Cosplay year 2014

I’ve pretty much skipped all convention reports since… fall 2013 and I feel kind of bad about it. This past year have been the busiest we’ve had since we started cosplaying, so you’d think that there should be lot to tell! I never had any intentions to have this kind of hiatus, but… yeah.

After creating a Tumblr account for our cosplay photos, it has felt somewhat overwhelming to actually type and publish anything. Convention reports have always been difficult for me, even if this past year we did more than just attend conventions.

As EuroCosplay representative I’ve had a great pleasure to be invited as a judge in multiple events, one of the recent ones being Närcon in Sweden. Yoki took another type of challenge and have now hosted cosplay competitions at Desucon and Tracon. We’ve also gotten more familiar with people we’ve known but never had courage to actually approach. In all, we’ve had a great convention year, great experiences and you people we’ve met this past year… you are great! I just want to say that and thank you all!

This year we’ve made our personal record with five conventions we went to together; Desucon Frostbite, Desucon, Animecon, Närcon and Tracon. And that’s not all! We also went separately to Cosvision and Kawacon! That is a whole lot of cons for one year.

At Desucon Frostbite I wore Death from The Sandman on Saturday and was sharing my thoughts about international cosplay competitions in the evening in a panel with Rimppu, Majo and two Danish beauties. Yoki went as civilian and acted as one of the judges in Hall cosplay competition on Saturday. On Sunday we had a pair cosplay from Otoyomegatari; Amira and Karluk.

Photographer: Esa Ala-Petäys

Before Desucon I was really fortunate to be asked to sit behind the judging table for show cosplay category at Cosvision, one of the year’s new comers on convention front. I was over the moon with the event and set a record of panels and lectures during one con. I made to costumes for the occasion; Deidara from Naruto and Kofuku from Noragami.

Photographer: Hanna Hyttinen

Desucon was an exciting con for us as I was judging the EuroCosplay preliminaries and Yoki was hosting the show! Luckily, we are somewhat the same size, so I borrowed my Lady Doctor costume for Yoki. I made a new costume and cosplayed Zakuro from Otome Youkai Zakuro. On Satuday we recycled Snufkin and Alicia. We only made a fishing rod and a broomstick to match the characters.

Photographer: Mira Strengell

Kawacon was held in June two weeks after Desucon. Yoki was working as a supervisor at the cloakroom and didn’t take any costumes with her to the event.

We didn’t have intentions of attending all of the cons we eventually visited, like Animecon and Närcon, but some surprising events and opportunities changed our minds, like Kaoru Mori being announced as quest of honor at Animecon. Seriously, I screamed five minutes after reading the announcement and I don’t regret begging my boss to give me a free weekend. Totally worth it.

At Animecon we naturally wore Amira and Karluk. We went to see all the programs featuring Mori and also queued almost two hours for her autograph. It was amazing to chat with other Mori fans at the queue. More amazing was when it was our turn and we politely asked, if Mori- sensei could sign our hats. She did! And we changed few words about our costumes and she wanted to shake hands with us. She really seemed to appreciate cosplayers, who crafted costumes inspired by her art.

Photographer: Jesmo

On Sunday I had a new costume, Saya from Blood: The Last Vampire. Yoki recycled Fuyu Jaw’re from her original story, Varjella. We had awesome photoshoots during the weekend.

Photographer: YumiKoyuki

Next we travelled to Närcon, Sweden with our representatives who were going to compete at Nordic Cosplay Championships. Närcon was our second convention abroad and totally different experience compared to MCM London ComicCon. It was more like a festival if you think how and where Finnish conventions are organized. But truly a great experience! I’m really proud of our team and their assistants. And of course we're really happy that our team member Päivi won the final!

I really don’t remember which day we wore our costumes, but we had Snufkin and Alicia and Amira and Karluk with us. We also ended up on the stage with our Moomin costumes at the opening ceremony.

Last event of the year was Tracon. On Saturday we wore Lumiere and Cogsworth and were both working backstage that day. I was a judge in the Hall Cosplay competition and Yoki was hosting the competition. On Sunday we cosplayed characters from Yoki’s Varjella; Matriach Vaira Kirlain and Kalma Kirlain. We also had a mind blowing photoshoot… with a smoke machine!

