Kenshin wig + Masamune chainmail brainstorming

Remember my Cosplay Challenge from earlier this year? Well, some few days ago I received the wig I ordered for a future Kenshin cosplay. I bought it because the site had a sale and I just couldn't pass it up.. and I already know pretty dang sure that I will end up wanting to cosplay Kenshin anyway after I've read the manga and/or watched the anime. It's just one of those series I've been highly interested in for years (I'm a samurai/history/kimono/sword geek.. how can I not be interested in Rurouni Kenshin when it's such a praised classic?) and.. I just need to start reading/watching it. I plan to do it soon enough. *looks at the 5 first volumes of the manga in my bookshelf that has been there for over a year now*

Kenshin Himura

The wig looks like this right out of the bag and I must say ME GUSTA MUCHO!! <3

Just looking at this wig makes me so excited to read/watch Rurouni Kenshin haha. I love how I pretty much already happen to have everything I need for a blue kimono version Kenshin cosplay except the reverse blade katana. You all can be pretty sure I will do it next year ~

And now over to Masamune. I've been wondering about one part of the costume for quite some time.. namely the chainmail.

Masamune Date reference

As you can see he has chainmail covering his arms. Well, I surely don't have the time, money, knowledge nor the dedication to make my own chainmail from scratch.. at least not right now. It would take months and be very tedious.. I don't have that much time to put on a single part of the costume which isn't even that noticeable. So I thought about cheaper, less heavy (chainmail weights a ton, no lie. lol) and faster options.. I read around on the internet and found that you could buy a knitted shirt and spraypaint it silver. It would only look believable from a distance though. Seemed like a good idea until I realized it would likely be way too hot to wear during the summer time (main con season) and probably too bulky too. Then I remembered seeing in mom's fabric attic this one fabric that looks like.. silvery netting or something; I don't know what its proper name is. But I thought maybe it could work if I backed it up with some silvergray-ish base. The problem was that mom's version of that fabric had too big "holes" so it wouldn't look right even if I folded/layered it double...
So uhm, today I went to Eurokangas after school. I saw that there was a 20% sale on all fabrics currently and there I found this same type of netting fabric although with smaller "holes", more dense. Bingo! Truth is, I had seen it before but didn't buy it because I wasn't sure back then...

the net fabric in question

I just hope that this idea will work and look as nice in reality as it seems to do in my head. I bought half a meter of it, I hope that's enough... I'm not good at calculating how much fabric I need. xD

That's all for today. I really need to progres further on Masamune the coming days.. I've planned to do a mock-up test of the coat's upper half to see how it sits before cutting the parts out of the real fabric. Oh well, stay tuned for more updates!

A new wig + fabric for Masamune

So today I went to the post office after school and picked up two packages. It was a white juban and a new wig I will use for season 2 (aka short hair version) Hijikata from Hakuouki. Funny thing is I was searching for a Hijikata specific wig but didn't find anything I thought looked just right so I wondered "what other characters have a similar hairstyle as Hijikata?" and BOOM instantly Sebastian Michaelis from Kuroshitsuji popped into my mind.

Sebastian Michaelis - Kuroshitsuji (aka Black Butler)

I found a Sebastian wig I thought looked really nice and it wasn't very expensive either so I bought it for Hijikata. Now I must admit there is something about Kuroshitsuji which captures my interest; I've been feeling for quite some time now that  I want to watch it even though it's rather mainstream. Also I heard from Sairu-chan not so long ago that she already has a Ciel cosplay and a Kuroshitsuji cosplay group planned with her friends who live around northern Finland. Group cosplays are always great so that is even more a reason to watch Kuroshitsuji so I could hang around with them in some northern con.. not to mention I've always liked Sebastian's design - red eyes me gusta mucho!!, hairstyle, "penguin coat" lol (seriously I want a coat like that.. if I do him a get a reason to make one hohoho~) and yeah, there just is something interesting about him. If I now watch Kuroshitsuji and end up liking Sebastian I will do him, I would already have the wig too and I need to buy red contacts anyway *coughrasetsucough* so I would get more use out of them also. XD We will see ~

I tried the wig on quickly (read: no cosplay make-up) after I got home. At first I was all "not sure if gusta" but after I arranged the fibers around a bit it was rather awesome.

I also went to Eurokangas with mom before getting home and she bought me some fabric for Sengoku Basara's Masamune Date cosplay. I will use this fabric for the coat and pants.

