Earlier today I decided to check if I could find my old candy container Pokémon figure pokéballs.. and I did. Now I at least have some kind of fitting prop to go with my Falkner cosplay, yay! It's kinda hard to come up with poses when you don't have props.. I also decided that if Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan want to borrow a pokéball I'd lend them one each so that we all would have different but still matching pokéballs!
I thought that Jäätynyt Enkeli could use the Lure Ball (left) because it's.. well, blue, and kinda similar to a Great Ball which Silver has in this official art. Also it was introduced in Gen 2 of Pokémon so it kinda fits. Sairu-chan could borrow the Repeat Ball (middle) because it has the same color scheme as Erika whom she will cosplay. I would use the Heavy Ball (right) because it was also introduced in Gen 2 of Pokémon and it fits Falkner's color scheme somehow too.
Today I also finished Falkner's kimono style shirt. Not so much to say because it's really simple and straight-forward. I took some few pictures though.
I hemmed the arm openings, nothing special.
Cut out the collar pieces, sewed them together at one end so I got one long piece and ironed it.
Pinned the collar in place and started sewing..
Collar done
After I had hemmed the bottom. Finished.
That's it for today. One part of the cosplay finished, yay! And I love how my camera fucks up the colors. None of these pictures show the real color of the fabric, trolololo. Hopefully soon I'll start sewing Falkner's mini hakama.
On Monday this week I went to the post office and picked up my Falkner wig. It arrived some days earlier but I couldn't go get it then. I didn't have time to open and try it on until recently but I must say I love the color; it's this awesome mix of a lot of different colored fibers like different shades of blues and grays. The bangs could have been a bit longer but I don't mind because they're good enough (aka they cover my eye) and I was expecting them to be a bit shorter than what the character has anyway because this wasn't a wig specifically meant for Falkner or anything. XD
Now some try-on photos. I woke up pretty recently so I look like a mess.. oh, and I'm wearing my silk robe as usual.. I'm always wearing it on mornings and some hours before going to sleep. lol
Outdoor light
I don't feel a need to style it because it looks pretty good as is. It is very easily fluffable too so I can arrange the fibers, tease them and have them keep the wilder style without falling flat directly. I'm wondering though, should I roll with black eyebrows (like on photos) or should I go get something blue instead? I think black seems to look just fine but.. I'm not 100% sure.
First some background information. Absol is one of my absol-ute haha favorite Pokémon and I've been wanting and meaning to do a gijinka (human version) of it since 2010.
Official art of Absol
I drew my first gijinka version of Absol back in the start of 2010. It was basically a kimono style shirt with a fluffy collar, black gloves, a black sash tied in a ribbon at the back and white pants and generic black shoes. The hair was white and short (neck length) and layered with medium long bangs. Red eyes of course. Pretty boring right? Not so interesting although it wasn't really terribly bad either. At the end of 2010 I redesigned it slightly; the pants, gloves and sash were the same and the shoes were pretty similar too. But I changed the kimono style shirt into a keikogi (with the tie at the chest) but the collar was still fluffy. Also added a black headband and the white hair was slightly past the shoulders and smoother, medium bangs still. I had planned to make this second design for a long time until last week when I started thinking about redesigning my Absol gijinka for the third and hopefully last time because it still felt.. lacking and bland... and just not so interesting.
So today I sat down and redesigned it. I kept some of the earlier elements but instead of black I decided to go with dark blue because I read somewhere long time ago that it's body is actually dark blue but commonly mistaken for black by fans. I also added some details and stuff and I must say I'm very pleased with this new design. Now it certainly has some attitude and looks much more interesting than before. I won't show how it looks surprise surprise~! but I really want to cosplay it next year, if possible. Masamune will take a fair chunk of next year to complete. If I start working on it I will post the progress here and you all can guess what the final product will look like while I work ~
I attended Skecon in Skellefteå last weekend, 2-4 November. It was a small convention (they had 200 tickets) held for the first time and I must say it was very successfully arranged. Despite being small it was a very enjoyable con experience and I'm certainly looking forward for the next time it is held.
I'm sorry I didn't write this earlier, I've been a bit lazy and I've also been waiting to see if I could find some photos of one thing during the convention.. Oh well, now on to the con summary.
Okay so me, my twin Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan started our trip to Skellefteå on Friday morning. We woke up 07:00 Swedish time and put on our traveling clothes, took all our suitcases and shit with us and mom drove us to Haparanda town where she dropped us at the bus station while herself heading for work. We three sat and waited inside for the bus, which came 08:30. It was a Norrlandskusten bus, it's a nice dark blue double-decker. I think the trip took around 4,5 hours. My new (internet) friend Ninjah got on the same bus further down but I wasn't sure it was her until we were in Skellefteå bus station and I saw she was wearing her Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki) wig and had two swords wrapped in fabric. xD We all four then found our way to the Skecon building, aka the Efyran.
