Posting craze! About rifles and scarfs this time~

I don't think I have ever been as active of a blogger as I am at the moment. But I'm super excited about Sinon and this entire project so you'll just have to deal with it haha. But I shall try not to ramble very much as I usually do in my posts, so I'll stop beating around the bush and show you what masterpieces I have created this time around.
     Kicking off with a fancy scarf that I made yesterday in a couple of hours. The design is really simple, and I chose to make the scarf like a tube sort of thing for more thickness, since Sinons scarf does look very big. I chose fleece for the material because hey, it's a scarf, so that works, and because it gives an accurate look to the overall piece. 

The whole thing measures 2,5 meters, which is a pretty damn long scarf. I made applique for the first time ever as well for the symbol on there, and it turned out pretty damn good if I may say so myself. It was a bit tricky since the symbol is fairly small, but it worked out since I did it nice and slow.

     And now for, at least according to me, more exciting stuff! The monster and most important piece of this cosplay, her rifle. I have never made something like this before, so it's really all trial and error. But I like it, I definately enjoy making it more than I thought I would. Which is great since it takes forever to make. I've used cardboard as my main material, with a side of camping mat and craft foam. That cocktail of materials may seem a bit so-so for something that is supposed to look like metal, but I find that with enough patience, gesso and sandpaper, most things can become really nice and smooth. I have yet to finish the rifle, so I'll make a part 2 about its making later on. But I really do feel like I want to share what I've made so far right now, and I welcome all feedback, both positive and negative, so that I can fix anything that doesn't look quite right, and maybe polish something that looks awesome even futher. So please, if you have time, it'd be nice if you left some feedback so I can make this prop look awesome :3.

     I've decided making it completely non-functional, the barrel doesn't move or anything, because I want to mainly focus on the aesthetics of it. 

I started out with printing a life-size reference picture for myself, just so I'll get the scale of the parts done right. I also made it the same size as the real life rifle model Sinons rifle is based on (PGM Hecate II). So everything is correct and to scale. As you can see I started with a simple base and started building onto it.

As you could see from my previous post I had already pretty much finished the handle and magazine part asides from paint and the trigger, and in the top picture you can see how it looks paired up with the other part. And as illustrated in the picture below, everything was endlessly covered in gesso and sanded and repeat.

Further detail was added as you can see in the pictures. I added the end piece on the barrel and those things where the barrel connects to the body of the gun. I have no idea what function those fill, but hey, they look cool. In the lower left picture you can see the scope coming together, but it's still far from done.

I then started working on the stock. The inside is cardboard, and then I glued on layers of camping mat that I shaped into the right shape with a hobby knife. Then I had to do something I just really don't like, paper maché. It just never works for me, but there was no way around it, I had to do it. And thus my stock is currently looking like a newspaper blob with a toilet paper roll on it. Absolutely beautiful. But that will of course change, I just have to wait for the god damn paper maché to dry. That's totally not why I'm writing this post, to waste time until it dries. 

And finally, a shot of the rifle in the state it is in right now. I just attached the barrel handle whatever and added some detail. I'm soon going to get the whole magazine and handle and all that on there, so that should be really exciting. Hopefully it all sticks together and doesn't fall apart.

UPDATE/EDIT:

     I figured it'd be cool to put the parts next to each other. Except for the scope which is still covered in wet gesso. Also the stock is going to be closer to everything else, but because wet gesso I couldn't put it in its proper spot so now it's derping there next to the rifle.

