Katsucon 2012

Another late post. This time on Katsucon. I had a lot going on, mostly that I was sick after the con, so I wasn't able to get the con report up as quickly as I liked. But here it is!

As before with the previous report, Katsucon is in a gorgeous location. The Gaylord is a beautiful hotel, with many different backdrops and areas for photos. They have this really lovely jungle area, a water location, and all sorts of elegant looking areas. Beyond taking photos, its really just a nice area to be around. It's pretty easy to get around and find different areas to hang out in and just relax.

This year I'm sure it's gotten bigger. Its pretty natural with any con, but you can definietly see the crowding in the Saturday crowd. Luckily the hotel and the convention area is still pretty big enough to hold the people there. They keep the programs/events pretty separate from the main areas so that people aren't crowding around them.

I didn't really attend many panels, again the trend of many different cosplay panels were there though. More and more you'll see more pop up. It definetly show the shift towards the importance of Cosplay within the con scene. And because of that, and the location, people seemed to want to bust out their biggest and best cosplays.

Some of my favorites from the con








And the rest can be found here. Don't forget to check out the subfolders for more photos!

Katsucon

Hey there! This is a pretty small post but I'll be at Katsucon this weekend! I'll hopefully have a con report up asap as well as my photos. As for what I'm cosplaying...



Fri
Airi (am), Karina (pm)

Sat
Karina (am), Maya (am), Hua Po (pm)

My first big con of the year! So I'm super excited. It might be a little bit afterwards before I head to any con, due to some really exciting and important life stuff going on. I'm not too sure what my next con will be, but I'll probably still be working on cosplay inbetween. Anyway, I hope to see some of you guys there!

Anime USA

Late AUSA post is super, super late. But it hit right around the time where I was doing a lot of traveling and then I needed to catch up with work. But here is my late AUSA con report.

The con center itself is a fairly decent looking hotel. Though its really too bad that the hotel is getting too small for the con. I went last year and I thought it was a bit crowded, this year was pretty bad. It's been a while since I've been in a con this crowded and this was probably one of the worse. Though I heard a rumor that the con moved to a new location for next year. The hotel itself was really rather nice. And the rooms were really massive, which I guess doesn't matter any more.

They were far more up on badge checks, near the escalator points, but I didn't notice any by the elevators. Maybe they weren't allowed to. But they had the typical ones right by the dealers and artist alley. Speaking of artist alley, I really rarely ever buy stuff from there but there was someone selling these adorable Tiger & Bunny plushies so I had to snag one up.

I got the small one in the front. But look how cute they are! Whoever the artist is, someone link me, I want to credit you.

The dealers room was alright, again, the layout was rather odd. It's almost sectioned off into two areas, and you have to weave your way around. I tend to like getting figures more then anything, so there was maybe a few booths (Anime Sekai being my favorite), but otherwise I didn't end up seeing a lot that I liked. Also on Friday they didn't open until 2pm, which made no sense to me. Most dealers rooms won't open up until around noon, but I don't understand at all why they waited until 2pm.

Unlike most cons I actually spent time going to a few of the panels. One of them was a beginners cosplay's panel, just to see what it was like. I felt rather bad for the people running it, because they had the poor luck of being next to the game room and they didn't have a mic. But otherwise it was a well run and presented panel.

Speaking of the game room...it was probably one of the worst game rooms I've seen. And it wasn't because of the content. The location was small, the room was near impossible to navigate through, and it had tons of people crammed in it. They needed a bigger room, hopefully next year they'll do that.

When it comes to cons, this con is more of "hangout with friends and take photos" con. In the area there isn't a lot (there is a CVS that sells booze) but other then that, once you walk around the hotel there isn't much. I wouldn't recommend coming from far away for this con, but if you live within the east coast I think this con is worth checking out. It's slowly growing into something bigger, so I'll be excited to see where they go next year.

And of course some photo highlights from the con.








And of course the rest can be found here. Enjoy!

Cosplay Progress

So it's been a while since I updated! For the most part I've been working to get ready for AUSA. I have several costumes finished, with small details that need to get done. Normally what I like to do is when I finish a costume, I like to do a page dedicated to each character. But with this update I'm going to include the progress for each one of the characters I worked on.

AUSA Line Up

I know. 5 costumes. How did this end up happening? The June costume isn't mine, but I'm borrowing from a friend (who was the June in the previous 999 group I was in). And Karina originally wasn't meant for AUSA but I managed to finish the costume early so I decided to bring her along as well. June I'm wearing with a few friends who are doing 999 cosplay, and Claudia is obviously already made.

