London calling! And EuroCosplay!

It's only few days away! I can't believe it! But surely it will happen and I have been updating my costume with new boots, jewelry and few other things I didn't have time to make before. Over all, I'm really happy how the costume now looks and feels! I will write whole lot after ComicCon, because I think I will have so much spare time that I really don't know what to do with it...

I should be packing and panicing, but I just wanted to stop by and thank everyone who have encouraged me during this project! If I could only hug you all, I surely would!

But of course the biggest thanks goes to Yoki, my dear sister and supporter. She will carry camera around at ComicCon, so we might actually update our Youtube after long radio silence in few weeks.

I also want to send special thanks to Emilia Lahtinen and her assistant, who photographed my costume at Tracon 8. Thank you!

I got asked about the previous entries of the costume and thought it would be nice to share links to them. I announced the costume in February and made few work in progress posts from the jewelry (actually two), the first boots I made and a general one. I had a photoshoot for the underclothes before the qualifiers and also wrote a report from Desucon.

Costumes, costumes everywhere!

I'm desperately trying to pack all the costumes for the weekend, but it seems like a mission impossible. How come there is so much of… everything!

I also have some costume parts waiting to be finished, but this time I’m not the only one for a change! Earlier I mentioned that we might have addition to our group and it seems like it's actually happening! Our mom has been making her first cosplay costume ever and faces exactly the same problems as we and almost every cosplayer do before a convention. Yesterday she mumbled that she will leave the hand-stitches to be done at the hotel on Friday evening. It sounds just too familiar! She stated that she now has more understanding regarding costumes that are finished only a day before.

Even if our mom still has few things to do we were able to try the costume on. Now I can reveal that the character mom is cosplaying is Chi-Chi from Dragon Ball Z. The version we chose is from the very last episodes, in which Chi-Chi is a mother and a grandmother, which fits just perfectly! We, Dragon Ball Z and mom also go way back, but from that she will possibly tell on her own entry.

So, the packing chaos is mainly caused by the five costumes we are going to take. On Saturday I will debut Yuma, Yoki will have a second round with Kulo and mom is naturally Chi-Chi. On Sunday I will portray Amira and Yoki will try on Luminara’s odd headpiece and try to survive the long hems of a Jedi master. Not the most compact costumes, but thank goodness we have a car where to stuff everything!

Now I will head back to paint fumes. See you soon, Tampere!

Late report from Animecon X

Animecon X was held in mid July at Kuopio Music Center. It’s been about five years since our last visit to Animecon or rather Finncon/Animecon multievent, which made our trip rather nostalgic. We travelled to Kuopio by train, which set some limitations to what costumes we could pack for the weekend. We tried to travel lightly, since we’ve had our complications with trains and piles of luggage. Years back we forgot our kit with all our make-up on the shelf. Thank goodness Yoki realized that we missed one bag the moment we stepped on the platform and rushed back in to get it.

We both had one costume each for the two-day convention. I wore the school uniform I made for Saya and Yoki chose Kirlain Fuyu Jaw're, a character from Varjella. For Fuyu Yoki left out the white robe she wore at Desucon Frostbite, which is like a representative outfit for members Kirlain family. This light version was summer version of a sort and it indeed lived up to its name.

Animecon weekend was full of sun and heat. Even my uniform was hot to wear. Although the weather made cosplayers suffer it allowed the new outdoor photo service, which really was a nice change even if it required more work from the photographers and the assistants.

 Photos: Santtu Pajukanta

As a venue the Music Center was rather... confusing. It was suprisingly hard to navigate around even with the booklet. It was odd, because the building itself wasn’t that big to begin with. It took me about three to four strolls around the place until I got hang of it.

The Quests of Honor were Spoony, DJ Sharpnel and Benzaie, returning quest from last year. The program itself varied from Moomins to Japanese horror stories. I think that Animecon X was a convention where we spent more time at panels and lectures than in any other event in past few years. Usually we are occupied with competitions or some other cosplay related activities.

The highlight of Saturday was undoubtedly the anime concert. Kuopio’s Symphony orchestra with Atso Almila performed on the main stage playing different anime themes and songs for hour and a half in the evening. The concert was good despite the video clip weirdness, which hopefully will be fixed to match the orchestra’s efforts in the future.

