Thursday, June 30, 2011

Foretaste of Decepticon femme humanforms

We made a record today! For the first time in our cosplay history we had a official photoshoot prior to wearing the costumes at convention. We headed out to the heat this afternoon with our ladyfied Decepticons and had the most pleasant shoot to date. Not because of the weather, we nearly fried, but thanks to Karan who worked as our photographer. Thank you a thousand times and few more to go with the rest! The photos turned out better than I ever expected! Also our location was most suitable for the shoot. Thanks to Yoki for that one!

I will make a full photoshoot post after the weekend, but here is one for a sneak peek. Enjoy!


Photo taken by Karan.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Casualty Cosplay, mobilize!

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Yoki: The prints are done. Now we only need to fill the gaps.

Hiron: What gaps? Where? In the insignia?

Yoki: Yeah, the stencil is not perfect.

Hiron: *stares at the picture of the insignia, then the stencil* Is it bad that I don't see the difference?


Yoki: *watches how Hiron puts on the black gloves* ..That's so creepy.

Hiron: *Megatron's voice* Come here Starscream, we got some unfinished businesses~.

Yoki: *Starscream's voice* Slagging no...

Hiron: Seriously, you need to learn how to pose like a lady. Look, twist your body like this and make a curve. *gives an example*

Yoki: Umm, like this? *tries to mimic and fails, totally*

Hiron: Okay... Good... Now loads of practice with that!


Yoki: If they could hold hands?

Hiron: ..Is the inner fangirl getting loose?

Yoki: I've no idea what you are talking about...

-yoki, out

Friday, June 24, 2011

"Oh, how it pains me to do this!"

With the words of slightly lunatic back stabber and probably the most ill-used and unreliable second in command, I'll now present our up-coming costumes for Kawacon.

Princess Megs and her loyal servant Lady Star.

One boring afternoon I took a pencil and started drawing. Yoki being a Transformers fan and I'm also but in smaller scale, we've had few discussion about various themes around transforming robots. One circled around holoforms or human forms, I'm not sure which one is appropriate term. The result was these lady birds. I snapped a photo from the drawing with my phone and send it to Yoki, whose reply was: "...You have been officially infected by tf holoforms! Femme holoforms... Potential Kawacon duo~? :3"


And then after Desucon I found myself drawing mini shorts patterns. Now that I think of it, after agonizing work week, think I might have made too hasty schedule for the costumes. I really wanted to get over them quickly, because every passing day is off from making our competition costumes. The hurry have manifested as temper problems and common crankiness.

Yoki might think different, but I actually enjoy working with the costumes, because it's nice for a change to actually design something! Or modify, because half of the work was done already. I just had to transform (heh) blocky metal design into soft forms and fabric.

If the mood problems are forgotten, things are looking quite good. I only need to make Lady Star's legs and Yoki have her wings and head accessories under construction. Also our wigs needs some attention on styling department.

Talking about wigs, most disgusting thing happened today when we were trying the wig with the extras on Yoki. I tried to comb the wig from the forehead with my fingers, but actually stuck my thumb on Yoki's eyeball! It was squishy!


Because of Midsummer night celebration I'll have a free day from work tomorrow, which we will use finishing the costumes. We started with the costumes last Sunday, the same day we got back from Desucon. I took responsibility of patterns and sewing as usual. Yoki handled prop building and groundwork, because she has loads of knowledge from the source.

Maybe the costumes have something to do with a certain premiere here in Finland... Who knows?

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Quick costume overview from Desucon

Photo by Petri Haikonen

I'm going to write more about our Desucon experience later. Currently I'm possessed by crazy cosplay frenzy for two reasons. Last Saturday the preliminary date for World Cosplay Summit was released and I somehow found myself promising Yoki that we will quickly piece together new costumes for Kawacon. It was weird to dig up patterning paper and references almost immediatelly after un-packing freshly debuted costumes!

Our Jedis were probably the most comfortable costumes we have worn, but still they got some minus sides. The capes were hot as hell! Because the weather changed from cloydy and rainy to sunny, we strolled in civil clothes on Sunday. We desided that Luminara and Barriss will be counted as spring/fall costumes from here on.

Next to hotness one minor problem was that our hems got stepped on them few times. Next to being comfy the costumes were easy to wear. Meaning that we didn't need worry about fastenings failing. They were thought through and well secured. Well, except the lightsaber hilt D-rings, which both came off within the first hour.

In some previous post I already mentioned that there is still some work ahead with Luminara's costume. I need to darken the cape fabric, becase it's way too brown. Before Desucon I just didn't have time to concentrate on dyeing it. I'm also going to weather the cloth and bracers. And I need to come up with better solution for the D-rings. Yoki's costume could actually be regarded as ready. I might adjust the cape a bit, but next to that I can't think of anything else.

Last, but not least I want to thank everybody who took a photo from us and especially the ones who stayed and changed few words with us!