Saya Progress

As I didn't really have everything I needed to finish my Rei cosplay, I decided to start making the skirt for Saya. As I mentioned in my earlier post, my original plan was to dye some blue lace black and use it for the lower edge of the skirt, but the dye apperantly didn't work at all on the lace I had, so I had to rethink the process, and after taking a good look at some pictures of her, I figured making ruffles on the lower edge would work just as well, if not even better. Sometimes, things failing can apperantly be a good thing.

Looks more like ruffles than lace to me. The picture I posted 

of her a while ago in my Plans for 2012 post implies the same thing.

So I began sewing, starting out with the black underskirt. Things weren't exactly coming along smoothly, but I can blame a horrible headache, a cold and an obnoxious cat for that one. Eventually I ended up with something looking like this;

It doesn't look much in the picture like in real life, but oh well, this is the

 only picture I have, as my camera was running out of battery. 

Also, my cat apperantly was of the opinion that she had conquered my 

fabric, and that I no longer was allowed to touch it, which resulted in cutting

things out became way harder than it should have been....

After finishing the underskirt part, I started to work on the red part. I don't have much to say about that one, it was fairly simple, basically a pleated skirt. Some changes have been made since the following picture, but my camera died, so this is the last picture I have of it. I didn't do much after this picture though, I ironed it to make the pleats look better, moved the red part a little so the black would show less and sewed the two skirts together, they're only pinned together in the pic.

I still have to make some sort of waistband and add the zipper, but after that it should be done.

/Amanda

Unnecessary update ahead~

Just as already stated in the title, I'll now post a completely unnecessary update. Why? Because I can, that's why.


I went to Eurokangas yesterday to purchase some fabric for my Saya skirt. I went there with high hopes, since well, her skirt is dark red, shouldn't be too hard to find, no? But nope, no such fabric could be found, and on top of it all, I was also going to buy the cheapest black cotton fabric the kind that costs like, 5 euro per meter I could find for the under layer of the skirt, but again, nope, there was no such thing as a cheap, black cotton fabric, so I ended up purchasing some kind of polyester blend, because my brain went into money saving mode, and it was the cheapest black I could find and it was 8 euro per meter... 8, I mean come on... But well, it's just for the under layer, I'll survive this major crisis in my life.

But now, back to the story of the red fabric. I couldn't find an accurate blood red fabric for Saya, so I decided to go with the closest shade I could find, which was a lighter red than I intended to buy, but still not that kind of creepy super vibrant red, and I took a serious look at my fabric today, and I came to the conclusion that it could have been worse, I actually like the red I ended up with, it's a nice color. And I also looked up some other people that have cosplayed her, and most of them seem to have used a lighter shade of red than what's accurate. What's up with this apparently worldwide shortage of blood red fabric?


And as for a beautiful ending of a glorious trip to the fabric store, black lace is apparently a completely unknown concept for Eurokangas. I ended up with a dark blue lace that I'll attempt to dye black, since I figured if I tried to make a white lace black, I'd probably end up with some grey inbetween shade, and making a dark blue black would be easier. I might be wrong though, I'll have to experiment a bit with that.


But something that actually was great about my shopping trip was that I was able to get hold of a couple of black knee socks, also for Saya, for as little as 3.45e. Awesome. I also bought some Got2b Glued hairspray and styling gel/glue/whatever, for the styling of my Rei wig, more on that later.

The socks and fabric I purchased. The red is actually a little darker than in this picture,

but it's still not as dark as I'd have preferred it, but oh well. Oh, and there's also the creepy

black fabric, just look at it, see how creepy it is? And the dark blue lace that I'll have 

to dye, Dylon dye, we meet again,

And as I previously stated, there will now be some info on my Rei wig. As soon as I got home I unpacked my Got2b stuff and hairdryer and started working on the antennas. I already knew that I wouldn't make them quite as long and thick as the ones in the manga and anime, because I generally like the more natural look with smaller antennas. Because having chunks of hair standing right up from your head is completely natural.
Things went along great, for a change, with the first antenna, it was surprisingly easy as I've never done any actual styling before, but the second antenna decided to be a total bully, and just didn't want to look alright.

Just look at that bastard, not wanting to stand up straight, just sagging down. 

But apparently, when it comes to wigs, there is nothing a little more hairspray and heat can't do, so a little hairspraying, heating and antenna taming later, it turned out alright.

