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

11.16.2012 Project Idea!

      I've got a couple weeks before I can order the violet and dusty pink broadcloth for Patchouli, so I've been going through the fabric I have currently and deciding if there is anything I can do with it. I have enough felt left over from Cynder that I could probably make a jacket if I really wanted to and I also just have lots of scraps from fabric my mom has used in the past and scraps of my own fabric all in this large, purple tub.
     Whilst on my search, I found black crushed panne velvet (from a panda costume mom and I worked on for Halloween a few years back) and I found this upholstery/tapestry-like fabric which is a beautiful gold colour with a floral pattern that my mom had used to make Christmas stockings and a robe for a St. Nick doll a long time ago. The gold fabric has been around for quite some time but is nice and sturdy and the velvet is slightly stretchy so it'd be wonderful for movement.

      The crushed panne velvet ~ I'm glad I was able to get a shot where you could see the texture. It stretches in only one direction so if I were to use it and want that give, I'd have to keep checking the grain while I was sewing since I've never really worked with the grain in mind.

     The upholstery-type fabric ~ as you can see, it's a really nice Christmas fabric and looks great against our fake pine branch lol this is another fabric where I'd have to be more conscious of how I sew since I want the pattern to look nice. It's a bit of a free form fabric, but I wouldn't want it to look completely hectic and uneven.

      Finally, a look at what the two fabrics look like together! I'm still unsure if I have enough of the velvet to really do what I want to do, but I think I can search a little more and work with the patterns I have to get the best results.
     I really want to make a vest! Even if the textures and colours are more wintery, I'd probably wear it even in warmer weather with more spring or summer like pieces to offset the wintery/fall effect. The floral gold would be the front of the vest while the velvet would be the back so I could have a little bit more movement than I would if I managed to make the vest entirely out of the gold fabric. Hopefully I can begin work on this and come back with the results, especially since I can't work on my next cosplay just yet.

     Wish me luck ~

Spyro the Dragon: Cynder

     I was a humanoid adaption of Cynder the dragon from the Spyro the Dragon video games for Halloween while my friend was a humanoid adaption of Spyro. This was the first time either of us had done wings - she had her father's help while I did them myself and had his help later on. Her dad heated the PVC and bent the wings into shape while I cut the PVC into pieces and connected them with elbows. My downfall was not having the glue - while they stayed together at home, fast movement and the wind conditions on "release day" proved that they weren't sturdy enough without it. Before beggars night in my friend's town, her dad screwed the pieces to the elbows to give it a little more sturdiness

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                              (sorry for the image quality; most of these photos were taken from my phone)




     The horns gave me issues as well - the first set was made of Softee Dough and the next with Crayola Model Magic. They were glued to a headband at the base; the larger horns had a floral foam base while the smaller horns were baseless. They lasted through the evening on both accounts, I just know for next time to use model magic and definitely have a sturdy/sturdier base for all horns. My friend used Crayola air dry clay with a foam and wood base and screws were drilled through the headband and wood to keep them in place.
     The flesh of the wings and the tail were made of black felt and the lining of the wings was red costume satin - my friend had wire for the fingers while I went wireless just for ease of sewing and lack of supplies. I used a shirt I already had but made the coat and skirt - the base of the skirt was black broadcloth as was the outer part of the coat. The lining of the coat was more red costume satin and the mesh pieces of the skirt were black and red netting.

     Thank you to the photographers at the Ikasucon 2012 Rave - a few others took our picture, but these were the only two posted. This was the first time I had done the makeup for Cynder (and you can tell the claws on the wings weren't sturdy yet either; my friend's dad added wires to them for me later so they actually stood up). On beggars night, I tried something new and was much happier with it, but I wasn't able to get any shots that night either. I also had a black tank top for beggars night which made me feel much more comfortable along with red fishnet tights after being unable to find them for the rave.
     The wig I wore to the rave and for beggars night was a wig I received from a friend - I haven't a clue where she got it or for how much, but it came in handy to me despite how shiny it looks in some photos.

     Overall, I'm very pleased with the results - this was our first time doing something like this and it turned out rather well for a first attempt. My friend wants to remake most of her outfit - it turned out nicely, but some mishaps took place and rips kept appearing at the seams (costume satin is cheap and it really shows but on a tight budget it suffices).

Ragdoll Explanation

This isn't my first time using blogspot, but I completely forgot all my original information so it is best to let that original blog continue dust gathering hehh.

As a first post, I figured I would try to give a short (as short as I can make it lol) explanation about my blog name and what the whole deal with 'ragdoll prince' is.

To be honest, the prince part is just simply because most of the characters I draw are male and, regardless of gender, it is fun to dress and regard oneself as a prince.
Now, most see ragdoll and think of rag dolls the literal dolls, but that really isn't where I'm coming from with my choice of the singular word 'ragdoll'.

I was feeling rather creative a few years back, redesigning some original characters of mine when I began to think about their species. Originally, they had been wolf demons or something of the sort (I grew up watching Inuyasha lulul so lame I know) then I began to think about what I'd REALLY prefer them to be. I didn't want werewolves or vampires - already had those and they were very common anyway - and nothing else really seemed to fit my idea of who they were.
Thus began my musings on creating a completely new race for them to be. Yes, I'm sure with a bit of researching I could have found an existing species, but I was really wanting to create something for myself.

Ragdolls are a rather carnivorous species though they can live omnivorously like humans and such; it is a species that devours other species just like anything else in the food chain. They tend to avoid humans because they aren't much fun to lure in (it's an easy kill I suppose?). They appear a humans on a normal basis but do have true forms which requires the bones to shift, crack and move which is a painful experience.
When they HAVE to hunt, they use their bodies hormones to make themselves smell more appealing to their prey. They are also extremely sexual creatures so, if said prey is lucky, they may get laid before they die ;D

Ragdolls can survive on normal meats and vegetables (and even vegetables alone) and sometimes even blood as they do have some characteristics of vampires in that respect, it's just that eating certain creatures' flesh/drinking certain bloods increases their healing greatly. So it's always good to keep on those huntings, even if it's only once a month or so, just in case something hazardous were to happen to them lol
Now, these are some bits that are for my personal pleasure over making sense:

1.) Ragdolls can only die when they're heart is completely crushed or devoured etc etc but can continue living if their heart is out of their chest.
I could attempt to explain the last part, but, like I said, it is more for my pleasure than anything lol I figured if a vampire's heart doesn't have to beat, my ragdolls could technically live without hearts.
When other organs are removed, it is very painful - for example, if a ragdoll were to have their lungs damaged or removed for some reason, they'd be in agony until their lungs were healed or returned to them. As does it go for any other organ lol

2.) Ragdolls can change their sex. That is an extremely painful process just like their change into their full form as bones have to shift and crack to better represent the opposite sex. Just because they can, doesn't mean they will obviously - some just care to be one gender over the other and will only change into that opposite gender if their partner begs. As a species, they'll have sex with any gender (as mentioned early, they are pretty sexual as a whole lol) so the terms homosexuality and heterosexuality really don't make sense to older generations as it's all sex to them lol

Ahh so yes, to say that ragdolls are a species that changes to please, can be overindulgent and yet self loathing I think is a rather good ending point.
There is so much more I could go on about, but this was already boring haha

FYI my blog header is actually a quick sketch of one of my ragdoll characters that I just quickly edited for this blog - I found it fitting.

Thank you to all those who made it this far haha Sorry that my first blog post was so lame *0*