Showing posts with label wig styling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wig styling. Show all posts

January 14, 2018

Leon Kennedy cosplay makeup test

Hello folks!

Since the later half of last year I've been silently collecting the gear needed for cosplaying Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 4. I'm not sure if I've mentioned too much about cosplaying him on this blog but he's been in progress for a while.

Leon is not a character I would typically cosplay as I really can't stand to play any kind of horror games myself (I get too easily scared...) but watching my friend Sacchan play through the whole thing was a different deal and, quite honestly, a lot of fun! I ended up liking the storyline, the characters and the overall feel of the game – despite it being just the kind of game that I'd normally have very limited interest in as I'm not a fan of shooting nor horror games in general. ^^" I liked playing all the shooting target minigames though, lol. I must admit that I've been enjoying playing the later Resident Evil installments in the co-op mode with friends though, although I am aware that RE4 is considered one of the best ones and I can totally see why – but the newer ones I played with friends were easier on me as there wasn't that tension of a horror game and instead it was just a mash-buttons-to-kill-as-many-zombies-you-can-before-the-time-runs-out type of thing. xD
But yeah, Leon clicked with me and so I decided that "hey, why not do something different and go out of my comfort zone?". Said and done.

I think I started gathering materials for this cosplay around August something last year. About everything is purchased from various eBay sellers, except for the jacket which I got from CosplaySky (I will review it soon!) and the pants that I already had. At this point in life I didn't have the time nor energy to make the costume myself and, frankly, making all those gun holsters etc would have been really annoying and pointless seeing how cheap I could get them online. I'm lazy sometimes... and out of cash all the time.

I did a makeup test for Leon yesterday and I must say that it was a bit of a different experience. You see, I'm so used to doing the heavier "anime makeup" that when I did Leon I had to do the makeup more subtle and realistic, which proved to be a challenge! I'm so used to the black liquid eyeliners that when I had to do a more natural approach –since Leon is a video game character– it felt weird. I had to avoid covering up "too much" (Leon wouldn't have perfect 2D anime skin) and for the eyes I just went with dark brown pencil eyeliner.



I'm not wearing any contact lenses for Leon on the costest photos above, although I do have gray lenses especially bought for him. I want to save those for a later time as I kind of want to make a rocket launcher prop before I have any kind of proper photoshoot.
Also, I'm still not too sure if I really suit this character but oh well, who cares? :) I want to cosplay him and so I do. Fight me bro. I might still experiment further with the makeup (especially the eyes, as it feels like just pencil eyeliner doesn't stand out enough) and I have some ideas on trying to "grease it down" or what-to-call-it like doing this kind of look that you've been out blowing zombies up for a while and there's dust and dirt all over...

Regarding the wig it was a bitch to find a suitable one, not gonna lie. The only character wig on eBay didn't look like I wanted mine to look and so I had to resort to searching for generic fashion wigs instead.. and pray for decent quality. Thankfully eBay is full of those but oh fucking boy, how hard it was to find one with a parting that is not a middle-part. >_> I eventually found a base wig that would work, although I had to compromise on color a bit as Leon's hair tends to generally be portrayed as this kind of dark brownish-blonde shade, although it is really inconsistent (I've seen cosplayers doing everything from blonde to brown and even black) and so I deemed that the wig's color wouldn't be that big of a deal. I went with blonde.

Leon's wig before cutting it...
... and after cutting.
Sacchan did the cutting while I had the wig on my head. I have a larger head than average and so it was safer that I wore the wig during the cutting process so that we'd get it to be the right length. It was really important that we didn't end up cutting it too short, as that would have looked really unflattering on me. I might eventually trim it a bit more but yeah, I can't say for sure until I've straightened it and wore the wig to a photoshoot or such, to see how it behaves.

I think that's about all I had to say for this round. The review for Leon's jacket will come up soon so stay tuned for that!

July 22, 2016

Lugia and APH Greece pre-con costests!

Yoo, you beautiful people ~

Närcon is right around the corner –aka 28-31 July– and I'm stressing my ass off because I still have things left to do. I need to iron everything (urrrgh, but it's worth it) and some lenses and accessories have yet to arrive. It's not the end of the world if the stuff doesn't show up because Lugia works without the gloves and, luckily, I do have at least one pair of orange lenses for Ibuki but yeah, if they're uncomfortable then I'm in the piss!

I spent the afternoon a couple days ago doing some outfit tests to see what the costumes looked like when worn; I had not tried them on before so I wanted to make sure that things didn't look funny. I didn't do any makeup because I was way too tired for that and it's too sweaty in here right now anyway, lol. Damn hot summer weather...

Lugia gijinka test.
Okay, so Lugia will look something like that, assuming that the gloves won't make it in time. I might still add some accessories if I come up with something. I will use a white wig for this. Yes, I pulled everything out of my closet. *Yoda voice* Convenient it is.
I do have some more elaborate makeup ideas for Lugia but I'm afraid that I won't be able to make it look good since I'm still quite clumsy and inexperienced with painting my face. I have a love-hate relationship with makeup right now, hehehe... ~

When it comes to Greece I borrowed the white t-shirt from Frozen Angel and the pants were a lucky find from a local second-hand store. The boots I had bought some time ago, to be used for another costume but they worked for Greece as well so eff yeah!

