AX 2012 - Day 1

Hello!


Today was our first official day of Anime Expo.  Tiffy and I cosplayed our first set of costumes: Lightning and Serah Farron from FFXIII.

We were the only set of Lightning/Serah that we saw, and we actually got a surprising number of picture requests.  Yay for set costumes! Yeah, I actually can't believe it turned out so well.  We were a pretty good duo :P  And Tiffy was actually taller than me!  It kind of freaked all our friends out.


Highlights of the day:
- Running into our friends at registration.
- Fluff Ice!

  

- Seeing other cosplays... Totoro, Kirby, baby Cloud, WoW, samurai people, Boba Fetts, monitor head peoples, and more!
- Visiting our friend Wei at the crunchyroll station, seeing the new Necomimi ears, and sneaking some free drinks from their back room.
- Meeting up with my cousin for dinner at a super popular Italian restaurant/bakery, Bottega Louie.


First day reflections of AX? hard to say lol we spent most of the day walking around, failing to coordinate meetings with friends and posing for pictures.  we'll definitely have to make an effort to attend some shows/panels tomorrow.  However, like always, we leave exhausted.  until tomorrow!

Cosplay Progress Report: FFXIII Lightning and Serah

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since we've updated, but we are still working on our costumes for this year's Anime Expo!  Tiffy and I have started on our FFXIII costumes for Lightning and Serah, and we've also gotten our wigs.  I also just ordered our contacts (for 20% off, yay!). update: korea big eyes seems to be phasing out prescription lenses :( so i shall be ordering acuvue color lenses

Here's a brief progress report on how we're doing so far:

Serah Farron

I'll be doing Serah for AX this year.  (Obviously.  I totally couldn't pull off the awesome Lightning look; I'm in no way cool-looking like Tiffy is.)  

Tiffy and I both got our wigs from the same eBay seller, fashiongarden3000.  You can find Serah's wig here; unfortunately, it looks like they stopped selling the one I purchased.  The wig quality is decent, probably along the same as the wig Tiffy got for Noel from cosplay.com (about 3 editions of their site ago).  The hair is smooth and the right color, but it's not heat resistant.  Luckily, I was humble enough to recognize how inept I am at styling wigs, so I just purchased mine pre-styled and saved myself the heartache. i'm glad i bought my wig prestyled too. the lightning one is still available :)

For the contacts, I purchased these NeoCosmo Sunflower Edge Aqua contacts.  Since my astigmatism is terrible, spherical contacts don't work for me (as I discovered when I cosplayed Aerith), so I just decided to get non-prescripted ones and double layer the contacts like I did for Rachel.  Word to the wise: it's probably really bad for your eyes, so don't do it very often.  I'll only do it for the one day we cosplay FFXIII.

So far, I've finished the skirt base, which took way too long, because I am slow.  I just need to add the lace and the gold decoration in the front.  And by the way, because I don't have Serah's long legs, the skirt is SO SHORT.  I know how Tiffy felt as Noel now :P  And I've been totally obsessing about it.  I promise to stop being annoying about how short it is soon.

We'll post a separate entry on costume construction when we're done with the costumes so you can see our arduous work (just kidding -- well, not really).  Until then, hopefully we can post periodic updates!  (That way I'll feel pressured to finish my costume and actually finish it...)

Lightning

yeahhhh i need to costume more because i am very very far behind =\ i have lots of fabric sitting around since i've taken advantage of all the joann's coupons that come out, but i haven't really sewn any of it. i've finished the skirt but it's not as nice as i'd like it to be.  i have yet to figure out how to properly design waistbands.

the skirt is dark brown kona cotton with silver 5in fashion zippers.  it's pretty short, but luckily lightning wears black shorts underneath so i got to skimp on lining the entire thing >__<  i also haven't figured out how to attach the zipper boot onto my sewing machine, hence the pulling at the end of the zippers -___- will have to fix that later. overally though, it'll suffice. lightning wears tons of other things over it anyways lol


also in the works...the mini corset thing, which i'm making out of dark blue denim, silver grommets and leather twine. i decided to make it separately so i could adjust it, but a lot of cosplay websites make a high waisted brown skirt with laces in the front. same difference >__<


i've also started making her waist belt.  i bought a light coffee/safari colored vinyl, which will serve well for the boots and vest adornments.  i'll have to use some darker acrylic paint to make the belt the right color.


more to come (i hope!)

