Noel Bolverk Guns - Complete!

Hi all! it's been a loooooong time since i've written about anything cosplay but i've got to say YAY! bc my noel costume is FINALLY 100% complete :D


noel's guns are presentable and i'm proud that i finished them in time for Oni-con.  Definitely learned a lot of things in my first weapon project and i'm excited for my next project: grell sutcliffe's chainsaw and yoko's gun :P


so where i last left off, i messed up one side of my guns bc of the spray paint/foam disaster and covered it up with craft foam.  Since then, i've been painting bajillion coats of paint on by hand and gluing everything onto the guns. the white took forever bc the foam was purple -_-


I added on the little circle things at the bottom of the guns....

then i added the triggers....

then i added the black pieces and the red handle with silver "screws" which i made by spray painting/painting tacks and pressed them into the foam.

i added the black strips at the top as well.  as you can see, the paint rubbed off a bit after carrying them around at the con =\

the front of the gun...i cut into the barrel a little and painted it to give the illusion of depth as opposed to just painting a black circle in the front.

the final product

:D not the best quality but it's decent for a first attempt.  i can't wait until i can get a photoshoot done with everything!

Noel Bolverk Guns - Progress Report 1

Hello all,


So it's been awhile since we've had any cosplay updates. quite frankly, between school and laziness, i haven't done much :( and i really should get started on tifa soon.


Noel's bolverk guns were the last pieces to my complete my Noel costume and it's been an interesting learning experience so far. 


So, per suggestion of my friend mr. hanbao, i bought R-3 insulation foam from home depot.  it's light, durable and easy to cut and it's SUPER CHEAP! i got an 8x4 ft board for like $9 and only used a quarter of it for my guns :P

i decided on the dimensions beforehand based on my height and did the measuring and cutting the old fashioned way: ruler and boxcutter. 

since the foam was 1/2 in and some of the details were cut in, i made 4 of the above pieces and glued them together using elmer's spray glue and fabric glue.  it's holding together well.  oh and i made sure to take off the laminate sheeting off too.

using the boxcutter, i cut the details in, along with any other extra pieces (6 cylinders and 2 triggers) and used sandpaper to smooth everything out.  Anything that was messed up i covered with modeling clay which i let dry overnight and sanded down.

doesn't look too bad right? ok well here's where i mess up lol so read a couple of tutorials which used craft foam and spray paint for weapons. that worked really well for my metal pieces...didn't work so well here.

so if rule #1 i learned was always used a sealant coat and primer, then rule #2 is SPRAY PAINT + INSULATION FOAM DO NOT MIX! ughhhhh even if it was a primer, the paint just ate into the foam and made it all gross.   I used a piece of soft foam to cover it up.

so lesson learned.  i'm going to the store to buy some acrylic paint and work from there. no matter what, i think it'll end up looking ok, but i've spent too much time on this already T_T

for a reference, this guy made noel's guns beautifully :] 

Costume Construction: BlazBlue

This post is long overdue :P but christine and i have been meaning to detail how each of our costumes (current and future) are constructed so that everyone can see that insane amount of time and money that goes into cosplaying...and yes, it's probably not the best hobby to pick up on but yeahhhhhhhh lol

Showcased: June 4, 2010 at A-Kon 21

Tiffany: Noel Vermillion    Christine: Rachel Alucard

well here goes nothing....

Noel Vermillion

Noel's costume looks really simple. As a first time costume and first time sewing project? it's so hard to make.  the enormous height difference also meant i had to proportion her outfit to my size == skirt is super short >.< and stockings over the knee so i have the "ideal" thigh showing space....there's a japanese word for that that i don't remember lol  and yes i wore hot shorts so sorry to those hoping i followed the artist's suggestions and make my panty color a surprise -_- boyssssss *smh*


no pictures on construction for the moment but i'll try to find some?

I probably spent upwards of $200 on this costume, including sewing supplies, unnecessary yards of fabric, wig and contacts.  I researched her costume from other cosplayers, the dustloop artist's cosplay recommendations and different screenshots.  The details on her costume are inconsistent, so i kept the ones i liked :P the only thing i didn't make were the white gloves (lucy in disguise ~$6) and the black stockings (christine's)

Similar to rosa-bella (see link above), i made the fitted dress mid-thigh with a princess cut at the bust because of the stretchy black material (i want to say yoga pant like material but i have no idea what that's called). The white shirt part is an old dress shirt i cut up and the hat follows a simple pattern.  the marine blue and white sections are a heavyweight kona cotton. The pleats are added in rather than cut that way.  The trim is black bias tape and yellow kona cotton cut on a bias.  An invisible zipper runs along the back.

