BRS (no, not Black Rock Shooter...) Saitou WIP test

So a few minutes ago I decided to put on what I already had ready for my Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi Saitou cosplay, aka mainly the kimono, kaku obi and wig. The kimono and obi are genuine vintage pieces from my wafuku collection.
The shirt is just my random Finland/wolf shirt backwards. lol I didn't put on any make-up except some eyeliner because 1) I'm too fuckin' lazy xD 2) it was boiling hot.

These are all mirror photos.

I have no clue what's with that face..

Full-body..

PHOTOBOMB!!1 by le twin

The wig needs some trimming and possibly spiking. Gonna fix that as soon as possible.
I also need to go to town and buy some purple-gray fabric for his sleeveless shirt because mom apparently didn't have any purple fabric in the attic that would have been good enough... actually, she hardly had any purple fabric at all. Dafuq.
Oh, and need to make the glove.

I got stuff for Hijikata!

I went to town around 12:00 clock something, I think, with Ari. Oh my god I was so tired but I wanted to go and get the town visit over and done with...
I went and picked up two packages from the post office and bought some white thin fabric so I can make a shinsengumi headband for coming Hakuouki cosplays. From the post office I picked up yet another vintage kimono (yay!), which, despite looking dark purple on the site it was this weird blue-gray-black with a purple-ish tint. Interesting. The lining is very dark black-purple too... but the whole thing seems to photograph purple anyway. xD I'll use it for Hijikata for now because I don't feel like sewing a kimono in stress again in one day not to mention mom is sick of me making kimonos lol. Tomorrow I need to do some finishing touches on my Hijikata cosplay and pack my suitcase, that's enough to do. *yawns*

I took some WIP photos of Hijikata so far. Excuse mirror photos again..

What's left to do is the headband and add haori himo ties to the haori. The swords are at Jäätynyt Enkeli's place already. The hakama and shinsengumi haori are commissioned by my friend Hasakitsuki's mom. Thank you so much. <3 I could never have made it myself in time for Uppcon because I was busy finishing Desucon cosplays and blah blah. So this cosplay is mostly commissioned and/or bought.

It seems my Uppcon cosplay plans will change too, I'll make a blog post about that later. Gin Ichimaru and Toshizo Hijikata are set though. It seems I'll change Ichito for Hajime Saitou but I'm not sure yet. I can't take Ukitake because the swords got damaged from the Desucon trip.. the golden paint rubbed against and transferred on the black parts of the blade. I need to repaint it and fix one of those ribbon holder square things because it broke already last year at Närcon by accident but so far it's been held together by Jesus tape.. but now it's giving in. Need to make a new one.

Head accessories + Ichito WIP

I've been sewing on Okita's yukata today, but I didn't take any photos of the progress so I'll make a blog post about it later when it's finished instead.

I made Ichito's eye wrap thingies and hair piece today. Not so much to say, pretty easy to do.

Making of the hair piece.. (it's covered craft foam)

 I also got my commissioned wigs today so I could finally take some WIP photos without face censors lol. I had one problem though, the wig is very short in the back... or I have a too big head? I don't know, maybe my hair was at fault because I styled it pretty heavily on the morning and very quickly put the wig cap and stuff on.. maybe works better if I pin my hair up (so hard to pin short hair..) and/or flatten it with water. We'll see, otherwise I have to use those head wraps to cover what can be seen of my real hair under...

Oh well, have some WIP photos. Pardon shoes are not done and I was too lazy to put on blue nail polish and I don't have white face powder yet... lololo derp.

I don't know why my hands always end up so close to my face somehow...

I'm fabulous.. err...

ICHITO, Y U NO STAND LIKE A MAN?

Did you notice.................. DOTTED SOCKS BLASPHEMY??! Badumtssh ~

Oh, and one thing. This cosplay already earned the following titles:

• Ultimate everything-falls-off-every-minute cosplay
• Ultimate I-look-like-a-walrus-in-this cosplay
• Ultimate it-feels-like-I-have-no-pants-when-I-actually-do cosplay

Hijikata wig styling

Today after school I went to the post office in town and picked up two items, one of them being wig stands. Yay now I can finally start styling wigs! I've been thinking about cutting the bangs on my Hijikata wig shorter for some time now because I thought they were a bit too long... so I decided to plunge into a new challenge today and cut and style a wig myself for the first time ever. I must admit I was hesitating at first and scared to screw up. It doesn't really help that I'm bad with scissors either... I'm left-handed and I've always used right-hand scissors and some angles are really hard and/or awkward to cut in... I can't use left-hand scissors because those are even weirder for me. lol I tried once when I was young and quickly decided to use "normal scissors". Before cutting the wig I had of course read and watched some how-to tutorials earlier so I knew somewhat what to do and not do.

Pardon the lighting again.. we have pretty sucky lamps in the house lol, they make everything yellow when taking photos...

Started cutting... lol super uneven or what? Orz

Looks a  bit better now...

Sorry I don't have photos of the 'spiking' process but here's a WIP photo after the styling. If you want to compare before and after photos check out my earlier Hijikata wig blog post.

FACE, Y U NO LOOK LIKE THAT MORE OFTEN?

Please don't mind the wrong color kimono, I know it's too light. I have yet to make a darker one so I used a substitute...

It's annoying when trying to take photos of yourself and you end up with a derp or semi-derp face on 80% of them... OTL I'm so photogenic. lol This one pic was like the only one I was fully pleased with, trolololo why is it so hard to do in-character expressions for some characters but ridiculously easy for others? *shrugs*

That's all for today, see ya folks!

Early cosplay WIP is early...

Eh, I stayed home from school today because I've been feeling really down lately. I had the house for myself most of the morning because mom is working like usual and stepdad has morning shift so he probably won't be back until lunch time at the earliest. I wanted to test my new navy blue kimono that I received a few days ago and hell, it's close enough for a Masamune Date cosplay from Brave 10 and besides that guy is cool and I want to cosplay him anyway. I already had the wig so I took a few quick WIP photos just because I didn't have anything better to do.. and cosplay cheers me up. There is lots of stuff still left to do like his belts, eyepatch, pants, that weird hooded cape thingy and whatnot, but it wasn't too bad I guess...and the funny thing? This cosplay isn't even part of my summer cosplay plans! The heck man, the heck. -.- I can't start working on Date until earliest at the end of this year and maybe finish him for a con 2013. Needless to say early WIP photo is early.

Oh, and yes, it was blowing like hell outside. Actually, it's been blowing like hell the last three days or so I think.  I keep hearing the wind pretty much all the time even though I'm inside...