Costume Construction: FFVII Advent Children

 HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII :) i know i am writing this about 1 month after A-kon has been over, but i'm super lucky that christine is so very organized and a detailed account of our days at A-kon 22 :P 

well, in case anyone is curious as to how christine and i spammed our costumes for FFXIII, here goes!

Showcased: June 10-11, 2011

Tiffany: Tifa Lockhart      Christine: Aeris Gainsborough

Tifa Lockhart


So yeah, i made this in two weeks, which is not as impressive as christine's 3 days, but considering i was working with vinyl, i'll give myself a small pat on the back >__<


from an overall point of view, tifa's costume is very simple.  It consists of a white tank, black vest, black knee-length shorts, and a front-back apron piece.  in total, the costume cost about $60.


White Tank: I bought a cheap white cotton tee from michael's and cut it up to bare a small section of midriff (scandalous i know!) and have enough sleeve to show past the vest.  pretty simple.


Vest, Shorts and Apron:  I made these pieces using a black vinyl from Hancock's Fabrics's upholstery/outdoor fabrics section during a 50% off sale.  It gave off a good leather look but was still thin enough to work with.  My only complaint is that if you look close enough at the vinyl, it has the words SURECHEK printed all over it -____-  Even though it was "thin", this has to be the hardest thing i've ever worked with! AND since it was vinyl, it didn't breathe so i'm glad i fully lined everything otherwise, walking around the con would've been more awful than it already was lol
for the vest, i made a pattern from a tank top that i liked and proceeded to use myself as a sewing mannequin (bleeeeh).  I used a silver coat zipper for the front and followed online instructions for the darts around the bust and back.

shorts: the shorts intimidated me the most about costume, just because i've never had to make anything tailored before.  i initially made a free-form pattern based on my measurements but that was awful lol so i ended up doing the same thing as the vest -- i made a pattern based on my favorite knee high dickies shorts and followed tips from this blog.  it turned out pretty well except i didn't sew a waistband (which i should've!!!!) i kept fearing the pants would just slide off -____- i ended up adding an invisible zipper in the front and elastic bands in the back to make the waist tighter.  I sewed the belt loops on by hand (2 per leg and 2 on each side of the hip) and 1 buttonhole was made at each hip. 


 

apron:  the apron was the easiest and my favorite part.  The front piece was just one piece of lined vinyl with another piece of vinyl in the front.  the pockets were created through strategic sewing :P it was so convenient throughout the con bc unlike last year with noel's costume, i had a place to keep my phone and money!  I finished it off with 6 black buttons.  I made a 2 loops at the sides of the apron to attached the silver buckles.  

the back of the apron was 2 pieces of vinyl.  The bottom part of the apron was pleated into 6 box pleats that were left flared at the bottom.  the top piece was just a trapezoidal piece of vinyl.  i sewed both of them together to create that seam she has beneath her butt.  2 buttons were sewn at the top corners of the apron to flip over into the shorts and secure into the buttonholes

accessories:



earring: i made her left teardrop earring from sculpting clay, craft wire and silver spray paint.  I took a rounded stud and looped a piece of wire around it.  I sculpted a teardrop shape and baked it in the toaster oven.  After sanding, i spray painted with metallic silver paint and clear gloss for finish.  


I decided not to buy a cloudy wolf ring but i bought leather gloves when i was in china for like $8? that was awesome :)

shoes: i wore black high-top converse that i already owned.  i just covered the converse symbol with black lining and used black ribbon for the shoelaces and knee ties.  
armband: i used a strip of christine's costume to match :)


Aerith Gainsborough


Sorry for the suuuuuuuuper late update on mine!  I actually don't have any in-the-making pictures, and I don't remember much of the time I spent making it except for arduous pain, so :P  Still, mine is definitely not as impressive as Tiffy's; I could never had made a costume that complex in just 2 weeks.  Lucky for me, mine was pretty easy :)  (Though it didn't feel like it at that time.)


Dress


I used a light pink linen material for the dress.  It was thin and flowy, but very comfortable, and had the same look as Aerith's dress.  Around the edges, I used a darker pink cotton that I folded over and sewed on top.  For the dress pattern, I used a cocktail dress that I already owned that had a very similar cut to that of Aerith's dress.

I sewed buttons up the front, but I didn't actually use that as the means of holding the dress together.  I still haven't figured out how to make button holes yet, so I cheated and used a zipper on the side.

Jacket


I used dress shirt pattern that I've grown very fond of for the jacket, but trimmed off the bottoms so that it was a half-length.  Just for future reference, dress shirt patterns are very useful.  I used the same pattern for my Rachel shirt and jacket.

