イベントレポ：ＡｎｉＭａＣｏ

Hellohoooo! *waves*

As usual I'm two weeks late with my con report and as usual I blame it entirely on uni for being so stressfull.

It's got nothing to do with my lack of time management skills!






AniMaCo here in Berlin was my last con this year. Nothing special, but nice. I have to admit that, if it wasn't in Berlin, I propably couldn't be bothered to go.
This year was rather fun, though and that's most likely thanks to my company: Friday Eva came with me, Saturday it were my sister and Sarah. I only went alone on Sunday, but due to several appointments I've made beforehand it didn't get boring that day, either.

	Friday Yuuko Ichihara (xxxHoLiC/Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles) This was actually my second WCS prelims cosplay. I wore it underneath my kimono and it was only visible on stage for about 10 seconds, which is why some parts (read: the sleeves) were more like stand-ins. But because I really like the dress, I wanted to wear it to a con as well, so I redid the sleeves, the choker and the ornaments on the dress. As you can see in the reference picture, it's supposed to be a dress and a corset, but I simply sewed it as one piece, using a different fabric for the corset part to create the illusion of two seperate pieces. The golden ornaments are made of painted pleather, the silver ones are painted directly onto the fabric. Eva took a lot of pretty pictures of me in this costume. I'm happy now <3 I'd still like to do a proper shoot in a more appropriate setting orz
	Saturday Hungary/Elizabeta Héderváry (Axis Powers Hetalia) Hetalia is the most ridiculous and racist anime/manga series I've come across (yet) - to a point where it gets hilariously funny. Even though the fandom scares me sometimes (I know, Hetalia kinda asks for it, but still: Why do people slash everything? We're talking about countries here, for crying out loud!), I hugely enjoy every new episode and webcomic. Luckily, my sister is just as addicted to the series as I am, so it was quickly decided that we wanted to cosplay as Hungary and Austria. Problem: No time. So, for the first time EVURRR, I commissioned the costumes via ebay. And well, I didn't expect them to be perfect, and they fit quite well at least. Still, I redid about half of my Hungary costume, because I wasn't happy with how it looked like. But I am now. Yay. Just kindly remind me not to commission a costume EVER AGAIN XD ↓ 1st and 2nd picture: with as Austria; taken by Andy-K aka Squirrel-of-doom ↓ ↓ 3rd picture taken by MissKrone ↓ ↓ ↓ last picture taken by my sister
	Sunday Garnet (Tsukiji Nao original illustration) I've been pondering a lot about which costume to wear on Sunday, but then I saw that was going to come to AniMaco, too. I really, really like her pictures and something like that was just was I had in mind for a shooting with my Garnet costume. So I asked her to take some pictures, she said yes and well... I LURV TEHM ALL! XDD Thanks to this costume, I looked hugely preggers that day (again), but people assured me that pregnancy suits me XDDDD For more info on the costume itself, please refer to my Connichi report. ↓ All pictures taken by Gina Kühn

My AniMaCo 2010:

+ cosplaying with Melli again ♥ ♥
+ taking pictures with Gina, Eva, Krone and Squirrel
+ nice weather (cold, but dry)
+ found some nice photo shoot locations I didn't knew before
+ cheap and yummy food
+ meeting Pü, FederMON and Cari-chan again ♥
+ I'm really pleased that my costumes showed some variety this time Σd(-∀-*)

- no Maddi ;___;
- ugly convention site (as usual...)
- prices in the dealer's room were ridiculous
- Hetalia yaoi fangirls galore



So that was my last convention this year. Maybe I'll have one more photo shoot this year (with my Belle costume), but I'm not sure - the weather's been strange lately.
But even without another photo shoot, I'm busy enough: My master's thesis and final exams are coming up >_>
Plus, I still need to edit some pictures of previous photo shoots. (Yes, believe it or not, but I am working on it! Sorry, Lao!)