Photographer: Emilia "AG" Lahtinen

One special event during last summer that I just have to mention is our photoshoot weekend with AG and Biitti. They came over for three days and we were able to shoot six costumes in different locations. The most challenging one was a field with blazing sun and uncooperative sheep!

Photographer: Emilia "AG" Lahtinen

Next year I’m going to start our convention season with Yukicon 2.0 and in February we are heading to Desucon Frostbite. We both have been crafting new costumes and we are going to debut them one by one in upcoming conventions. I’m pushing myself with two new outfits and the first one I’ll hopefully wear at Yukicon.

We wish everyone inspiring and productive year 2015!

Have fun!

Amira and Karluk at Desucon Frostbite

Desucon Frostbite was held last weekend at Sibeliustalo, Lahti. It was a three day convention, but as we both had certain obligations towards work and school we only left to Lahti on Friday evening. As I wrote earlier, I crafted a costume for myself from Sandman for Saturday. I also made another costume for the weekend, but it was not for me. It was for Yoki.

On Sunday I dressed as Amira and Yoki draped herself in the multiple layers of Karluk’s outfit. When I look at the photos of us, I’m really happy how the costumes fit together; they have somewhat the same vibe, but are still totally different.

I’m truly grateful to everyone who came to talk to us, complimented the costumes or changed few words about last year’s competition. And the cuteness overload reactions were just priceless!

The photos in this post were taken by Emilia Lahtinen at Frostbite’s photobooth. I’m always so happy to get photographed by her, because it’s certain that I will love the outcome! Thank you yet again!

Photographer: Emilia Lahtinen
Costumes: Hiron/ Casualty Cosplay
Models: Yoki as Karluk, Hiron as Amira

London calling! And EuroCosplay!

It's only few days away! I can't believe it! But surely it will happen and I have been updating my costume with new boots, jewelry and few other things I didn't have time to make before. Over all, I'm really happy how the costume now looks and feels! I will write whole lot after ComicCon, because I think I will have so much spare time that I really don't know what to do with it...

I should be packing and panicing, but I just wanted to stop by and thank everyone who have encouraged me during this project! If I could only hug you all, I surely would!

But of course the biggest thanks goes to Yoki, my dear sister and supporter. She will carry camera around at ComicCon, so we might actually update our Youtube after long radio silence in few weeks.

I also want to send special thanks to Emilia Lahtinen and her assistant, who photographed my costume at Tracon 8. Thank you!

I got asked about the previous entries of the costume and thought it would be nice to share links to them. I announced the costume in February and made few work in progress posts from the jewelry (actually two), the first boots I made and a general one. I had a photoshoot for the underclothes before the qualifiers and also wrote a report from Desucon.

Costumes, costumes everywhere!

I'm desperately trying to pack all the costumes for the weekend, but it seems like a mission impossible. How come there is so much of… everything!

I also have some costume parts waiting to be finished, but this time I’m not the only one for a change! Earlier I mentioned that we might have addition to our group and it seems like it's actually happening! Our mom has been making her first cosplay costume ever and faces exactly the same problems as we and almost every cosplayer do before a convention. Yesterday she mumbled that she will leave the hand-stitches to be done at the hotel on Friday evening. It sounds just too familiar! She stated that she now has more understanding regarding costumes that are finished only a day before.

Even if our mom still has few things to do we were able to try the costume on. Now I can reveal that the character mom is cosplaying is Chi-Chi from Dragon Ball Z. The version we chose is from the very last episodes, in which Chi-Chi is a mother and a grandmother, which fits just perfectly! We, Dragon Ball Z and mom also go way back, but from that she will possibly tell on her own entry.

So, the packing chaos is mainly caused by the five costumes we are going to take. On Saturday I will debut Yuma, Yoki will have a second round with Kulo and mom is naturally Chi-Chi. On Sunday I will portray Amira and Yoki will try on Luminara’s odd headpiece and try to survive the long hems of a Jedi master. Not the most compact costumes, but thank goodness we have a car where to stuff everything!

Now I will head back to paint fumes. See you soon, Tampere!

Late report from Animecon X

Animecon X was held in mid July at Kuopio Music Center. It’s been about five years since our last visit to Animecon or rather Finncon/Animecon multievent, which made our trip rather nostalgic. We travelled to Kuopio by train, which set some limitations to what costumes we could pack for the weekend. We tried to travel lightly, since we’ve had our complications with trains and piles of luggage. Years back we forgot our kit with all our make-up on the shelf. Thank goodness Yoki realized that we missed one bag the moment we stepped on the platform and rushed back in to get it.

