==> Obtain shoes

Ok, I love my mom at times, today she went to a nearby flea-market, and she came home with a pair of shoes for me that are totally gonna be usable for some future cosplay project, most likely for America (not the canon uniform version tho, a little more casual one, like the America in this video |link|.) from Hetalia if I have time to make that cosplay, which I hopefully will, since I'd just have to alter some sort of jacket and buy a wig, I already have glasses, pants and the shoes ofc~
And the shoes might be usable for Police!Stocking too, they are a little too high to be just like the original art, but they would suit the cosplay. I have to wait and see about that.

Wearing these makes me really fucking tall... Taller than my dad, and that's creepy, they

don't look too high, but apparently they are. And those are the pants I'll use for

America if I decide to cosplay him, which is really tempting, I'd love to cosplay

some more Hetalia.. But as I said previously, I'll have to wait and see about that~

And talking about shoes, I ordered a pair of red heels for my future Gisen cosplay, and damn, those shoes are so cool, even though ordering them made me go pretty much bankrupt. Not completely, but almost. I can't wait for them to get here!

The shoes, they're so pretty, I hope they get here quickly so I can start practicing 

walking in them, luckily I won't wear them to a con until July, so I have lots of time

to break them in.

That's it for the shoes, now moving on to some new cosplay plans. Firstly, you may have seen that I earlier in this post mentioned police!Stocking, and yeah, she's one of my new plans. I've been wanting to cosplay from PSWG ever since I watched it, and now I've got a Panty (my partner in crime will be kinoboi.blogspot.com, and yes, you'll be an awesome Panty, we're so doing this :3) to cosplay with me. It's still unknown which con we'll be wearing these cosplays, but sometime this year.

I couldn't find any official pics, so here is a fanart version, Panty

to the left and Stocking to the right. Oh god, wearing this will

be both fun and creepy o__o

And secondly, Alois Trancy from Kuroshitsuji II, the season nobody liked lol, but yeah, Alois is totally cool, and it'll be fun to try cosplaying a boy for once haha, that's actually the main reason I'm looking forward to cosplay him. (And I'll just ignore that he totally looks like a girl and that I'll probably be wearing more makeup than for my female cosplays) And the fact that he's completely insane doesn't exactly make him any less temping, cosplaying insane characters is fun. I'll cosplay him at Tampere Kuplii with hanskunca.blogspot.com as Ciel Phantomhive in May, so progress posts concerning him are probably soon gonna start pop up on this blog.

Evil little boy yay~

And with those two pics I'll finish this post off, have a nice day or whatever a suitable finishing line would be.

/Amanda

Miyamoto Rei

I promised you pictures, and there they are! But firstly I want to say that I look horribly derpy in most of them, I was tired as fuck and the wig doesn't exactly flatter my features if I can put it like that. And my makeup failed and bleh. But I will stop ranting about details I can't fix anymore and show you the pics~ 

This one is rather blurry, which is a shame, I kinda like the pose

we've got going on haha :3

                             

My fave pic from this shoot ^^

That'd be this for this quick photo heavy update, I'll be back with some more info on added cosplay plans and maybe some progress shots in a not too distant future, so stay tuned!

/Amanda

Frostbite in a nutshell

Because creative titles are overrated. Oh well, just like everyone else I'll write a little about Frostbite, what happened, what I did, what I cosplayed and what I fangirled over, what was awesome and what wasn't as awesome. I'll start with the not so awesome, the cold. It was freezing outside and shitloads of cold cold snow, but ok, this is Finland, I have to accept my fate as a citizen of this cold country in the North. And after all, the con was called Frostbite, what to expect? Moving on to the more awesome and good thing about this con, well, I could write you a full length essay on everything that was fun and awesome, but I'll keep it really short, hopefully. I'll just start with what I did at Friday and then move on and write about Saturday and then Sunday. 

Ok, so I arrived to Omenahotelli before anyone else I'd share room with, so for 15 minutes there I had my own hotel room. How legit isn't that?! I walked from Lahti railway station and despise having the same sense of where I am like a goose or something I managed to find my way to the hotel thanks to my trusty phone with built in GPS. When the rest of the people arrived we proceeded to doing some wig styling and unpacking our cosplays. And partying. 