Hetalia's Greece outfit test.
I blocked out my face for the same reasons stated above – no makeup poop face. :) Another reason is that Greece's wig is still in progress! I decided to use one of my Okita wigs for him and so I washed off all the styling products from it and let it dry. Once the wig was dry and clean (sorta clean, two small spikes didn't wash away completely) me and Sacchan made the 'whale sprout', you know, the hair thingie that most Hetalia characters have.
We started by looking at references to pinpoint where the sprout was to be and then we took some spiking gel in the fingers and twinned the hair into a sturdy stalk. Once the stalk had dried in the right position we split the top into two parts, pinned each end into a roll (for shape-holding) and blasted some got2b freeze spray on it and then used the hair dryer to dry it in place – it worked. No steel wire required!

Wig in progress. The products next to it
are what we used to style the 'whale sprout'.
I have yet to style the rest of the wig but I think I'll save that for the con morning because I don't want to overdo it and it's easier to spike a wig when it's on your head anyway. I would also hate for the styling to be ruined (aka crooked) if I pre-style it and then when I take it out at the con it looks like hell went loose on it. Has happened, thank god my friend had a hair straightener back then.

Close-up of the 'whale sprout' ahoge.
I really should start packing but I'm feeling lazy. I guess I'm a time optimist because I always tell myself that I have time to do it later.... even though I don't. :D Oh well, if I can get myself to pack my stuff in advance there's a lesser risk that I'll forget something than if I stress pack the night before departure...

Oh and yeah, regarding the Närcon carpool I want to mention that the seat is now taken. We managed to snag one of our friends with us, on short notice, and it's no less than Karri the awesome one! I'm seriously so stoked to see him again and go to a big con together – he always brings the best company. I'm really thankful he can go with us because the search was starting to get really stressful because time was running out and no one had taken contact; I assume most people who had planned to go to the con had already fixed their traveling and so we were a bit too late to really get any response. But yeah, Karri saves the con and I couldn't be happier about it.

That's all I had for this round. See ya!
~ Shiro Samurai

April 17, 2016

Hatori Sohma wig

Hello peeps!

Cosvision is really close now and I thought it's about time that I finish Hatori up! I actually have the whole costume ready, save for the wig. Closet cosplay, ssch.
I decided to sacrifice my old Hijikata wig for Hatori since I've bought another pure black wig for Hijikata, to match with the ponytail clip-on. You see, this wig, while it may look black on first glance, is actually a super dark brownish black and it looked horrible with the clip-on because, in some lights, you could clearly see the color difference – it started to annoy me more and more over the years, lol. So yeah, seeing how I'm not using said wig for Hijikata anymore I thought I could give it a new life! I don't like having perfectly usable wigs just lying around and collecting dust...

Wig before cutting. Front and side.
Hatori actually changed his hairstyle slightly in both the anime and in the manga; I couldn't find any manga references on a quick search so I decided to go with anime images since there is no difference, as far as I can remember I'm pretty sure the only notable difference on the manga and anime portrayals is his eye color.
I decided on doing the long-haired (the first version) instead of the short one, mainly because I like it a bit more. The short-haired version somehow looks so generic; I always thought long-haired Hatori was more recognizable in some way.

Hatori with long bangs...
... and with short bangs.
The reason he's covering his left eye is because he's almost blind on said eye. Fuck you, Akito. Hatori is a tragic character and I guess that's why I like him; I tend to prefer the more calm, quiet and kinda cold characters anyway and Hatori totally fits the bill.

Regarding styling the wig I didn't have to do all that much. I mainly shortened the bangs, straightened the sides since they were wavy and cut them shorter as well. I'm aware that the wig is not super accurate but I decided on leaving the sides a bit longer than what he has, mainly because I need something to frame my face because otherwise I look like shit... and then I feel uncomfortable.

Wig after cutting.
I will probably need to put in some more styling products and use some pins to keep certain parts in place but yeah, I'll save that for the con – don't want the styling to wear off before I even get to the hotel, lol. Might need to thin it down a bit too but yeah, we'll see.
Sacchan helped a bit with the cutting too, mainly to get both sides the same length since I have tendencies to fuck that up, haha.

Not so much more to say. I still need to do a preview test for Hatori, oh shit!
Shiro Samurai says see ya later!

February 7, 2016

Battousai Kenshin – Pimpin' up the wig!

Hello peeps!

I was bored this evening/night so I just sat for a while and thought about the upcoming Närcon Vinter and my cosplays and then it hit me – now that I'll bring Kenshin out again then why don't I update him a little and give the wig a new look?
I scrolled through some old photos of my Battousai Kenshin cosplay (for reference) and it hit me that the wig looked a bit too... I don't know... "untouched", for my current taste. :/ Too straight, lol. Besides, I wanted to mess around with a wig anyway because I was soooo bored.

This is just the base wig.
Ponytail is not shown because I didn't do anything to it.
I didn't do all that much to the wig, just spiked the front and sides all over for a more unkempt anime look. :) I didn't cut it because that was already done; this was one of my early wig cutting projects back in the days, haha.