Masamune reference

The fabric is some kind of denim with 5% elastane and it has this.. interesting touch to the surface; a bit like it would have a thin coat of some kind of plastic on it. It is also a bit heavier and drapes rather well. I think it will be great for Masamune's coat especially. I just really need to start working on this cosplay for real; it needs to be done and documented before next summer vacation I'm going to die. If you remember it was a school project so it's really important I get this done in time before I graduate.

Fabric for Saitou's sleeveless shirt

Went to Eurokangas (fabric store) after school. I'm happy they moved their store to Rajalla/På Gränsen shopping center instead of being next to Prisma (a food store) a few kilometers away. This means that because Eurokangas is now at the shopping center I will have a chance to visit it pretty much every day when I finish school and take the bus home because, well, I walk through the shopping center because it's shorter (and more fun) to just go through it than go around it and I always buy some sweets to eat while I do so, but that's another story... Yeahh, I bought fabric for Bakumatsu Renka Saitou's sleeveless shirt-or-whatever-it-is.

Wonderful, fabrics seemingly never photograph their real color.. OTL
It has more dark purple tones to it, not just gray like the photo shows.

 The fabric is a tad darker than the reference, but, it was the only grey-purple fabric they had (kinda hard color to find..) and besides I kinda like the color and have a feeling that it will look better with the kimono I'm going to use because, well, my kimono isn't reference color accurate either so I just bought what I thought would look better together with it. Me? Not being color accurate? Dafuq just happened?
My other fabric choices would have been 100% purple but.. eh... I rather buy this one.

It seems that I'll possibly start my Tracon journey already on Thursday next week. SEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW.

Remake, or not remake?

So err, earlier this week me, my mom and my twin went to Eurokangas in town to check if they had some stuff we needed. Eurokangas has a huge sale going on because they will move to another local in town and this is the last week the sale is going on.

While wandering around I spotted in those random "fabric leftover" boxes a very pale light purple fabric... and my thoughts immediately went to my sick!Okita cosplay. I think that's about the same shade of purple that I had used. I have no clue how much fabric that piece consisted of or how much it cost though. I'm wondering should I buy it and remake my Okita kimono? I'm not satisfied with the one I made to Desucon because it was so rushed and there's just so many things gone wrong with it... lining cut too short, cutting mistake ending in seams at a "not accurate" place, too short (especially annoying/embarrassing in my eyes because I do kimono kitsuke) etc. BUT. I'm not sure will I wear this version of Okita to another con (read: I have too much cosplay plans and too few cons to wear them too) even if I did a remake. While I did like wearing it -and I can imagine myself wearing a remade version- I can almost bet on that the day I make his wafuku and western versions those will take its place.
Although I still want to do a sick!Okita photoshoot.

So... I'm rather perplexed, should I buy that fabric and remake it if there's enough of it and it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg or should I save that money in favor of future cosplays and just do the photoshoot with the fail!kimono I already have?


By the way, for your information that shade of purple is a bitch to find at least in my hometown and neighbor town, hence why I can't decide should I pass it up or buy it now when I got the chance to remake it.

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.

Modifying Ichito's "jacket" + found last of the fabrics

A few days ago I tried on Ichito's "jacket"-whatever-it-is and noticed that it needs a slight make-over. I needed to cut those front panels into a more triangular shape because I noticed just hiking them up didn't do it. I also needed to take in the back of the garment because it was too big.

derp

Notice triangular pointy front panels

So what do I do? Cut it.

Before any modifications. Poor thing thought it was con-ready..

Marked cutting line

Test photo after cutting and hemming

Took in the back seam and ironed it..

Folded in front panel sides too and sewed around them

Testing after the operation with a substitute sash (blue kimono under)

Back side (näytän niin mursulta! :'D)

I think it'll have to do, I can't take in so much more from the back part closest to the collar.. so it's bigger up and narrows slowly the farther down it gets.

I also helped mom moving her former fabric store's leftover fabrics (those that had been stored in big black bags in the old storage house) to our attic and I found some fabrics I can use for Ichito's obi and shoe covers. Yay, free fabric once again. <3

That rib knit fabric just doesn't want to photograph its real color... it's closer to an army green...

When mom is done outside she'll help me cut out the fabric for Okita's yukata so I can start sewing it. There will very likely be another blog post about it later today. Until then, see ya!

Finally fabric for Okita's yukata!