撮影会：女王ナカジェリーヌ29世

Hey there!
As promised here's my short entry on my long-anticipated Nakajerine shoot with Laura a.k.a MissKrone.
I've done this costume back in 2008, but it's still one of my favourite costumes, so I've been really looking forward to this shoot. I've already worn this costume twice to conventions, but never had a real photo shoot in a suitable setting. After all, Nakajerine is a queen, so you can't just simply go into the woods to take some pictures XD

Luckily, Laura lives in the most awesome apartment house ever. Seriously, that hallway is just plain epic. We've used it as a setting before for our Rozen Maiden and our Lolita shoot. The hallway has a beautiful chandelier (!!) and large, beautiful mirrors. It's a bit narrow, but she made it look like Nakajerine's throne room ♪ヾ(*>ω<)ﾉ It's been a long and winding road to this shoot. Since two years I've been dying to have some pretty pictures taken of it, but it wasn't until this July that I finally asked Laura to do a shoot with me - only to realize then, when I was at her place that I've forgotten essential parts of my costume at home (=ω=；) So I was really, really happy when we finally had the shoot in August and now that I've seen all the finished pictures I can finally retire this costume with a feeling of deep satisfaction. Thank you, Laura!
















Not to forget my absolute favourite:

My home is my castle by ~y-o-s-s-i on deviantART
(embedded from dA for higher resolution and prettier colours - is it just me or does Photobucket really do strange things to reddish colours?)

All pictures were taken and edited by Laura di Martino (MissKrone)
Full gallery at Animexx

Two weeks ago, we also had another long-anticipated shoot: My sister's and my Terra e costumes.

Again, with the incredibly talented Laura. Here's a preview until I have all the pictures:

EDIT Here's her aweome gallery: Terra


My next entry will be either on this photo shoot or AniMaCo at the end of this month. Until then I'll finally get around to write some papers for uni. I've been a very, very good procrastinator these days... orz

イベントレポ：コンニチ

Hello everyone ♪

I originally wanted to wait posting this entry until I had some more pictures, but it seems like that would take just too much time and it's already been almost 4 weeks since Connichi, so here's my belated-but-still-not-quite-complete con report.









The con
I don't know why, but this year's connichi wasn't even close to the awesomeness of last year's. It was stressfull, sometimes annyoing and propably even unhealthy. I can't enjoy conventions as much as I used to anymore, maybe I'm getting old. orz

This doesn't mean that it was totally bad, no. There were a lot of really cool things, as well. For once, I got to meet all the poeple I was looking forward to, especially Aigue-Marine, WhiteButterfly & BlackButterfly, who I met for the first time. Also, Maddi, my sister and our friend Sarah sucessfully put up with my bad mood for the whole weekend. I hearth you for that. You may not believe it, but I do. And I'm sorry. And of course, there was the train ride back to Berlin, which was -for whatever reason- the most entertaining and EPPICK train ride I've ever had in my entire life.


The costumes
No big surprises here, because I already wrote about them in my WIP entry, so some parts of the costume desciptions will be copypasta.

	Friday - Belle (Disney's Beauty and the Beast) Remember the poll I had in my last entry, because I couldn't decide which of Belle's dresses I should do? This is the dress that made it. Belle's wearing it for like... 20 seconds in the whole movie: First, when she's feeding her horse Philippe on the castle grounds and second, when Beast shows her the castle's library. And because "I'm-feeding-ma-horse-yo!-dress" doesn't exactly sound good, I named it the library dress. It was reeaally easy to sew, even though I had a hard time figuring out how her sleeves are attached to the bodice and how they stay up on Belle's shoulders. I sewed the dress in just two days, so I'm all the more surprised that it turned out so well. If it wasn't for the fact that I look just plain stupid with this centre parting wig, I would really, really love this costume. ↓The 3rd picture shows our little Disney princesses group: My sister wearing my Aurora costume, Maddi in her lovely Ariel dress and me.
	Saturday - Garnet (Tsukiji Nao original artwork) This dress was still in the making when I last wrote about it. The most annoying part about this costume was that I had to paint/dye most of the laces, gems and buttons myself, because I couldn't find anything  appropriate (and affordable). On the other hand, I had no expenses for the fabrics, seeing that they're all leftovers from older costumes. As I said before, I went for an empire dress with a train, which is why I look hugely preggers on some pictures. I'm especially fond of the head piece, even though it's not 100% accurate. I also like the fully lined sleeves, but unfortunately I forgot to factor in all the buttons and laces when I cut the pieces, so the sleeves are quite tight now - I can't bend my arms any further than 90°... orz