We both had one costume each for the two-day convention. I wore the school uniform I made for Saya and Yoki chose Kirlain Fuyu Jaw're, a character from Varjella. For Fuyu Yoki left out the white robe she wore at Desucon Frostbite, which is like a representative outfit for members Kirlain family. This light version was summer version of a sort and it indeed lived up to its name.

Animecon weekend was full of sun and heat. Even my uniform was hot to wear. Although the weather made cosplayers suffer it allowed the new outdoor photo service, which really was a nice change even if it required more work from the photographers and the assistants.

 Photos: Santtu Pajukanta

As a venue the Music Center was rather... confusing. It was suprisingly hard to navigate around even with the booklet. It was odd, because the building itself wasn’t that big to begin with. It took me about three to four strolls around the place until I got hang of it.

The Quests of Honor were Spoony, DJ Sharpnel and Benzaie, returning quest from last year. The program itself varied from Moomins to Japanese horror stories. I think that Animecon X was a convention where we spent more time at panels and lectures than in any other event in past few years. Usually we are occupied with competitions or some other cosplay related activities.

The highlight of Saturday was undoubtedly the anime concert. Kuopio’s Symphony orchestra with Atso Almila performed on the main stage playing different anime themes and songs for hour and a half in the evening. The concert was good despite the video clip weirdness, which hopefully will be fixed to match the orchestra’s efforts in the future.

The opening piece was Lugia’s song from Pokémon- Power of One. It truly brought up memories accompanied with few tears. But I dare to say that I wasn’t alone with my feelings. Some of the pieces were not that familiar to me, but when the theme of Noir started I think I stopped breathing! In all, I couldn’t think a better way to end the evening.

On Sunday we managed to have a small photoshoot at the nearby park, went to see few lectures and the show cosplay competition at the concert hall. The performances varied a lot, but the top was easy to pick from the bunch. I was so happy that our seats were so close to the stage that I was able to see facial expressions of the competitors. Especially the winners! It was so enjoyable to watch so effortless and natural performance.

In all, Animecon was nice and carefree weekend spent in good company… with hotel breakfast! The next stop for us is going to be Tracon at Tampere. Greetings to the hosts of the entertaining panel discussion at Animecon about cosplaying and parents; we might have one cosplaying mother in August! Our mother has always been a supporter of our hobby (when she got over the fact that our work room will never be totally organized ever again) and few weeks ago she opened a discussion: “Could I wear something else than just regular clothes for chance?”

Animecon is closing in

For first time in years we managed to pull ourselves together and attend to two summer conventions. We both had this particular weekend free and couldn’t think anything better to do. Animecon is just few nights away and we are… ready! Okay, almost ready since we still need to sew few wig clips.

With characters we chose the easy road and decided to recycle. Yoki picked Fuyu, who she portrayed the first time last spring at Desucon Frostbite. The costume includes a full length linen robe, but Yoki left it out because we are going to travel to Kuopio with train for change and linen and tight packing don’t mix. I'm afraid that also the staff seen in the photo below has to stay at home, because our ride back will be even more cramped.

Photo: Esa Ala-Petäys

I chose Saya from Blood+, but the wig is basically the only part I’m reusing. Everything else I sewed during these last weeks. I have always dreamt of making a school girl costume someday and now I managed to fulfill that dream! Saya's high school outfit contains dark pleated skirt, white shirt and red bow.

I also made the school bag for Saya based on what I could get out of the design from few frames in the anime episodes. I think it’s always better to have character loyal item to carry your stuff in and it was actually my turn to be the item holder... And I love bags.

With Saya I also was able to craft new teeth the similar way I made our troll teeth last year. I accidentally deleted the photos from the making process even if I had thought of writing an entry about them. Now with new photos I can correct my mishap in the future.

We are really looking forward to this weekend! There is so many programs we want to see and we both have carefree costumes and I'm going to bring my camera and try to recall how to take photos and it's going to be nice weather and nice people and hotel breakfast... I could go on forever, but maybe I continue after the convention. See you at Animecon!