Even though we went to bed fairly late at Friday night we woke up quite early in Saturday morning, starting to do our makeup and put all of our cosplay gear on. Me and Hansku cosplayed Rei and Saeko from Highschool of the Dead, pictures of those cosplays will be up here on my blog a little later, but not in this exact post. We checked out the con area, went to the con opening ceremony thing, chilled around for a bit, fangirled over various cosplays/cosplayers and at 12 we had a photoshoot. Or we were supposed to have one, but our photographer never showed up. After waiting for him for about 20 minutes we decided to go ask the info, and in the end the photographer we were supposed to have was nowhere to be found, but we got another one instead, which worked out perfectly fine. After the photoshoot we did some more lagging, we went to check out the dealers room, AMV room and anime room, and I can assure you, I've never seen a worse anime than the one they showed in the anime room that day, that shit was called Switch, and I literally fell asleep while watching it. I also met some people I haven't seen in quite some time that day, so that was really fun too. 

Later in the evening that day, after we were back at the hotel I started to unpack my Kanaya cosplay, and to my great horror it was all wrinkly. However, I did not fret, I had brought my awesome mini iron from the 80's! The only problem was.. there was no ironing board. So I ended up using the wall and floor as my ironing board, but it worked so... yay? 

Then, Sunday. We woke up even earlier. Or we were supposed to, I know I overslept. FUCK. I was supposed to get up at 6.30, I got up at 7.28. And I had to do a full face/neck and hand makeup/paint that morning ad I cosplayed Kanaya. Because cosplaying humans is too mainstream, I prefer to be an alien. Luckily I had packed most of my shit the night before, so I didn't have to stress too much about that. We took all our stuff and got into the car and left for the con again, and one of my Kanaya horns ended up falling off in the car and I didn't notice, so when we walked in through the door I noticed it was gone, and so was the car. Double fuck. I got it back eventually, and this time we glued it stuck, so now it isn't going anywhere. We went to a couple of panels and lectures that day, the Pokémon one was just fucking hilarious. And I talked real quick to some other Homestuck cosplayers, and they liked my cosplay, so yay for that~ Then I bought some manga and the con was nearing its end. I got on the train (still in all my facepaint and horns and all, I had nowhere to put them...) and got back home. I had an awesome time, and I'm definitely looking forward to Desucon this summer! ^^

That would be my con experience, shorted down as much as possible, and now I'll get to what I actually do what I was supposed to do when I made this post. Show you some pics~

Mystogan and the Shiva sisters, such awesome cosplays *__*

Because taking pics of people you know is totally

mandatory :3

 

I did not, I repeat NOT take these awesome pics,

that was all Hansku, but the pics were so nice

and the cosplays so awesome so I kind of sneakily

copied them from her blog because....

....I pretty much lack pictures of non Homestuck related stuff. 

But I'm ok with that, i love Homstuck~

There you have three Homestuck related pics, I 

do have a couple more, but I'll not post all of them.

God how I love all of the cosplays above.

Now, moving on to some pictures of me while in my Kanaya cosplay, as I stated earlier, the Rei ones will come later. I want to seriously thank Hansku for taking these and photoshopping my eyes in all of them, that must have been a major pain in the ass..

                                         

 I dunno why, but I like that last pic a lot, it's just so... Kanaya o__o But that'd be all that there is for this post, if you want to see more pics of my Kanaya cosplay/my cosplays in general you should go to my cosplay.com gallery right here. I'll put some pics up there once I have time to, probably quite soon, but I'll have to resize all of them first since you can't put up very large files in their gallery, but oh well, these pics and the rest will be there soonish.


/Amanda

Closer and closer..

It's only 6 days until I leave for Frostbite. 6 days! I remember when it was 4 months left like it was just yesterday. But I'm not complaining, on the contrary, I look forward to it, even though I've got little time left to do the finishing touches on my cosplays. I haven't cosplayed for forever goddamn it, this is gonna be so much fun.

I've also basically finished Kanaya. The skirt was easier than expected to make, it took me only one night to put all of it together. I did have to take it in a couple of times though, I made it too big to begin with because I was terrified to make it too tight as I didn't have much time to finish it. But it's all done now, so I won't have to worry about that anymore. I lack any progress photos of this piece since it didn't take too long to make, I usually take my progress shots when I stop working that night, but this was finished in one night, so no progress pics this time, just one of the finished product.