	Sunday - Yuko Ichihara (xxxHolic) Yes, my Sunday costume was actually two dresses. I've already wrote all there is to say about the kimono last time and there isn't really much to say about the black dress. I'll have a photo shoot with the latter soon, until then I only have these few on stage photos. As I said before, Maddi and I participated in the German WCS prelims on Sunday with these costumes. Maddi was a disturbingly cute Himawari and did a great acting job on stage ♥ ﾟ+｡(〃▽人)｡+ﾟ Everything we thought could go wrong during the skit went smoothly, so, naturally, it was me in a moment of klutziness who ruined it. How? I tripped. I tripped over my too long trains and trashed our props. I'm so sorry, Maddüüüü! ｡･ﾟ･(>д<)･ﾟ･｡ My incapacity didn't exactly lighten my mood, nor did the fact that none of my favourite groups made it into the top 3. Oh well XD  ↓1st picture taken by MissKrone, 2nd by Fayuna. The 3rd picture was taken by Maddi and shows me and Titschipoo, who was wearing her beautiful Yuko costume I've been drooling about at Bookfair Leipzig ♥ ↓↓ 2nd row: Stage pictures. From left to right taken by Squirrel of doom, Ryo, Nikita666 and lime.

To sum up my Connichi 2010 experience:

+ cosplaying with Maddi ♥ ♥
+ My sister's and Maddi's Gankutsuo cosplay
+ meeting Anni, Soffel, Pü, Aigue-Marine, whiteButterfly & blackbutterfly ♥
+ awesome hotel (close to the convention site, nice staff)
+ foreign convention panel on Saturday
+ nice weather (except for Friday evening)

- crowded
- pricey dealer's room
- people leaving their garbage behind at the park
- no Eva ...
- so much drama
---- GRAVITY!!! XDDD



My next con (and the last one for this year) will be AniMaCo in Berlin at the end of this month.
My costumes:

Friday	Saturday	Sunday

BTW, Laura has uploadad all the pictures from our Nakajerine shoot we had in August, so I'll write an entry on that this weekend, too.

衣装作り中 2010年版

Insert boring introductionary text here




Connichi 2010, one of the biggest conventions in Germany, is coming up in two weeks, so the last couple of weeks I've been busy sewing my new costumes, some of which I've been wanting to do for ages.

First costume:


Yuuko Ichihara from xXxHoLic ♥
I love CLAMP's designs for Yuuko, it was reeeaaally hard to pick one for cosplay. So this is what I'll be wearing on Sunday for the WCS prelims together with Maddi, who'll be my charming Himawari ♥


Here you can see the back side of the kimono, the green lining and some details on the sleeves.
I originally wanted to sew the garment using a real kimono pattern (read: rectangular shapes and open sleeves), but close fitting, low neckline and kimono patterns... just don't work together. So I took my kimono, closed the sleeves and added some darts, which makes it an evening dress with kimono sleeves, I guess...
One note on colours: This kimono I decided on is worn by Yuuko only once during the manga (in Tsubasa, actually), so I only had a b/w reference.
I've been pondering about what colour scheme I should choose for it and did some research on different kimono patterns, keeping in mind that Yuuko's style of clothing tends to be rather flashy. I decided on red (it's somehow Yuukos image colour, right?) with green lining, white obi/corset and orchids in white, silver and bronze-y gold and I think it matches quite well.
It's really subtle in the pictures, but I also gardient-dyed the sleeves and the bottom part of the dress in black. First time gradient-dyeing, but I'm really pleased with the outcome.


