イベントレポ : Leipzig Bookfair 2013

Hello everyone! Thank you for sticking around (or for passing by)! In case you didn't know: This blog is terribly inactive. Two, maybe three times a year, I make an effort to revive it by posting terribly outdated event reports including costume galleries and rundowns. Today is such a time:
Here's my report on Leipzig Bookfair.

For the first time in years, I decided to attend Leipzig Bookfair both on Saturday and Sunday. Usually, we'd drive to Leipzig by car on Saturday morning and leave by dusk. This year, though, we decided to get a hotel room close to the con site and to stay for another day. What a great decision! Not only is it much less crowded on Sunday (so you can actually leave the main hall and check out the publishers' booths), the extra day also significantly lowers the stress level for any cosplaying visitor such as myself.

I had early on decided to bring my Wonder Woman costume on Sunday, because I thought it would fit the architecture of the hall. For Saturday, I wanted to bring a new costume. I was torn between cosplaying the Ghibli classic Nausicaä and Batwoman, whose stand-alone series I had only recently been introduced to. Asking my friends for advice didn't help either, as there were more "votes" for Nausicaä, but the people in favour to Batwoman brought up much better arguments. In the end, I decided on Batwoman, as I could not think of any other con that she whould "fit into" in terms of weather, architecture and comfort.
It was my dear Aera who  had introduced me to the Batwoman series somewhen in early 2012. J.H. Williams III's art style (his panelling in particular) totally drew me in and the story and characters are what kept me even when Williams III passed the pen and continued working on the series as "just" a writer. In light of recent decisions made by DC and Williams III's quitting the series altogether, I'm not so sure if I want to continue reading anymore, though...

Saturday

Batwoman / Kate Kane (Batwoman) I had early on decided not to buy a skinsuit, but to draft a pattern myself, because I wanted it to have as few seams as possible. I came across this very helpful tutorial, which I used for the most parts. The most difficult part about this costume were the cape and the mask and I'm not fully satisfied with how either came out, but everything looks quite good together, at least. Luckily, I had purchased a pair of flat boots earlier that winter, so I didn't have to worry about that, too. Wearing sensible shoes for this cosplay was really important to me, as Kate points out herself  how little she thinks of heels for combat. For more information on my construction process, please read my WIP posts on tumblr: ONE | TWO | MAKE-UP . Pictures below taken by EvaYabai (1st row) and DarkAge (2nd row)

Needless to say, hardly anyone recognised me as Batwoman (I did get a few "BatGIRL!"s, though), but the costume proved to be quite comfortable despite the tight suit and mask. My personal highlight that day was the little photo shoot I had with DarkAge. It was my first time working with him and I was suprised how much thought he had put into everything. He wasn't really familiar with the comics, either, but had researched covers and iconic scenes in order to recreate them in his pictures, some of which you can see above.

Sunday

Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman: Odyssey) I had worn this costume only once and received so much nice feedback on it that I knew I would wear it again eventually. Leipzig Bookfair was a great opportunity, because the venue seemed very fitting. I only needed to fix minor parts on the costume, such as repainting the belt, whose paint had rubbed off. Diana was a great deal more popular with the crowd, but also more uncomfortable due to the shoes. Some male "humans" apparently also thought I was wearing these clothes just to please their eyes and therefore were quite... startled when I turned down their grunted "offers". For more in-depth information on this costume, please read my WIP post. 1st row pictures below taken by Franky. 2nd row pictures taken by Acorea.

Altogether, I had a great time at Leipzig Bookfair, as every year. This year, though, we not only had perfect weather; new acquaintances also added to the wonderful experience. Staying a second day was a good idea, as well and I'm sure that I'll be attending the event for two days once more next year.

Right now, I'm preparing for my trip to Connichi, which is the biggest con I usually attend (and the biggest con in Germany, period). I'll bring two new costumes: Sofia Sartor from Assassin's Creed Revelations and Princess Sapphire from The Princess Knight aka Ribon no Kishi.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to write my big pre-Connichi WIP post this year, but I promise to add lots of WIP pictures and in-depth descriptions of my new costumes in my upcoming con report on Connichi.

Until then, you might want to check the WIP tag on my tumblr for that.

イベントレポ : AniMaCo 2012

Today's entry finally features my last cosplay event of 2012: AniMaCo in Berlin. Once this is finished, I'll move on to two more entries about more recent events from 2013.

