コンニチ、ワン、ツー ♪

LJ hates me. Just when I was done with this entry, it vanished X/

So here's my short, belated entry on Connichi (Sep. 12th~14th).



The convention


Connichi is by far my favourite convention: Beautiful site, nice weather, relaxed athmosphere.
It's a big anual event for me, because it's one of the rare opportunities to meet all my cosplay friends.
This year was even more exciting, because MiRay, a Japanese cosplayer I met during my exchange year came to visit me. We spent about ten days seeing like every single museum, gallery, church and castle there is in Berlin and then we went to Connichi together ♪
MiRay doesn't know any German, so it was quite stressful acting as interpretor all the time, but it was a nice opportunity for me to practise Japanese, because I realised that I've forgotten a lot of vocabulary since I've come back ↓↓
Another reason for this year's Connichi being extraordinary is that Maddi and I decided to participate in the World Cosplay Summit preliminaries.
We had such a great time planning the costumes and the skit and even though we knew we didn't stand a chance we had a great time and met a lot of wonderful cosplayers in breathtaking costumes.
I'm totally rooting for Marino and Deval who will be representing Germany next year in Aichi!


The costumes

	Mimori Kugahara - Maid Ver. (Pia Carrot G.O.) Oh noez, I actually did a hentai game cosplay!! It's MiRay's fault, she talked me into it!! XD I had like 4 yrds of purple fabric laying around unused and when I asked her　about it she came up with Pia Carrot G.O.. I don't really like hentai games, but I fell in love with the different dresses the girls wear throughout the game so I ended up sewing this dress. I love all the carrots and ribbons ♥ ↓1st picture taken by Pictoplasma
	Euphemia Li Britannia - DVD-Box Ver. (Code Geass) This is the costume I wore for the WCS preliminaries. From the first moment I saw Euphie in Code Geass I wanted to cosplay as her. I was planning to do the pink/white dress she's wearing in the series but then I saw that wonderful artwork from CLAMP. The design is rather plain in real life, though (you know, with gravity and actual humans wearing it...), so we used different types of fabric and lace to make it look more fabulous, shiny and CLAMP-ish. I'm quite pleased with the results, even though you can't see all the details on the pictures. Because the skit I was working on with Maddi (who was a wonderful C.C.) involved some undressing, we decided not to sew it as a whole dress, but devided it into a top and a skirt, which can be worn (and stripped off XD) seperately. You can see the short, loli-ish version on the first picture below. ↓2nd picture taken by Sakura_b ↓3rd picture taken by Sakymiyu Himbeer will do a proper photo shoot with us next week. WOOT!
	Queen Nakajerine 29th (MiniMoni. The Movie) I started working on this costume in 2006 (when I did the staff) and now it's finally finished. My grandpa hepled me out a lot with the staff and the wings. I absolutely love my staff, and the wings were great as well before I messed up painting them X/ I guess no one even knows Nakajerine, but I adore her, so I wanted to do her justice. The lining, painting the tights and moulding the accessories gave me a hard time ~_~ BTW, she's a villain. ↓2nd picture taken by shinkohyo ↓3rd picture taken by AB_the_diablo

I heard a lot of people caught a cold on Sunday, when it suddenly turned cold. I hope everyone's all right now.

ブックフェアー行って来ました♪

Okay, so I heard people complaining about me not writing anything about cosplay lately, so here's my (belated) post on Book Fair Leipzig.

The costumes


Originally I wanted to wear my Manpower costume since I've only worn it for a photo shoot once, but then my sister asked me to sew something new for the both us.
I was like: o___O Whut? Who are you and what have you done to my sister?!?
You see, my sister isn't really into cosplay, everytime she wears a costume she won't stop complaining about how uncomfy wigs are and stuff... All the more I was surprised (not to say shocked) that it was her who asked for it this time.
There was just one tiny problem: Only three weeks to go and I was terribly busy with an internship I had to do. Then my sister came up with the idea of doing Bleach cosplay, which was a brilliant idea, because
a) we love the series
b) my sister owns two pair of hakamas
c) the rest would be easy to sew.

I kinda felt uneasy using a bought hakama, so to compensate that guilty conscience I weaved the two pairs of waraji (sandals) - which was a pain. I found an awesome tutorial on Cos.com, but nevertheless it took me one hour to complete one single sandal... (∥>___>)

	Rangiku Matsumoto (BLEACH) Well... yes, this costume was quite... daring, so to speak ﾔ━━━(*｣´ｪ｀)｣━━━ﾝ But fun and easy to wear nonetheless. I don't really like the wig, though. I ordered another wig from ebay, which never arrived (I got refundend), so I had to cut another wig I had. It looks okay now, but could've been better.
	Kisuke Urahara (BLEACH) I absolutely love my sister as Kisuke ♥ She had some major problems staying calm during the photo shoot, though. She's that type of person who walks around grinning, you see, so looking evil kinda gave her a hard time. I was really happy when she said that she liked the outcome of the costume ヾ(o´ヮ｀)ﾉ She did all the painting on the coat herself.

When we were already on our way home I realised that we didn't take any pictures together ﾎﾟｶ～(　ﾟдﾟ　)～ﾝ...

