I'm so, so late with this post again, sorry about that.
Originally I was supposed to write a separate WIP post about Alex Cloudmill's riding gear but shitty scheduling happened and I didn't have that much time to take WIP pics. :/ Luckily I managed to get some. Well, here's the reference picture:
As you can see, this is just a concept art and thus I have no idea if the costume will be the exact same in the game. Anyway, this was my reference picture (which I screenshot from Star Stable Online's Instagram account).
The costume is still missing some of the details, for example the belt and wool socks - I simply didn't have time for those.
I just want to thank my grandmother and godmother who gave me wonderful advice and prevented my sanity jumping out of the window. <3
Here are the pictures - I'll just leave them here since I don't have much to say about making this costume, except that it was kind of hard to make. ESPECIALLY FUNCTIONING RIDING PANTS FFS. It may look simple but trust me, especially the shirt was just a big puzzle at first :'D Sadly I don't have WIP pics of it. :c
And then: Yukicon 2019!
I begun my journey towards Hyvinkää on Friday, day before the actual convention. I had already decided to spend just one day at Yukicon since, well, I've been there quite many times and I have a feeling that I've pretty much seen it all... But despite that, this Yukicon was one of the best cons I've attended!
I stayed at Merezone's place since we had decided to host a lecture/panel about Star Stable Online and, well, it turned out to be a good idea that I spent the night at her place; you see, I had been in quite a hurry with making the lecture and... Well, when we opened it in PowerPoint it didn't look that good thank you so much LibreOffice. After an hour or so we were finally happy with how the lecture looked like visually so we could do something more important: play Detroit: Become Human. And I became addicted to it. :'D
We slept way too little but both of us managed to wake up in time. You know that feeling you can only describe as "a morning hangover"? If you know, then you know exactly how I felt while putting on my costume. Luckily Alex doesn't require that much make-up so dressing up as her was quite quick.
...pretty good thing since we left Merezone's apartment in a little hurry but we managed to catch our train and, in the end, weren't even about to miss it. Woop woop.
When we arrived at Pasila we walked our way to Kokoustamo and saw this growing queue of people who wanted to get in. I don't blame them, it was fairly cold outside. For a while we wondered if we should get in the line too but in the end we understood that people who worked for the con in one way or another could get past the queue and that's exactly what we did.
Inside we just went to fetch our panel holder badges (and Merezone fetched her AMV competition finalist badge too, of course) and then we went to wait for the opening ceremony of the con to begin. Truth to be told I hadn't been in any of those opening ceremonies before so it was quite interesting to go there. In the beginning of the ceremony I felt a little bit nauseous but luckily that feeling passed quite soon.
Our panel/lecture went very well! <3 Merezone also recorded it for her YouTube channel so here's the video! NOTE: we held the panel/lecture in Finnish since holding a panel in English is out of question at least for now.
There you go!
After the lecture we went to eat something - we had access to the Green Room so we didn't have to take a walk any farther than that. We (or at least I) got something to eat and drink, and then we started talking about photographing our costumes. We checked the clock and we had some time before the AMV meeting was supposed to start - yes, I attended it even though I don't make anime music videos. Had fun there though, saw a couple of familiar faces which surprised me positively! :)
But, the photos. Here you go.
Characters: Alex Cloudmill and Linda Chanda Series: Star Stable Online/Starshine Legacy Cosplayers: yours truly and Merezone Photographer: btloov (find him on Instagram and YouTube )
"I would give anything to bring her back to life..."
"Together 'til the end."
Linda doesn't approve Alex's new style, apparently.
"Luckily there's always Aideen's wisdom to guide us."
After the photoshoot (I froze my ass off) we went to the AMV meeting and pretty soon after that I was ready to get out of cosplay since my train back home was about to leave in an hour to so. When I went to change to casual outfit I bumped into Trixena from whom I bought Soul Calibur VI. She didn't need it, I felt like I definitely needed it in my life - problem solved!
We chatted for a little while before I had to leave and I left in quite a rush. The train station of Pasila isn't that familiar to me so it took a little while to figure out from which track my train would leave. In the end I found the right track and pretty soon the train arrived to bring me back home.
So, Yukicon 2019 was definitely worth visiting and I was very sad to hear that the event won't be held again, at least not as big event as it used to be. So, thank you Yukicon for many, many good years! <3
I have no idea which con I will attend next or which costume I'll make. I have a few costume ideas, for example Belle French from Once Upon a Time (and Zelena from the same series) but I have no idea if I'll make those costumes this year or not.