The opening piece was Lugia’s song from Pokémon- Power of One. It truly brought up memories accompanied with few tears. But I dare to say that I wasn’t alone with my feelings. Some of the pieces were not that familiar to me, but when the theme of Noir started I think I stopped breathing! In all, I couldn’t think a better way to end the evening.

On Sunday we managed to have a small photoshoot at the nearby park, went to see few lectures and the show cosplay competition at the concert hall. The performances varied a lot, but the top was easy to pick from the bunch. I was so happy that our seats were so close to the stage that I was able to see facial expressions of the competitors. Especially the winners! It was so enjoyable to watch so effortless and natural performance.

In all, Animecon was nice and carefree weekend spent in good company… with hotel breakfast! The next stop for us is going to be Tracon at Tampere. Greetings to the hosts of the entertaining panel discussion at Animecon about cosplaying and parents; we might have one cosplaying mother in August! Our mother has always been a supporter of our hobby (when she got over the fact that our work room will never be totally organized ever again) and few weeks ago she opened a discussion: “Could I wear something else than just regular clothes for chance?”

Animecon is closing in

For first time in years we managed to pull ourselves together and attend to two summer conventions. We both had this particular weekend free and couldn’t think anything better to do. Animecon is just few nights away and we are… ready! Okay, almost ready since we still need to sew few wig clips.

With characters we chose the easy road and decided to recycle. Yoki picked Fuyu, who she portrayed the first time last spring at Desucon Frostbite. The costume includes a full length linen robe, but Yoki left it out because we are going to travel to Kuopio with train for change and linen and tight packing don’t mix. I'm afraid that also the staff seen in the photo below has to stay at home, because our ride back will be even more cramped.

Photo: Esa Ala-Petäys

I chose Saya from Blood+, but the wig is basically the only part I’m reusing. Everything else I sewed during these last weeks. I have always dreamt of making a school girl costume someday and now I managed to fulfill that dream! Saya's high school outfit contains dark pleated skirt, white shirt and red bow.

I also made the school bag for Saya based on what I could get out of the design from few frames in the anime episodes. I think it’s always better to have character loyal item to carry your stuff in and it was actually my turn to be the item holder... And I love bags.

With Saya I also was able to craft new teeth the similar way I made our troll teeth last year. I accidentally deleted the photos from the making process even if I had thought of writing an entry about them. Now with new photos I can correct my mishap in the future.

We are really looking forward to this weekend! There is so many programs we want to see and we both have carefree costumes and I'm going to bring my camera and try to recall how to take photos and it's going to be nice weather and nice people and hotel breakfast... I could go on forever, but maybe I continue after the convention. See you at Animecon!

Desucon 2013 and ECC qualifiers

Photo: Katariina Ihalainen

It’s been almost two weeks since Desucon, which was held for the fifth time at Sibelius Hall, Lahti. For me it was hands down the best Desucon ever! I competed in EuroCosplay Championships qualifiers as Amira Halgal from Otoyomegatari and placed first, which means that in October I’m going to represent Finland at the finals at London Comic Con!

I’m still slightly confused, but really happy and proud what I managed to achieve. I can only thank the judges, the competition manager and the crew, audience and all the fellow hobbyists at Desucon, who complimented my costume or just wanted to share few words before and after the competition. You have no idea how big impact your words had and still have. Seriously, I’ve been reading Tumblr notes and all sorts of blogs these past few weeks with a tissue box. But the biggest thanks I have to save for Yoki, who was my support, critique source and assistant during the making of the costume and at the competition itself.

In this post I’m going to go through our days at Desucon costume-wise. First I could actually tell what we even wore, since we didn’t reveal the costumes beforehand like we usually do. This was because we decided on some of them only a week before Desucon. In the end we packed six costumes. So six costumes with accesories and amount of stage props, which could easily decorate a small living room and everything should be fitted in one car!

By the way, the photo was taken at a point where we still had my suitcase and one suit bag left. And three human beings. In the end we were able to squeeze everything in with stacking skills trained to perfection with Tetris.

Photo: jesmo

On Friday we recycled Joxter and Muddler from Moomin. We debuted the costumes three years ago at Tracon. For second take at conventions, we didn’t need to do much with them, which was actually one of the reasons we chose them. There was so much going on at the last week that anything more time consuming would’ve been just too stressful. The other reason was that they were a nice pair of costumes just to keep at the closet.