That least Wakaba and FeMC left. It's sort of funny how the two has similar looks; hair pulled up, and dark jackets. FeMC I started working on first, and I had some slight fit issues.

I chose a pattern size that was a bit too big, so when I made it and tried it on, everything was much bigger then it should be. FemMCs jacket was a bit interesting, so I had to sort of pattern it from scratch, based off a tshirt pattern that had the same collar.



As you can see with the original fit, everything is far too long, to big/bulky. The bow was made from scraps of fabric that I had sitting around, probably the easiest to make. Now onto the refitting...



As you can see the fit is far better. The jacket sits where its supposed to, and the jacket isn't so long and baggy. There's also a different, better fitting blouse underneath. The stripes on the front are bias tape that's sewn on top of the jacket. And the closure for the jacket is an invisible zipper, most of which is hidden by the bias tape. Only thing left now is the socks and I'll be good to go!

Karina
This was probably my favorite to work on. The dress was super simple to make, it was just a basic dress pattern that I adjusted to fit what I needed. I ended up using Kona Cotton for the fabric, which made ma little nervous at first, but once it was lined, everything was perfect. The fabric is super soft and breathable, and Kona had the colors I needed.



The ruffles were all done by hand, which I really wouldn't recommend if you have a lot to do, because it's a really tedious process. But the end result was really nice. The triangle parts were all done by sewing individual pieces together, nothing complicated.



The vest has a bit of fuzz/sheep's fur in the collar. The wig was my first Taobao order, which was amazing. Probably one of the best wigs that I have right now. The arm parts have bits of elastic in them to create the poofed out look and holds to my arms better. Also the stockings are from sockdreams. I wish I would have started ordering from them sooner. I've never had a better order and faster shipping before.

Wakaba
This was a last minute choice because a friend of mine asked if I would cosplay from Utena with her. So I excitedly agreed. The jacket and pants were really simple. The pants I bought and adjusted. It was surprisingly difficult to find waist high, white pants that weren't denim.



The last bit was the jacket. The jacket was fairly easy to make, I found a pattern that fit really well and I adjusted from there. Thanks to the amount of bias I've had to sew, I've gotten pretty good at it. I havea friend working on her sword for me, and once I finish a few details, and the wig, I'll be all done!



The last thing I want to mention is my friend Electricbarbarella has a cosplay blog up now. I think you all should go and check her out!

Sissel Wig

I hadn't done an update in a bit, not since quickly recapping Otakon, I figure I can go into detail as to how the wig was made and the process I went into it. This was the first time I ever took on a project as big as this. Most of the wig stuff I've had to do were pretty minor. Even for my costume in this group I only had to trim the wig. But I wanted a group so as long as our Sissel paid for the supplies I would make the wig for him. I'll go into as much detail as I can on the process I went through for this wig.

Supplies
Bristol Paper
Tape
Plaster
Paint
2 Blond Wigs
Wig Heads
Spray Mount
Mod Podge
Wig Combs

The first step was building the base. The base was the Bristol Paper, which is basically a thicker stock of paper. It's a few pieces tapped together. The bottom part is one piece, and then to get the strange, curled up shape that's several pieces stacked and tapped on top. It's a bit hard to explain, but you basically want to make a cone shape. When you build up as much as you can on the base so you have more for the hair to stick to. The tape is black but we don't have to worry about that, all of that stuff will be covered.

Once I got the shape that I wanted, I took strips of plaster and covered it. You want to be careful not to use too much, because you don't want to make it too heavy, it will be resting on the top of the head. I just wanted it wrapped up so it could cover the tape. You really don't need to worry about sanding it or anything, since it'll be covered.








Once it was plastered, matched a paint to the hair as close as I could and painted it. This is just in case any sort of stray hair opens up and the base is shown. It basically helps everything look nice and consistent. Once the base was dried, I could begin the progress of fitting it to the wig.



















When you're fitting the base of the wig to the head, you want to make sure you have a way of securing it. I ended up hot gluing it to the top of the wig, so it would hold there while I could work the hair along the base. This is a bit more complicated to explain, but I'll through the process I went to attach the hair to the base.

First thing I did was take a clump of hair and spray it down with hair spray to make it stiff. Then taking the spray mount, I would spray it onto the base and then press the hair to it. Taking a brush, I would paint the mod podge along the hair to help make it more stiff, as well as stick it to base better. I would repeat this process until the base was completely covered in hair. In the end it looked something like this...