But I'll try to become more active here again~! I also got my photoshoot pictures from last Eura's Manga Day which, unfortunately, won't be organized this year at all but I have a good reason for that so yeah, maybe in the future!
...did you really think that there weren't any derp shots among the good photoshoot pictures? Well, if you thought so you were definitely wrong. Here they are! :'D
My gaze is so maniac in this picture... I don't even.
I was supposed to look like I was trying to hold back tears, not sneeze! XD
I tried to take a selfie at the opening ceremony. Seems like jansutti (the one with pink wig) noticed it xD
Blogger pls could you stop ruining the quality...
And then the pair cosplay pictures!
Characters: Avalon and Linda
Game(s): StarStable Online, Linda is originally from Starshine Legacy
Cosplayers: Avalon; yours truly, Linda: Merezone
Pictures & picture edit: megurinemagnet
The book prop is made by Merezone; it's The Book of Aideen. Aideen is, according to The Legend of Jorvik, the girl who brought the light and life to the island.
And, of course, there's a bonus pic... xD A random car suddenly honked somewhere and I cracked up - which resulted in Merezone cracking up too. :'D
"OMG it's The Book of Aideen!!" :DD
But there they are~!
Thank you megurinemagnet for photoshooting us and editing the pictures! <3
And of course thanks to Merezone for being my partner in crime~!
Lens reviews and WIP posts (and a small surprise for you all) coming soon~!
After the New Year's Eve I stayed a few days at Shiro Samurai's place. We had been talking about photoshooting one of my costumes before I even traveled to the north and believe me, I had a huge crisis going on back then since I really didn't know which costume I wanted to photoshoot. My mother would've loved to see more pictures of my Ayame Sohma cosplay but that costume is on my "I have to fix this" list now so it was out of question.
I also thought about photoshooting my Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance!Miku but, well... It's not a costume one would like to wear during the winter.
That's why I chose Josh from Starshine Legacy: Mystery of the Soulriders/Secret of Pine Hill Mansion (he appears at least in this two games). The costume is quite comfortable to wear and putting it on is quite simple (and it doesn't take too much space in the luggage).
But now, enough with the talk for now - here are the pics!
Character: Josh Cosplayer: Firith Photographer: Shiro Samurai Pic edit: Shiro Samurai
(And yes, I still smoke. I, from the bottom of my heart, don't recommend smoking at all. In the end it really kills you. Never, I repeat NEVER, start smoking.)
It was fairly cold so we were able to stay outside just for a while - and when we went indoors I almost fainted because the temperature change was pretty great. At least we got a few good pics taken (I swear that Shiro Samurai is some sort of a wizard with his camera since we really didn't have that much time and I'm not very photogenic person).
I'll soon start working on a couple of cosplays and I also have lenses to review so stay tuned~!
.....I can already feel the cosplay stress approaching me though.....
Since my cosplay plans for Tampere Kuplii 2016 have changed a bit I decided to update them here too. I will attend the event next weekend and sadly I won't be able to take part to the cosplay competition - my sewing machine decided to have a holiday and completely just... Broke. After an angry staring contest with it I decided to make Chikane ready some other time (the costume is nearly ready now!) and concentrate on something else.
So.
Saturday
Young Severus Snape from Harry Potter. Note; I don't have this costume at ready yet so I'll be cosplaying a casual version of him. I'm likely to dress in my black jeans, black cowboy boots and black polo shirt since, well, it's almost the greatest joke in the fandom how much Severus reminds people about an overgrown bat.
I don't have the wand for him either and I won't use Ebony's wand for him so that costume will really be... Casual. Another option for Saturday is Ayame but I really don't feel like putting any "real" cosplay costume on. Of course this will be a real one too but... Nah, you get it.
Sunday
If I'll cosplay anyone on Sunday it will be Josh. Another option was Itachi but that costume needs some fixing and the wig is quite horrible to wear so no can do. And I actually like Josh as a costume very much; even though I made nothing for it myself the costume still looks good and I actually look like the character. Not to mention I just simply love Josh; he doesn't speak that much and I've always seen him as a young rebel.
So there are my cosplay plans for the weekend! Shameless will also attend the con on Saturday but I have no idea what he's going to wear probably because even he doesn't know what to wear lol so I have no idea if we'll have a pair cosplay or not.