I don't know why I'm so excited to do Kenshin again, even though it's a cosplay that stems back from 2013. Well, save for nostalgy and love of the series, that is. ^^" I guess I just really like how I look as him; it's one of those few characters that I currently feel like I actually fit – you know, that feeling when you put the cosplay on and look yourself in the mirror and actually somewhat see the (likeness to the) character? Kenshin is also one of the few of my cosplays that doesn't make me horribly self-conscious either, for the same reasons as above + that I've noticed that I do muuuuch easier get successful photos taken of me when I do him, even random con photos by others!? I hate bad photos of me so much, sob sob.
I guess it's just a relief to feel like you actually can pull off some characters with whatever physical traits you were born with. I know that it shouldn't really matter and all but yeah, on some days (especially when I feel bad about myself) it's still a really big "feel good" thing for me –can't deny– and it makes me happy because most of the time I don't like how I look in a cosplay, actually...

Looking forward to Närcon Vinter! Thanks for reading my cosplay ramblings!

January 19, 2016

Kashuu Kiyomitsu eye makeup test

Yoo.

Today I decided that it was high time that I started practising the makeup for some of my upcoming new cosplays! Soon I will reveal for you all the first convention of the year that I will attend. ヽ(゚∀゚)ノ I'm super stoked about attending said con because I haven't been there for years but yeah, I'll get more to that later.
This post is about the next cosplay that I will likely debut and it's no less than Kashuu Kiyomitsu from Touken Ranbu! Yep, that's a cosplay plans spoiler right there. I wanted to try out a new makeup look now that I've gathered some more products. Too bad that I had to rush the whole thing because the sun was already going down before I even started! Screw you, polar night. So yeah, I'm sorry but I had to skip pretty much all other makeup save for the eyes, I just simply didn't have time. :( At least by doing this look I learned a lot of new eye makeup techniques that I sure as hell will experiment further with!


A rare case when I can smile without looking stupid...
This one is taken in yellow room light.
It's a bit annoying how my camera washes out most of my makeup, including the eyeshadows and highlights, ugh. At least it faded my pale-ass beard too so I didn't have to shave it lol. Now that I look at the photos I notice that my eyebrows are way too light; I should have filled them in some more. ._. Weirdly enough they looked dark in real life but yeah, camera...
I also want to apologize for the blueish light, the sun was down by the time I was sort-of-ready so I had to deal with the "blue hour"... or whatever it's called. I also couldn't be bothered, nor had time, to dig out the cosplay so I just took whatever red I had around me and put it over my shoulders, lol.

I'm pretty happy with this look, considering what a makeup greenhorn I am. This was also my first time ever using false eyelashes – oh what won't you do for the sake of cosplay?
For those curious I will review the two eyelash pairs that I used later so yeah, if you're interested keep an eye on my blog! ;) Fun fact is that my natural lashes are already stupidly long (been told that I have long lashes all my life by several relatives etc) so yeah, as soon as I put even a little bit of mascara on them they look like falsies lol. So yeah, when I wear actual false lashes on top of my own it's like... crazy shit.

Styled wig.
I also wanted to put in a pic of the wig when it was newly styled. My friend Sacchan did the cutting and styling for me this time; we had to make a hairline/parting and I wasn't really comfortable with that because I lacked the know-how to do it. I did tie the ponytail though, haha.

That's all for this time, see ya!
Shiro Samurai over and out.

January 16, 2015

Levi's wig – Disasters and miracles!

 Back in line, dudes! Hello hello!

Fairly recently I decided that it was about time that I tackle my most challenging wig cutting mission so far cutting my Levi wig. Yes, of course it's captain Levi from Attack on Titan, aka Shingeki no Kyojin. *badamtssh*

Levi levisi jo cossilistaani...
....
Oh god, where do I even start? 

I was so nervous, so scared of messing it up! The base wig was very different from what I was going for and I had never cut a wig this drastically before; it was a daunting task.

This is what the wig looked like before cutting:


It doesn't look anything like Levi's hair...
So, why did I even inflict this upon myself? 
Why didn't I just buy one of the zillions of Levi character wigs that are already out there?

The reason is that none of the Levi wigs were "right" for me there was always something that bugged me on all of them, for one reason or another. Most times it was the color and if the color was what I wanted then the cut looked wrong or the wig looked obviously way too small (looked too short already on a tiny wig head OTL) etc. Oh and speaking of color I didn't want a black wig. No no.
That's also the main reason why I settled on this one wig it had the perfect color that I was looking for, aka a dark mix of brownish gray, almost black but still not black.

Yeah, so I decided to buy a non-Levi wig and make it into a Levi wig, with the help of my amateur wig cutting skills that are far from polished enough for this kind of shit. Yes, it was a brave act but oh so foolish. I was almost asking for disaster to crash down on me...
But with scissors in hand I didn't really have another choice except for giving it my all; it was a bit too late to give in give up my soldier's pride and just buy a character wig and have it arrive in time before Desucon Frostbite, which is already slowly knocking at the door. Yeah, you just got one of my Frostbite cosplays spoiled! :D

Show me your wefts bro!
I started by pinning up the layers that I shouldn't cut just yet so that it would reveal the wefts that were lower down and under. Then I just started cutting away, trimming the fibers short but not so short that the wefting would show. I felt like a wig murderer.

For some reason I completely forgot to take any more progress photos but I just kept cutting it shorter pretty much everywhere and only leaving some long pieces in the back because Levi has this taper cut thing going on.