The orchids. They're made out of satin and I appliqued each and every one of them OTL
Once that was finished (1000hrs later??) I painted the contours with metallic fabric paint ... for another 1000hrs (I'm not really good at this kind of stuff...)
I suppose they could look better, but at least they're recognisable as orchids...


The corset. I couldn't find any nice (and affordable) gold laces or chinese buttons, so I bought white ones and dyed them myself. Yes, a lot of dyeing on this costume... orz...
And yes, I know there's no bow in the reference but with the low neckline and the long skirt it just looked... as if something was missing. So I made a obi-esque bow (detachable for conveniece) as well. Deal with it XD


Left: A wig test I did ages ago. The wig looks quite different now, but I'm too lazy to put it on again and to take some pictures. I also painted the orchids in a better fitting white and gold. You get the idea XD
Right: My contacts. Yuukos eye colour shifts from red to lilac to amber on different artworks. I would've loved to get red ones, because they'd fit the kimono best and would have the most impact, but there are no red contacts with prescription and I need to be able to see on stage (-6.00 dioptres here...).
So I decided on light brown contacts. They look kind of ... not brown... on my light blue eyes orz


This is what it looks like on me. I'm wearing another (selfmade) long black dress underneath, btw.
It's at 95% because I still need to paint on those tiny crests onto the sleeves and I also want to do something more about that choker. I already replaced the original lace and some of the beads, but I still don't like it.
So, what do you think?
I can't wait to wear it, I just hope it doesn't rain that Sunday >_>

Second costume:


A costume I've been wanting to do since two years now. It's an artwork out of a set of gem stone themed artworks by Nao Tsukiji. She is a mangaka/illustrator I like a lot and when I first saw her "Garnet" design I instantly fell in love with it.
This'll be my costume for Saturday.


I'm still in the middle of sewing, so there's not much I can show you.
Above you can see what will be the sleeves some day (left side) and a part of the head piece (right side). I really love the combination of green, gold and champagne ♥


Elaborate designs like this ask for a lot of beads, gems and laces... I've started to glue, paint (again, no buttons and laces in the right colour) and bead... First time doing this kind of jewellery. And I'm nowhere close to finish, but I like it. You can see in the bottom left corner that there're still a lot of beads, pearls and laces waiting to get attached >_>


This is what the dress looks like now. I spent a lot of money on beads, gem stones and laces, but I didn't need to buy even one yard of fabric! All of it are leftovers from my Euphemia costume, namely taffeta and chiffon. XD
You can't see the bottom part of the costume in the reference picture, so I'm free to do what I want ♪
I've decided to go for something like the court dresses during Napoleon's empire, with a high waist, a train (still missing in the picture, but I'll have one!) and light fabrics ♥
I think I can finish this dress until next Friday.

Third costume:

This is where it gets tricky. I've already decided that I want to do a Belle costume for Friday. Maddi is going to wear her beautiful Ariel costume and my sister Melli'll wear my Aurora costume. So far, so good.
BUT
I can't decide on a dress!! OTL
I already narrowed it down to two. This is where I need your help:



Left is Belle's "library dress" (she's wearing it for ... 10 seconds in the movie?? XD), right is her "Something There" dress (minus the cape). I really like both dresses, which is why it's so hard for me to pick one now, so please help me:
Which of these dresses should be my costume for the first day of Connichi?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I'll go fabric shopping next Friday (September 3rd), so I need your advice until then. Thank you in advance!!

EDIT: Thank you very much for your votes! In the end it was still a tie between both dresses orz (I've been asking for opinions outside of this blog, too). I went fabric shopping today... for dress A. Dress B is still on my list. Maybe I'll do it later this year.