Ikasucon 2013

            Ikasucon 2013 has passed and I've been able to showcase my Beelzemon cosplay, winning a judge's award at the Ikasucon Masquerade. There were quite a few mishaps at Ikasucon right before the pre-judging that caused me to break into tears. Two of the fingertips to the gauntlets popped off then a shoulder piece came off as well – on top of that I was sweating to beat hell from having to book it down there from our hotel room only to find the judging was running a little behind. MY SWEAT WAS IN VAIN! Some very kind cosplayers let Taka and me go ahead of them so I could get out of my costume more quickly, but when we got in there I began to cry even harder and told the judges about how poopy I felt about everything. They were so nice and let me leave to get a new judging time and come back later when everything was put back together and I was calm. After about an hour of cooling off and fixing myself and my costume up, we scurried back and I felt extremely better about it all – it felt even better to have won something in the end through all my frustrations and tears! 

                 

 the beginnings of the helmet - looks like a basket lol

 just derping around with the tape while working on the helmet UoU

            

          

The Friday and Sunday of Ikasucon, I was Ion Fortuna from Trinity Blood – the Iblis Desert outfit. I didn't use a wig, though I will if I ever reprise it. I was originally not going to make Ion's outfit at all until I found out there was a Seth Knightlord cosplayer going who was told that I would be Ion. I didn't want to disappoint her and I'm so thankful I didn't because she looked beautiful and we are now friends because of it.

I'm extremely proud of this costume as it's my first Trinity Blood costume – I've been wanting to create different outfits from this series for a long time and, despite wanting to tweak this outfit and add/fix some small details, I can say I'm thoroughly pleased with myself! I've received wonderful compliments as well which just inspires me to continue to work harder and learn even more.

    

    

Cosplayer Nation was there and my friends and I were stopped by them for photos a few times and Emily, my friend cosplaying Seth, was even featured in a video! I happened to be there by chance when she was and had some video time with her haha. Taka and I went to one of the Cosplayer Nation panels right before the masquerade – we had wanted to give an interview since it had been offered to the panel goers, but we ran out of time (~UoU)~

On the subject of panels, Taka and I hosted a jrock panel the Friday night with what I feel was great success! A bit of mayhem happened – the presentation malfunctioned a bit, her laptop died and we forgot her charger (a friend ran up to the room to retrieve it), and we were set right next to a karaoke panel where they were, for lack of anything nice to say, loud. Through all this, the panel goers stayed with us, seemed to have fun and a few even befriended us! We learned that we should definitely have an 18+ panel simply because language is a hard thing to control – most people who go to a convention, no matter how young, use “bad words” but it's still something you have to watch when you're at a panel that isn't 18 and over. All in all, the panel inspired me to come up with more ideas for different panels and that's something I'm surprising myself with as it's not something I ever saw myself getting into.

There's so much more that went on, so many people that I've met and had a great time with. I'm more than excited for next year's Ikasucon even though it's so far away! At least there are upcoming events to keep my preoccupied lol

See Ya Later Space Cowboy
Hachi

Apologies for Absence

     I haven't had anything interesting to tell you all thus no posts. I've been working on commissions and will soon be charging ahead with my own costume. I don't tend to post work in progress photos, but I'll do my best to give you some idea of the work that went into everything I'm doing.


My current workload includes:
Harley Quinn from Batman inspired hoodie and shorts
Panty dress from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (Yes. Another one! Different Panty cosplayer this time around but still a friend lol)
Gatomon from Digimon - gijinka - (same friend who is cosplaying Panty) 

 A fur suit didn't sound appealing to any of us so we went with a gijinka version based off this image - if anyone knows the artist, please be so kind as to inform me so I may credit them!