     That's all I've got for now, I hope you enjoyed and maybe even learned something. I'm realizing I've definately underestimated cardboard as a material, it's quite cool to work with really. But yeah, bye for now, I will post a part 2 about this rifle project later on, so stay tuned~

/Amanda

Scary weapons and weird pants

I'm back with another Sinon progress post! I'm dedicated to documenting all that happens with this costume, and so far so good. Since the last post I have pretty much finished the jacket, finished the pants and gotten working on her rifle, which is a major pain in the ass to make but hopefully it'll look cool. Hopefully.
     I'll start off with the jacket. I ordered some studs off eBay and to my great joy they arrived quickly I wish I could say the same about my wig. When I first saw them I thought crap, they're too small, but when I placed them on her jacket, and pants and belt, this gal is all about studs, they looked rather nice like so; 

I threw in a pic of the studs in a bag and the jacket on a hanger for your viewing pleasure, I'm a generous bloghost. The jacket looks crooked on the last pic, but it really just doesn't want to pose nicely and decided not to hang properly on its hanger. Oh and I also added a zipper for her white stripe on the jacket. It never looks like a zipper in the reference pictures, but I thought it looked really awesome with a zipper in that spot, it is after all a logical place to put a zipper on a jacket. I typed zipper really many times there. Zipper.

Moving on, I added the collar and the cuffs, attached the lining and voila, it now looks something like this;

A smile, what is that? No cosplay is serious business. We also don't have a single full body mirror in this house in which you can take pictures in a nice light, so these two will have to do. At least you can see the general shape and such of the jacket. And note the awesome buttons on the pockets, they are these kind of buttons;

So in other words my pockets are like the fanciest thing I have ever made. I still love the fact that they work. Yeah, you can see how much effort I put into most of my cosplay, since I'm super excited about functional pockets.

     

     Moving onwards and downwards, pants. The pants aren't that complicated really, even though there are multiple elements to them. I made some black booty shorts earlier to cover that part of her pants, and I later made the green leg parts of her pants. I feel like that description got a whee bit confusing so I'll throw in a reference picture for you;

Those are some funky pants. but hopefully now you see where I'm getting at. So, back to pant making, it wasn't hard to make, I just made a pattern for the legs and the side pieces, added some studs and had something looking like this;

And bias tape of course. There will be about 20 meters of bias tape on the finished costume. That's sort of nuts... I attached the parts and got this;

More fancy mirror shots! You can sort of see how they look like here, but then again they do look better now that they're all finished. Heck I've even lined them. I lined pants, that's weird if you ask me. Anyways, I moved onto making the belt which was not a complicated process, a straight strip of fake leather with some tuning ended up like this;

More studs and a semi unaccurate belt buckle, but it was the closest functional belt buckle I could find. It's easily exchanged too if I ever find a better one. And finally, the belt, with the pants, looks like this in its finished state when not worn;

You can see some of my fancy black lining there as well. These were really simple to make and took like, two days of slow work to finish, but I do like the result.

     And I'm not done yet, I'll throw in some exciting pics of my progress on her rifle. I'm thinking of doing a separate post on that when I've gotten further but this is what I've got so far;

 Such weapon. Much scare. Wow. Yeah I don't have much, but it's slowly happening. It'd be nice to have something like worbla to work with but silly me is doing the budget version using around the hose items and gesso. So far the total cost of this is 5e, and I spent that on some shit I'm not even gonna use. So for the materials in the pics, 0e.

/Amanda

Future cosplay plans! Or well, plan.

Wow, a second blogpost within a week. This must be a really good way of avoiding studying which is exactly what I should be doing right now. Not like I have som really important exams coming up, noooo, I have all the time I want to make cosplay and write about it.
   Honestly though, I'm super excited for my upcoming cosplay. It is so different from anything I've ever done before, and so far working on it has been super fun. The character I'm making is Sinon from Sword Art Online, Phantom Bullet Arc.

 Another SAO cosplay in other words... This time from an arc that hasn't even aired as anime yet. I love the design of SAO characters, they're really detailed compared to many other anime designs, and the anime was decent as well. Not best anime ever, but ok enough to cosplay from it haha. I chose this character in particular since I wanted to sign up for Cosvisions competition, and I needed a cosplay that would be "contest material". This character instantly popped into my head, and I decided to go for her. I also really like the fact that her design is very different from what I've made before (mostly school uniforms, old-timey dresses, fantasy looking stuff), and I really wanted to try out making something with a more modern look. Plus, she looks badass. I mean really, she does.
   So I obviously rushed to the fabric store so i could get going with this project, and even though I was just planning to buy just some of the fabric I ended up finding so much awesome fabric that I could not contain myself and ended up getting materials for all of her outfit except for the scarf.