 

I am a regular at AniMaCo. The convention hall (part theatre, part school) is pretty ugly, but the nearby park has some pretty spots. Plus, AniMaCo is easily one of the most cosplayer-friendly cons I've ever attended: They have big changing booths and also maps that show good locations for photo shoots. They also have a different theme each time. As 2012 the world was supposedly facing it's bitter end according to the Mayan calendar, last year's theme was "concalypse". And truly, when I arrived on Friday and saw the hall was almost completely hidden behind huge scaffolds (ongoing construction work), it looked quite apocalyptic, indeed.
AniMaCo also had one of the most epic con promotional trailers, I've ever seen:

Concerning my costume lineup: There wasn't much time between Connichi, our Idolm@ster shoot and AniMaCo. Additionally, I was still in the final stages of writing my thesis, so I had originally decided not to sew any new costumes for this con.

HOWEVER. When I was watching some episodes of Adventure Time, my sister jokingly said we would make an awesome Finn and Fionna. The idea stuck and you can see the results below.

Friday

Frog Queen (Original Design) As usual, Friday was old-costume-day. I decided to re-wear my Frog Queen costume, as I had only worn it once at Connichi and because I knew there's a pretty lake close to the con site. The day was pretty short and cold, but my sister took a few very pretty shots of my costume. Sadly, she couldn't wear her princess costume, because she felt so tired that day. For more information on this costume, please read my WIP post. Pictures below taken by my sister, edited by me.

Saturday

Fionna the Human (Adventure Time) Thanks to my sister sewing the backpacks (out of felt), all I had left to do was sewing the hats, shirts and Finn's pants - I already had a fitting skirt in my closet. I guess I could've purchased fitting shirts, too, but it seemed so much easier to simply sew them myself, since I had found a nice 4-way stretch fabric earlier. I also love how our hats came out. I used a very helpful pattern I found at Instructables. I only had to do some minor adjustments (like the general size of the hats or Fionna’s ears), but apart from that, the tutorial saved me a lot of time. A note on our swords: Due to our time restraint I didn't prepare any props, but Andy, who wanted to take our pictures, kind of insisted on swords. So what did we do? We went to the nearby shopping mall, bought little wooden signs, coloured duct tape and  plastic gemstones and created these beauties in about 5mins. They're worth a whole 1€ each! Ehem. Well, considering what we managed to fabricate out of such ridiculously cheap items in such a short amount of time, I'm actually quite fond of them! For more information on this costume, please read my WIP post on tumblr. Myself as Fionna, Patalord as Finn 1st picture below taken by my Maddi, edited by me. 2nd row pictures taken by Andy-K.

   

Sunday

Azusa Miura (The Idolm@ster) On Sunday, our Idolm@ster group had a reunion. Not all of the girls could make it though, so we were "only" 11 girls instead of 13. I had fixed some minor things, but I was still not really happy with it. I like my shoe covers, though! It was my first time sewing such things and I think they look very close to the original. I am quite pleased with the silhouette of my skirt, as well. It's mostly the wig (centre parting...) I don't like on me and the proportions look a bit strange, too. But I was so happy to see my girls again! Acorea, who had coordinated our whole group, also took some pretty solo shots of each member. For our full cast, please read my report on our photoshoot. WIP pictures here. 1st row pictures below taken acophoto 2nd row picture taken by Diesel.

We also had shot a video with Diesel that day, which was a lot of fun, too: 

(Don't be fooled by the sunny weather. It was bitterly cold that day!) 

Like many years before, AniMaCo was a nice way to end the cosplay season.

The weather was rainy on Friday and Saturday and freezing on Sunday, but I had the chance to chat with wonderful people and to see beautiful cosplays. I'm already looking foward to next AniMaCo (which will be in 2014, as it's taking turns with Mega Manga Con each year)!

撮影会 : ペルソナ・アイマス

Hey guys! Long time no see... haha... Seriously, I'm terribly sorry for having neglected my blog for half a year now. But the good news is: I finished my thesis, passed all my exams and graduated! Yay! I don't know yet how busy my new job will keep me, but I'll try my best to give more regular updates from now on.

I started by changing my header and background. Above you see my current personal favourites among my cosplays: Frog Prince and Wonder Woman. I also slightly changed the layout. I think the main texts are easier to read and the different blog entries easier to navigate. At least I hope so.

This post is the first of four that I will write in the next two or three weeks. I figured I should tackle the cons and photo shoots I left uncovered in chronological order, so I'll start with telling you about the two big photo shoots I had in 2012: Persona and The Idolm@ster.