The sleeves were also made from the heavyweight cotton and fully lined.  The shoulder and cuff parts are interfaced for stiffness.  An elastic band was sewn in at the upper arm to keep the sleeve up and the gold buttons (#500,501) i bought from joann's.

i used the heavyweight cotton in three pieces with super stiff interfacing to make the boots.  an invisible zipper runs up the back so i can put them on and an elastic band holds the boot covers to the boots (which i borrowed from christine).  the cuff sections i added on later and the cross is double layered yellow kona cotton. although it was hellish to actually flip the pieces inside out after i sewed them together, the result looked great.  if i had used paint (like the jin we saw at the con), there would have been cracking as i walked.

the red tie and arm ribbons are made from a dark satin material with a little sheen.  The tie was made in two pieces; i first made the knot and then added the tie end and it fits around my neck via elastic band.  The arm bands are about 3 foot long tubes that i ironed flat.  decided against adding real tubes because that would've been really heavy on my arms but no matter what, things dangling off your body will inevitably get stepped on *sigh*

the metal pieces on my boot covers, arms, dress, ribbons and hat are made from craft foam that i cut approximately into the right shapes. the chains on my arms were made from baked clay that i strengthened with bead wire.  used a matte silver metal spray paint to make it more realistic. note to self: use primer and a sealant layer next time lol

wig was from cosworx. color 24. awesome awesome wig :) 


green contacts from acuvue color.  they weren't green enough :( but my eyes are bad so i was cheapo and used spherical lenses with the right power.  was recommended two sites, Dollyeye and Korea Big Eyes, for their doll-like and vibrant color contacts.  will buy for my lightning costume for sure.  for really special contacts, i found a special effects contact site: 9mmSFX. absolutely amazing lenses but also really expensive.


last thoughts on my costume: sloppy :( it looks great but it was definitely not fitted well and the dress on the inside is a mess.  it needs to be lined and the hem fixed.  will do better next time. need to finish my guns and i'll  do a separate post on that later :)

next: Tifa Lockhart (advent children version) no wig! yay :) 

Rachel Alucard

Ahaha... well, let's see if I remember any of this.  I may have blocked the pain from my memory XP

Although this is not technically my first costume (my first cosplay was Hibari from Reborn, with all items purchased; my first fully-made costume was a variation on the White Queen from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland), this was the first time a made something based on someone else's design.  So I'm going to go ahead and say it's also my first cosplay costume.

Rachel's costume... does not look simple.  It consists of three layers on top and bottom.  I have no idea how much I spent, but I probably spent a lot more than Tiffy did, simply because of the amount of cloth I had to use, and the fact that Rachel is a spoiled princess who uses high quality stuff.

I didn't really look at any other cosplayer's sites for how to make Rachel's costume, but I definitely took the artist's tips into mind and consulted the artbook pictures (which have since been taken down, so I can't link you, but feel free to leave a message if you'd like me to send them to you) for her costume a lot.  My main problem was that the pictures have discrepancies (that is, I guess the artist couldn't quite decide what Rachel's outfit looks like), so I had a hard time piecing out how long or wide things should be relative to other parts of the costume.

Because of time (or lack thereof), I only made the main part of her costume and ignored the shoes and accessories (Nago and Gii, her shape-shifting cat often seen as an umbrella and her fluffy demon slave thing).  I will hopefully be making the accessories for the next con; we'll see.  For her shoes, I wore a pair of platforms I bought a long time ago.  If I had made them, I would have used a hollow wooden base painted silver, with stiffened suede on top, since they are actually rocking horse shoes (platforms with the heel cut out).

According to the artist tips, Rachel's costume is a mix of silk and leather.  I used neither in my costume.  Silk is very expensive ($15+ a yard) and impossible to wash; leather is the worst thing to be wearing from head to toe in the middle of summer here.  Instead, I used Casa Collection satin in white, black, and red.

Top - Layer 1 (Undershirt)
Although you can barely see it in any picture, Rachel wears a white, collared, sleeveless shirt with ruffles down the front and along the shoulders.  I used white satin for all of this.  As a pattern, I used a slightly modified dress shirt pattern (I modified it by removing the sleeves; I used a pattern with sleeves so I could use the same pattern for the jacket).  For easy removal, I put an invisible white zipper up the front, and two hook-and-eye clasps at the throat (because the zipper wasn't long enough).  I added the ruffles at the end -- just sewed a strip of white satin about twice the length I needed, then folded them over and under to make the ruffle shape.