Most Kanaya cosplayers I've seen have used a different technique, making the skirt one piece, and basically sewing the layers together, but I've always interpreted her skirt in this way, a two layered thing, I just figured that makes more sense, as she has the buttons in the front too. It's not too obvious in the picture above, but the fabric is layered on the left side, she has these lines going on on the skirt in the pictures of her, so I decided to think of it as layers. Lots and lots of guesswork was involved in making this skirt, but I'm ok with the result.  It had been properly ironed since that picture too, and it's slightly more red in real life, our hallway lighting is kind of weird.

And then there was the ribbon. In the comic it isn't neat and clean, she uses it to conceal a major wound, so naturally it is a little bloody. And for you who don't know Homestuck, the trolls don't all have red blood, they have different blood colors, and Kanayas happens to be green, as displayed on her shirt. I used the same fabric paint for the belt as for the symbol on her shirt, only mixed with some water to give more of a natural look. It is a piece of fabric concealing a wound after all, just slabbing some green paint on top of the belt wouldn't look good, I wanted to create an illusion that  the color comes from behind the fabric, and that she have bled through it. And this is the result I got;

When it still was wet. You can see I used a good amount of

water here.

Impatient as I am I ended up drying the paint with a 

blowdryer, because why not? Faster is better.

The (kind of) finished and dried paint. A more opaque green

in the middle and less defined along the edges.

(It still was a liittle damp when I took the pic)

 

That'd be it for my Kanaya, sewing wise. I quite like how it turned out, considering the very small amount of time put into it. I hope you like it :D You will probably and hopefully get to see some pictures of this cosplay in action after Frostbite, I hope you look forward to that~

Also, damn, I usually listen to soundtrack music when working on cosplays, I just find I can focus better when there aren't any words, but I still like to listen to something, so soundtrack music it is, and when working this belt I listened almost exclusively to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 soundtrack, especially this song, seriously, if you like epic sountracks, check it out. It's amazing. Now. Ok, good.

I don't have much else to say, you might see another update before I leave for Frostbite, and that one would be going more into detail about the wig and horns, but I'm not making any promises~

/Amanda

grimAuxiliatrix

I've made up my mind, I'm not bringing Saya for Frostbite, instead I'm going to finish Kanaya, I simply need more time for Saya if I don't want the final result to look rushed. And I'm not going to do the red dress version of Kanaya either what do you mean I can't make up my mind?, instead I'll go with this version.

Words cannot describe how much I love the picture to the left. Seriously,

just look at it. I'll be doing the injured/with purple ribbon version btw, the pic

on the right is just there to provide you with a better view of her outfit~

So, I don't like the general look of this outfit as much as I like the red dress, but I figured that I'd think a little about my own comfort this time, this version will not take as long to make seeing as I don't have to sew everything, I just had to purchase a black shirt. And I won't have to wear as much white paint on my body. I'll get some better paint later on, but now I'm stuck with this one I bought at a local masquerade store, and it works okay and all, but I need to fix it up often and it's just not the best. It does it's job, but nothing more than that. 

I've purchased the fabrics and all the makeup, but I don't have any pictures of those things at the moment. Not that it'd be especially interesting to see them either haha ^^'

However, I started working on the shirt, and I actually like the result. I thought I'd fuck up, because I decided to go with this technique where you cut out the picture you want to paint onto something of some plastic and just paint on top of it, and then remove the plastic. I can't remember what this technique is called for my life, so I'll just provide you with some pictures of what I did and how it turned out.

 On the pic to the left you can see the technique I was attempting to

describe in the text above, I just painted over it and removed the plastic,

and the result is displayed on the right (obviously). The paint appears

a little lighter in the picture than in real life.

After finishing up the shirt I started working on the ribbon and well, it's also done, asides from the green blood stains on it, I'll add those later. And I painted the horns and purchased a headband for them. How I'm going to attach them to it remains a mystery, but I do have a few ideas for how I could go about it.

 Front and back. The symbol on the shirt looks a little weird

here because I didn't let it dry completely before taking

these pics, so it might appear a liittle bulky or something, idk.

The horns with paint.