I was especially concerned about finding the green fabric for her jacket, since finding specific shades of colors like green is really hard at the small Eurokangas in Vasa. At first I found a semi good fabric which I almost ended up buying.... And then my awesome boyfriend found the perfect green, perfect texture, perfect price fabric in the bottom of a pile of fabric rolls! So all in all I was very happy with my fabric for this costume ^^

   I started out with making the bodusuit thing she has going on, and it really wasn't that interesing od a process except for the boobie cup part. Not only did they look different in every reference picture, they were also annoying to make. But in the end I defeated them and while the bodysuit isn't 100% done, I've gotten quite some work done on it.

Not looking very flattering in these pics but oh well. Those green camping mat parts will of course be covered, painted and fixed up before I attach them for real.

   I also started working on the jacket, and I must say I'm loving how it's turning out so far. I really haven't gotten that much done since I started working on it like, yesterday, but I've made some progress~

Fingers closeup! But no, what i wanted to showcase is the FUNCTIONAL pockets. I'm really way more proud of them than I should be but I mean... They work! So cool. (Those black tiny spots are leftovers from a ripped seam, so they really look even cleaner and neater for real). I also made a sleeve yesterday but I made all the applique on the wrong side, so I'll fix that before I post any pics of that wonder. That should be it for now, I'll be back later with some more progress pictures. Bye for now~

/Amanda

Frostbite~

So, Frostbite went by and I promised you pictures, which will happen in this very post. And I'll also tell you about the con briefly because it would feel weird just to slam a bunch of pictures onto here.
   On friday I left from Vaasa to Lahti at 16.00, (I had eaten pizza right before I left and I swear the whole train smelled like pizza after I got on) and after a lovely 5 hours-ish train trip I arrived to Lahti around nine in the evening. I then had to drag my bags all the way to Omenahotelli where a Hansku was chilling with some empty booze bottles in the trash hahaha. We decided to go to the bar for a quick drink, and having no idea what sort of places Lahti had to offer we ended up in an Irish style pub with karaoke. I'm intrigued by that combination. Anyhow, we managed to find the most awkwardly placed table in the history of tables placed in bars, and it was perfect for us, far enough away from the karaoke, and not in the "danceclub section" of the bar. We then left for Sibeliustalo and the convention so I could get my con wristband, spent some time in the gaming room and then headed back to the hotel.
    Saturday morning we overslept and when we got to the con Hanskus con workshift had already started, so she left to do her business and I derped around the con, took pictures, ironed my cosplay and so forth. Regular cosplay business~ I later ended up backstage, and it was really cool to see all the well made competition cosplays up close. However, when the competition rolled around I left the backstage to watch that. It was super fun as usual, and as always I felt super inspired to do cosplay after watching all the awesome costumes.

 Group pics of all the competing cosplayers! The first one is the Nordic Cosplay    Championchip preliminaries and the second one the Hall Cosplay competition.

   After that me and Hansku left for the hotel to relax and have a drink. Or two. Or three. And we eventually ended up going back to the con, and since Frostbite was a 18+ convention they did serve alcohol at the after party going on. I was really impressed by how well people handled this though, I saw no one that was really drunk and causing problems, and as far as I know there were no fights or people drinking too much and getting sick and so forth. Which is awesome, it's fun to party but even better when you can party and behave yourself. Can't say I always do that though. After having some drinks we went to the gaming room since the dancefloor wasn't really our thing, and unfortunately pretty much every game was taken and no one had any intentions of leaving, so eventually we dicided to go and get some rest.