Top - Layer 2 (Jacket)
I would say that the jacket was one of the hardest bases to make in my costume, because it's two-toned and has an odd shape.  The top part and the sleeves are a darker black, and the bottom part is lighter black.  To create the two tones, I just used the fact that the inside of the satin, unlike other materials like cotton, is different from the outside.  For the darker parts, I used the outside (correct side) of the satin, and for the lighter part, I used the inside (wrong side).  Again, I used a more heavily modified version of a dress shirt pattern, removing the collar and estimating the places where the tones started/ended.  I also extended the bottom of the jacket to make the V-shapes in the front and back..  The back came out a little too short, though (because my skirt is extra poofy).  Note that the line down the back of the jacket is deliberate.

The sleeves gave me a lot of trouble; at first, I tried to do it as one whole piece, but the top half of the sleeve is slim (above the elbow), while the bottom half flares out and is very wide.  I ended up having to sew two separate pieces together -- one straight sleeve for the top half, and then a semi-circle for the bottom half -- which makes a noticeable line, but oh well.

The ruffles on the bottom of the jacket were just shapely lace, while the ruffles on the sleeves are actually white satin (same cloth as the shirt).  For the decorations on the sleeves, I used red satin and white satin ribbon.  I had to use some cheap cloth to draw out a shape first.  The pattern of the decoration turned out to be a circle-shaped strip of cloth centered at the red arrow shape.  All of it was one cloth.  The white edges of the decoration were a thick, shiny white satin I got cheaply at Michael's (it was on sale), folded over twice and tucked between the red and black satin on the sleeve.  At each corner, I cut the ribbon diagonally and matched up the sides with the next strip of ribbon.  Uh, this doesn't make much sense...  Beware that satin likes to do its own thing, so most of my decorations came out sort of wavy-looking instead of nice and flat.

I purchased some fancy buttons for the white spots on her sleeves, and used the same buttons for the spots on the cape (description below).  I put a black zipper up the front of the jacket, and then used red oval-shaped buttons from a special button store as the red decorations in front.  I was trying to be as true to the original as possible; I've seen others use just a strip of red cloth, but I don't think that looks as good.

Top - Layer 3 (Cape)
My very bad pattern for the cape consisted of me wrapping newspaper around my shoulders and guessing the shape.  Capes are basically a semi-circle, or a very big piece of pie, with the tip cut out for your neck.  For the collar, I measured a trapezoid shape, where the short side is the same length as the neck part of the cape, and the long side allows the collar to extend out on my face.  In retrospect, I should have used more of a rounded shape for at least the short side (to fit into the circular shape of the cape base better).  I cut the trapezoid with the long side against the cloth fold so that it would be correct side out on both the inside and outside of the collar, then lined it with interfacing so it would be stiff and stay up.

The cape was the same black satin (correct side) with red satin and white satin ribbon as decorations, same as the jacket.  I actually used gift tissue paper to trace the pattern on top of the cape base, since the tissue paper is see-through.  The decoration consisted of several parts: the main cross in the back, the circle underneath, the two crosses on each side, and the red strip around the neck.  For each part, I cut the red out, then edged the red with the white, and then arranged it on top of the cape.  I sewed the whole thing on at once.  The red strip around the neck extends further than the cape so I can clasp it together at the front without the cape covering my front.  The red bow was messily done, but I sewed clasps onto the back of the bow so I could remove it from the cape or attach it on.  Again, fancy white buttons on the back of the cape.

Bottom - Layer 1
The bottom layer 1 should be black bloomers, which I didn't make.  I bought black cotton for them, though. and I'll hopefully make them sometime soon.  I would have used a bloomer pattern from my Gothic & Lolita Bible magazine, but it's not difficult to find a bloomer pattern.  Think of them as really wide shorts that you just add elastic to.

Bottom - Layer 2
Underneath the really poofy skirt is actually a hoop skirt, not a petticoat.  (A hoop skirt is one layer of cloth that maintains its shape by using rings of something stiff, like wire; a petticoat maintains its shape with multiple layers of cloth, typically something stiff like tulle, that add up to be poofy.)  I used this tutorial to make the hoop skirt.  I just used a cheap, slick material (forgot what it's called), since you can't see it, and I used 1/4" white PVC pipes instead of soaker hose.  (It's actually lighter.)  I made the hoop skirt shorter than the actual skirt and then added a very wide layer of white satin ruffle to the bottom (this ruffle shows up, as it extends longer than the skirt).