At first the bangs were a freakin' hair curtain so I kept trying to thin them down and at some point I guess I entered barbarian mode without realizing and then, suddenly, the bangs were way too short. OnO;; AARGH! It's not the first time it happens that I cut something too short! *punches self in face*

At this point I was about to ragequit and just throw the whole thing in the trash bin and pretend that it never existed. It looked so bad.. or more like, the front was ruined but the back was successful which was very frustrating because the back was much harder to do. OTL
But I didn't give up, even though my wig looked like an overrun squirrel at this point. It was so bad I could barely look at it, I swear. xD The wig had way too much fibers and just looked much poofier/fluffier than I wanted on the sides stupid mop! and this was driving me crazy since when was a wig too thick anyway!? rofl my luck

I tried watering down the front of my wig and then it suddenly came back to life! ... or more like, it didn't look like a crow's nest anymore. At least.
Yeah, I mean to say that suddenly there was some light shining and the wig was whispering to me "psst, you can maybe still save me!". Oh boy, where are we going...
So I was fiddling with the too-short-and-looked-retarded bangs until I thought that "hey, if I get some wefts from another part of the wig and add them in the front it might look okay again!" and then I decided to give it a try, what did I have to lose anyway? Well, my wig.
Mind you, I had never worked with wefts before and neither had I planned to do it already now yeah, I'm basically saying that I probably looked like this:


Because that's exactly how I felt when I was trying to undo a seam on a weft, so that I could get it out and reattach it somewhere else. This task proved to be horribly tedious and rage inducing...

Hey.
Something's missing...

(edits by me)
That's better.

Yeah, I entered rage mode very quickly because I couldn't even see where the weft seam was on the wig cap because both had the exact same goddamn color! 8C At some point I tableflipped and just cut out the few centimeters of the weft that I had managed to undo (the end of it was poking out) and rolled with it. I hand-sewed it in place and prayed that this little piece of hair would improve the looks of my wig and as if by a miracle it did. Omigosh yesss!!
You see, Levi has his bangs kinda more towards the sides because of the parting and I had been cutting my bangs to hell and back to not have the way-too-much-hair syndrome. As I said earlier I cut them too short at some point, which led me to cut the middle completely out of bangs in desperation and then by adding that one extra tiny weft piece to the side with the shorter bangs the front suddenly looked okay and actually sparse enough to work. I wasn't even believing in it anymore.

So, what did the wig look like in the end?
I'll show ya!

le Levi wig!
Despite all the horrors I faced while cutting this sucker I think it turned out kinda okay in the end. :') It looks a bit wonky on the wig head but it looks better when I actually wear it or so I hope. Oh and the back is cut very short on the lower half and the upper half is longer, it doesn't really show on the photos though. Also, I haven't put any styling products in it just yet but I might do that for the soon-to-follow Levi makeup test!

That'll be all for this time!
Shiro Samurai out.

January 9, 2015

Eren Yeager makeup test!

Hello titans humans! :'D

I'm now one of those in the growing list who have gone and fallen into the Attack on Titan aka Shingeki no Kyojin fandom wave. I can't go and call myself a mega fan or anything but I must admit that the anime was very good and I'm looking forward to the second season! The soundtracks, oh my god. <3 

I took a quick liking to Eren Yeager our hotheaded main character even though he's not the usual character type that I tend to gravitate towards; I don't know, something in his character just really caught my interest and so the cosplay antennas started tingling! 

Eren's face in the anime.
Honestly, the last few days I've had a horrible itch to do some cosplay makeup experimenting and what isn't better than practicing the looks for some future cosplays? I've also been aware of the fact that one of my unopened circle lens pairs will expire after two months unless I open the vials and hey, said contacts could totally work for Eren so why the hell not? :D That's totally also why I today decided to do a makeup test to try to Eren-ify myself! o/

But first, some close-ups of Eren's big blue-green eyes!


Rage mode activated.
Okay so.. Eren has surprisingly big/round eyes for a guy, which also made me think that even notably enlarging lenses would be fine for him, haha. The lenses I decided to wear for this costest are called Vassen Dori Green.

I borrowed Jäätynyt Enkeli's trainee squad uniform jacket because my cosplay isn't ready, did the makeup and took some photos! In the end I'm a bit surprised; I didn't quite think that I would fit Eren if I'm honest, haha. I barely recognize myself. Oh well, it's a challenge to do something different once in a while too!

But now, Ernu Eren time!



So, whatcha think? Eren enough for the titans you?

I tried to snap photos in angles that would make me look more childlike instead of manly because I think Eren looks young; he doesn't exactly have defined features and his face is a bit round anyway, especially if you compare to some other male characters in the cast, hah. So yeah, I kinda tried to make myself look boy-ish but it was very hard on most pics I ended up looking like Jean Kirstein with Eren's eyes lol. xD Goddammit face!

The wig I also cut some days ago. I didn't put any products in it just yet because I might not cosplay Eren at a con until summer and I don't want to style my wig half a year in advance and have it turn poop on me when the con is finally approaching, now that would be a bummer...

Wig before cutting.
Sorry about the wig being slightly inaccurate on the test pics, especially the side pieces are a bit too long but I do have a reason for this I plan to use the same wig for Heisuke Toudou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan because the hairstyle and color are fairly similar; if I had cut the side bangs any shorter it would be too short for Heisuke and I tend to think that longer sides frame my face better and look more flattering. 