The convention
Bookfair Leipzig has always been great. It's not as far away as most conventions, people are nice and the location is quite nice.
But now that the number of visitors keeps increasing, it's been really crowded lately and apparently there are still people who don't care about others when carrying their enormous wings, bags, fake weapons through the crowds...

Apart from that I loved it. I met a lot of dear friends, did some wonderful photo shoots and saw cosplay made of awesome.
Too sad we only had one day.
I was thinking about going the whole weekend, but judging from my experience it would get boring then.

My next convention will be either Games Convention or Connichi.



BTW, Happy Easter everyone ♪

変身～♪

*ﾟ..A HAPPY｡ﾟ+.d(d∀ﾟ)(ﾟ∀b)bﾟ+NEW YEAR.:*ﾟ


I wanted to do an entry right after each convention I visited last year, but I was kinda busy, so I'll sum it up in this entry.

COSPLAY 2007

	Amy Sorel (Soul Calibur III) Worn: Tokyo Game Show (September 06), Fuyucomi (December 06), Toshimaen Cosplay Event (March 07), Wonder Festa (August 07) I wanted to wear a game-related costume for TGS, but as a matter of fact, I've never done any game cosplay. It was Cari who graciously lent me her Amy costume. I would've never chosen Amy for cosplay myself, because I feel both too old and too tall to cosplay her, but Cari did such a wonderful job on both costume and wig that I can't help but feel deeply honoured having been given the opportunity to wear it during my stay in Japan. It was very comfortable to wear and quite popular with the Camekos XD
	Myoubi (Alichino) Worn: Bookfair Leipzig (March 06), Connichi (September 07), several photoshoots Originally done for Bookfair Leipzig back in 2006. I still love this costume because I somehow think the colour suits me. Plus, it's pretty easy to put on and to take off. This is my third Myoubi costume and I'm still not sick of this character XD There're still some outfits left which I'd love to sew... In September 07 I also finally got the chance to do a group photo shoot with Feder -as a disturbingly cool Enju- and Maddi, the cutest Tsugiri ever. Photos by Krone and MCP
	Yukata (Original) Worn: Connichi (September 07), Mega Manga Convention (November 07) Closet cosplay... I got that Yukata as a present when I was in Japan. The pattern is pretty gaudy, so I bought some hair pins, accessory and some more bling-bling stuff, called it a gal version and wore it on cons, because I was too lazy busy to sew anything. PS: Walking in getas can kill your feet!
	Frog Prince (Original) Worn: Connichi (September 07) Anni wanted to do a fairy tale cosplay group for Connichi 07. Nothing like the usual Disney-stuff, but original and sexy. I immediately fell in love with the idea. Anni also came up with the idea of the Frog Prince, but as to meet the "sexy" condition, rather than a prince, I thought of a queen, when doing the design. It was the first time I used my sewing-machine in 12 months, so I had some problems, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome... except for the pants... Actually it was the first time I did pants! Oh, how I hate them... I wanted them to look a bit "frog-ish" , but I guess I failed XD Our group was made of pure WIN. Everyone did such a great job! So here's the list: Anni-bunny as Puss in Boots, Feenart as Tinkerbell, HaruVamp as the Princess and the Pea, KenHopkins as the Big Bad Wolf, Wildkirsche as Snow White, red_maiden as Rapunzel, Himawariko as Peter Pan and Chris as the Storyteller. Photos by MissTakahashi, Hamsi and me
	Allen Walker (D.Gray-man) Worn: Mega Manga Con (November 07) Another ghetto closet cosplay. I wanted to do something new for MMC, yet I was lacking time and ideas. In the end, when I was thinking about which costume to wear, I suddenly felt the urge to do an Allen cosplay. I found suitable clothes in my sister's closet and did the crappy glove/claw thingie. Oh, the crappiness... Fun to wear though.

COSPLAY PLANS 2008
~Cosplays I'll definitely do this year~

	Euphemia Li Britannia (Code Geass) I started watching Code Geass in Japan and -although I'm fully aware of this series' many flaws- became addicted. So I bought a pink wig and decided to do a Euphie cosplay one day. Originally I wanted to do her princess dress from the anime, but I don't like the design. Then CLAMP designed this wonderful dress for her and now I'm intent on doing a pair cosplay with Maddi, who will be a wonderful C.C.. The only thing I'm afraid of is that I might look like a fluffy marshmallow with all those white ruffles....
	Nakajerine 29th (MiniMoni - The Movie) This one is definitely going to kill me. I guess most people don't even know this character. It's a fairy queen, obsessed with being slender and beautiful... Dubbed by Nakazawa Yuko, by the way, which is why I love her so much. I don't have the slightest idea about how to do her tights and wings (ideas, anyone?), but at least I've already done the staff. To be honest, the fact that the staff is finished is the only reason I haven't dropped this cosplay - I don't want all the work go to waste.

WISHLIST
~Cosplays I will do, but not necessarily next year~

	Arc (Final Fantasy III DS) My first game cosplay. Planned as a pair cosplay together with my sister, who wants to do Ingus. We haven't decided yet which of the 23 different outfits we will do, though.
	Yellow Ranger a.k.a. Nishikido Ryo (Kanjani∞) You just have to love him. I'll go and practise my evil grin now.

For more pictures feel free to visit me on
Animexx (German)
Cosplay.com (English)
Cure (Japanese, login needed)



By the way, I just created the first hmtl-generated tables in my life.