私だって、プリンセスだもんｗｗ

I'm finally done with all my presentations for this semester (YEAH) and thought it would be nice to spend my
hard-earned freetime by sharing some pictures with you guys (o´・∀・｀o)♪

I visited Maddi and together we attended the Japan Day in Düsseldorf ♥
(Yes, that was a month ago. I told you I've been busy lately... orz).
A week later, she came to Berlin where we had two really nice photo shoots.

So this entry is about one event, two photo shoots and three costumes (･∀･)







The con
It was my first time in Düsseldorf, my first Japan Day and my first visit to Maddi's new flat, so I was really looking forward to it ♥
The Japan Day is more of a festival than a con, which means lots of ("normal") people all over
the city. It was crowded and noisy everywhere we went. Oh, and it was HOT. We were really
happy about the good weather at first, but at the end of the day, we were terribly exhausted.
Nevertheless, it was a fun experience. Most people were really nice, the kids at the festival
were really cute (especially the Japanese kids in their colourful yukatas (っ'∀｀c) ) and
the firework at the end was awesome (we were watching it on TV, though, because it started raing
in the late afteroon). Also, Düsseldorf's Old Town is really pretty, it was a perfect setting for our costumes:

The costume
Visiting Maddi was a quite spontaneous decision, nonetheless we both wanted new, simple, matching costumes.
I don't really remember why, but somehow we came up with alternate Disney Princesses' costumes.
Maddi wanted to cosplay as Ariel in her blue dress, I decided on Briar Rose a.k.a. Princess Aurora.
Maddi's costume was really popular at the festival (especially with the kids), hardly anyone recognised me (I was mistaken for Cinderella, Belle, Alice and even Snow White!).
Either my costume sucks badly or Disney's Sleeping Beauty is not as well known a I thought it is. (￣ロ￣ll)

Princess Aurora - Briar Rose Ver. (Disney's Sleeping beauty) I'm not sure yet whether I like this costume or not. I chose Aurora because I like her 60's-ish look, so I tried to recreate that look through my make-up: Lots of eyeliner, fake lashes, red lips... it looks kind of strange on me. I also put some effort into the little twirl in her bangs and it came out great on Japan Day and rather shitty at the shoot. As for the costume: The blouse and the bodice are actually one piece. Bad, bad decision. It's way too short (making my waist miraculously disappear |||orz|||) and the sleeves are too tight. I like the skirt, though, but it's lenght is not very flattering. But, FOR ONCE, I'm really happy with my choice of fabrics. As I stated before, we wore our costumes once at Japan Day (1st and 2nd row) and once more for a private shoot here in Berlin (3rd to 6th row - pictures were taken by my sister and me)

Full Japan Day Gallery Full Disney Shoot Gallery

Right after our Disney shoot, we did another one, this time featuring Maddi in her adorable Sakura costume.

Full Gallery

She's so pretty isn't she? It's always a pleasure to take pictures of her ♥

Doing two shoots in a row was pretty exhausting, first, because it was hot (again) and second, because there were like a gazillion of mosquitos launching attacks on us (｀Д´). I'm happy how the pictures came out, though. I think it was worth the pain (≧ｗ≦；)


Sunday I'll have another photo shoot with Krone, who is going to take some pretteh pictures of my Nakajerine costume. Woot! ﾔﾀ───v(-∀-)v───♪

撮影会： 大神

Whoootwhooot!

*drumroll* Last Saturday we FINALLY had our long-awaited Ôkami shoot!!
Honestly, I've been starting to doubt that we'd ever manage to take some pictures with our whole group,
seeing we've been planning this shoot since November 2008 without much of a progress.
- Which is why I couldn't really believe we did it until I saw the first pictures online.








As I said before, it all started in 2008, when Feder, Krone and Herr Fuchs asked me to join their little Ôkami group for AniMaCo (read my report). Because the location looks pretty awful we didn't take many pictures at the con, but agreed to have a proper photo shoot next year (read: 2009).
Spring came and our group even found another addition when joined us with the Oki costume I'd sewn for her.
BUT. Unreliable weather forecasts, a serious lack of time managing skills and plain bad luck thwarted our plans! (It's really not that easy to get 5 cosplayers
and a photographer with very different scedules to be at the same place at a time. Really.) We were considering postponing the shoot to autumn (we insisted on either cherry blossoms or red leaves as a setting), but in the end decided on this spring.
On the good side, this gave us the opportunity to redo parts of our costumes and as we are now I think our group r0x0rs! XD
So we met on Saturday with Andy K. a.k.a. Squirrel-of-Doom, who is not only a extremely talented but also a very patient photographer.
Location was a big park near my house (Gärten der Welt). Luckily enough, there were two cherry trees that were still in bloom. And even more luckily (?) the weather wasn't exactly nice that day, so the park wasn't as crowded as it usually is.
The shoot itself was a lot of fun, as usual we were goofing around a lot. ('s costume-induced blindness definitely added to that XD)
It was the third time for me and to wear our costumes (see Animaco and MTV Game Awards report). We redid some minor parts (e.g. Rao's neclace, Oki's mask), but not much. I'm still not really happy with my Rao costume (what was I thinking when I chose that fugly shiny fabric?!? I know I didn't have much time nack then, but still...), especially next to Feder's
gayness
prettiness. I highly enjoyed being "busty babe" again, though XD Rao's revealing wardrobe isn't like anyhing I'd usually wear, so that was a nice change (Although I still prefer my boobies properly covered) XD