     The main difference in this design is the change in hair - we're going with a short, white hairstyle instead of a long blonde one. I think it was due to ease of care throughout the convention we're all attending and of course what my friend wanted lol

Beelzemon hasn't gotten any farther - I've started the helmet but have been too afraid to carry on with the foam for fear of messing it up. I do have more flexible cardboard though so I might as well man up and go on with it lol


I've been trying to do more writing and artsy stuff though I never post my writing anywhere since I feel uncomfortable with people reading it lol



To see my art though, you can check either of those links - I go through spells where I don't post anything, but I do try to get something up before a year passes lol

deviantArt
deviantart will have some cosplay photos as well *clap hands*
y-gallery  



Well that's it really, boring boring boring


hooray for summer though *shake maracas*


Thanks for reading,

Hachi



 

Videos, Tutorials and Cosplay

     Yeah about those videos.... :/

     I have videos recorded regarding FOAF's upcoming plans and a tutorial/watch me do this makeup video for my own personal YouTube. I would have them posted already, but my phone, being the only source of high speed internet, says the files are too big and cannot be posted without wifi. I don't have wifi...thus my dilemma.
     For this blog, I'll probably do step by step in photos with pictures of my products which honestly will probably work out better for those interested than the video of me doing it. It took me about 6 and a half minutes and there wasn't much in the way of actually tutoring any of you. I sped it up to about 3 and a half minutes, gave it a little music track - I was pretty proud of it lol
   Anywayyyy ~ for the step by step photos, I'll be sure to take my time. I couldn't tell you why I rushed through it - I can speed it up so the video is shorter etc etc; I suppose it's just my own habit as I'm usually speeding to get ready as to not keep anyone waiting. The video I recorded may still be posted on my personal YouTube, but a nicer, more "professional"(lolwut) video will probably be done at a later date as well as more of my tutorial ideas being posted here photo by photo.

     As for FOAF (Freaks Of A Feather), as much as we want people to help make it a bigger group, it really has been just me and Taka (I guess that works out for Trinity Moon Commissions - our little duo work set up). We have had a decent amount of friends becoming interested in commissioning us and joining in on current and future plans which is great! Now if only they would give us a definite yes or no so we don't get too excited and too ahead of ourselves!
     Ohayocon 2013 is closing in and within the coming weeks, I will be purchasing fabric to begin work on Patchouli Knowledge from Touhou (along with Taka's fabric as she's a bit short right now; she'll be paying me back later). One of our friends has commissioned Remilia Scarlet and Taka will be taking that up while I talk to one of her co-eds about a Jet Black (Cowboy Bebop) cosplay for Whittcon in March. QUITE A WAYS I KNOW! But best to plan much too soon than much too late, right?

     After Touhou - Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, we want to work on costumes FOR Whittcon - Taka's probably going to do a Sailor Gijinka group with the "Remilia" as Sailor Zapdos (I believe?) and another friend as Sailor Moltres while she's Articuno. I wasn't quite sure I could swing that many costumes in a year as we hope to attend Colossalcon for the first time and are definitely attending Ikasucon 2013, I decided that I would work on the costumes we intended to wear for Colossalcon from the series:

     (~*^*)~ digimon!! As of late, Taka has been extremely excited to begin work on Sakuyamon from the Digimon Series. I was stumped for a while before deciding on Wizardmon (just this past weekend actually). The character has been portrayed with varying shades of hair colour so I was thinking of purchasing a burnt orange wig to be later used for Fujimoto from Ponyo. If I work on Wizardmon for March AND June, I'll be saving myself personal work AND money as I'll be eliminating one costume - an idea that has been increasingly appealing to Taka aside from the fact she's unsure she'll have the money to work on Sakuyamon around Whittcon time.

 

      I think the most difficult part for Wizardmon will be getting the small details like that of the inside of the coat and the zippers etc etc along with getting the hat to stand just so and have the cape cover my face in a certain way. I'm most worried about the designs on the lining, but that's to be thought upon on a later date ~
     I hope to be better with progress photos and fabric shots with Patchouli and maybe even Jet since I'm excited to work on him and will be asking around for help with the boots and arm, but until I get the fabric, I won't really be sure! Until then, I'll just keep telling myself to photograph progress so I can continue writing and hopefully review some wigs, fabric and maybe even contacts soon *^*

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt - Chuck and Brief too~

This is about a month late, but here is me with my Panty and Stocking group! I made the costumes for Brief (the ginger cosplayed by me) and Panty (the blonde cosplayed by a friend ~)

For the most part I used cotton or cotton blends, even with the protopack - it is sagging in this picture since I really wasn't sure of what I was doing; it was my first time really working with props.

