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")

撮影会： いろいろ

Hellloooo (°Д°)/

I had a rather spontaneous cosplay shoot with my Rangiku costume last Friday and when I started writing a short report on it,
I realized that there're still a lot of shoots from last year that haven't been featured yet. Sooo, instead of just writing about that one shoot, I'll also write a bit about those past
shoots just to do them justice
and to post something here at all, for a change

Rangiku Matsumoto (BLEACH) - Januray 15th 2010 - Photography: Melli I felt like taking advantage of all the snow that has been coming down during the past few weeks for a photo shoot, so asked my sister Melli. to take some pictures of my Rangiku costume. It was very, very, very cold. I guess that was the payback for forcing my sister to lay down in the snow last year. Now I totally understand how she must've felt... Full gallery at Animexx Suiseiseki (Rozen Maiden) - October 5th 2009 - Photography: Krone With my sister Melli as Souseiseki ♥ We did this shoot shortly after the costumes had their debut at Connichi 2009. The weather was really nice and we were goofing around a lot while Krone tried to take our pictures ;D Most of them were taken at the gardens of Charlottenburg Castle, but we also had a mini-shoot in Krone's awesomely beautiful hallway. There was a chandelier and huge mirrors! How cool's that? Full gallery at Animexx Euphemia Li Britannia (Code Geass) - July 1st 2009 - Photography: Krone With Maddi as C.C. ♥ Maddi and I had originally planned to have a photoshoot directly after we wore the costumes at Connichi '08. But alas, the weather wasn't our friend D: It wasn't until almost one year later, in July 2009, that we finally got to do the long awaited shoot. We went to Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam and Krone took a lot of wonderful pictures in the gardens. It was incredibly hot and all of us were sweating like crazy, but seeing the results I think it was worth it! Full gallery at Animexx I've had more than these few shoots last year, but I've already written entries on them. Click on the pictures to get to them: Most of the pictures were taken by Krone, who is just plain awesome! Please have a look at her galleries on DeviantArt!

Now on to the pictures I took of others.
As some of you know, me and my sister got ourselves a DSLR last year and I've been on the other side of the camera lens a lot since then.

Maddi as Princess White Rose (SaGa Frontier) - April 22nd 2009 The weather was very erratic that day so we had to use the few sunny (or at least not rainy) moments to take these pictures. Maddi is breathtakingly beautiful and it's always a pleasure to have a shoot with her (on either side of the camera) ♥ It was one of my first shoots and I still felt a bit unsure about angles and composition, but I like how the pictures came out in the end. Full gallery at Animexx Melli as Oki (Ôkami) - May 19th 2009 Sunlight is my enemy. It was so hot and bright that day that we couldn't take many pictures before Melli gave in to the heat. We're still hoping for a proper photo shoot with our full Ôkami group. Full gallery at Animexx Krone & Feder as Arashi & Miwako (Paradise Kiss) - July 5th 2009 By FAR my favourite shoot last year. I had a good day XD When Krone and Feder asked me to shoot their ParaKiss costumes I instantly thought of the narrow streets in central Berlin with their tiny yet pricey boutiques, graffiti and construction zones. If ParaKiss'd taken place in Berlin rather than Tokyo, the atelier would have been in one of those back streets. Full gallery at Animexx Unoa shoot - August 6th 2009 Now this shoot does stand out quite much, doesn't it? XD Eva asked me to sew a dress for her Unoa doll - which I gladly did. In return, I got to take some pictures of it ;D The dress I sewed is the checkered one, by the way. Man, I love those dolls. I want one, too D: Krone as Axl Low (Guilty Gear) - October 4th 2009 I love graffiti now. At least as a background on photos XD I gave Krone a hard time, asking her to do poses that weren't quite anatomically possible. I'm sorry! It was also very cold and my fingers were getting stiff... Full gallery at Animexx Krone and Apfelmus as Stanley and Kenny (Obscure) - November 14th 2009 I've always wanted to do a horror shoot and Krone gave me a chance to do so. We were shooting in some abandoned barracks. If I'd been there alone I'd have been scrared to death, but Krone, Apfelmus and my sister (who was assisting us) were goofing around a lot, so I didn't end up having sleepless nights after all XD Again, that was a very cold day - but then again, it might just've been the atmosphere... Full gallery at Animexx atomfred as Yuna (Final Fantasy X) - October 30th 2009 Spontaneous mini-shoot on a convention. It was already dark outside, so we had to go inside the convention site, but the lighting there was horrible so we had to improvise a lot. Full gallery at Animexx Again, there are also some older shoots that have already been dealt with in earlier entries: Oh, and this entry wouldn't be complete without some pictures of my favourite model:

Hope you liked it ;D