That's all for today, bye!

October 9, 2014

Kemin mangapäivä 2014 – Hurry up man! Cosplay plans!

 Yo peeps!

As some of us polar bears might or might not know Kemin mangapäivä, aka Kemi's manga day, is just around the corner and by corner I mean 11th October. Yeah, it's very soon. We don't have to hibernate just yet. höhö :-DD
Said event is a small local one for me duration 6 hours this year and I attend it mostly to meet friends and have some geeky remoistening for the oh-so-dry late autumn's early winter's lack of anime events. I mean, I'm totally not the type to say 'no' to some quality time with my trusty pals in a free-entrance event that *le gasp* isn't even far away! ;) Whooooouu..

Okay so, mumbo jumbos aside, what will I cosplay there?
*suspense*
 ...
......
Umm, let's take it from the beginning, shall we?

So, I've fairly recently bought a wig (from another cosplayer) to use for my soon-to-be-revealed Kemin mangapäivä cosplay. Gotta love cheap second-hand wigs!

But first, I had to cut it...

It's thick, fo sho!
Yeah, look at that hair curtain. OTL Too much hair in the front; I don't see shit. My wonderful hair-baby needed to be trimmed down. I took out my scissors on 3rd October and trimmed it into a better shape.

Starting point wig before cutting.
So yeah, I cut and shortened the bangs to look more flattering and also thinned them down slightly. Easy peasy. I've noticed though that my scissors don't cut as well anymore; maybe should start consider replacing them.. then again, they were dirt cheap so I wasn't expecting quality either.

With the wig fixed I headed for town on 8th October. My mission was to find a toy gun at a second-hand store for cheap and then modify it. I ended up finding one but it's still unfinished COSSI EI OLE VIELÄKÄÄN VALMIS so I'll just do a post about it afterwards. Hang on, hang on!
What I did do today though was a quick test to get an idea of what my cosplay will look like when worn. Yeah, finally it's time!

Supah editing skillz! selfie
Some small details are missing on the picture: pointy ears, pink contact lenses and the gun. I just won't have time for a proper preview, so this will have to do for now. Yeah, so the character I will cosplay at Kemin mangapäivä is an Original Character named Taregard Frir. I won't bore you with a character description now and I'm too tired for that but I might write one later when I do a photoshoot post. Hopefully.

But there we go for this time, see ya!

June 29, 2014

kimono!Gakupo preview – The serious part (1/2)

Eiyoou guys!

So the night between 28 and 29th June neither me nor Hasakitsuki were tired so we decided to be vampires go and preview photoshoot my original kimono!Gakupo cosplay for Skecon outside. Yeah, it's the Gakupo preview I promised earlier in the cosplay plans post
So uhh, it was 3 in the night/morning and I was in cosplay outside our apartment having a shoot and the sun was up and shining everything's perfectly normal! :D Ah, midnight sun is so handy; I wasn't even tired! Or just a little, towards the end of the shoot, maybe.
As far as the outfit is concerned it's all authentic pieces from Japan, mostly vintage. Earlier when I first came up with the idea to do a kimono!Gakupo design I pretty much instantly knew what kimono coordination to wear. Oh, and because Gakupo is quite fabulous I wanted to spice it up a bit and of course a violet kimono was a must to get a less bland/generic coordination, which is typical for male kitsuke.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Gakupo Kamui)
Photographer: Hasakitsuki
Photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai










This is a bit random but here's what the wig looked like before I had spiked the bangs. Hasakitsuki braided the long front pieces because I'm a derp and can't braid. Actually on the photoshoot pictures I'm pinning some of the bangs to the sides because otherwise this wig is quite the hair curtain.

le wig.
Oh, and about the shoot itself; it was a fun shoot even though it was surpsisingly cold. We were shooting for approximately one hour and well, at some point the I'm-tired-but-not-really-tired-so-I-will-just-do-stupid-faces-instead mood activated for me and... uh... you better go hide under your couch because this post will have a follow-up containing all this extra material! >8D Yeah, we actually got a ridiculous amount of not-so-representative pictures so instead of having a few bonus pics at the end I have gathered enough material for a whole Gakupo derp compilation post. *whisper* Stay alive, it shall arrive sooooooon...

You thought I'd let you go now? Hahaha noep!
Here's a teaser just so you'll get some foretaste of what is to come so that you can prepare accordingly. Or not.

Derpy arm dance!
Hueheuheuehue ~
Valkoinen Samurai heads off to prepare for making a fool out of himself...

June 19, 2014

Desucon 2014 – I finally had Ramune soda for the first time!

Hello folks!

I know I'm posting this a bit late-ish but I've had a shitlot of photos to go through and I've barely recovered from the huge con hangover. But now I'm finally done so here comes my Desucon 2014 experience!

"Desucon 2014 has begun!"
A few days before the con I was styling wigs for Yukinaga and SSL Okita. I got them done on time but I still ended up staying awake the whole night between Wednesday and Thursday because I was stressed about the suitcase packing. Yeah, we packed our suitcase on the same day we had to leave home, aka Thursday. Not the brightest idea I've ever had...

Unstyled wig.
Styled wig.




















