New kimono for Saitou!

I bought a new solid black vintage kimono for Hakuouki's Hajime Saitou weeks ago but I've not tried it on until now. I think me gusta mucho!!

I put it on, along with my juban (also authentic), a white sash and le Saitou wig and went to take some photos. I didn't put on the scarf or any extras because they would just block out the kimono which is the thing I'm trying to showcase here. xD
Excuse me the photos are mirror style (home alone..) and I look like a trainwreck because I have no make-up on except that I darkened my eyebrows slightly... truth is, I've not even had breakfast yet even though I woke up a few hours ago. lol

Notice how far down the sleeves reach with my hand down.
Also the juban doesn't peek out from the sleeves.. which is some sort of awesome considering it's a very common kimono kitsuke problem and is not desirable.

Kimono wingspan. It's awesome! <3
It's rare vintage kimono have sleeves this long.. aka not far from perfect wingspan. :')

This kimono has a nice front overlap.
And I notice I might need a longer sash... xD

Side shot

 With the earlier kimono (which was also vintage) I had the problem that it was not very wide.. which would result in me flashing my legs while walking in anything quicker than semi-snail pace.. along with some other things. But this new kimono is wider, no more do I need to worry about having my legs showing while sitting or walking.

This is just to show how much apart I can keep my feet without showing the juban/my legs.

This new kimono is superior in almost every aspect: better length (aka pretty much my ideal kimono length), better width, longer wingspan. Also this kimono's silk has a solid surface which in a way is more accurate because Saitou's kimono doesn't seem to have any texture to it. My other kimono is tsumugi silk; tsumugi is woven by unevenly spun silk thread so it has texture and is always informal/casual because of its humble origins; Don't think it's actually appropriate for Shinsengumi 3rd division captain lol. But it is cool too and whether or not you want a kimono for cosplay with textured or solid silk (or other fabric, but silk is most common when shopping vintage and vintage = cheaper) is kinda personal preference anyway I guess. I like both.

I will be wearing this kimono for Saitou from now on because of the advantages I listed. But there is one thing that can be a problem - this new kimono is hitoe, meaning it is not lined unlike the other one. This means if I want to cosplay Saitou to a late autumn or winter con it will be cold. The white juban is not lined either so it wouldn't really add much extra warmth. I will have to use my other kimono for the colder months but otherwise this new one will be the default to wear.

~Autumn's Last Breath~ Hajime Saitou photoshoot

Yesterday me and my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli decided to have a cosplay photoshoot outside in our yard and in the area nearby. Almost all leaves have fallen and the first snow came a few days ago but it melted away; we had morning frost on some parts of the ground yesterday. It was around 0 ºC outside but we managed.. somehow.. although during the last 15 minutes something I couldn't feel my fingers.. but what won't you do for cosplay?

So I decided to cosplay Hajime Saitou from Hakuouki because I feel I don't have so many decent photos of that cosplay.. also he is one of my favorite characters to cosplay because we have so very similar personalities.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

(I took this photo)

 And then two photos on which I played with some light effects~

OH WHYYYYY is my fav photo always blurry? *tableflip*

And lastly some photos I took myself at the rowanberry trees; my photographer couldn't get a good angle because I was standing on a higher surface than he was and he is shorter than me.

And that's the end of the Saitou photospam for now. We had a lot of fun even though it was so cold after the sun had set, aka during the later half of the photoshoot. I REGRET NOTHING! Of course at one point we went inside to get some stuff and to warm up and mom came and raged. "Oh no you two don't go out again, don't you have enough photos already? You're gonna get sick!" lolnope~ We ignored her warnings coming from the kitchen and ninja'd our way outside. U MAD MOM?

Weekend BRS Saitou photoshoot

Bakumatsu Renka: Shinsengumi Hajime Saitou photoshoot. Me and my twin decided to spend last weekend on cosplay photography, hueheuehe. It was fun although my feet got bit twice by some... insect... and it itched so much... me no gusta cosplaying characters without tabi socks in a forest-ish yard. ._. Oh, and my obi got loose during the shoot, lololo I'm happy it didn't fall off. LOL

Model: Valkoinen Samurai
Photographer: Jäätynyt Enkeli

BONUS PIC!

I HAZ A LIGHT SABER KATANA!!1 8''DDDD

That's all for now, more photos will be uploaded to cosplay.com over time ~

Tracon 7 - Chicken nuggets, bunk beds and train fails

Sorry for this slightly late Tracon summary post, let's get on with it.

My journey to Tampere actually started already on Thursday 6th September because I and Jäätynyt Enkeli had decided to carpool with some other congoers from Oulu. It was soooooo much cheaper than going by train.
The driver picked us two up from Kemi 12:00 and then we drove to Oulu where we picked up two other con people. I soon opened up to these new people and the car trip was rather enjoyable.
At night we arrived to Tampere city, got lost but then found our way to the right sleeping place. It was some kind of campground with some small cottages one could hire. When we got to the campground I got the impression that only 4 people were allowed to be in each cottage, so at first there was some talk that me and Jäätynyt Enkeli might have had to use some mad ninja skills to get a bed to sleep on.. but luckily there was no one checking the amount of people passing to the campground at least not that late so it was safe, ahaha.
I must say it was COLD inside those cottages... but maybe that's because I picked the bunk bed right in front of the door. Not the smartest choice. *shrugs* Oh well, I solved that problem by sleeping with my clothes on... and a scarf. It was extra cold too because I didn't have any duvet covers.. no one told me I needed those...