Bottom - Layer 3
Second most difficult base, because it has a really weird shape.  I used my extra material, pinned it to the hoop skirt (which I propped up on a bunch of moving boxes, by the way), and cut out an approximate shape.  Black satin again, correct side out for the sides and back (all one piece).  The front three triangles were wrong side out (lighter black), and lined on the bottom edges with the correct side out as trim.  I used the white satin for the ruffles on the bottom two triangles.

The decorations were also difficult.  By the way, the red parts of her skirt are, according to the artist's tips, a kumori (bat) wing variant, which means that they change shape at will.  Good luck getting that to work.  No, I used satin and just used the most commonly seen shape.  Again, red satin, but on black satin ribbon this time.  I sort of made it up very quickly at the end, so the inside sewing is bad, and the long parts in the front tend to flip out because I didn't sew the very front edges of the red "wings" on (in order to make it more flowy-looking).  The red crosses are actually sewed on top of white crosses (because I ran out of ribbon), and then sewn onto the skirt.  (That's easier than sewing ribbon, so I probably won't be using ribbon anymore... although it wastes a lot of cloth.)

Accessories - Hair ribbons (bunny ears)
Probably what seems like a very difficult part, because it is important that the ribbons stand up and come to a point, says the artist.  Well, it wasn't actually that hard, just a bit difficult to make it keep its shape.  I'll have to think of something a bit sturdier.

Two pieces of black satin for each ear (a total of 4 -- 2 long ones in the front, 2 short ones in the back).  I just sort of cut out an ear and then stuck it on my head and looked in the mirror for proportions.  I cut it in a sort of long oval shape, with one pointed end and one flat end that is wider than it looks (so I could fold it to make that crease in the middle).  The inside was lined with stiff interfacing, which is sufficient to make it stand up and come to points.  I attached each ear to a piece of black felt (because I was lazy and rushing), which I then sewed to a piece of black elastic.  To attach the ears to my head, I wrapped the elastic around the pigtail and clasped it at the bottom.  Sufficient, but the ears tended to fall over or not be correctly aligned, so I constantly had to fix them during the convention =\

Accessories - Hair, eyes, and makeup
Rachel's hair is long.  Really, really long.  Most wigs don't come that long.  Mine was 150 cm, but I had to trade length for quality, and I will not be making that mistake again.  I purchased my wig from Milanoo, a wholesale dealer from China.  Check out their site; they have some nice designs and interesting things.  But I will never purchase from Milanoo again.  First of all, their prices swing around wildly with no warning and no apparent reason.  So you might end up like me and end up paying $20 more than you should have for the wig.  Second, their customer service representatives, while polite, are completely clueless and mostly unhelpful.  Also, they take forever to ship (I didn't get mine for like a month and a half), although that may be because they're overseas... but I doubt it.  

Oh, and most important reason -- their wig quality is total crap.  Mine tangled almost instantly, which is not unexpected given the length.  But the strands were very thin and dry, and I could NOT get it to untangle almost at all.  Also, the wig cap is very small and, it looks like, cheaply made.  I will definitely, definitely be getting my wig from Cosworx or ImageAnime next time.  They are both within the U.S., and their wig quality is amazing.  ImageAnime's wigs feel like real hair.  Actually, they feel better than my hair XD

Okay, sorry, enough carping.  Back to the costume.  To style the hair, I used this tutorial on zigzag parts to hide most of the netting on the wig, and we used knee-high pantyhose as wig caps.  Because my wig was evil, I styled it on Tiffy's head with a combination of a comb, clips (to hold up the pigtails), and scissors (to cut the tangled parts).

For eyes, I went to my eye doctor and asked to get red contacts.  The only red contacts you can get from your eye doctor are WildEyes Red Hot contacts... but don't bother.  They are very expensive (about $80 per contact), and if you have bad eyes like me, you'll have to wear double contacts, because the prescription only goes up to 6.00 spherical.  I guess that's fine, but also, they came out more orange than red and the opening for the pupil is very small (so I could see a red ring around my vision the whole time).  At the moment, I would recommend getting these red contacts, although I have not purchased them myself.  They're cheaper, though.  Not sure if they're better.

Lastly, Rachel is dead (she's a vampire), so she's, of course, deathly pale.  If your complexion is very fair, you don't really need to worry about makeup.  For me, I'm naturally a lighter shade of Asian color, so I employed the use of a white powder made by L'Oreal.  Geisha makeup, if you can get it, would work.  Otherwise, if you're not keen on or don't really care that much about being as pale as Rachel is, you can just use a light ivory powder, or ivory liquid foundation with ivory powder on top.  (I think the combination makes you paler.)