My con journey started on Thursday, 5th June, when I took the bus to Kemi and then a night train to Lahti together with Hasakitsuki. Our train left Kemi at 22:21 local time and we had a train change at Riihimäki that left 08:13. We had bought a lot of unhealthy provisions at Lidl in Kemi before we took the train so yeah, at least this time we weren't dying from hunger. We didn't run into random drunks this time, which is for the better. The journey was okay but I barely slept shit because of uncomfortable old train cart seats...

Friday

We arrived at Lahti 08:54 and I texted Moonbeam aka our sleeping place savior and asked where she was. Moonbeam said she was at the cafeteria but because I'm soooo familiar with Lahti train station (hint: sarcasm) I and Hasakitsuki ended up having quite the adventure finding our way to the main part of the train station. We took the elevator like 3 times and always ended up in the wrong place, genious. Finally we found Moonbeam and we walked over to her place, which was super close! There we just packed up some of our stuff, turned the couch into a bed and I tried to sleep because I was dang tired (I barely slept in the train, surprise surprise!) but at some point I got energy and then we ate one of those one meter pizzas for food. xD With extra tuna and pineapple, of course.
At some point Moonbeam needed to go to Eurokangas in town and after a bit of "should I or should I not come with" (I was laggy) I decided to go and I'm so happy I did! I ended up finding the perfect soft and thick dark red linen fabric that screamed Okita's red kimono to me! <3 Hakuouki's Okita of course. Yeah, there's many Okitas out there... I bought the whole remaining roll because there was only 5 meters left and the remaining fabric had been cut into two pieces already; I need to make both the anime and the game version because they differ quite a lot and I sort-of accepted the "cosplay all official Okita versions!" challenge so yeah, here we go. xD

Fabric doesn't want to photograph it's true color, as usual. It's a bit darker than it looks.
The clock ticked away and soon we noticed there was only about one hour left before Desucon would open its doors and so we started putting on our cosplays. My cosplay for the day was Yukinaga Kuroyama, an Original Character. I had fun putting on long pointy ears (I love these things!) and then I battled with the obi because it's so slippery that it didn't stay tied for very long. I managed after a while and when we all were done Moonbeam had someone drive us to the con.
At the con we were welcomed by something I didn't quite expect there was a horse-head guy and a hair-overload guy singing (more like, screaming) some heavy metal at the entrance. It was glorious, I tell you. All horns up for these two! \m/



After having enjoyed the duo's little performance for a while we went to get our tickets, but because printing them out before the con hadn't been possible for us we had the tickets in an USB key. The persons at the Desucon ticket table at the entrance told us to go to the info desk and so we went inside the con to get our tickets printed. Actually, the random guy guarding the entrance door (aka ticket controller) seemed suspicious about letting us walk past without tickets. >.< I showed him the USB key and told him that the people at the ticket desk adviced us to go the info and then he let us pass. We ended up getting our tickets printed and got fatass fabric tickets on our wrists instead, securing us as Desucon attendants, booyah!

Desucon 2014 ticket. It looks pretty boring, I must add.
It didn't take many minutes before we bumped into Joel who was cosplaying Saizou Kirigakure from Brave 10. He said that he didn't have any friends with him on this day so we quickly adopted him into our group! We ended up hanging together the whole day and he even did a photoshoot for us!
Oh, and I must mention that during the shoot we saw a house that was sailing away. Yes, a house. It was beautiful but I failed to take a picture of it on time. :C It was basically a house built on some wooden platform that was floating around and moved; some Finnish invention I guess, probably related to sauna lol. But now, photoshoot pictures!

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Yukinaga Kuroyama) & Hasakitsuki (Aki)
Photographer: Joel

Not amused.
"What are you doing? Stop that bullshit."
"Piss off, you imbecile! Don't touch me unless you raise my pay!"
"I don't want to be your bodyguard, it sucks balls."
"Give it back, dammit!"
"Stay away... I need an Aki-free zone."
"I SAID STAY AWAY... OR TASTE MY STEEL."
Bonus pics!



This was by far the most hilarious, crack-worthy and totally-not-serious photoshoot I've had so far! Then again Yukinaga is supposed to be this kind of character who is constantly grumpy, annoyed and probably even growing a dick on his forehead because he's always pissed about Aki's positivity, cheerfulness, crossdressing and teasing attempts. Positiivisuus on perseestä. All in all this photoshoot was so different of what I'm used to – I was supposed to do derpy angry faces instead of serious angry faces!

After the photoshoot Joel had to go to the closest food store to buy something to eat and we tagged along as company and I was his sword-holder. Not too long after that we had to leave because Moonbeam's cosplay was still unfinished; she wanted to go home a bit earlier to have a chance of finishing it, before the whole con is over, so that she wouldn't need to pull sewing all-nighters. There wasn't that much to do on Friday anyway at the con –and we both were fairly tired from the long train journey– so we left to charge or batteries for Saturday.