I suppose that'd be it for this update, I'll probably be back soon with some progress on the skirt.  I'm currently planning how to make it, and it's surprisingly hard to figure it out, mainly because there's no given reference on how the back looks like, and the folds on the side. But I'll figure it out eventually. An then there's the wig. I ordered it and it shipped a couple of days ago, so I will probably get it in time, but more update on that when it arrives. Stay tuned until then.

And just for fun I'll throw in some pics of Kanaya outfits I'd love to make in the future asides from the red dress. No guarantees these two will happen tho, seeing as I'm super lazy hehe.. Especially that black one, nom nom.

/Amanda

A new year~

Happy new year everybody! The following post won't be cosplay related, but I found these questions on a blog of a friend and I felt it'd be fun to share a little of my life 2011 outside of cosplay, and well, just kind of show you more of me and not only my cosplay. ^^ I translated all of the following questions from Swedish into English, so I'm sorry for eventual mistakes~

1. Did you do something for the first time in 2011?

Yep, I did. I started cosplaying among other things ^^ Ahaha, and I just said this wouldn't be about cosplay, and it's still the first thing I mention.

2. Did you keep your New Years resolutions?
Uuh I never make any resolutions for New Years o__o

3. Did anyone you know have a baby?
Don't think so?

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, at least not anyone very close to me.

5. Which countries did you visit?
Except for traveling around in Finland I went to Britain. Scotland to be more exact. I also visited Sweden.

6. Is there anything that wasn't there in 2011 but you hope will be there in 2012?
I try to not have very high hopes about anything really, I just hope that nothing really bad happens haha.

7. Is there any date you will never forget?
I have to agree with my friend who took this quiz earlier and say 30.4. That wasn't a fun day. And then 14.5, 15.5,  those were the days of Bakacon, my first con ever :D 

8. What was the best thing about the past year?
All the new people I've met. Cosplay, cons. And of course spending time with friends and having fun in general. 

9. What was your biggest mistake?
Definitely agreeing with my friend again, a certain day in April when I would have been better off staying at home.

10. What was your best purchase?
Tricky question, I don't remember anything specific, I've bought many nice things.

11. What did you spend most money on?
Cosplay, no doubt.

12. What made you really happy?
Summer, meeting new people with similar interests to myself.

13. Have you been ill or hurt?
Well I've had a couple of colds, but nothing severe.

14. What songs or singers make you think of 2011?
I don't know really, there are a couple of songs that remind me of summer and such, but nothing too specific.

15. Did you feel better or worse during 2011 compared to other years?
Better than 2010, no doubt about that. I actually think this might have been one of my better years so far, I've been happier than usual.

16. Is there anything you wish you had put more time into?
Ahahaha. School, nuff said.

17. Is there anything you wish you had put less time into?
Nope, time you enjoyed wasting wasn't wasted. 

18. How was your Christmas?
Fairly ok.

19. Did you fall in love?
No

20. What was your favorite TV show?
I don't watch TV that much, but I'll go with House, I've always liked that one.

21. Do you hate somebody you didn't hate before?
Nope, I don't hate people in general haha~

22. Which is the best book you've read the past year?
All the Harry Potter books, no doubt.

23. What was your biggest music experience?
I don't think I had a specific one. Or well, the Homestuck soundtrack is plain awesome and there's not much like it, and I very often find myself listening to songs from it on my iPod, so maybe that? 

24. Did you wish for something you got?
Yes, I wished to meet new people, and I did.

25. Did you wish for something you didn't get?
Nah, not really, I don't wish for very much haha ^^;

26. Movie of the year?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2.

27. What did you do on your birthday?
I was in Scotland.

28. Who were the best people you met?
All fellow nerds I met at various cons 8D

29. How would you describe your sense of fashion?
Boring, I'm a hoodie and jeans type of person really.

30. What made you feel good?
Friends, cosplay, cons.

31. What celeb did you like the most? 
Weird question was weird, I changed it a little when translating :B No one in particular tho.

32. Who did you miss?
Depends on where I was and when. 

33. The best month?
All the summer months were great, May was also nice, and September I guess. Oh and January, awesome trip to Stockholm was awesome.

34. Is there anything you could have done better?
Probably, but I didn't fuck anything up too badly even tho I failed a little here and there.

More updates actually concerning cosplay should be up quite shortly, I'm going shopping for cosplay stuff tomorrow, so if nothing else I'll do an update about that, I have quite a lot of things I'm planning on buying.

/Amanda