Mom had promised earlier that we would visit neighbor town Kemi's fabric store on Friday or Saturday so today after she had finished work we went there.. in hope we'd find a suitable fabric for Souji Okita's yukata. I had earlier checked all three fabric stores in my town (well, there's four actually but I didn't bother to check the fourth because they only have curtain fabric etc) and none of them had what I wanted. That particular pale violet is so hard to find... always too dark.
So when we got to that fabric store we went around, checked all fabrics and it started to look dark... until I passed one of these metallic stands with like three baskets with random last meters of fabric from sold-out bolts. I believe. I saw that behind some darker fabrics there was something that looked like it could work. I pulled it out from the basket and mom started to 'finger measure' approximately how many meters it was. She measured it to about 2,5 meters and for a moment we thought if it would be enough.. think so. But then came the other problem: it isn't so thick and probably won't fall as prettily as my other kimonos and I might have to line it... even though yukatas are always unlined originally.
Oh well, I figured it would probably be the best find I could manage in this short time frame (under one week to make the yukata + Ichito cosplay) so we bought it. It cost around 12 € and was actually closer to 2,8 meters. Yay.

Fabric and... red... drink..

Before we went home mom got a sudden "Let's go to Kemi's Lidl before we go home!" whim when it appeared in front of us and I was all "lol, okay sure". We normally pretty much never go to Lidl nowadays.. used to go quite a bit many years ago though.
When we were walking by that milk and juice part of the store I looked up and almost stopped. I saw this very red blood orange juice that screamed ochimizu to me... so I looked at mom and went "mom I need that juice for a cosplay. I need to put it in my glass bottle and take it to the con... yes, the con next weekend..". She probably thought for a second "the fuck" even though I had already mentioned looking for some kind of red liquid for a costume... oh well, she said I could use it as my 'train drink' too so she bought it. Rasetsu-time in the train trololo... ~ For a moment I loved Lidl. x'D

One day in town... with cosplay in mind

Sorry this post is actually from 28th May, I didn't have time to write it earlier so now I'm writing it in the middle of the night.

So today I finished school very early and instead of walking to town and directly taking the bus home I decided to look around for cosplay stuff. The cosplay stress has been gnawing inside me very much the last day and it didn't help when I realized Desucon is not this weekend but the weekend after that... oh mama save me.

Oh well, when I got to Rajalla/På Gränsen ("on the border") shopping center I went into Tiimari and the bookstore.. Tiimari didn't have anything for my cosplay needs (and even if they had I could probably find the item for half the price somewhere else...) but from the bookstore I bought some black thin round elastic band. I will use it for his bead bracelet. He only has it on his left hand.

Oh yes, bad guys have nail polish ~

Öblöblöb.. err, then I went into Citymarket (general big store with food, clothes, make-up etc) and bought a bag of make-up sponges and Herbina brand fragrance-free hair spray. Both of course for cosplay purposes... and the hair spray I'm not even going to use on hair... it's going on my face. I'm so cheap I don't buy proper make-up sealers. lol

After that I left the shopping center and headed for Tositori ("true/real/serious market"), it's one of the second-hand markets and the one I'm most familiar with. I was looking for some shoes with a slightly upwards pointing 'nose' that I could modify... had no luck. Went to the next second-hand market that is called Vaarin Vintti ("grandpa's attic") where I've only been, hmm, three or four times now I think. The judo jacket I saw there weeks ago was still for sale, 10 € hmm... lol. Oh well, I was looking for shoes, not judo jackets! But I didn't find any good enough shoes.. everything that was semi-ok (not pointy though.. so still kinda wrong) was too small for me and when I found one with right size it was way off in design. I looked around the whole place at least three times to make sure I didn't miss anything.. I didn't. Bleh.
So after I had dug through the two second-hand stores I knew of in town I decided to try and find again that one fabric store I found last Saturday when I was in town with a new friend. Turned out said fabric store was in front of me when I was standing facing away from Tositori's entrance. Kangastalo ("fabric house") mostly only had curtain fabrics and not so much clothing fabric... but I found a yellow brown-ish kinda mustard-y but not quite colored fabric that could maaaaybe work for Ichito's obi. I got a free test piece of it. Yay.