And hopefully I'll get a new sewing machine/I manage to fix that one before it's time to start sewing the costume(s) for Cosvision... *bangs head to the wall*
In English the title means "I hate this motherfucking hangover" because that's exactly how I've been feeling for a few days now. Ugh.
As you can see I decided to write only in English. At first I'd like to apologize for every spelling mistake and grammar error; I write and speak Finnish better than English and sometimes it's pretty difficult to translate things from one language to another.
But let's begin with this post which will be all about Yukicon 3.0!
I left Harjavalta (well, I don't actually live there but that's where I had to go if I wanted to travel with Onnibus) to Espoo on Friday. In the morning I had been quite stressed and almost forgot some parts of my costumes and other important stuff at home... Well done, Firith, well done.
It took two and a half hours to get into Espoo where my friend Annika was waiting for me (actually she was a bit late because the public transport in Espoo sucks). At first we visited IKEA quickly - not to buy any furniture but to eat something, except that the kitchen closed just when we got there so it was one of those "no can do" situations. Then we just decided to travel to her apartment and do something nice; we drank way too much tea and had fun. At some point I decided to try and get some sleep because on Saturday I had a Starshine Legacy lecture to host and I didn't want to sleep in front of the audience.
Saturday
On Saturday I dressed up as Josh from Starshine Legacy. He doesn't have that big of a role in the games but I'm still very fond of that character. I didn't post almost anything about him earlier because I just bought the clothing for that costume so there really wasn't anything to tell about.
The selfie I took at Annika's place before I left to the con.
At first we had to take a bus to Leppävaara and from there we took the train to Pasila. Annika didn't actually attend the con but because I suck at using the public transport she showed me the route to the con place.
The first sight I was met with was a quite long queue; people were waiting for the paper tickets to be transferred to the wristbands. I went to stand in the queue too because I had to get the wristbands to Shameless and Henzz who hadn't arrived yet.
Then I went to get my badge... And apparently I'm not the only person who hears things sometimes in a wrong way because at first they thought that my first name was my last name and... Well, stuff like that. I don't blame them, I don't always speak very clearly so that was probably my own fault.
Since I didn't know where everybody was and Shameless told me that they wouldn't be at the con place very soon I decided to take a look around the Dealer's Hall - and there I ran (almost literally) into Hant and Hanny. I think that none of us was that familiar with the convention place since it had changed from last year so pretty soon we decided to have a look around.
Then we found the rest of Hant and Hanny's 'convention gang' and I felt a bit outsider for a while since I didn't know any of them - actually I think that I hadn't talked even to Hanny before so Hant was really the only one I knew so... Yeah. But well, I actually had to check my phone every now and then so I would get some information from Shameless in time. I had told them to wait outside; it wouldn't take me that long to get out of the building but at that time they were in a subway so it would take them some time to get to Pasila,..
Pretty soon Miru (who was also one of the people I didn't know before Yukicon's Saturday) appeared from somewhere. At that moment I understood one thing...
I had no idea where the room called 'Peach' was.
And the said room was the one that had been booked for me to have my lecture...
I quickly explained my problem while I tried to look for the location of that room on Yukicon's web site. Unfortunately I didn't find information there - at least not that quickly - but then Miru happened to have the program and we were able to locate the room in theory. After a while of room hunting we finally found it and then the realization struck me; I would really have that lecture in the afternoon. I was beginning to feel a bit nervous but that feeling went away when we just derped around for a while.
Then I got the message from Shameless that he was waiting outside with Elizzy, Henzz and Sirkku so I quickly excused myself and started to fight search my way out of the building. And there they were - I was so happy to see them again! ;__;
For a while we just spent time together (except Henzz who disappeared to look for Jutta) and then we went back upstairs only to find me previous company there. :'D So we just... Sat/lied down/in whatever position we were we hung out. And I got the most beautiful drawing from Shameless - seriously, I almost cried when I got this.
Just... Seriously. Look at it ;__; Not many people get the real meaning of this drawing but to me this is one of the most important things I own right now. And yes, I stole the picture from Shameless' art album, whoopsie.
Soon I spotted megurinemagnet and managed to get a photoshoot time from her. I've worked with her before (she took the pictures of my Miku Hatsune cosplay) and I wanted her to take the pictures of Josh too. She was a bit busy but quite soon she appeared again and we went to take some pictures. Here they are!
