Helping~ (Days 763 - 767)

So super, super last-minute, I decided to go to the NorCal Spring Gathering this past Saturday (I'll do a write-up separately). I remembered that I had my fem!Link cosplay already finished, and I had only worn it once and gotten no pictures, so I figured I'd wear it again.

The night before the gathering, I went over to a cosplay buddy's house and ended up helping her sew some of her stuff for the gathering. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed working on a costume for someone else as much as I did. I mean, I make costumes for my boyfriend on occasion, but I stress just as much about those as I do about my own costumes. Working on one for someone else, I was just as careful (if not more-so) than I am with my own cosplays, but it was more relaxing for some reason. Maybe because I didn't feel particularly rushed because, quite frankly, it wasn't my responsibility to get it finished by the end of the night, I was just doing whatever I could in the given time frame. In any case, I enjoyed it. I think I've mentioned somewhere before that I would enjoy doing costume commissions if people were willing to pay what they're worth.

I also sketched out the designs for my White Mage and my boyfriend's Black Mage cosplays. We thought that the basic pixel designs from Final Fantasy 1 were too simple and would look boring if we tried to translate them into real life. (Also, I've seen one too many Black Mages that look like a scarecrow in a snuggie.) So we talked about taking the basic design and adding minor details to make them look a little more interesting. Knowing how badly these things can go, we kicked around ideas for a long time, thinking about what would look good, how to keep close to the original design, and what would be too over-the-top or far from the original.

I had all of these ideas floating around in my head and decided one night that I needed to just put it down on paper to see what it all looked like, because no matter how good it looked in my head, I knew that the reality would probably look really different.

I compiled a bunch of reference pictures, starting with the Black Mage first, since that was the design I was most concerned about. I noted which game each of the references was from, and picked out things that I liked from each design. To me and my boyfriend, the most important thing was that the designs stay simple. So keeping that, and the basic shape from Final Fantasy 1, I began sketching. I don't have the sketches is digital format, but here are the reference pictures I used from Black Mage. (Note: The costume in the top right is what I didn't want it to look like.) I took structural elements from the first Final Fantasy Tactics reference (on the left), and yellow details from the Hume Black Mage (Final Fantasy Tactics also) in the middle. I kept the basic shape of the design in the bottom right (FFI), and I ended up completely disregarding the Mario Sports Mix design. My boyfriend had told me that he wanted a staff, and he wanted the gnarliest, most branch-like one, so I looked up a list of all of the staffs used in Final Fantasy and chose the one that was closest to what he wanted, it ended up being from Final Fantasy IX. It's not 100% decided yet, but I believe we're going with the shoes from the design on the far left as well (or at least something similar, since they'll most likely be covered anyway).

For my White Mage design, I kept extremely close to the original, but I took some structural elements from the Final Fantasy 3 White Mage, making it look extremely similar to the Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage. It adds a lot to the design without changing much, and it makes the White Mage design look like goes with the Black Mage one I ended up with. For the overall shape, I stuck with the design from Final Fantasy 1 (top left corner), which is conveniently exactly the same as the shape in Final Fantast Tactics (for the female White Mage). (I disregarded the male White Mage from Tactics entirely.) I took a couple of minor details such as the stitching and the cross from the Final Fantasy 3 design, as well as the boots (again, or something similar, since they'll most likely be hidden under robes). My White Mage will be blonde, mostly because I decided on this cosplay after playing the FFI remake for the PSP, in which the White Mage is very clearly blonde, but also because I already have a blonde wig that's perfect for this. I decided on the hair style of the Final Fantasy Tactics White Mage, since the hair style of the FFI White Mage is pretty much nonexistent (it's just plain and straight). For my weapon, I chose a hammer, and I found a picture of a White Mage hammer that another cosplayer had made to match the White Mage robe. I thought it was a cute idea, but when I drew it with the rest of my sketch, it just looked like a lot of white and red and triangles, so I'll most likely go with the original blue hammer seen in Final Fantasy 1.

I am aware that some people may not like the fact that we are changing the designs of the versions that we're cosplaying, however I did put a lot of time and effort into these, and I love and adore the designs came out. We're not changing them so that we can cut corners on construction (because we definitely won't be), and we're not changing them so that we can be original or unique or our own characters or anything. We're changing minor details so that the costume overall looks better than it would if we were to translate it directly from pixels into 3D clothing. If that's the case, why aren't we cosplaying different, more detailed versions? I can't speak for my boyfriend here (though I know he loves being generic characters), but Final Fantasy 1 was the first Final Fantasy game that I played all the way through, and the only one that I've played that had a White Mage design with white robes. I loved my White Mage in Final Fantasy 1 to death (quite literally, as she didn't survive the last battle), and I can't imaging cosplaying any other White Mage right now.

Days 752 - 762

I haven't worked on much, though I have been productively saving for Fanime, and it's going a lot quicker than I thought it would. It's making me more confident that I'll be able to make my White Mage cosplay in time for Fanime (since I'm not starting on it until I have enough for the hotel and badge).

Speakikng of Fanime, I forgot to post this! My panels for Fanime have been approved. My boyfriend and I will be hosting "Magikarp" A History" and "Rattata: Top Percentage" at Fanime 2012! Currently, "Magikarp" is scheduled for Saturday, May 26th from 4pm to 5pm, and "Rattata" is scheduled for Sunday, May 27th from 5pm to 6pm. I'm unsure if these are the finalized times or not, but I'm under the impression that they are.

I have been sewing some, or at least I cut out patterns and altered them some for a project using scrap fabric, since I"m not buying any new materials until I've saved up all of my Fanime money. I'm planning on doing a few things with scrap fabric, but none of it's set in stone.

In other news, ballet is paying off, and I have abs again!  This is quite exciting, since I think it makes my Yoko cosplay look that much better, along with any other bare-midriff cosplays I may or may not have planned. Plus, I just like having abs, who doesn't? These are the result of ballet class two days a week, which is a lot of core work, we also are supposed to do fifty crunches every class. To be honest, I'm not sure who else in the class actually does all fifty. I'm assuming the guys do, and I'm sure a couple of the other girls do, but for some reason, I always take longer doing my crunches, pushups, and stretches than everyone else does. A lot longer. Though I know for sure that I stretch longer because I'm really determined to be able to do the splits again. In any case, I'm rambling. Yeah. I'm happy to have abs back.

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.