Not...incredibly nice. But it will look better! This is where the second wig came into play. I harvested the second wig for wefts and attached the wefts in the same way I attached the hair from the wig.

I didn't really do much differently from the last part. The ends of the hair was painted with mod podge to make them stiff, so I could create a hairline for the wig.



Slowly but surely the wig was starting to look more even, less like a mess of hair around the base.



And the final result was this!


Worn by Hayabusa72.

This was probably the biggest wig project ever. It was tough...but I was glad for the experience.

Otakon and Post con updates

Wow, so it's been nearly a month since I updated. Normally what I do is write up a quick con report after a convention, but this year things were a bit unsual. I didn't get to go to Otakon for the full weekend like I planned. I had the chance to spend a week in Mexico, so I took that and spent only a day at Otakon. I was happy for the day that I got to spend there, it was so much fun. I can't really write too much about the con itself. Most of my time was spent catching up with my friends.

Otakon was SUPER hot. I mean hotter then any year I've ever been to. Even in the super light costume I was wearing, I felt like death standing outside for the few moments from when I had to go between hotel to con center. I felt bad for anyone in thick or massive costumes, you guys are all champs for making it through. Every year feels like more and more people are going.

My cosplay for the con...I went as Kamila from Ghost Trick.


I had a wonderful, fantastic group with me. Everyone did such a fantastic job on their costumes.



Jowd, Lynne & Sissile.

And of course I'm going to post some of the highlights from Friday that I snapped.








And of course, the rest of my photos are here.

It looks like I'll be making it to AUSA again this year, which I'm excited about. I've got two new cosplays in the works, so I best be working on them.

Connecticon 2011

Connecticut Convention Center; Hartford, CT
July 8-10th
Website

This was another one of those conventions where I was surprised at the last moment that I could go (literally, I found out 2 days before the con I could make it). I've heard of the con before but never really experienced it until now. The con itself is one of those big mix cons, it's not just anime, but video-games, sci-fi and everything else. They do a pretty good job of mixing everything, and there was a ton of different people. If I had to compare the size it reminds me of Ohayocon.

This was one of the few times I actually got the chance to really check out the panels, and I'm glad I got to. About all the panels I went to were really great. One of the more different panels I went to was the Parkour panel (which a lot of Assassin Creed cosplayers showed up to, no surprise there). While not really fitting too much into the whole con, it was an interesting panel to go to, to hear about what Parkour was really about.

Out of the main events, I saw the Dating Game, Masquerade and the Death Match (also a very small bit of the chess game). What I want to start off with, and what I didn't know, is that a lot of these have these main skits that the people running them do. I don't think the idea is bad, but they ran WAY too long. The best example is the Masquerade. It was supposed to end at 10:00pm so the Geek Comedy could begin. We left by 11:00pm and they were still doing their skits. The Dating Game was run the same way, everything was pre-decided and was just made to be a skit. Which is fine, if that's what they want to do. But something like this shouldn't be done for the Masquerade. The Masq is for the people who entered, who made costumes and skits for it. It really shouldn't be overrun by the people running it. The skits ran on FAR too long. I think if they need to do something like that, they need to make sure they run far shorter, they'd be far more enjoyable.

But moving on, I caught the end of most of the skits, and they looked pretty good. They placed the winning AMVs at the end and ALL of them were amazing. My favorite was "Captain Jack Sparrow" one...I wish I could find it online just to post. The Death Match was amazing. The MC was great and I loved to be able to cheer for the characters I wanted to win. I sadly didn't get to see the end of that, but I think the events where the audience can participate are the best.

The dealers room was pretty fantastic. Lots of space and a lot of really good booths. There was one in particular though that was selling nothing but knock off figures. The prices were super tempting, extremely low, but every single figure there was a knock off. I know some people don't really care either way, I'm particular about the figures I buy. If I'm buying a figure I want it to be authentic. But my favorite booth Anime Seikai was there. If you're going to buy a figure Anime Seikai is the best place to do it. They have a ton of figures, all authentic and range in pretty decent prices. I love seeing their booth at cons because they always have new figures. (Okay I think I've pumped up Anime Seikai enough). Another great thing was the Artist Alley set up. The room was pretty big and there was a lot of different types of artists there.

I really loved the layout of the whole convention. There was a lot of space, and it was pretty easy to get from one place to another. I think it worked out well because the amount of people there. I have a feeling once the convention gets larger this will be more difficult to fit everyone, that's pretty normal for any con. But the size and the center was perfect. I had a really good time overall, I would definitely come back to this con.

Photos








And of course the rest of the photos are here. Enjoy!