Taka (my friend and fellow sprouting seamstress) made her Stocking costume (purple and pink hair) along with our friend's Garterbelt costume (afro lol). I'm pretty sure she used cotton and/or cotton blends as well lol

Finally, we have a humanoid Chuck who is actually a zipper dog in the series; our friend made her costume and the tail and ears herself - I think they came out rather well lol

Our Garterbelt is actually white lol Taka did most of his makeup while she, our friend who was Chuck and I all had a hand in the facial hair at one point or another ~ There were many compliments on his makeup and a few people in disbelief that he is caucasian lol

For Panty's dress, I used a simple halterdress pattern; I had to estimate measurements then finally take it in to fit her when she came for a visit. The dress was a birthday gift of sorts lol

With Brief's outfit, I used a hoodie pattern and a scrub bottom pattern - his design in the show is similar to Ghostbusters so the outfit should have been more like a mechanics uniform, but I had no pattern for that or really any general idea to go about it. I have, however, been given the advice to look for the Kwik Sew 3389 Pattern which is a jumpsuit I assume lol I intend to look this up in the future if I ever want to recreate Brief or just work with more jumpsuits lol
His protopack was made with an altered backpack pattern but next time I want to see what I can do with papier mache - someone who I was talking to before tackling the protopack had actually used a styrofoam cooler lol

Given the things we, as a group, knew could have been done better, we are still quite proud of ourselves as we received an honourable mention; it means a lot to us to get recognition for our hard work. I don't know what we plan to do for Ikasucon 2013 if we rally to go, but I hope we just keep working and improving (:

(photos aside from the first group shot taken and edited by me)

For a further look at Taka and what she does, venture here:

https://www.facebook.com/KagakuCosplay

For a look at our group work visit these:

www.youtube.com/user/FOAFproductions

www.facebook.com/TrinityMoonCommissions

Uuhuu

This weekend is Ikasucon 2012 and I've been working on two costumes, hotel booking, and just getting the money from all the people in our group to help pay for the hotel lol. I completely finished all the work for my costumes last night and bagged up the costumes in "garment bags" and have the backpack that I made sitting beside me. I do hope to post photos of MY costume, but I will certainly get photos of the bag and the dress that I made for my friend's birthday present.

I have a new camera - a model by GE that was about $170 all together for the camera, a new SD card, a camera bag and the warranty. I can return it in fifteen days so I can take all the pictures I want and, if I'm not satisfied with the results, I can trade or return for refund by the 18th - just enough time to go to Ikasucon and get home lol I don't think I'll be returning it, but it's great to have that for safety. I never knew GE made cameras and I did do quite a bit of research on it before deciding that I'd purchase this particular model (my first choice was a fujifilm but they didn't carry the one I wanted; they only had one that was $200 and I didn't have the funds for that lol). I sacrificed most of my spending money so I more than likely won't make any purchases at the convention but a new camera was truly what I wanted - my Nikon L20 was sufficient but the battery door snapped right down the center and wouldn't stay closed for anything. I could duct tape it and it'd somewhat work, but it just wasn't cutting it for easy use.

I hope to have quite a few decent pictures to post so I can do the cosplayers justice. I'll admit now that some fandoms I don't really like, but if I think the costume is good, I'll probably snap a photo of it.

Sorry for being silent so long - not too many people read my blog but if I kept up with it, there'd probably be more traffic lol I want to do more makeup and art supply reviews or tutorials. I'm not sure if these will go on youtube or if I'll stick to blogging instead of vlogging lol ahhh such is life.
I'm excited to actually be posting more so I hope that I can actually make it exciting lol