Let there be patterns...

Heya,

as you might have noticed I don’t get enough time during the cosplay season to actually write about my progress. But as I am now on holiday staying with my grandparents before I go to Animagic this weekend and afterwards dive into the realms of LARP again… well I at least wanted to try to get a small update done.

To be honest it pains me a little but I have really been much less productive than in all of my nearly 8 cosplay years up till now… I somehow felt more like I needed other experiences for a change. Such as  meeting ppl, visiting the tourney at Kaltenberg, organizing a shooting and just attending cons or just so small, trivial activities as watching movies or reading… and not to forget work also keeps me kinda busy. Well… also due to quite some changes of plans… I ended up with only two new cosplays up till now this year. Kija (already shown) and Kurama from Kamisama Kiss I want to talk about now, two new weapons one for Hotohori from Fushigi Yuugi and one for Lyn from Fire Emblem – Radiant Sword. Plus I am atm working on a new pair of trousers for the Conquest of Mythodea and working on Freya Crescent from FF IX. About these two I don’t want to write yet as I don’t like writing about not even close to finished stuff. So… let’s start with Hotohori’s sword from that certain artwork.

Hotohori's sword

  

Again I used the same method as for Alibaba Saluja’s second metal vessal. I cut out the sword out of different layers of balsa wood. Just this time I used only one about 1 cm thick one for the whole blade. Easier to attach (less edges which shouldn’t be seen), but more difficult to handle cause the balsawood tends to break in the cutting process more easily. Only for the hilt I used different layersfor the very delicate decorations and frames of worbla as balsawood would have been too thick for some.

 It was quite the puzzle and I really rasped a lot to get that one neat. In case of the tsuba I wasn’t entirely successful in getting smooth edges as the balsawood broke a lot due to the round flowerlike shape and because I had to cut it in half in order to glue it to the rest of the sword.

I tried to mend this by applying lot’s of layers of paste after gluing everything together. Partly it turned out great, partly only Ok… Still I’m very happy with the result. It was really great to have lots of time for a change and to work in long intervals.

After the paste I added the basic colours. For sword and hilt I used spray paint first and afterwards acrylics for the blue and red decorations. 

In the end I added the tiny details in gold and shaded with nearly dry dark brown and black acrylics before I applied the varnish and added in the final step the tiny artificial gems plus in one case 2 cabochon frames and a selfcoiled cord. 

 Now just the sheath is missing. But most likely I’m not going to make it till next year. Still thinking about the best way to make it plus Hotohori’s a long time project anyway due to missing cosplay partners. 

Kurama Shinjirou (Kamisama Kiss)

Sooo but now another quicker one. Or at least I thought so till I started and noticed that I again had decided on a character in whose case a school uniform doesn’t mean that the cosplay would be a piece of cake to make ^^’’… The devil’s in the details again…  But what else could you expect of cosplaying a pop star -.-‘’’….

Still I liked that idiot tengu yokai idol that much… and as a friend wanted to cosplay Tomoe I was happily looking forward to at least one entire day of exchanging “niceties” the whole time xD. (Yes, the two yokais don’t really get along at all except for some very rare cases throughout the storyline.)

First thing I noticed… oh quite some makeup… easy shirt and trousers and… well I really need help with that hairstyle… which I luckily got. Plus I found the perfect wig at the bring&buy at Animuc this year! So I got all hyped about this already in April this year. Luckily I also owned a white shirt already and black boots. Grey trousers for the school uniform we decided to buy together as well and just had to shorten both as they turned out to be much much too long.  Cosplay nearly finished, right? No! I didn’t find a T-shirt in a colour I really liked so I had to sew my first tanktop as the sleeves aren’t visible anyway… took some time of course to make that pattern and to understand a great tutorial by RomaiLee  I had found at animexx.de for a T-shirt collar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EJ4ViUUEZA). It worked quite well though for a first try.

Second I had to get that studded leather neckband…. at a gothic shop where a friend put in the studs… Wearing it without the cosplay feels… funny xD, kinda wrong and I was confirmed that I please shouldn’t change my style in that direction xD. Still… other leather bands in red were missing, three bracelets, black cuffs, that very unique pendant of his and last but not least… wtf? He really has got a belt consisting of two thin belts going through one buckle? O.O’’’

 

…. Ok…  So after lots of hunting … I found the bracelets, decided to sew the cuffs myself again using a pattern from Natron&Soda (Sorry, but it’s  in German: https://natronundsoda.net/klamotten/cns/klamottenpage.html?id=156)as inspiration and had finally decided to make that pendant out of fimo light again. 

This involved making patterns for all single parts of it, searching for round caps of the right sizes I could use to stamp out the round parts with.  Plus a coin for the innermost circles. After cutting/stamping everything out and putting it together I added a small hole in the back with a toothpick for the fastening. 

  

After letting everything dry for a day I added 2-3 layers of paste and spray painted everything silver. After painting the darker parts in a dark silver or black I used lots of time to add shades and highlights. Never have done that so elaborately and asked quite some ppl for their opinion before I finally was content and able to add the red rhinestone I luckily had left and finishing the matter.

The ugliest part turned out to be making the belts. I bought two leather belts for that, cut off the buckles, added new holes in them and wanted to sew them shut, securing them to the new single buckle… In the end I had to hammer the needle into the leather instead of sewing -.-‘’’….  in the middle of the night before the day I wanted to wear the cosplay… So please don’t underestimate real leather… especially the thick one used for making belts… even if you possess a special leather needle… 

The feet belong to Link ;)

I also cut the ends in shape to get it more close to the original.

So I somehow got finished last minute again with a cosplay that seemed rather simple… Guess I have finally learned my lesson now and hopefully won’t underestimate a school uniform ever again as I already did in case of Gokudera Hayato  from KH Reborn! and Okumura Rin from Ao no Exorcist…

Still, wearing Kurama was fun J and I’m already very tempted to cosplay him again at Connichi so that all the bother won’t be for nothing.

Oh and besides it was funny to apply nail polish for a cosplay for the first time… especially cosplaying a guy o.O. I even let my fingernails grow so that it would look better and more true to the original. (Won’t do this again though as it turned out to be very bothersome at work.)

Rare one, a mobile phone photo xD. Usually I don't like to add cosplay photos here due to right's issues.

 

Aside from this it is not as if I have run out of ideas and wishes… I really really want to cosplay Narsus from Arslan Senki asap and two other characters from Akatsuki no  Yona namely Jaeha and Hak… for Narsus and Jaeha I have already nearly all the fabric ready… and even the wigs in their basic forms… *sigh* But still they have to wait till Freya’s more or less finished or I give up on that monster project for Connichi in September. Plz wish me luck. So far only the coat is nearly finished but there are still trousers, socks, feet, tail, nose, hat and all these decorations to make… most likely it’s too much after all -.-‘’’….