    When Sunday rolled around we got up, packed our stuff and dragged them with us to the convention. We watched the AMV competition and went to a panel, and then took some quick photos of each other since pics or it didn't happen, and then I changed out of costume before the ending ceremony, because I had to get to the train on time and it isn't comfy travelling for 4-5 hrs wearing cosplay. Just no. 

    All in all, it was one of the better cons I've been to lately, and I could really go on on how I liked the 18+ concept (I definately don't think all cons should be 18+, but it would be nice to have like, one a year that is), but I'll try to keep it short, although I already wrote a huge wall of text, so thank you everybody for an awesome con, here are some pics I took of random and awesome cosplayers;

I'll come back somewhat soon with updates on my current cosplay project, bacause inspiration happened and I kind of signed up for a competition. 

/Amanda

Thank God... And Leafa pics!

I had a mini heart attack when trying to get into blogger on the fabulous new computer I'm sitting in front of now. I could for the love of god not remember my password OR which email I was using for this account. But eventually I got in, as you might have guessed already.
    That aside though, Frostbite happened last weekend, and I must say I really had a really good time, and I really liked the fact that the con had an age limit, the atmosphere was generally a little more mature for obvious reasons, but the entire con vibe was still there. Oh and they served alcohol at the afterparty. That was sweet.
     I did take some pics of all the other awesome congoers, however, I'll do a post containing those later, along with a more detailed description of my overall con weekend. This post is all about the costume I debuted, Leafa from Sword Art Online! If you know the character well, or compare my costume to a reference pic of her, you might notice a lack of a hair decoration and some bracelets. And the answer to why those are missing is simple, I was slacking and didn't have time to finish them in time, but I wanted to debut her so badly I decided to go without those details. But now, on to some pictures~

All the pictures are taken by Hansku. We took them on Sunday in the afternoon, so we weren't all that motivated to get some really epic pictures, hence the lack of them. But these three turned out nice with some editing slapped on (especially the stair one, god that was a dark pic). I really look forward to getting some pics of this costume in summer though, it just suits her character theme so much better :3

And just in lack of other things, have a collage of progress pics. I made the corset boning out of those things that you can't open once you pull them shut and I can't for the love of god remember what they're called. Just look at the last pic and you'll get what I mean. But they worked wonders, definately a thing to try out if you're looking for a cheap boning alternative! I read somewhere that they should really not be used in actual, lace up corsets as they might snap and hurt you. But for costuming and fashion corsets they should be fine~

So, I think that will be it for this post, I will return with some more Frostbite stuff later, so until then, goodbye~

/Amanda

Oh. Oooooooh.

I made a promise in early July about some more Gisen pictures... Let's just not talk about that and look at the bright side of things, I'm making a blog post again! I have not abandoned my blog yet, I swear. I was about to do so, but changed my mind last minute.( If you still wanna see more Gisen pics tho... *click* )
   With a new year comes new challenges and new costumes to make, and I swear I shall not be as lazy as I was in 2013 where hardly anything was produced. Not compared to 2012 at least. SO, now you're all excited about my plans for 2014 right? I haven't planned shit. There it is, I said it. I do have one costume in progress for Desucon Frostbite a month away though, I am making Leafa from Sword Art Online;

I actually hadn't watched this series earlier, but I really enjoyed it, especially the first half of the series. Ironically Leafa is exclusive to the second half but oh well, I was in love with her design even before I started watching the series, and I liked her character when I actually knew the plot of the anime, so I figured I'd give it a go. And I'm not regretting it either, so far I have made the jacket, top, skirt part, shorts, stockings and gloves and it has been relatively smooth sailing all the way. I'm definately looking forward to the end result. I am currently waiting for the wig to arrive, and once it does I might make a blogpost concerning that and the pieces I have already made of this cosplay. 

    So that's all I've planned for my 2014 so far. I must admit it feels a bit boring not to have any fantastic plans for the year, but at the same time I know there will pop up characters I wanna cosplay, so no need to panic really. Hope you all had an awesome 2013 and will have an even more awesome 2014 btw! Until next time, bye~

/Amanda