Saturday

Aaah, Saturday morning. I didn't even have a bad case of morning lag, what happened? We had breakfast and then started putting on our cosplays. I took a bit less-of-a-forever than I thought I would with the eye makeup for Okita, progress! My wig had got slightly damaged during the travel but luckily Moonbeam had a wig head that I borrowed on Friday to put the wig on over the night. When I now put the wig on I noticed that the side pieces were crooked (yeah, that was the damage) and looked funny so I borrowed a straightener and then it was a-ok!
When everyone was done we got a ride to the con (except for Moonbeam and her assistant because she wanted to try finishing her cosplay so yeah, they stayed a bit longer) and pretty much the first thing me and Hasakitsuki did was to check the Dealer's Hall because now it was finally open! It wasn't on Friday. We spotted the table of the Japanese candy guy (yeah, best nickname ever lol) and Hasakitsuki bought candies for way too much. He had so much awesome stuff!

*beep*
Now it's time for an advertisement break. 
No, not really, just kidding! It's time for the generic con photos!





People made these small papers with funny texts and stuff!

This seemed so suspicious before it was revealed what it actually was... xD

That was the end of generic con photos. Con summary may continue.
*bleep*

Okay, back to the con. We just walked around for a while and at some point I was in so much pain I needed to go to the bathroom. I started feeling better after a while and we went to the food store to go buy some small things to eat. Because I had fake blood on my face (Okita happens) it was hard to eat without accidentally smearing the blood and so we got the wonderful idea to use a straw for all drinkable things and well, things that weren't drinkable Hasakitsuki ended up feeding me; Chizuru didn't mind too much, lol.


We barely had time to eat our Angry Birds chocolate puddings before the Desucon weather decided that it was time to kick in! Dark rain clouds were rolling in and the curse continued. Actually, it ended up raining more or less for the whole remainder of Saturday and so our much wanted photoshoot had to be postponed for a later con. Meh. Of course it has to rain on the main day – it's no fun otherwise. OTL Aah Desucon, we love your weather so...

At some point my feet started to hurt and so we went to sit down next to the rhythm/dancing games. Earlier Hasakitsuki had bought a doujinshi from the yaoi guy's table (Finns all know who I mean) and that included a rainbow flag; I was bored so of course I snatched the flag and fooled around ~

"Looking for a man ~" eiku xD
Khrmm. Yeah. Let's move on...
*cough*

Being pretty bummed about the rain we stayed inside and derped around for a while. Eventually we got hungry and needed more than snacks to silence our stomachs and so we headed out to get the obligatory Desucon pizza, aka let's raid the nearby Kotipizza.

What you mean everyone else had thought about eating pizza too?
Luckily we happened to get there just when the line was relatively small so we only had to wait about 30 minutes or something, in total, for our pizza. Because the place is small pretty much all the indoor tables were taken and it was too warm anyway so we took a table outside that was sheltered from the rain. Good thing we still had the straw so I could drink some coke without any problems, but when it came to the pizza eating Hasakitsuki gave me directions where to aim the pizza-filled fork (so that I don't shove it into the blood) and then it worked. xD

I don't remember exactly but at some point during the Saturday, I can't remember when, a guy came up to me and asked for my picture. He asked me later if the blood on my face was real/my own and I replied "no it isn't. If it was I would be dead" and he seemed completely confused and probably a bit creeped out by my answer. :)) It looked like he didn't know the character so that might explain why such a reaction. I'm not wounded, I'm supposed to be sick. Afterwards me and Hasakitsuki had a good laugh. xD
Oh oh oh! There was a group of Japanese tourists (or at least I assume they were tourists) at the con of which one of them who after having observed us from a slight distance for quite a while came up to us and asked for a photo. She seemed so happy, fangirly and excited that I could just have melted right back then! She took some photos and then proceeded to bow very deeply several times and thank us and ghjsajhgdhgjs;shkg I COULD HAVE DIED OF THE ADORABLE-NESS! ;A; Yeah, now that's a word. I tried to keep a sort-of-in-character face and just smile politely but inside I was bubbling and spreading everywhere like sparkly unicorn goo – definitely one of the best cosplay reactions I've had so far! I had glitter and hyper-happiness in my system for the rest of the con day because of her, hnng! TwT

Later we ate some yummy Japanese Pokémon candies bought from the Japanese candy guy of course that were a "you thought I was bubblegum? lolnope" edition. It was some kind of candy but it looked like those flat bubblegum sheets...

Pikachu candies!
And now some quick duo face photos taken by me, selfie-style!



This is the "try to smile and not look bad" pic. xD
We stayed and watched the Iltabileet (night party) a while from above and then we ran into Moonbeam and went back to her apartment for the night. There we watched some episodes of Vampire Princess Miyu anime before heading to bed. Ah, old-school anime...

Iltabileet dancers.
Sunday

On Sunday it was time for our school uniform Hakuouki cosplays. It's nice to have an easy cosplay for the last con day; it feels more relaxed, chill and comfy to move around in.
Our morning started like all con Sunday mornings do – laggy and slow. But at least I had my eyes still attached to my face, unlike Hasakitsuki, who had raisins in the eye sockets after her contact lenses were trolling. Oh and speaking of contact lenses, mine trolled too! On Saturday I had no problems with putting on my contacts (I wore the same lenses two days in a row) but on Sunday the left one decided to be a bitch; when I put it on it came off when I rubbed my eye and of course it had to fall into the sink! I took it out, cleaned it again and put it on and OH MY GOSH THE PAIN! It hurt like piss and I immediately took it off, cleaned it once more and put it back on. This time it was slightly uncomfortable but nothing that didn't go away after one minute or so. Oh well, save for the contacts I didn't have any other problems with putting my cosplay on... except that I took longer doing my makeup because I kept screwing up.