It doesn't want to photograph it's real color.. it's not that shiny and a bit more yellow (flash photo)

After that I started walking down a street I had not walked down before and when I got to the corner I passed by something that looked like another second-hand store... with the exception that I didn't even know of its existence until I walked by it, stopped right in my tracks and went inside. XD
I didn't have to search for many minutes before I found the shoe part of the store... and my eyes spotted these beige mocca-ish (I guess) shoes with a nice upward-ish nose. It's not sharp but at least it points upwards. I tried one of them on and noticed they seemed just a tiny bit too small but still okay. These were by far the best shoe candidates I had seen today (and only cost 5 € and were in good shape) so I decided to buy them. Hey I'm running out of time and I highly doubt I'd find something better for this emergency so let's go with these. As the Finns say, "cosplay ilman tuskaa on teeskentelyä" which translates to something like "cosplay without pain is pretending".

Close enough shoes... now just to make them green somehow...

After that I paid a visit to another fabric store named Kangaskukkula ("fabric hill"), this time searching for a dark blue fabric for Ichito's kimono. I found one that I thought was fitting so I ended up getting 3 meters of it, lol the store owner was soooo confused when I tried to explain I was doing a kimono and I wanted it done a certain way... guess that's why mom was like "lol you bought like 1 meter too much fabric, she either tricked you into buying more or is just generally bad at what she's doing". Yeah, mom used to own a fabric store too... I tried to call her prior to buying but she didn't answer ahjfsgjad. Oh well, I at least have extra fabric if I mess up... and if I don't I probably have enough to make a vest or something like that. *shrugs* 
I also bought a tiny bit of this light gray very stretchy fabric because I figured gray elastic bands do not exist, just white and black ones. I will use that gray fabric for his eye wrap thingies and possibly even hair tie.

Let's finish with a photo of the rest of the purchases of today:

Make-up sponges, hair spray, black elastic band, gray stretchy fabric, dark blue fabric

A trip to Eurokangas...

So today I went to Eurokangas (a fabric store) to check if they still had that dark blue fabric left that we bought in 2010... they didn't. I guess I will need to use another blue for Ichito's kimono then. Oh well, I looked around for other fabrics for other cosplays too and whenever I found the perfect color it was wrong fabric type. Ahfgsgd. I found this perfect super pale violet that I could use for Souji Okita's yukata but then it was bed sheet fabric... even cut and sewn into a bed sheet with elastics around. Too thin too. Ahfgsgd.
While I was walking around searching fabrics I found a fabric patterned a certain way...

You think what I think?

 My mind went "AMMAGAAD AHFGDSHFGS" because a few days ago me and some friends had planned to do a Hakuouki cosplay group of the 'bad guys' and well, I picked Kazama Chikage...

BADUMTSSH

You see it now? That pattern is fuckin' perfect for his haori collar! I was probably staring at that fabric for 5 minutes before I went and asked the sellers if they had it in different colors than violet and lime green... she checked up what colors the other Eurokangas stores around Finland had with her computer; she found white, red, turquoise... but no golden/brown. It didn't come in that color. Of course not.

My feelings were like this:

Followed by this:

So yeah. I got back home without any new fabrics. Bleh.
Rage comics made by me by the way.

Fabrics for Ichito

I'm bored right now and mom was watching icehockey recently and today she doesn't really feel like helping me finish that 'flap' thingy, with its lining problems, so I went and checked what leftover fabrics we had in our 'clothing room' (more like sewing supply room. lol) instead because I'm in a cosplay progress mood. I tried to search for that light gray fabric that I used for my hakamas when making my Byakuya cosplay from Inu Yasha year 2010. Yes, my first cosplay. I had a faint memory we had scrap pieces of that fabric left but it seems we did not.. crap, I could have used some for Ichito's eyepatch thingies. That fabric isn't finito though, the bolt is in the storage if I'm not mistaken. Oh well, instead I found a dark blue fabric that could work for Ichito's kimono. Although it's a bit darker and lacks a violet-ish touch to it (as I would prefer) I still think I will use it.. but mom said this piece probably isn't big enough for the kimono so I have to pay a visit to Eurokangas (where we bought it 2010 too, also originally used for Byakuya cosplay's haori) and check if they have it left. I also found a piece of dark brown kinda stretchy fabric that mom said is one of the many fabrics that's left from her own fabric store. She said it's used for pants and it would work for Ichito's hakama-ish pants. She thinks there's enough fabric and I hope she's right, save money hohoho. I think this piece is all that is left from that fabric bolt, she probably sold the rest years ago so if this isn't enough we need to go buy something else...

Lastly a picture of the fabrics:

(flash photo)

I love how cameras never show the actual colors... both are darker in real life.

Oh, and I noticed I only have a month on me to finish my Desucon cosplays. Shiet, need to start working for real now.