Next is Aerith Gainsborough... hopefully much easier than Rachel's XD

I think that about wraps it up... uh, this is really long XD  Sorry guys, hope it was informative, though.

A-Kon 21 Day 2: Photoshoots, K-Pop, and Maids

Our second day of A-Kon started at approximately the same time -- we got up at 8:00 am.  I went downstairs and no one was up, so I finally got to wake up the four guys XD  (Because this is the first time they didn't get up before us =w=;;)...

Somehow, despite getting up at the same time, knowing what to do for our costumes, and not having to do as much makeup as yesterday, we left the house about half an hour later... I think it was the bagels for breakfast.  But that was fun, so it's okay~

Yesterday one of Tiffy's buttons fell off of her sleeve, so Jordan took us to Joann's before we went to A-Kon.  I had my wig/contacts/makeup and skirt and hoop skirt on (but not jacket and cape), and Tiffy was fully dressed.  Imagine Rachel and Noel shopping~  It was pretty funny actually XD

Actually, we didn't get as many stares as i thought lol 

One lady just asked us if we were going to some kind of convention.  We told her we were going to an anime convention that was going on this weekend, and she pointed to her husband(?) and told us that he also dressed in costume, but for a sci-fi show (I think).  I thought we should go to Walmart and have a picture of Rachel and Noel shopping, but we forgot to by the end because we were so tired >__<;

we got to the convention at 12:30 and true to the christine's jacket observation, the second we got her cape on, we got spammed by cameras =/ headed straight to the dealers room since we only made it through a quarter of it the day before. since the paparazzi frenzy died down, we managed to get through all of it before our blazblue photoshoot at 3pm.  got cute hats as well :D christine got kitty and panda ones and i got one with ounk bunny ears!

Red punk bunnny ears XD  Not ounk bunny ears  I almost thought you wrote "oink" or "pink" o_o

BB photoshoot was very fun :) never thought i'd ever be part of the large photoshoots i always see online but it was nice to get all the characters together: taokaka (x4), bang (x1), jin (x1), noel (x2, including Tiffy), rachel (x3, including me), arakune (x2), hazama (x2) and ragna (x1).  makes me kind of sad that our group never completely finished, but i think we could manage it for future cons :P despite that fact, christine and i did get lots of attention--from hardcore BB fans and creepy otaku and chinese food counter boys--as just rachel and noel. personally, i think we did really well for our first cosplay costumes and I can't wait to do more! being at the con is so inspiring...i have like 209520934803 ideas in mind :P

So the first day, we went to a Chinese food place in Plaza of the Americas (a neighboring hotel) to eat lunch.  Today we went to the same place just because (Tiffy, Jordan, and Daniel were in line and bought food there), and apparently the food counter boy recognized us and mentioned so today.  Tiffy and I think we should go there again tomorrow to eat and see if he still recognizes us without our costumes, haha~

after lunch, we lined up for the cosplay competition. the line was ridiculously long! to occupy our time, we had jordan provide 30 second entertainment for curious bypassers haha

Cosplay competition was fun. in a nutshell--

1. the japanese wannabes have no idea what kpop is lol which was apparent by the silence in the room when Lollipop by Big Bang started playing

2. Men with big bellies like to shake it....

3. Men with big bellies shaking it are really really scary....

4. AWESOME COSTUMES

5. cosplay skit 2 = ???

In the room where the contest is, they have a stage at the front, a big TV to the left, and, for some inane reason, a huge raised platform where the control center is right in the middle.  And they, for some equally inane reason, decided to put chairs behind the control center anyways.  So we, by great misfortune, ended up sitting practically right behind the control center, but a little to the right so that the control center blocked both the stage and the TV (what wasn't  blocked by the center was blocked by people's heads QQ)...  A lot of people around us ended up leaving because you really can't see anything.

After some talking and awkward-looking dancing by the hosts and random people they pulled from the crowd, the show got started -- with Lollipop by 2NE1 feat. Big Bang.  They played the whole music video and everything.  It was really weird, because, well, it's an anime convention, and everyone there knows J-Pop and anime songs sure enough, but K-Pop??  I think only Tiffy, Jordan, and I really knew it, and we were kind of singing along.  Daniel, who went separately from us and sat a few rows behind us, said that one girl in front of him knew it also.  I thought that if they played Nobody we should dance along XD  Rachel and Noel dancing Nobody?