In lovely May 2012 (yes, one year ago), Niklas Liebig, whom I've had the pleasure to work with a couple of times now, asked if he could take pictures of our Velvet Room trio. We, that is Videros, my sister and myself, readily agreed, happy that we got the chance to get more beautiful pictures of these costume we'd only just debuted at Leipzig Bookfair two months earlier. I don't exactly recall how we managed it, but we also found a date we were all free on just as quickly. Finding a location to shoot in, however, was tricky. Of course, a fancy hotel lobby or a limousine would've been awesome, but decidedly outside our financial comfort zone. Niklas suggested the

Federal Ministry of the Interior, with its glass architecture. None of us had ever been there before, so we were quite surprised when we arrived there and found these huge buildings with a lovely little park and playground nearby. You'd think a federal ministry was heavily guarded with tons of security and whatnot, but the whole site is actually quite open and we saw many families with children taking a walk on that sunny day. It encouraged us to get a bit closer to the actual buildings for our pictures. We found out that there was security personnel, after all, but they didn't seem to think of us as a threat, apparently.

All the things we were afraid would go wrong (curious bystanders, strict security, too much/too little sunlight, that is) went smoothly, but we forgot to factor in the wind. It wasn't much of a windy day to speak of, but close to these tall buildings the wind was quite strong. Thus, the difficult part on our (i.e. the cosplayers' side) was to keep our eyes open, our wigs and costumes straight and on Niklas's side to keep the strobe lights from falling.
Here are some of the results:

And an outtake, as well, because everyone loves outtakes, right?

Cosplayers: Videros as Theodore | Patalord as Elizabeth | Y-o-s-s-i as Margaret Photography & editing: Niklas Liebig (Homepage | deviantArt)

Click here to see the full gallery.






On to the second shoot, which took place about 6 months later:

This photo shoot was different from the first one in many ways:
It was a group photo shoot with 13 cosplayers and 3 photographers.
Months of planning went into it.
It took place in a studio.
Each cosplayer sewed her costume for this primarily photo shoot and none of us had debuted her costume on a convention before.

Let's tackle it chronologically:
Somewhen in autumn 2011, acorea published a weblog searching for cosplayers willing to participate in a quite ambitious group project: She wanted to have a full cast of The Idolm@ster cosplayers with matching costumes. I didn't know much about Idolmaster back then, but I liked the designs and as I usually only cosplay with one, sometimes two partners, I wanted to take part in a big group at least once. Hence, I volunteered. (And watched the anime later that year to get to know the character of Azusa, whom I was assigned to.)
It didn't take long until we had a full cast (although it underwent a lot of changes in the following months), so planning started. Most of it was done by acorea, who did a great job in coordinating everything. It was clear we probably would not managed to set up a photo shoot at a con, so we settled for a studio shoot in September 2012 in Berlin instead.
Mismatching groups are a big pet peeve of mine, so I was thrilled when we agreed on purchasing the same fabrics for everyone. We even matched our eye shadow! We had to cut corners when it came to the boots, though. Most of us were working on a budget and it's pretty much impossible to purchase 13 pairs (minus two for the twins, who wear different shoes) of cheap white boots and not everyone felt fit to sew bootcovers.
It goes without saying that we underwent some troubles and a some point in July 2012, I couldn't even see the whole thing happening anymore. Frankly, I was still expecting someone not showing up or without a full costume when we met up at the day of the shoot. But everyone did! And everything worked! Our top priority, of course, were group pictures, but we also did some solo or pair shots.
The shoot took almost all day and it was quite exhausting. All the girls were awesome, though! It was most interesting to learn how the other girls had tackled their costumes. Everyone has a different way of sewing, after all. I think I learned some new sewing magic tricks that day. Same goes for posing, which I'm really not good at, but watching some of the others act in front of the camera was really inspiring. Most of them I'd only met briefly before at cons, so I was afraid that my social awkwardness would ruin the day for me, but they were all so nice (and funny!). I was even sad when the day was over. (Most of us were able to attend AniMaCo in November, though, so we had some sort of reunion)
As I said, three photographers  were present, but as of now (May 2013), only one has uploaded his pictures, as the other two are still busy with other things. I'm not sure if we'll ever get to see the other pictures, but I hope so. Here are Hasengott's pictures:

Cosplayers: aco-rea as Iori | flakes as Miki | Y-o-s-s-i as Azusa | kojiu-infinity as Hibiki | Patalord as Takane | SG09 as Mami | ladydeadpooly as Ami | elsch as Chihaya | neni-chan as Yayoi | Amapolchen as Ritsuko | co-xx as Makoto | fuwishi as Yukiho | Konzertjunky as Haruka Photography & editing: Dominik Haas (deviantArt)

Click here to see the full gallery.
I will post a full rundown of my Azusa costume in my blog on AniMaCo 2012, which will should follow next week.