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.

ロリ＝ムリ

Heyhooo!
Yesterday I went to Krone's place to have her take some pictures of my Nakajerine cosplay from 2008. And this time, I did not forget to bring all pieces of the costume. So yeah, I finally will get some decent pictures of it ﾔﾀ───v(-∀-)v───♪.
Have a preview:






More coming soon ♪

I also promised last time that I'd share with you the pictures of our spontaneous Lolita shoot - yes, the one we had when we'd originally wanted to shoot Nakajerine and I'd forgotten to bring essential parts of my wings and jewellery... (-∀-*)
Anyway, here they are:






I still don't really like myself in Lolita. I love the beautiful frilly and cute dresses, but it just looks really... awkward with my long and rather skinny legs.
Nonetheless I love the pictures MissKrone took that day. She never fails to make me look pretteh (〃ﾉωﾉ)





Full gallery at Animexx


There's one more thing I wanted to share with you:






I made this plushie for Eva as a belated birthday/christmas/welcome back resent. Or rather, it's the first part of it.
I don't know if it's actually recognisable, but it's supposed to be Ioryogi from CLAMP's Kobato. Eva told me once how she'd somehow like to try out cosplaying one day, so I decided to sew her a Kobato cosplay. And this plushie is the first part of it.
It's about 30cm (about 12 inches) high and the seams are not exactly neatly done, but it's my first attempt on a plushie, so I think it could be worse XDD It even has joints, so you can move it's arms, legs and head. I'm sure Ioryogi has found a nice new home in Eva's place ♥