For the bands, I used a brown leather material that I got out of the furnishings section of Joann's.  It's a really nice, thick material that I like.  I didn't know have time to figure out the buckles, so I just sewed the ends together.

I also haven't figured out how to use the thing that makes the other kind of button/clasp that you usually find on jeans or jackets, so I just sewed vaguely correct looking buttons on the front of the jacket.

Accessories


Wig: I got my beautiful wig from ImageAnime, luckily straight from their shop in New York (as their site is very not up-to-date) for $50 (+tax).  It was a medium-length chestnut brown made of heat-resistant material, and it feels even better than real hair.  I think I killed it by styling it for Aerith's wig, though :(  For the bangs, I had to use a terrible-for-you method in which you spray the hair with hairspray and then immediately apply heat from a hair straightener to stiffen the spray on the hair.  I used a similar method for the front curls.  I just braided the back and pulled it over my shoulder to make it look vaguely convincingly long enough.


Contacts:  The green contacts came from KoreaBigEyes.com.  Their contacts are pretty excellent and not too expensive.

Necklace: I used a thin brown band that I got from Joann's and just tied it around my neck.


Bracelets:  I purchased silver plastic bands from Joann's and just wore them as pretend bracelets.  They looked pretty similar at a distance to what Aerith was wearing, and I didn't have time to make the bracelets, so they were sufficient.


Boots: I was looking for some brown Ugg-like shoes, but luckily my friend had some brown flat boots that looked similar, so I borrowed hers.


All in all, I think the costume turned out pretty well for my rushing.  There are definitely things I could have done better (less cheating, for one).  Hopefully my next costume will be better constructed > <


 i think we all had a pretty good time again and look forward to our grand adventure next year as the characters from tales of symphonia and FFXIII at Anime Expo in LA! it's gonna be AWESOME! i can't wait!

Update on the Anime Expo costumes:  Since a lot of people opted out of Tales of Symphonia, we're probably not doing a full group cosplay.  Instead, Tiffy and I are going to do Kuroshitsuji, and see how many people will join in.  So far, Jordan and Daniel have agreed to be part of the entourage.  I'm looking forward to it!

A-Kon 22: Day 2

We made it through our second day of A-Kon, and although we're really tired, we're going to write you a blog post.  (Except not really, we fell asleep, so I'm writing this a couple days later.  Oh well.) 

Day 2 was pretty similar to the first day, except we got to meet up with our other friends!  Most of them didn't dress up this year, but Faruk dressed up as a wonderful Masa-san, and Ran dressed up as Protagonist/Shujinko, a cool-looking character from Persona 4.  (His mom made his amazing costume, just like last year :P)  Sadly we never got a group picture of everyone, but it was nice to have everyone together again for a bit ^w^