The show itself was pretty good.  There were some amazing costumes like Tiffy said: Princess Ai (three furies and the really tall girl with red wings and a short pink dress), Jet from Cowboy Bebop (because he totally had the Jet feel), a few animal(-esque) cosplays, and some really nice fancy dresses.  I don't remember all of them.  Then there were the skits, most of which were pretty bad (or just random).  The first one had a website called Ilikenonexistentgirls.com, which apparently takes what you want in a girl and spits out an anime girl for you.  It was pretty funny~  XD  The second one was definitely wtf like Tiffy said, they had really weird and nonsensical dialogue that was made worse by the fact that they sort conglomerated in one corner of the stage... behind the podium, where the announcer was.  So not only could we not understand them, we couldn't see what they were doing.  There was a cute one from Castle... crashers? of these four characters doing a little dance.  One had Faye Valentine doing a dance, musical-style, to a song from Lady Luck, "Cowboy."  What else... there were lots of weird singing/dancing ones.  Oh, but the absolute best one was last -- they had a bunch of props, and they did a skit to "Tick Tock" with Roy Mustang and his assistant, a girl.  They had Roy singing over the song and changed the words to fit, and then at one part, Ed shows up and dives in on his knees with his arms raised just as the song goes "The party don't start 'til I walk in~"  It was so good~

i was definitely disappointed in the quality of the skits though...i thought they'd all be a little more entertaining? some of them were so random and the funny thing is...you have to submit your skit ideas in advance. i demand to know who was screening these skits :P 

I had some ideas for skits that we could do~  One is a BB skit in which there are two gamers who try to play the game, but the characters just ignore all the commands they try to do XD  For instance, Bang versus Litchi, and using Rachel (who doesn't feel like fighting and just sits down for tea).  Then at the end, we line up and do the Haruhi dance XP

Or we could do one in which two guys start fighting over a girl (literally, fighting), and then somewhere in the fight they begin bantering back and forth.  The insults turn into "I bet I can ___ better than you," which then turns into a dance competition that isn't even about the girl anymore, and they pull a second girl in and start doing the waltz from FF8.  And at the very end, they both do an extravagant dip XD

While the judges were deciding, there were random shows involving big men lifting their shirt and... bouncing up and down.  It was pretty gross.  But there was one funny part in which the announcer told us how someone told him to order his food at McDonald's in his narrator/announcer voice, and he and another guy demonstrated to us how a conversation would go in a drive-through:

Cashier: May I take your order?

Announcer: (in booming voice) Yes, I'd like a number 3!

Cashier: Uh, I'm sorry, I don't know the numbers... what would you like?

Announcer: I said, a number 3!

Cashier: Sir, are you threatening me?  You sound like you're threatening me.

Announcer: No.  Have you ever seen Dragonball Z?

Cashier: Yes, I've watched some...

Announcer: Well then, I want a number 3 -- and super saiyan it!

Afterwards, we just headed home.  Wei, his brother, Scott L, and Faruk went to the bath house again for some reason, and then came over later when they were done to drop off Faruk.  Ran came back around the same time (as Jordan, Daniel, Tiffy and I were finishing up dinner).

like i said before, it's strange how much they like the bathhouse and getting scrubbed down o_O tee hee hee i kid i kid

And... that is when, the following ensued, as Ran shared with us about his adventures in the maid cafe...

Ran: When we won, the punishment game was for them to do jumping jacks!  And we won twice!  (in a squeaky, excited voice) And when they did it, the ruffles just come up like this, and you can see... the ruffles just come up like this!  *waves hand in a flapping motion by his thigh to demonstrate*

Scott: I'm depressed just knowing him.

Tiffy: (to Wei) You know that when you go to Japan, you're just going to be spending all your time in maid cafes, right?

Ran:  No, but I'm sad that we can't talk to the maids in Japan though.  I'll just be like... *takes Wei's hand and stares into his eyes, breathing heavily* ... I just... my KOKORO... my feelings are hard to express, but right here... *touches chest over heart* ...It's just DOKI DOKI."

oh Ran....for those of you that don't know Ran, he has sort of a maid fetish haha it has something to do the with the frills and ruffles and general cuteness of it all...sigh.........lol  

Yep >__<  I also think we should do a maid cafe skit with Ran as the main guy and a bunch of cosplay girls from different series that are roughly lolita-ish.  Ran should toss in that line at the end to one girl with a lot of frills and curls and such... and then the maid speaks with a man's voice XD  (We think that Wei should play that maid~~)

christine, we need to look up revenge of the vampire bunnies!  Oh right, so apparently one guy thought I was Mina from Revenge of the Vampire Bunnies... talk about random...