We got our con bands and soon decided it would be better if we went to the sleeping accommodation place (which was on a class room floor of the nearby school) to dump our luggage and shit. Everyone of us four changed into cosplays there. I cosplayed Falkner, Sairu-chan cosplayed Erika and Jäätynyt Enkeli cosplayed Silver, all from Pokémon. Ninjah cosplayed a hakama version of Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. We walked back to the con building and walked around a bit. Soon our "original trio" (aka me, my twin and Sairu-chan) found a nice blue painted wall so we decided to take turns and have a photoshoot of our Pokémon cosplays.
We mostly just chilled around and hung together and derped the whole Friday. The con atmosphere was relaxed, cozy and friendly and everyone seemed to have a good time. My favorite chilling place at the con was, without question, the bean bag chairs!! <3
"Life's tough being a Pokémon trainer" lol
I tried to take some self-photos just for fun but the (red) lighting was rather bad...
At one point we three went on a building exploration. We wound up in the Shimbukan dojo's "backside", aka changing-room-private-shower-and-sauna place where I noticed this sign someone had.. edited..
"såskopp" xD
It reads in Swedish:
"Please!
No shoes in the changing rooms.
It's easier to clean that way."
But someone added "-skopp" to the last word which changed its meaning to:
"It's easier to clean sauce cup"
I found it funny. Even though I think it was made before the convention. Oh well, we went back to the more main-ish part of the convention and derped some more. Walked around and stuff.. and of course I drank some coke.
COCA(INE) COLA :'DD
When we three started to get tired we headed back to the sleeping place. Ninjah stayed behind at Skecon and came to sleep later. Our trio went back seemingly rather early because we were the only ones in the class room we had picked. Well, good for us because I think I was on some sugar high thanks to the coke drinking combined with con excitement so that when we pulled out our sleeping bags.. well.. as soon as I got into my green sleeping bag...
METAPOD RAMPAGE!!
I don't even
My sleeping bag was named Metapod because.. duh, it's green. Sairu-chan's was Pinkpod (obviously it was pink) and Jäätynyt Enkeli's was Emo Kakuna because it was a mix of black and neon-ish orange. After the Metapod rampage I got exhausted and went to lie down on my place, on top of a fitness mattress. lol I can't say it was really comfortable.. at all. But it worked.. somehow. After we had finished talking about our cracky ideas like for example what Hijikata would hatch into if he slept overnight in Metapod... rasetsu anyone? XD
By the way this was the first time ever during any con when I slept at the sleeping accomodation place instead of at a hotel or at some friend's/relative's place. In Sweden and Finland anime cons pretty much always organize this budget option for congoers to sleep at some random school's floor or something like that.
Oh, and on the roof close to me there was a paper airplace which had gotten stuck.
Saturday morning came. Me, Jäätynyt Enkeli and Sairu-chan put on normal clothes, took our Hakuouki cosplays with us and walked to the con. We didn't wake up Ninjah because she was sleeping so peacefully. At the con we changed into cosplay because the toilets at the school was too small/narrow to allow for putting on hakama and stuff. I didn't bother to do any hardcore cosplay make-up because the con feeling was not the oh-mai-gawd-look-at-that-cosplayer kind and well, I was lazy.
Most of Sunday me and Sairu-chan just chilled in the bean bag chairs and occasionally wandered around. Actually, soon after we all had changed into Hakuouki cosplays I asked Chizuru (Sairu-chan) if she could braid my wig because.. Hijikata's hair is looooong and I wasn't very keen on having to make sure it doesn't tangle too bad for the whole day. She agreed ~
Braiding, braiding..
My expression.. xD
During 14:00 I went to the Shimbukan dojo (it's in the same building) to attend the "try-on" budo/martial arts. Me, having already practiced kendo for a few years (but for the time being I'm on a pause ever since I got a bad lung sickness last year's February..) went there anyway. I already knew all stuff they showed us and then we got to do the fourth kendo kata, the one with Hasso-no-kamae and Waki-gamae. I was feeling like a boss when I already knew all the movements. XD We also got to do a harai men on a person who was wearing kendo armor. After the quick kendo try-on we switched to kyudo. Just so you know, I've been wanting to try kyudo a long time but there are veeeery few clubs in Sweden and Finland so I've never gotten the chance. Needless to say when it was kyudo time I was all rhghjreghjfdshagjd and about to explode!! <3 Everyone who wanted to try got to fire three arrows with a beginner bow at some kind of white foam-ish target.. I have no clue what it was really. Of course one of the budo guys (it seemed like some of them practiced several different martial arts) gave everyone some guidelines how to stand, how to hold the bow etc. But seriously.. DAT FEELING when you fire an arrow for the first time with like a 2 m long bow-of-awesome.. it was so agjhfdgsha oh my god. <3<3<3 Sain ihan jumalattomat kicksit siitä. xD eiku One of the coolest things I've ever done ahaha. I did hit the target on my second try. I'm really sad I don't have any photos of my time in the dojo because I was there some hours and it was so damn awesome listening to Magnus-sensei's stories from their kendo club's Japan trips (some things which happened them in Japan were hilarious. I laughed so hard I almost cried many times XD) and his "ninja's didn't really exist" speech was very interesting, not to mention he also showed some jodo techniques and some moves with a naginata and stuff. It was so damn cool. We also got to hold this huge shinai and look closer on a sharp iaito katana. Me gusta mucho!!