Tiffy and I wore our Advent Children costumes again, and Jordan and Daniel wore their Kenshin costumes again also.  Shannon went dressed as a character from Girl Genius, a webcomic turned novel(?), whose creators were at the convention.  Everyone looked really wonderful!  We did manage to get one of the photographer friends in our group to do a photoshoot for the five of us, so hopefully we can post some of those pictures up when he sends it to us.

~~~~~~ Update! ~~~~~~

Here are some pictures of Tiffy, me, and our friend Ran ^ ^  We'll probably update this entry more as we organize our photos.

Tiffy, as an amazing Tifa ^w^

Me as Aerith.  I only look this good because of our wonderful photographer Huan, who also edited this photo to make me look much better than I actually did :D

Lovely picture of Ran as Protagonist/Shujinko of Persona 4, also taken by Huan :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Otherwise, we checked out the Dealer's Room, which was pretty similar to last year, bought a few things, and got to watch the Atelier-Pierrot/Chantilly fashion show in the afternoon, and then the Cosplay Contest in the evening.  We got pretty good seats for both this time, so we had a nice view.  The fashion show had some really pretty lolita dresses that I'd love to wear (although nothing very spectacular, they were just nice "regular" lolita outfits).  The Cosplay Contest had a lot of walk-ons, some pretty good and some that we didn't know much about, and a couple good skits.  I still think the FMA one from last year was the best, but there was a really funny Axis Powers: Hetalia skit this year.

All in all, a pretty good but tiring day.  Good thing we only dress up for two days of the con :P

Next year, we have plans to go to Anime Expo in L.A. instead, since we've already been to A-Kon twice, and it seems to be pretty similar from year to year.  We're thinking of doing a group cosplay from Tales of Symphonia.  The costumes in there are nice and noticeable, and not many people cosplay that anymore since the game is older.  I'm really excited for that :D  We're going to do that as our "pictures day" -- the day we can't walk or look around at all because people keep taking pictures of us (like what happened with BlazBlue).  For our "relaxing day" -- when we're wearing mainstream costumes so we can dress up but still look around -- Tiffy and I are planning to do FFXIII (Lightning and Serah) or Kuroshitsuji (Ciel and Grell, if we can get a couple more people to join us).  Please look forward to our posts about next year :3

It was a lot of fun to see everyone again, dressed up or no, and hopefully we can all make it to next year's con and do a group cosplay♥

A-Kon 22: Day 1

Hi everyone!  It's been a looooooooong time, but we're finally posting something! YAYAYAY!

This weekend is A-Kon 22.  Today was our first day, and also the debut of our Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children cosplays ^ ^  As we mentioned before, Tiffy went as Tifa, and I went as Aerith.

Because of a severe case of procrastination on both our parts, our costumes were cranked out in 2 weeks (for Tifa) and 3 days (for Aerith).  So please keep that in mind when viewing our costumes :P  Although I think that Tiffy's Tifa has been the best I've seen so far!  :D  And most certainly the best I saw at the con today.

Awww thanks christine :D i'm surprised at how well it turned out too lol but christine's pro sewing skills means that her costume is fantastic anyways :D

Since our costumes weren't as elaborate as last time, we didn't get bombarded with pictures, which was a nice change.  After getting ready, we made it to the hotel around noon, where we stood in line for a couple hours for our pre-paid registration badges.  We found out near the end that there was a special "group purchases" line that was MUCH shorter that we could have stood in, though.  Sigh.  But now we know for next time.

yeah so fail on the badges >_< but i'm very glad that we (including our group of friends) had chances to look around because our costumes weren't so outrageous.  

The group today included our friends Shannon, Jordan, and Daniel.  Shannon was dressed as an original steampunk character in a gorgeous blue corset and skirt.  Jordan and Daniel went as two characters from the anime Rurouni Kenshin -- Daniel as Kenshin and Jordan as Sanosuke.  I think we all got our fair share of photos, but it was happily not overwhelming, so we got to see a good deal of the con and walk around freely ^ ^

i'd have to say everyone looked great! i'm so impressed at the effort everyone gave into their costumes and i really hope that we can someday again do a giant group cosplay because i'm sure it'd be awesome :P

Other notable events... we got lunch at China Dragon in the Plaza of the America's food courtyard, like we did last year XD  We also joined a Final Fantasy photoshoot in a nice shaded area outside, where the lighting was really nice and the shade provided some relief from the unrelenting Texas sun (and the sun's resulting heat).  We also got some frozen yogurt at a little place called Chill just inside of the hotel.

We'll update more later with a longer post and specifics on how we made our costumes this time.  But for now, happy first day of A-Kon!  I can't believe it's been a year since we were last here.

Time really has passed by fast.  Although it's hard to explain to those unfamiliar to cosplay the reason why I like to walk around wearing costumes, it's really because it's a chance to see all the friends I care about.  it's good to be back.

Oni-con 2010

Hi everyone!  Time for a "real" post... first in a while~ (Actually, it's super super late. Sorry, I got lazy XD)

So Oni-con 2010 was this past weekend a long time ago XD -- along with Halloween! :D  