A-Kon 21 Day 1: The Real Version...

So, our day 1 at A-Kon.  It started at 8 am, but somehow we didn't leave the house until 11...

We styled Daniel's wig roughly like Ragna's, but in the end he looked like Riku from Kingdom Hearts XD;;  He made Ragna's gloves, though, which was cool.  We turned Jordan into a JRocker with straightened/spiked hair, foundation, and fancy eyeliner~  Well, it really just looked like Rachel and Noel with three JRockers by the time we were all ready.

lol i think rachel can have a JRocker harem.

i did not expect A-kon to be so tiring. we were bombarded almost every second at A-Kon with flashes of light and cameras once we stepped into the con. it got old after a bit since we couldn't look at anything :( It took 2 or 3 times as long to get to places just because we stopped so much. As much as i was surprised with the number of people who knew about blazblue, i think it was just the fact that Christine's dress  was absolutely gorgeous :D and big and showstopping haha case in point--



man: please tell me you're who i think you are
christine: who do you think i am?
man: mina....from revenge of the vampire bunnies
LOL christine and i just look at each other...

christine's rachel was one of the only 3 there and I think it was the best :) not bc i'm biased (because i am lol) but objectively, it was made well and faithful to the original artwork hehe
there were several other noel's at the convention as well. mine's wasn't bad in comparison, considering it's my first costume ever.  Definitely had lots of wardrobe malfunctions lol it's a good thing we packed up a emergency con kit.  I lost a gold button and my spray paint rubbed off on my outfit giving me terrible deodorant-looking marks (grrrrrrrr.....), people kept stepping on my streamers, deflating the metal tips etc. lesson learned--i'm top coatiing future metal pieces and lol by the end of the night, i pretty much perfected my streamer wrap/unwrap process so that i wouldn't get stepped on.

Personally, I think that Tiffy's Noel was the best of those there.  Both the hair and costume fit her well, and she just sort of had a video game character feel, you know?  Okay, maybe I'm biased too, but really -- Tiffy looked good as Noel.  Two others had a light blue that didn't look quite right.  Lots of people stopped her for her picture, too ^^  And she definitely had that fight pose perfected by the end, even if she didn't have the guns.  The only problems we had, I think, were that my ears kept flopping over and one of Tiffy's buttons fell off on her sleeve.  

I'm sad that I didn't have Nago and Gii, though TwT  One Rachel had Nago, and the other Gii.  The one with Gii had incorrect hair styling and her costume was not terribly well made, but she was so cute that she probably fit Rachel the best of the three of us.  I'm going to make Nago and Gii for our next round, definitely~  And Tiffy will make her guns, and we'll be even better v(^w^)v

i definitely have to make the guns...otherwise ran will just keep making fun =/

in the afternoon, wei and faruk arrived as carl clover and arakune. together with ran as hazama, we were a pretty good set :D i think by the next con, with daniel as ragna and jordan as jin or hakumen, we'll be awesome!

christine, i think we'll have to make a special post about our costume construction :P  Yeah, probably XD  Or else this post will be too long.

Due to the paparazzi crowd, we only made it through about 1 row of the Dealers' Room today.  After we ate lunch at a Chinese food place in Plaza of the Americas, we headed to stand in line for the opening ceremony.  Unfortunately, the ceremony consisted primarily of them thanking this or that person, and then bringing up a bunch of the guests that none of us knew because most of us only do anime/manga in Japanese.  (Well, scanlated mangas, but not webcomics or anything.)   The only person I recognized was Inugami Circus-Dan, a visual kei/J-Rock band.  Here, a picture:

They're an interesting group, although I don't really listen to their music.  A friend in high school introduced me to them, but I think I wasn't as interested in their style as some others back then.  (Subsequently, I forgot what they sound like.)  They were pretty cute, though.  They came on stage, and Kyouko (the singer, female) said a few things in English but seemed really embarrassed and shy.  Then one of the guys whispered in her ear for every line in Japanese she said after that XD

she really was cute :D "tonight we have a live" hehehehe

After that, we were thinking to go into line to see Inugami perform, but we had to wait an hour, so we wandered around for a while before getting back in line.  We were all pretty tired and gross, so we just stayed for one song.  Their music is interesting -- it's borderline hard rock music background, with guitars and drums, with a sort of old Japanese (maybe enka?) sound for the vocals.  I really liked the background music, but the vocals were so-so (just not my style, that is).  I'd like to look back into their music, though ^^

Somehow, we decided to go to King Spa Sauna, a Korean bath house that Wei has been talking about forever.  It was authentic Korean... which means getting nekked all together (with the genders separated, of course) and showering/sitting in hot baths together.  Tiffy and I had not been expecting to go on Friday, so we didn't bring extra clothes or shoes... it was kind of weird.  But we took our contacts off and couldn't see anything XD  Wen-shin, another girl who came to join our group (we went to middle school together, and she knows Scott C) as Tsubaki Yayoi, came with us.