When we got to the con we went pretty early to have a photoshoot next to the dock area. We hadn't found a photographer so we just ended up taking turns photographing each other. The sunlight was pretty strong and this cast very dark shadows that made most of the photos turn out not quite alright. But at least we got a few okay ones...

Cosplayer & photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita)
Photographer: Hasakitsuki



Selfie style, taken by me.
After the shoot we went back inside the con and walked around a bit; we spotted Anniilaugh, whom we had seen already on the earlier days, and she mentioned that she had been taken into the Hall Cosplay competition and ended up winning the whole shit. I congratulated her because her cosplay was ultra amazing and for me it's no surprise that she won! Anniilaugh asked if we had watched the Sunday cosplay competition because there had been an awesome Pokémon sketch thing. When she mentioned that it included Digletts I realized it was this "mystery Pokémon thing" that was mentioned in the Exciter's Momentum blog of which I had been curious about! In her company was a girl who had recorded the Diglett sketch and so we watched it (without sounds, because no sounds) and I laughed my ass off – oh god it was gold! XD It seems that it was recorded and uploaded on Youtube and I'll totally go watch it with the sounds later. I did get explanations though what music was playing when and stuff but still, it was hilarious! Wish I had gone to see it but I had honestly forgotten all about it. ;_;
Oh well, later we ended up in the Dealer's Hall again and Hasakitsuki bought herself another eyecandy doujinshi from you-know-what-seller. We also bought our very first Ramune soda; I've wanted to try one ever since I started going to cons in 2011 and now I just couldn't resist anymore despite being well aware that Ramune are quite pricey. We picked a litchi flavored one and went outside to drink it. We had a short battle, including "how do you open this thing, the instructions don't work!?!" awkward moment, but eventually we put our Ramune-noob heads together and solved the mystery! I must say it was surprisingly good!

Ramune feat. Okita plushie!
Hasakitsuki even bought some ice cream.
I don't remember exactly when but I had promised to photoshoot Moonbeam's Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon) cosplay and when I went to find her I found FankiKitsune in her company as well. I didn't know they were friends so it was a pretty cool surprise because I knew FankiKitsune before I met Moonbeam, haha – the world is small! :'D
When we were photoshooting at the dock area there was this one guy cosplaying Finland from the Scandinavia and the World comics and he went into the water and swore in Finnish and did other beautiful things. When he had been in the water for a while he started walking towards the shore and then he slipped in this hilarious looking way, you know, like that "banana peel slip" that happens in cartoons! Basically, when you fall on your ass with your legs straight up! xD So yeah, he slipped on the shore and two legs were poking straight up from the water and then he was swearing again, just like the character is supposed to. It was gold!! *laughs* And then he came up to us asking for a hug while being completely soaked – "Give a hug to the land of a thousand lakes, perkele!" x) But yeah, while I was at it I did a quick photoshoot for FankiKitsune as well – he was cosplaying schooluniform!Hitsugaya from Bleach

You see, because we both were cosplaying school boys we took a photo together!
Later we ran into Joel again, after having magically managed to not see him at all on Saturday. I asked if he could possibly photoshoot us again but he said that he had to leave soon so it didn't work out. On this moment we were hungry so we sat down on one of the tables inside and ate one of our provision triangle sandwiches. There wasn't much time left of the con and before we knew it some staff member came and told us to start moving outside in 3-2-1-now – basically making it clear that Desucon 2014 was over. I haven't been in any other con in a while where I was so eagerly chased out after the clock had struck the last minutes... *shrugs*

Snack time!
We noticed a little prior to being chased out that Ri-kun had come to sit down on the table behind us and I asked, once more, if they could possibly photoshoot us outside. The answer was positive and so we headed outside to shoot during the con's final minutes! There was a nice small park-ish area just next to the con that we deemed fit for a school surrounding.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita) & Hasakitsuki (Chizuru Yukimura)
Photographer: Ri-kun
Photo editor: Valkoinen Samurai 









Bonus pic!

Chizuru: Okita-san, give me the chocolate please!
Souji: Then you have to catch it ~
I must say that I'm overly pleased with this photoshoot; we got surprisingly many good ones! Ri-kun's photography skills definitely leveled up since last time! Yay!

If we bundle it all up I must say that all in all Desucon was as enjoyable as ever! It went by way too fast too, haha. It's just a shame that Desucon has its notorious weather curse always occurring...

Oh, and as per usual here is a con video consisting of photos I took during Desucon. If you want a photo leave a comment on my blog here or on the Youtube video.


That's about it. Thanks everyone who was with me during the con for making it a great experience, even all those peeps who came to ask a photo or just swap a few words! Desucon 2014 was a success!
Oh, and if anyone happens to have photos of me from Desucon I'd be happy if you sent them to me! :D My email can be found to the left of my blog as usual. Thanks!
But now I'm off!

...
......
Or no. 
I'm not off.
There is still something waiting for you. 
You know what it is? – Good.

... 
FINAL SUPER SURPRISE BONUS PICTURE, PERKELE!

There went my night's sleep...
That's it for now, really! Next up I'll be seen at Skecon in Skellefteå, Sweden! 
Hold on and see you!