After I had been there listening and laughing with Magnus-sensei and the other budo guys as well as the congoers who were interested my company came and was like "Hijikata-san we will go eating soon" and so I had to take my leave, haha. I'm sorry they probably waited for me all this time. :$ Oh well, all four of us made our way to the nearby Max - a Swedish hamburger restaurant. We sat in the same table and next to us was a kid family... the kids stared at us so damn much oh my god. But now for some shinsengumi hamburger time feat. Hijikata! 8D
DERP WARNING!
Hijikata eating fries!
I just had to put these photos together into a hamburger "comic" XD
Yah...
Enough of hamburgers.
We went back to the con and waited for the food coma to pass by in the bean bag chairs. That was when I heard an interesting sound coming closer.. it sounded like... geta... and then I saw a dude walk by with tengu geta (one-tooth geta) and I went
MOTHER OF GUSTA
I want tengu geta so much!! *grabby hands*
At some point we went to the room where you could draw, make pins and perler beads and stuff. Sairu-chan had to draw Buttman there after I had been insisting "I AM BUTTMAN" the whole con time. It was too much fun!
My idol. <3 err maybe not xD
And in case you have no clue what we are talking about: (Finnish only!)
Later during the evening maybe 30 minutes or something before the cosplay competition was about to start I noticed Sairu-chan was shaking. She said she was freezing so I gave her my shinsengumi haori. We started walking slowly towards the second floor where the cosplay competition was to be held and while sitting on a couch up there a man came and asked if we were going to compete. I said that we weren't and then he said something about that we couldn't be there because the competitors were practicing how to walk on the scene and stuff. I think I asked if we could sit there because Chizuru wasn't feeling good and he then asked if we wanted to go to the con's health care. The "con nurse" came and led us up the stairs to his little health care room. He asked some questions and gave Sairu-chan a warm blanket-ish thing and told her to take it easy and drink water because she had some temporary fever. When the cosplay competition started it got noisy so we migrated over to the first floor's café where it was calmer. Me and Sannan-san tried our best to keep her company and comfort her.
Luckily her fever seemed to go away (or at least her forehead wasn't hot anymore) after a while and she said she felt much better; the shaking had gone away. It was a relief. Now we did miss the actual cosplay competition but I don't really mind.. my friend's well-being is more important. <3
After Chizuru had recovered it was my turn to derp. I started feeling my breathing was fucking up slightly and I just generally felt a bit.. dizzy. HIJIKATA YOU CAN'T BE OKITA NOOOOOOOOO I dealt with it (after all I'm used to breathing screw ups ever since that bad sickness..) and when it got late we went to the place with blue wall were we had photoshooted our Pokémon cosplays yesterday. But this time we went to sit on that wooden table(thing?) which was half-way hidden behind that wooden screen.. thing. lol you see I get language block right now. OTL We ate some candy we had bought at Ica yesterday and took some last photos. I can't say we got anything sensible but oh well, here's some photos!
Empty coke bottle storage.. it was my RATTLE dammit!
I was tired.. and le wig is a mess
"Fuck this shit, it's hot here" *takes off haori*
Chilling together
And then the obligatory self-photos...
Soon after these photos we three changed back to normal gear and went to sleep. We had decided to not go to the con on Sunday because it ended early anyway and if we took the bus home on the morning we would be back home before it got dark. So on Sunday we woke up, packed our belongings and left while everyone else in the class room were sleeping. We headed to the Skellefteå bus station.
I saw this Skecon poster on the bus station's bulletin board thingy <3
We sat and waited for the bus to arrive. We were early so we had to wait one hour or so because the bus came 10:30 if I don't remember wrong.
I'm wearing my Saitou wig because of (really) bad hair day. I noticed some people gave me dem looks. Oh, and the bus driver said to me after Sairu-chan had gone into the bus (she was wearing her Ciel wig) "oh, you also have such cool colored hair. Why have you colored it like that? :D" and I was all
Because it was a wig and he thought it was my real hair..