Yeah i'm not sure why the boys were so adamant on going to the bathhouse...maybe there's something going on that we don't know about christine :P jk! but for once, i'm glad i have terrible vision. if you really think about it, there's something strange about stripping down with your friends and strangers o_O

As we were very awkwardly stripping down in front of the lockers, Wen-shin got us two towels each... but the towels were so tiny!  So, stifling embarrassed laughter, we shed our clothes and attempted to cover ourselves with those towels.  All three of us came out clinging onto those towels, and the Korean ladies there were laughing so much at us (=w=;;;)a  I'd have to admit, it must have been a pretty funny scene, though.

i'd liken it to a scene in some cheesy movie. i wonder how it's going to be when we go in japan...probably not any less awkward lol

We showered at these little stalls, sitting down.  It's pretty similar to the Japanese hot springs, actually.  After that, we all went into the hot (103 degrees) green tea bath for a while, then to the regular bath of the same temperature.  There was also a hotter bath (106 degrees), which I tried after that, and then Tiffy and I both went into the cold bath (73ish degrees).  We got separated from Wen-shin, but went together to the wet sauna, back to the cold bath, and then finally into the green tea bath.  It was actually pretty nice, once you get over the being unclothed part.  Though when we showered at the end, we were sitting on opposite sides (backs to each other), and Tiffy asked me if people ever have shower wars  XD  She then proceeded to spray me with her shower.  After a while we were just spraying each other over our shoulders... haha, the ladies probably thought we were so immature.

lol i couldn't resist. there are all these shower stall things with showerheads...it's hard to believe that not one person thought of doing that

When we finally came out, we wore these pink clothes they had available, and went outside to the common  area.  It turns out we were the last to come out (no concept of time in those spas), and we ran into Jordan.  The others were at a table in the corner eating (we totally missed them when we came out somehow).  Jordan showed us to all the interesting rooms they had: the Volcano Room, Ice Room, Salt Room, Pyramid Room... what else... there were a lot of rooms with different healing/cleansing powers.  The Ice Room felt pretty nice~  They claimed that it feels like the North Pole but... no, no it doesn't >__<;;

We got back and ended up sleeping at 4 am again...sigh

Revenge of the Penguins?!

hello everyone :) i'm back from florida and ready to spam my costume for A-Kon 21 :P

A-Kon is the oldest running anime convention in the US...at least that's what they say on their site haha check it out! http://a-kon.com/ i've wanted to cosplay for the longest time, but never found anyone to go to A-Kon with me again, never mind dressing up. when i went to A-Kon for the first time, i went with my parents -_- slightly mortifying with all the boys in dresses and scandalous outfits around....

anyways, I'm really excited to be able to dress up this time with Christine, Wei, Daniel, Ran, Scott, Faruk as characters from the fighting game Blazblue! Don't remember how exactly this came about, but we've been planning for this event for a very long time lol We chose Blazblue for the diverse cast of characters and interesting costumes.

I'm going to be Noel Vermillion, blonde-haired NOL lieutenant with dual wielding guns :)

and Christine is Rachel Alucard, a gothic lolita vampire with a long hair and a cat-shaped umbrella hehe

cute huh? Christine's costume looks awesome :) I'm really excited to see it be completed! and mine's well...it's getting there haha i definitely was ambitious on my first cosplay but i hope i can get at least my costume done before the convention on June 4th-6th...got some hemming, boot covers and tie to finish. My weapons are a whole other story...

Tiffy's costume looks really good so far ^ ^ There will be no umbrella or fuzzy red thing in my cosplay though XD My excuse is that I got bored of them and... well, you know what vampires do :3 I'd also say that this was ambitious for a cosplay for me QQ~

Keep reading over the next couple of days! There will definitely be updates on our costume progress, frustrations and pictures as A-Kon gets closer!

By the way, why is this called revenge of the penguins?

lol to confuse everyone....for some reason, it's A-Kon's theme this year and i'm not sure what it means