Joxter got a new wig, because I couldn’t find the old one anywhere and Muddler had a facelift for his shoe… socks. Yoki took away the base shoes inside the socks and stuffed them with cotton to make them look and feel softer. And we had to take Muddler’s pants in five centimeters or they would’ve been in Yoki’s ankles if someone had stepped on the tail!

One thing to say about Desucon and our Friday costumes: Finns love Moomins.

On Saturday I was naturally Amira, since the competition was held that day. Yoki wore an original character costume from her story Varjella. The character's name is Kulo Halava.

Yoki chose Kulo, because the costume was really easy to move in and it was made from natural materials, which made it breathable despite all the layers in it. During Saturday I had Yoki as my personal cosplay assistant, which basically meant tying sailor knots on my underwear which were seen briefly on stage, bringing me liquorices and juice when I needed any, checking my costume for photos, setting the stage props before the show and just being there for support. These tasks included running, kneeling and all sorts of activities, which really required a comfortable costume.

In this costume version Kulo is in his youth, which means that for the adult one Yoki will update the outfit by adding embroidery and new props.
 

Photo: Tapio Matikainen

I'm going to make a blog entry about the competition experience as whole, but I might say few words about Amira. With the costume I was able highlight the strong points in my craftsmanship and create something lifelike and true. In all, I’m really happy with the costume and the performance had an impact I wished it to have!

Even if I’m really pleased with the outfit, I’m going to fix and redo some of the accessories, because I want them to be more authentic.

Photo: Matias Tukiainen

One of the six planned costumes dropped out from Sunday, because after placing at the qualifiers I wanted to wear Amira instead and have more pictures taken at the photobooth. The costume I had planned for Sunday was Miss Who, female version of the 11th Doctor. 

Yoki wore battle damaged Sio Imano, who is also character from Varjella. Yoki made the costume last year and debuted it at Tracon. Even if the missing arm gave her trouble during the convention, she survived the con well singlehandedly. Yes, pun intended.

Photo: Yumi

Five year old Desucon was great, even if our schedule was mostly cosplay related. The show competition on Sunday was something to see and it gave me chills and few tears also. The winning performance was just pure gold. Congratulations for all placed competitors and also to fellow contestants from Saturday!

Desucon, thank you!

My Desucon feelings exactly! Photo: Yumi

Desucon Frostbite within sight

First convention of the year 2013 is approaching steadily. Desucon Frostbite will be held at Sibelius Hall, Lahti for the second time in mid-February. We are going to recycle a bit and have two new costumes to debut. Even if our blog have hibernated through these cold winter months, we have been productive at our workroom!

First costumes are from Moomin TV series. Yoki will wear Snufkin, which dates back to 2008 and I’m going with my "new" Alicia costume. I’m currently adding some wefts to the wig to make it fuller and slightly longer. That is actually the only update the costumes need.

The second costumes are from different sources. Yoki is crafting an original character costume from her stories with white robe and blue capelet. She will also be wearing a white wig, her ultimate pet peeve. Thanks to my hoarding abilities, we had a perfect color and style on our storage for the costume. There is still work ahead with the undergarment, but I'm quite confident that everything will be ready in time.

I'm still not sure how my second costume will turn out or rather if I get one important component in time, so I'm going to get back to that later. But if everything goes well, the outfit will be cool!

Even if Yoki’s costume is still under construction, we were able to fit the robe. The pattern for the robe is altered based on our Snowtrooper dusters, only with different cut on the front and slightly wider sleeves. Yoki put on the robe and then suddenly… cosplay.

We both burst into laughter. With her new haircut Yoki looked exactly like a character from a comic book we’ve had for ages! Well, for twenty years or so. We had to dig up the comic for comparison. Does anyone else have weird moments with accidental cosplay?

Tracon, trolls and toddlers

Maybe it’s about time to write something about last weekend, which we successfully spent at Tracon with a party of seven. Seven! We overcame all obstacles and were victorious!

