt is just a dress shirt I had in my closet.

Anyway, this was fun, enjoy! I'll do a real update on my cosplay progress some other day, haha.

Boot Updates (734 - 737)

I've almost finished updating one of Yoko's boots. I need to take it in a bit at the top of the foot and then patch up the sole. I completely re-did the zipper, it was too thin and made the boot too tight. I'm freaking out a little, AoD is just over a week away and I still have to fix the other boot and finish the jacket and rifle.

I did some test painting on cardboard and foam scraps, and I found that I already have a sealant that I can use on my rifle. It will make it shiny and waterproof (to a point). It wouldn't be able to survive a downpour or being dunked in a pool, but it's better than it just being acrylic paint over cardboard.

The rifle needs some parts added to it. It should be pretty simple, I just haven't done it because I feel like i need to focus on the boots, which are far more important because if I don't finish them, I won't be able to cosplay Yoko to AoD at all. If I don't finish the rifle or jacket, yes I'll be disappointed, but at least I'll have something to wear. I also need to fix up the yellow and black stripes on the butt of the rifle, they're just really messy right now. The jacket only needs some gold metal-looking bits added onto it and it'll be finished.

The belt fell apart a little bit, I used the wrong glue, but that's a quick fix. I also need to iron the shorts and put belt loops on them.

First Video (Days 727 - 733)

I uploaded the first video in my YouTube series "Cosplay Life". This is the most I'm going to talk about myself in any video, haha. Next week, I plan to make a tutorial.





Also, I finished Yoko's belt! I'm not thrilled with the way the buckle turned out (I messed it up), but I think it looks pretty good.

Next, I'll be finishing the jacket, then I need to tackle the boots, which I'm not looking forward to at all.