(And yes, before anyone asks, I smoke out of habit. Do I consider it clever? No. Am I dumb when I continue doing it? Yes. Am I clever when I consider quitting it? Yes, thought so.)
The young rebel.
"I wonder when I'll get away from here..."
" -chuckle- ...well, I might have to wait for that."
"Not interested to take part to the class, bitches."
"Fuck it all."
When the photoshoot was reaching its end we ran into Trixena and I ended up chatting with her for a while. She also promised me that she would come and see my Starshine Legacy lecture and we talked about the games for a while. When some of her other friends appeared I excused myself and looked for my previous company.
The derp level of Saturday was this:
"I yawned so hard that my eyes fell off!" - Elizzy 2k16. I have no idea what she was actually trying to say but I laughed at that way too much. :'D We were all more or less tired but I was getting more and more nervous about my lecture - and then I understood that I had left my medicine at Annika's place. Not many people know about it but I got medicine for my anxiety disorder a while ago and now when I would have needed them... I didn't have them.
Luckily Shameless managed to make me relax a bit.
But my feelings before the lecture.
"I'm a bit nervous" would have been the understatement of this and the previous year.
I was fucking afraid to go there. I just wanted to run away. I wanted to shout and cry but I knew that I had to keep myself composed, at least on some level. I counted minutes when I could go to 'Peach' and get everything ready.
Outside the room I ran into Merezone who had helped me with my lecture a bit and I'm still very thankful to her that she really had time to do that. We chatted for a while and then... I went to face my destiny.
The staff was kind and they did their best to make me relax. However, if anybody has ever seen me getting a panic attack... It wasn't that far away. At least I knew that there would be some people to attend the lecture.
And when they opened the door...
A FEW DOZENS OF PEOPLE WALKED IN.
I'm not sure if I looked like this but this actually describes my feelings at that moment way too well.
I still had to wait a few more minutes since they had opened the door ten minutes early so... I just had to wait and sweat.
Merezone had asked me before if she could take my lecture on the video and I said yes. In the video we speak Finnish since there's no way I would host lectures in English just yet. Anyway, I talked (and discussed with the audience) about the psychological point of view of the game series called Starshine Legacy. The game series was published in 2005 by Stabenfeldt and very many people played them at least back then.
After the lecture people told me that the lecture was interesting and funny. Seriously, thank you guys, you were the best audience I could have wished for! ;__; And thank you for answering my questions also; I know that I should warn people next time that I will ask some questions but... Yeah.
After the lecture I hung out with Trixena and we discussed about the games - and concluded that Garnok was actually almost perfect copy of Kraken. The discussion escalated just a bit and we laughed our asses off while thinking about Kraken attacking Jorvik and Alex dressing up as Captain Jack Sparrow and shouting "Don't worry guys, I've got this!"... :"D
I don't even remember what I did after that... Well, I guess that I just casually hung out with my friends (perhaps Hant, Miru, Hanny and some other people whom I didn't know). Then I left the convention place to go back to Annika and during the evening we also went to visit Markus who is also one of my dearest friends. (And we got lost - we were supposed to walk along the road but we chose the wrong direction, whoops).
When we were finally back to Annika's place we decided to watch a movie. I hadn't seen Edward Scissorhands ever so we decided to watch it - and I just fell in love with Edward's character. Not to mention I love Johnny Depp's talent as an actor... ;__;
Sunday
You know those days when you just don't want to get up from the bed and put a cosplay on? Sunday of Yukicon was exactly like that. I woke up but I didn't feel the tiniest urge to get up. I was so tired that I don't even find the words to describe it. On top of that I didn't feel that well in general but that feeling wasn't too unbearable and I decided to dress up as Darkrai - even though I knew that I was likely to take the costume off at some point.
And of course, before I left to Leppävaara-Pasila-route, I took a selfie.
I hate wearing that costume so much - and it's mainly because of the wig that is just one big son of a bitch. Next time I will use Ayame's wig for this costume and sell this fucker away. Or cut it a lot shorter...
Anyway, I went to Leppävaara by bus and then to Pasila by train. In the entrance hall I ran into Merezone and we took a selfie. Memories! <3
Friends! <3
In the entrance hall I also ran into Lawi who was there chatting with his friends (or her friends; (s)he doesn't care which one I call him but anyway). We just started to walk around the place chatting and laughing at our stupid jokes. Pretty soon I found Shameless and all of a sudden Sirkku, Elizzy and others appeared.