I took a day off from work so I could go to Oni-con on Friday and Saturday.  Jordan and I left for Houston on Thursday afternoon after work (I totally left kind of early even though I probably shouldn't have, so that we would be there in time to get our pre-registration badges).  The drive was about 3.5 hours through a fairly lovely countryside :)  If you ever decide to drive from Austin to Houston, you should do it in the late afternoon, so that you see the scenic drive in the sunlight, at sunset, and then at night :3

I'll have to say upfront that the best part of the weekend was that I got to see Tiffy ^___^ and my favorite part was getting to catch up with Christine! :P

So we got there and picked Tiffy up, then drove to the hotel where the con was at.  This year's con was at the Houston Marriott Westchase, not too far from where we were staying.  It looked kind of ghetto on the outside when we had driven past it before (well, it was in the dark, so I guess I'm just bad at estimating ghetto-ness of a place in the dark), but it was actually really pretty!  We waited in line for about an hour to get our badges.  (By the way, if you haven't been to a con, be warned -- for some reason, nobody knows anything and they're all really slow, so it takes a really long time to get your badge and if you don't know where to go for something, asking doesn't help.  They're all volunteers, so can't expect too much.) yeah i think  we just need to get used to this now -_-

After that, we met up with one of Tiffy's new friends from Rice, Steve, and went to have dinner at the House of Pies.  It's a nice diner that has breakfast and lunch foods and is open 24 hours... and apparently it has amazing pie.  I'll let Tiffy talk about that XP

House of Pies is amaaaaazing :) besides that fact that it's open 24 hours in case you get the late night munchies , their food is reasonably priced and desserts are so good XD my fave? apple pie (or dutch apple pie) a la mode

The next day, Friday, was the first day of the convention.  Tiffy and I got up and got ready at a much more leisurely pace than A-Kon, since the con actually started at 12 PM and there weren't too many events.  For some reason, I take forever and ever to get ready =w=;;;  We did BlazBlue again, because we didn't get around to making our Advent Children costumes XD;

New additions to the cosplay:
- Tiffy's awesome Bolverk guns :D they're not that awesome lol but i'll put up a final progress report soon :)
- My slightly less evil new wig
- Tiffy's new green contacts
- I put on fake eyelashes that apparently made the red contacts even more noticeable o_o;

Yeah, not much aside from Noel's guns. >__>;  No, I didn't make Nago and Gii.  I am lazy.  Stuffed animals are hard.

lol it was still pretty fun, beyond getting hugged by random strangers/getting hit on =\ Ran, Faruk, Wei and Owen came along with a couple of my friends from Rice.  Jordan, of course, was there, and Ran's friend Huan also :)  Oni-con, unfortunately, was a bit small so it didn't have all the people and excitement like A-kon, but it did make for a relaxing con experience :) 

Yeah, Tiffy got hit on in the parking lot as we were still completing our costumes XD  Noel is a very popular character, it seems.

Since the convention was so small, we didn't get bombarded nearly as much as A-Kon, so we actually made it through the dealers' room on Friday ^w^  We wanted to stay for the opening ceremony, but like at A-Kon, the volunteers don't really know much, so we had no idea where it was.  On Saturday, there were a LOT more people, and we even saw another Rachel/Noel set.  Ran and Wei dressed as Hazama and Carl again, and Faruk came as Masa from Seto no Hanayome:

Faruk doing an awesome cosplay of Masa!  Photo courtesy of Huan.

We got some nice pictures of some pretty good cosplayers, but like Tiffy said, it was a lot more relaxed than A-Kon, so there were proportionally not as many people cosplaying.  There was one guy, Michael, who actually remembered us from A-Kon and took another picture of us XD  I chatted with him a bit near the end of the day on Saturday while I waited for the boys to get out of the maid cafe, and he's a hardcore anime convention goer.  Pretty nice guy.

Cute... bear thing!  (I'm sure I should know where this one comes from, but it's super cute~)

I think this is supposed to be Kuroshitsuji mixed with Alice in Wonderland :D

ZACK! 8D  I need one for A-Kon XD

Awesome Jack Sparrow.  He even had the speech and crazy hand gestures down.

No idea who these people are, but they looked like a cool group~  Any idea who these people are? 

 

 Kuroshitsuji~

 

Madame Red! 

This is the awesome guy who played Jet at A-Kon.  I have no idea who he was playing here, but he was still awesome XD 

Cute Mario family :)

Saturday night, we met up with some of Tiffy's Rice friends for dinner, and then we headed to Rice's Halloween party for a while.  Tiffy dressed as a magician, and I went as a generic school girl.  We got to wear our new wigs from ImageAnime, though :D  (They are STILL amazing, btw.)  Most of the boys went in a white shirt and black tie or something similar.  I think they were trying to go for mafia, but I guess they decided they'd be more convincing as a K-Pop band XD  Steve went as a 1920's guy, and Angela as a cute fairy :)  I didn't realize how "stand around and do nothing" parties are, but it was fun to just chat with everyone, and they had a funny costume contest XD

I can't wait for A-kon 22 next year though! Christine and I are going (trying very very very hard) to finish FFVII AC Aeris and Tifa as well as Kuroshitsuji Ciel and Grell.  Hopefully we can get a huge group to go and maybe cosplay *fingers crossed*. if anyone out there reading would like to join us, that'd be awesome :D

Yeah, definitely let us know if you want to join us!  It'd be awesome if we got a group :)

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!