Tracon is an annual convention held traditionally at Tampere. This year’s convention was the seventh of its kind and the third one held at Tampere Hall, conference and concert hall near the center of the city. So alongside shops and grocery stores, accommodation is near. We literally had to take only few steps and we were at the convention area. We liked it, with the troll feet especially. Tracon’s program covers pretty much everything from role-playing games to anime and manga, with huge amount of cosplay from various sources. The quests of honor this year were Sandy Petersen (Cthulhu!) and Yasuhiro Nakura(Moomin!). For us, Tracon 7 was our fifth Tracon on a row, if I remember correctly.

This Tracon was bit different compared to the previous ones. We didn’t cosplay from the same series with Yoki, we had three generations attending to the convention; including me, Yoki, Thalla, his wife and two children and the Mom/Grandmom and I acted as a judge for the costume competition on Saturday. Also, Yoki participated on a demonstration for original costume designs on Sunday, for which I give two thumbs up! I hope that this kind of show will continue as a part of the cosplay program, so that those creative people, who give a form to their imagination by constructing a costume, usually sparing no effort, can have some well earned stage time. I don’t know if alternative or unofficial forms of characters could be integrated to this class somehow. Or would there be too many participants… Pre-selection maybe?

Over all the whole convention was a great experience. Loads of cosplay, great competitions and polite people, which really was nice since we had younglings with us. I have to admit that I was bit worried that a convention might be overwhelming with pram and lively two year old, but I was so wrong! Our two year old was so exited from all the life-sized stuffed toys that she wanted to hug each and every one. So big thank you to all the furries around! I bet you will not be forgotten.

Since I started to thank people, next big thank you goes to Iris, the person charge of the Tracon’s cosplay competitions and competitors and judges and… well, cosplay-everything. Thank you! For a first timer, the judging was a positive and a memorable experience. Also I could not have better mates to judge with. I, Lilian and Kizzy had weirdly enough really similar perspective to cosplay and I hope that we made the judging situation pleasant to the contestants, which was one of our goals. And if anyone wishes feedback from their costumes, just sent me e-mail on our address and I will reply from my personal account.

Part of the gratitude goes to the participants and everyone at the cosplay backstage. The competitions held at Tracon from the costume and show competition to the World Cosplay Summit preliminaries have been praised a lot, but not for nothing. Congratulations for all the ranked cosplayers!

I almost forgot our costumes! On Saturday we were troll siblings from World of Warcraft with Thalla. 

Yoki wore a costume from her original story, portraying Sio Imano both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday I strolled as Saya Otonashi from Blood+.

On Saturday, the kids were introduced to the world of cosplay in form of cute animal over-alls. I don’t know what kind of presents can be expected from the costume crazy auntie. Sadly, I don’t have a good photo of us all in costumes. We were standing in a rather dark corridor when we had the opportunity for group photos.

I’ll write a post about our troll costumes in more detail later on and spam some photos from the costumes. Also Yoki promised to write about her adventures in the field of costume construction.

Introducing Na’Gath and plans for Tracon vol. 251

It happened that I went blue today and asked Yoki to take some pictures of my latest cosplay. Meet Na’Gath, a carefree shaman based on World of Warcraft female troll. The garments are actual item designs in the game… I might have spiced them up a bit.

Based on the two hours I wore the costume, I say that this cosplay is rather comfortable, possibly because I chose a bodysuit over bodypaint. For the face and neck, which are the parts I had to paint, I used water soluble products from Grimas. I didn’t fix the paint and I could have concentrated more with the make-up, but in all it turned out quite well.

 

It doesn’t show up too well in the pictures, but I’m wearing a pair the blue fake eyelashes I accidentally found while looking for some bling to put on the pointy ears.

It’s possible that my costume will be the only one from the three we’ve been making that will debut at Tracon. It happened that first we had to drop the show competition because of unexpected setbacks and last week more followed. One of our trolls and three other party members might have to skip the occasion, but it’s quite alright. If we won’t make it to Tracon this year as a group, we will book another convention for the trolls next year. Thank goodness, there are so many conventions in Finland nowadays. 

But I and Yoki will be strolling at Tracon in few weeks for sure. Yoki will be portraying her original character design and possibly dig an older outfit from our costume crowded closet. For the first time we will swap costumes, as I have been thinking of wearing Saya Otonashi from Blood+, which Yoki wore at last Desucon. For the other day, my choice of costume is probably Na’Gath. Altough, based on the expession, Kuura seemed not to appreciate the troll in me.