I definitely didn't feel that well in my costume and for half an hour or so I just sat there and leaned against Shameless until I finally decided to go and look for a friend who had a camera. Shameless accompanied me in the hunt. I was lucky; soon enough we met Hant and Miru at the artists' alley and they promised to take a few pictures of me.
I can clearly see in the pics how uncomfortable I was in that costume. I'm very critical when it comes to my facial expression when I try to be serious... And most of the pics didn't turn out as well as I would have wanted to. I'm not blaming Hant; seriously, he's a wonderful photographer, but it seems like I quite much ruined the pictures myself.
At least I learnt a bit how to use Photoshop and made the pics look pretty much darker. I'm not a master-level Photoshop user, but I will learn. I might publish more pictures of Darkrai at some point but now these three will do for a while. Thank you Hant for being patient with me and taking these pictures! ^__^
Well, I didn't photoshop this one that much. Apparently I need to learn more how to manipulate pics, since... Aaaagh. And I need to learn a better make-up technique for Darkrai...
Perhaps my favorite by far.
The contrast in this one is damn strong but it actually has a meaning; I turn my face away from the light which tries to reach me, just like Darkrai would have done.
After the photoshoot I decided to take off my costume since the wig annoyed me to Hell and back and the whole costume felt awful to wear. Luckily my normal clothes were part of the costume so I didn't need to bring other clothes with me, yay!
There isn't much to tell about Sunday though; mostly I just hung out with my friends. When Trixena and I were at Subway just minding our own business some random guy appeared and asked Trixena to kiss him. o__O Of course she said no but the guy was... Well, he didn't give up that easily and was annoying as hell. His presence really wasn't needed.
Found this on Pinterest a while ago and I thought about this picture immediately when the guy started to invade our personal space. Note; Krav Maga isn't about violence. If the guy had tried something more I would have used some of the techniques I know but violence doesn't solve anything. If you know Maga techniques you need to use them in a rational way.
At the end of the day I left my stuff with Shameless, Elizzy, Henzz and the others and hung out with Hant and Miru for a while - and then they begun to close some areas at the convention place! I had no idea where Shameless and the others were but luckily I ran into Jutta who was looking for Henzz (and Trixena told me that the group had gone to a certain direction so I knew where to begin to look for them).
And, luckily, we found them in a few minutes. I almost had a panic attack to be honest but luckily I didn't; if I get one of those any rational thinking is just erased away.
Then we left to the train station with Shameless and Sirkku and said goodbye to each other. I was almost crying at that point since it's always awful to say goodbye - even though it's just for a while. Hey that rhymes. :D
The rest of the day I spent with Annika and Liisi. We watched videos on YouTube, did the dishes and just randomly derped.
On Monday I was supposed to leave Espoo to Hinnerjoki.
And I did.
But the day was everything than successful.
I have been having these weird symptoms for a while (I think that it's mostly because of the huge amount of stress I've been having for a while) and they started again in the Monday morning. Eating was impossible task to do since I felt like vomiting it all out. We went to IKEA to get some food but I was only able to drink some water and even after that it felt like my intestines were drowned in acid or something.
And I had to travel home.
Two and a half fucking hours.
By bus.
Luckily I felt a bit better when I hopped on a bus and the traveling wasn't that bad in the end but being at work has felt like the worst decision ever, for real. I'm so thankful that I didn't get those nauseating feelings during the convention since that would have ruined the whole con on my part...
The next con I will attend is Tampere Kuplii and this time I will compete with Chikane. I'm not quite sure if I'll cosplay anybody on Sunday of Kuplii but if I do... Well, I still don't know who I'll cosplay then. Probably Josh since I love that costume.
I will also attend Cosvision in April and I already have plans for it! On Saturday I will cosplay France from Hetalia (not sure about the version just yet but I'll try to make his usual outfit) and on Sunday I will cosplay Miku Hatsune (Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance). This year I'm not going to attend Animecon since I have greater plans for July; Black Sabbath is coming to Finland and since that's my favorite band I bought the ticket already. ;;___;; So, after Cosvision the next convention I'll attend is likely to be Tracon in September.
And I'm not sure if I'll do some photoshoots with Shameless before that; our Sylvar & Butterfly costumes have progressed a bit but there's still a lot to make. But! There will be some WIP posts, I can promise you that! (;