Friday morning finally came after a rather cold night (but it was cheap so I can't really complain) and I woke up and decided to eat my breads I had made yesterday for the carpool. I was worried they might have gotten moldy already but they were still fresh.
After breakfast I played some on my Nintendo DS and then everyone wanted to go to a foodstore to buy coffee and whatnot. After the foodstore trip me and Jäätynyt Enkeli got a ride to Tampere's train station where we awaited Ri-chan's arrival. Ri-chan soon came and we then started our trip to the Omenahotel. This time we had the one Omenahotel farther away because we were pretty late on booking. (last year me, Ri-chan and LittleOcean had the closer Omenahotel with the emocorner. <3)
We got to the hotel and later Mira-kun finally showed up, yay everyone is here! 
The rest of Friday evening was random hotel derping.. until it was time to go to bed. We didn't find the duvet covers for the two extra beds so we decided that everyone sleeps in the double bed! :'DD Well, it was an experience in itself, ahahah. Buuutttt. Being that close to 4 people soon turned on the sauna effect, not to mention it felt pretty crammed and whenever I managed to find a comfortable sleeping position a certain someone was moving around my legs so I always woke up.

At one point I decided I needed more room to sleep so I migrated over to one of the pillow-less and blanket-less extra beds. Again, it was cold. But I slept anyway.

Saturday morning came and when I woke up I noticed Mira-kun sitting at the table while everyone else was still in their beds. Oh well, we had our breakfast and then it was time to put on Saturday cosplays, Tracon's first day! 8D

I cosplayed Hajime Saitou from Bakumatsu Renka: Shinsengumi.

Tracon studio photo by Emilia Lahtinen.

Saturday was a rather rainy day... con weather brought to you by Desucon. lol
Most of the day our hotel group hung together and derped but we bumped into familiar faces too!
Around lunch time something we decided to go search for the ramen restaurant Hanabi. After a lot of searching we found out that it didn't exist anymore.. and I think a part of me died. No more Shingen Takeda ramen or Oda Nobunaga ramen. (yes, ramen dishes were named after famous historical persons, it was fucking epic)

I HAD BEEN LONGING TO EAT AT HANABI SINCE LAST YEAR

Oh well, we went to a Chinese restaurant instead and then we went back to Tracon. Back at Tracon, the usual wandering alone and looking at everything continued. My usual con routine because I'm too lazy to attend panels (not interesting enough and if it's something that would interest me there's one hell of a queue...) and I mostly go to cons to spend time with my friends.. even though I end up only walking around until either my feet dies or my back breaks. lol
Our hotel group decided to leave Tracon a bit earlier than usual because everyone more or less was in some kind of pain and we decided that we had already seen what there was to be seen today.. and we wanted to spend time hotel derping again. XD Although this night everyone slept in their own beds.

Sunday arrived and it was time to put on the Hakuouki cosplays! For some reason our Hakuouki group always decided on Sunday being the Hakuouki day and that also makes Sunday the main day for us. The day you look forward to the most. So yeah, on with the cosplays and it was time to dress up as Isami Kondou!

Tracon studio photo by Emilia Lahtinen.
Me as Kondou, Mira-kun as Okita. <3

 We had to take all our luggage with us to Tracon and check out. It wasn't so cool because my body decided to be weak as fuck already on the morning, before I had done anything WHAT_THE_FUCK again and trigger a lung derp. Wonderful. OTL Big thanks to Mira-kun for the help dragging my (and Jäätynyt Enkeli's) shit (aka luggage) to the con. ;A; <3
Oh well, we got to the con and soon we were trying to gather all our Hakuouki cosplay group members so that we could enter in the Välähdys cosplay photo competition. After that our group split into smaller groups again and I was hanging with Mira-kun, Ri-chan and Jäätynyt Enkeli, just like yesterday.
At one point I heard my phone ringing, it was one of those carpool congoers I had traveled with. She said they will leave 15:00. Earlier there had been some talk whether or not one of the two cars (aka the one me and my twin would take) would leave the con 17:00-18:00 but it seemed it got changed to 15:00 in the end. I think I died a bit again. Especially because this meant that I would miss the planned Hakuouki cosplay shooting and I would miss precious time to hang around with my friends whom I likely would not see again for the rest of this year...