I was so tired when we got on the bus so I slept most of the journey back. But. We had to change bus for some unknown reason (even though this bus wasn't supposed to change as far as I know) at Luleå bus station. The bus driver said that when we arrive there the change bus would already be there but when we got there the other bus wasn't there. He then said it would arrive behind the bus we had been in. So we stood and waited... in like 15 minutes or something and it was cold and we all were freezing. Our feelings:
Oh well. We got home and the trip was successful. I hope there will be more Skecon events in the future.
...
.......
.........
-Warning. Rant ahead-
Except that I got offended by some few people during the con who would call me "she" and when I or my friends corrected them by saying I'm a "he" (transgender) they would insist on correctingme.
I'm the one who knows myself the best. No one else has the right to define who and what I am, except myself. It's not my damn fault I'm born in the wrong body (and have yet to correct that mistake, I'm on my way though) so please understand or at the very least accept that not everyone and everything is what it might look like at first glance. If I correct you don't insist on correcting me, that's rude. You might not think it's a big deal but it's my identity in question and that is a big deal for me, I'm pretty damn sure no one wants to be mixed up with the gender they don't identify with. I want to have a right to be who I am and not be misgendered all the damn time. I've had to deal with it 19 years so you can guess how fed up with that shit I am by now. I just want to be seen as the person I really am.. is that too much to ask?
Of course I understand if someone who doesn't know me uses the wrong pronouns and stuff when they first meet me, but, after I correct them and they don't do those mistakes again it's fine. But. If they still insist on calling me the wrong gender after that then... they piss me off with their ignorance, very much. It's painful; I'm sick of being taken for something I am not and have never ever been. I'm a guy at heart. Thank you. /end rant
Today when I woke up I decided to do a quick Falkner cosplay try-on with everything I had finished, aka everything except the shoes. I didn't really get any good photos but here's one which isn't too dorky, wonderful wig eye censor:
Oh, and I also tried to do something vaguely resembling Falkner's Gym Leader battle pose.. thing.. you know when you battle a trainer on the newer Pokémon games their game sprite will do something. I'm so good at explaining. lol
Falkner battle sprites
Me being a dork xD (and now I noticed le twin gave me wrong pose directions. lol)
Much later on the evening/night I decided to brainstorm ideas to make Falkner's shoes. First I focused on his red ball things he has around his ankles. Mom had bought some.. err.. I think they're called paper mache balls in English ("vaddkulor" in Swedish and "massapallot" in Finnish) when she got home.
Paper mache balls
I decided to start painting them red. I used fabric paint.. it worked without problems. I just held the ball with my fingers and painted around it.. after a while I noticed my fingers were red and messy so I took the closest sharp-and-thin object I could get my hands on: mini scissors. I just shoved the scissors into the hole in the middle of the paper mache ball and voilá, no red fingers anymore and a good way to keep the ball from rolling around on the newspapers while drying.
When the balls dried I tried to come up with what shoes to use for Falkner. I didn't find the black ones I originally had planned to use.. but then I noticed mom's black crocs. "Maybe if I could cover up the holes they would suffice." I thought and with mom's help we tried using some black fabric for shoe covers. It failed, I couldn't wrap my head around how to get it to look neat. Plan B was mom's idea: black pantyhose. Mom basically took the shoe and shoved it inside one of the pantyhose legs. She then gave it to me and told me to cut off the excess length and seal it. All I could think was
Then mom found some black socks.. and stretched them over the crocs... and now it actually didn't look half bad. Well, they looked better than my Plan B (C?) at least which involved just not giving a crap and using my black slightly shiny-ish fuzzy ("soft hairy"? I don't know xD) slippers as-is....... yeah. I decided to go with the sock version.
After the paper mache balls had dried I took the paintbrush I had used while painting and used the other end of it to make the hole in the ball bigger and so that it went through the whole ball and not just half-way like default. After that I took some black elastic (maybe 1 cm wide), zigzaged the ends and put it through the hole it was rather annoying and time consuming and then just sewed the ends together. Now I had these:
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way-- err, no.
Then I just took another strip of elastic and glued it to the back of the ball and BOOM le Fazer Falkner shoes were done! The shoes are not the best ever but they work me thinks.
With this my Falkner cosplay is now ready for debut at Skecon. Now if only I could be ready myself.. I have still left to pack everything and solve what I will sleep on during the con.. sleeping bag or what...? I have no idea, I can't take anything bulky like a normal mattress. First time ever during a con when I will sleep cheap floor lodging style (aka on the floor of a school most commonly) instead of a hotel or at some family member's/friend's place.. We'll see how this goes... interesting...