The "cast":

	Krone as Amaterasu
	Feder as Waka
	Herr Fuchs as Demon Merchant
	My sister Melli as Oki
	Myself as Rao

The pictures:

Colourful, pretty and GAY awesomeness by Squirrel of doom






Full gallery


Krone, our Amaterasu also took some kick-ass pictures (I heart you, you know that, right?)






Full gallery


I lovelovelove how all the pictures came out! ♥ ♥ ♥

Actually, I took a few pictures myself, too, but after seeing their amazing galleries I kind of lost the confidence to actually edit and upload them...


Oh, in case you haven't played Ôkami yet: DO IT!!! XD
(Really, it's one of the prettiest and funniest games I've ever played!)

イベントレポ：ブックフェアー

Hey guys! (°Д°)/

First of all I want to apologize for neglecting my f-list for such a long time. I've been doing an internship at the Berlin State Library (East Asia Department) that was quite time-consuming. But just to let you know: I'm still alive. And: I've read all your entries (even though I hardly ever commented).
And:I love you guys ó_ò. Just so you know.

Anywhoooo, some time has passed. I'm officially a quarter-century old now (and still feel like the dorky klutz I've been for the past ... 15 years?). Due to the (awesome) internship my spring break has been awfully short (read: one week), so I'm terribly behind with all my papers for uni and seriously lacking some quality leisure time.
Nonetheless, my sister and I decided to go to Book Fair Leipzig two weeks ago. I wasn't exactly what you'd call a recreation from work (it was quite stressfull to be honest), but a nice and welcome change.






There's not much to write about the book fair itself. It was pretty much the same as every year, just a lot more crowded. Unfortunately, I missed a lot of people I've been really looking forward to meet （´°Ａ°`）, but still I had a lot of fun being with my sister and our friend Sarah.

This time, we were dressed up as Miku and Luka from Vocaloid2 (Magnet Ver.).
I first got to know Vocaloid through seeing various cosplays on Cure and found myself quite surprised when I realised, that Vocaloid wasn't a video game, but a singing synthesizer software and that Miku was merely a mascot. On top of that, I didn't like the computer-generated voices at all and thus never quite managed to warm to the different songs. However, I was really fascinated by the self-producing fanbase behind Vocaloid, so I continued to browse NicoNico Douga for new songs and Pixiv for new artwork. It was then that I stumbled across Magnet. Not only did I LOVE the artwork, but the song was really catchy as well - My personal favourite is the version sung by Hitori and Che:Sakurai (Watch it on YouTube), but the original version isn't that bad either, because Luka's voice doesn't sound as unnatural and unpleasant as Miku's.
So I decided to cosplay Luka, because I was looking for a costume that would go with my pink wig anyway. Perfect. Plus, my sister quickly agreed to do Miku, so everything was settled.

Megurine Luka & Hatsune Miku - Magnet Ver. (Vocaloid) Sewing the dresses was very simple and I'm really satisfied with the outcome. They're more or less original desings, because you can only see the top parts in the reference picture (there is a lot of fan art with different designs, though). I decided to make Miku's dress short and cute and (as a contrast) Luka's dress more sexy and elegant. I drafted the patterns almost from scratch, so I'm all the more surprised that they worked out so well. The infamous butterfly headsets were tricky, but together we did it somehow. I really like them ♥ This time I also put some more effort into our make-up, using a lot of red eyeshadow, blush and long fake lashes, to somehow recreate the look in the reference picture. It turned out that my sister has been holding out on us. I always knew that she's pretty, but everytime I looked at her at the con I couldn't help but think that she's the cutest Miku out there (〃･艸･)　♪ I know that, as her sister, I might be kinda biased, though XD ↓ pictures in the 1st row were taken by Krone ♥ ↓↓ pictures in the 2nd and 3rd row were taken by us

Oh, by the way: Here's the video for those who aren't familiar with Vocaloid ↓

On a totally different note and for all my fellow future librarians:

Whoever said that librarians had no sense of humor was wrong.

During my internship I came across an interesting door when I was in the stacks ↓

Sign reads: "Dublettenkammer des Schreckens" ("duplicate-copies-chamber of secrets")