Oh well, nothing to be done about it. I couldn't just go and take the train because it would have cost me an arm and a leg. 3 hours of extra con time is maybe not exactly worth 80 € after all. *sighs*
So the last minutes our hotel trio walked around Sorsalampi and we just had to stop to take a few quick shots like this one before we continued over to the other side to say goodbye to Jäärä, Zkitsune, Yamachu, Little Ukeboy and the rest. But. When we got there they decided to do a mega quick ALL TOGETHER NOW Hakuouki shoot. I'm so happy. <3 But I was stressed out because I knew those people were waiting for me and my twin and when we "finished" I ran like a mofo back inside. Lungs didn't like it, ahaha... It felt awesome when I noticed an Okita and a Saitou following. Totally warmed my heart. <3 We met up with the carpool people and I went and changed my Kondou wig into my Saitou wig because it was easier for travel and then I decided to take off my hakama too for the same reason. After that we left the con area, walked a bit to the cars close to the graveyard with Mira-kun and Ri-chan following even the last bit. Awwww. ;A; Some sad goodbye hugs ensued and the car was rolling........... to McDonalds. CHICKEN NUGGETS. IN THE CAR.
And then the journey up to Oulu started for real.
   On Sunday night we were at Oulu and me and my twin slept at one of our maternal aunt's place again because any trains to Kemi didn't go that late.

Monday morning came, we packed our stuff and Jäätynyt Enkeli went outside to meet up with one of the carpoolers because he had forgotten our train tickets in the car yesterday.
We got the tickets and headed straight for the train station, thinking we would be there just in time. When we got there and I looked at the train departure list something felt a bit off. I couldn't see our train's number anywhere... AND THEN I NOTICED THAT IT HAD DEPARTED ALMOST A FUCKING HOUR AGO. I HAD REMEMBERED THE TIME WRONG AND WE COULDN'T HAVE CHECKED IT EARLIER BECAUSE WE GOT THE TICKETS ALREADY TOO LATE.

I felt like I wanted to kill anything that moved when we stood there at rail 3 and waited for the next-to-depart Rovaniemi train's conductor to appear so that we could ask what the fuck to do now. The conductor came and we explained the situation without going into details and he was all "lol you can change the train tickets to this train."

BEST DAY EVAR

So yeah, we went inside the train, the conductor came and changed our tickets like nothing had happened and we went on our way to Kemi. It is during times like this when you are so fucking happy you bought the (more expensive) standard train ticket instead of the (cheaper) advance ticket because seemingly the standard ticket allowed for changes... just in case you miss a train like we now did. It saved us money in the end. <3

All's Well That Ends Well ~

HHHHHHHHHHHHHANSKA

hanska = glove (in Finnish)

And it's done!

How I made it? Well, I took some pattern paper, spread out my hand on it and traced out an exaggerated mega-sized version of my hand. Yes, it looked ridiculous and I laughed until I cried.

Then I just cut the pattern out, put it on top of this.. err.. is it called PVC fabric or what in English? I dunno, it's not leather but it has a slightly similar feel, it is shiny and it doesn't fray.

Whatever, I cut out a front and a backside glove 'prototype'. 

Cut out

Cut finger spacings and just sewed the glove together, leaving the finger holes open for obvious reasons. Then I turned it right side out and tried it on.

I must say at first when I was trying to get it on it felt like I had made it too small.. but after some time and struggling I got it past the narrow part and then it... well...

If this is supposed to be a glove I'm a fucking whale shark.

Yeah, just like that.

So.. to get back on track. I cut the glove fingers shorter and then it looked like this:

Better... but still rather fugly. (note the 'bump' and retard looking thumb)

So I went and took it in a bit and reformed the thumb opening and placement slightly and then I had got something that I finally could call a 'glove'.. without feeling like I was trying to fool myself.

Not perfect, it's still a bit bunchy but it's decent enough ~

Remember that I mentioned earlier that this was a 'prototype'? Or well, supposed to be more like a try-out. Well, it turned out better than I had thought in the end so I didn't bother to make another. xD This one was fine after the modifications.

And this means that my Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi Saitou cosplay is now ready for debut at Tracon, AWWWWWWW YEEEEEEAAAAAA!!

This is probably going to be my last blog post before Tracon so, well, see you there!!

Gloveless Saitou test

As you might know I finished my shirt for Saitou yesterday and.. err.. I got home early (because the only class I had, psychology, well, the teacher was away.. so I went to school for nothing and I couldn't do my plan B geography leftover task either because school's internet hung itself all the time.. so I just got fed up and went home, derp) and decided to quickly try on what I had ready for Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi's Saitou.. basically everything except the glove. lol

So, here's my share of derp for now ~ (sorry mirror photos..)

Excuse my lazyness which led to no make-up, except on the eyes and eyebrows, obviously.

That feeling when YOU ARE TOO !!MURSU!! PERKELE to tie a proper musubi.. OTL XD
(aka the ends escape under the obi while they should be slightly visible)

Rather herp but only full-body pic that I managed to take which wasn't terribly blurred..

Obligatory face photo...

SILLY POSE PICTURE! >8D

And then I went to take some photos outside. Notice how the wig is actually blue-black. It is mostly black but has some specks of blue blended in; I didn't want to have a jet-black wig, I thought this looked nicer on me while still being a good color for the character.

I probably won't have time to do a 100% completed cosplay preview (read: proper make-up, shoes and glove) before the con so this will have to do for now. Hopefully I'll have a photoshoot of this costume under or after Tracon. I CAN'T WAIT AGDHJSAGJHFDS TRACOOOOOONNNN ~