Wohoo, antenna problem is now kinda solved! It even looked okay when

I tried it on! Score! Yes, I'm using a glass jar as wighead, and yes, 

my room is a complete mess.

I guess that'll be it for this rather text heavy update. Nothing major, basically just me ranting about various things, I hope I didn't scare anyone away haha~

I didn't get as much done this weekend as I had hoped for, but I'll work harder next weekend instead. I'm a master of procrastinating like that.

/Amanda

Plans for 2012

So, in lack of any actual progress to post about, I figured I could list my cosplay plans for 2012 instead. There are of course more cosplays I'd like to make, but the ones I'm listing here are the ones I certainly will make, no matter what. I'm still not sure about what I'll make for which con in most cases though~

Firstly there is Rei Miyamoto, I've already posted some progress pics of her as you might have seen, 
but still, she's a plan for 2012. I'm debuting this cosplay at Desucon Frostbite in January.

A cosplay I'm also debuting at Frostbite is Kisaragi Saya from Blood-C.  
It will be my first time making a katana, but hopefully it'll turn out alright . 
I'm going to start on this one as soon as I finish making my Rei cosplay, 
so you'll probably see progress pics of this cosplay in a not too far away future.

Sakura Kyouko from Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica.
 I'm looking forward to cosplaying her so much, she's just plain awesome! 
She will be debuted sometime during the summer, not sure on what con yet though.

Meredy/Meldy from Fairy Tail. Finding a decent picture was hard as google doesn't
 seem to want to cooperate with me any longer, but she's the girl in the front with the cape.
 For you who doesn't know her color scheme, her hair is pink, her cape red with golden trim,
 the wings on her head are gold, her bodysuit is purple and the darker parts of 
it are black. Her boots are also black.

Gisen Yagyu from Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Girls. All the other characters

 I cosplay are so pale, and then suddenly there's Gisen who just isn't, so I

 don't know how to handle that one orz... I could get some kind of fake tan, 

but that'd just be so messy and all. She isn't as tanned in the anime as she's in the picture above though, so 

I could probably get away with not being as tanned as her. 

So that is basically my plans for 2012, as I said at the beginning of this post, there are several characters I'd love to make, Vriska [link] and Eridan [link] and lots of other characters from Homestuck, Natsuru Senou [link]  from Kämpfer among others, if I wrote all the cosplays I want to make down, the list would just be too long. But I am seriously hoping that I'll have time for some Homestuck cosplays, because Homestuck is just <3 Plus, the costumes are pretty simple~

But hopefully I will make more than the ones listed with pictures, especially considering that two out of five of them will be done by January, and none of the others seems to be a major challenge sewing wise. (or well, Kyouko could be challenging, but otherwise). Gisens sword and Sayas katana will probably be a challenging though, but oh well, I'll just have to start on them in time.

I think that's all I have to say about my plans for next year ^^

/Amanda

Rei Progress

I managed to get some stuff done today, I made the shirt fit a little better, finished the sleeves and started working on the collar. The collar gave me one hell of a headache, I thought it'd be easy, but I've never done anything like it before, so it sure wasn't, and it still isn't as good as I'd like it, but it'll do for now, I'm way to tired to continue working on it. It was fun though, to learn something new~

Also, my camera was kind of dead, so I took some pictures with my oh so shitty webcam instead, so the lighter green on the sides of the uniform barely show, but it's there haha ^^' 

I look like such a bitch in all of them, whoopsie .__.

Yeah, that's basically my progress so far, I hope you like it :D

/Amanda

First post yay~

So, I decided to make a blog. I never thought I'd actually make one, even though I've thought about it several times. But now that I've actually made one, I'll try to keep it somewhat updated. Not promising anything though. But I guess a good start would be to tell everyone what this blog is supposed to be about. You probably already guessed, but yeah, it's mainly going to revolve around cosplay, since that is what my life mainly seems to revolve around, orz. 
I'll post some stuff about my cosplay plans, post progress pictures, and probably ramble about cosplay related things. Yes I ramble. A lot. But I will try keeping my rambling to a minimum.


And just like all bloggers seem to do, I'll now start making empty promises about future possible updates. Since it's Friday tomorrow I'll probably have time over for working on my current project, Rei from Highschool of the Dead, so I might upload some progress pictures~

Miyamoto Rei (HOTD)

 /Amanda