Desucon 2013 and ECC qualifiers

Photo: Katariina Ihalainen

It’s been almost two weeks since Desucon, which was held for the fifth time at Sibelius Hall, Lahti. For me it was hands down the best Desucon ever! I competed in EuroCosplay Championships qualifiers as Amira Halgal from Otoyomegatari and placed first, which means that in October I’m going to represent Finland at the finals at London Comic Con!

I’m still slightly confused, but really happy and proud what I managed to achieve. I can only thank the judges, the competition manager and the crew, audience and all the fellow hobbyists at Desucon, who complimented my costume or just wanted to share few words before and after the competition. You have no idea how big impact your words had and still have. Seriously, I’ve been reading Tumblr notes and all sorts of blogs these past few weeks with a tissue box. But the biggest thanks I have to save for Yoki, who was my support, critique source and assistant during the making of the costume and at the competition itself.

In this post I’m going to go through our days at Desucon costume-wise. First I could actually tell what we even wore, since we didn’t reveal the costumes beforehand like we usually do. This was because we decided on some of them only a week before Desucon. In the end we packed six costumes. So six costumes with accesories and amount of stage props, which could easily decorate a small living room and everything should be fitted in one car!

By the way, the photo was taken at a point where we still had my suitcase and one suit bag left. And three human beings. In the end we were able to squeeze everything in with stacking skills trained to perfection with Tetris.

Photo: jesmo

On Friday we recycled Joxter and Muddler from Moomin. We debuted the costumes three years ago at Tracon. For second take at conventions, we didn’t need to do much with them, which was actually one of the reasons we chose them. There was so much going on at the last week that anything more time consuming would’ve been just too stressful. The other reason was that they were a nice pair of costumes just to keep at the closet.

Joxter got a new wig, because I couldn’t find the old one anywhere and Muddler had a facelift for his shoe… socks. Yoki took away the base shoes inside the socks and stuffed them with cotton to make them look and feel softer. And we had to take Muddler’s pants in five centimeters or they would’ve been in Yoki’s ankles if someone had stepped on the tail!

One thing to say about Desucon and our Friday costumes: Finns love Moomins.

On Saturday I was naturally Amira, since the competition was held that day. Yoki wore an original character costume from her story Varjella. The character's name is Kulo Halava.

Yoki chose Kulo, because the costume was really easy to move in and it was made from natural materials, which made it breathable despite all the layers in it. During Saturday I had Yoki as my personal cosplay assistant, which basically meant tying sailor knots on my underwear which were seen briefly on stage, bringing me liquorices and juice when I needed any, checking my costume for photos, setting the stage props before the show and just being there for support. These tasks included running, kneeling and all sorts of activities, which really required a comfortable costume.

In this costume version Kulo is in his youth, which means that for the adult one Yoki will update the outfit by adding embroidery and new props.
 

Photo: Tapio Matikainen

I'm going to make a blog entry about the competition experience as whole, but I might say few words about Amira. With the costume I was able highlight the strong points in my craftsmanship and create something lifelike and true. In all, I’m really happy with the costume and the performance had an impact I wished it to have!

Even if I’m really pleased with the outfit, I’m going to fix and redo some of the accessories, because I want them to be more authentic.

Photo: Matias Tukiainen

One of the six planned costumes dropped out from Sunday, because after placing at the qualifiers I wanted to wear Amira instead and have more pictures taken at the photobooth. The costume I had planned for Sunday was Miss Who, female version of the 11th Doctor. 

Yoki wore battle damaged Sio Imano, who is also character from Varjella. Yoki made the costume last year and debuted it at Tracon. Even if the missing arm gave her trouble during the convention, she survived the con well singlehandedly. Yes, pun intended.

Photo: Yumi

Five year old Desucon was great, even if our schedule was mostly cosplay related. The show competition on Sunday was something to see and it gave me chills and few tears also. The winning performance was just pure gold. Congratulations for all placed competitors and also to fellow contestants from Saturday!

Desucon, thank you!

My Desucon feelings exactly! Photo: Yumi

Desucon Frostbite within sight

First convention of the year 2013 is approaching steadily. Desucon Frostbite will be held at Sibelius Hall, Lahti for the second time in mid-February. We are going to recycle a bit and have two new costumes to debut. Even if our blog have hibernated through these cold winter months, we have been productive at our workroom!

First costumes are from Moomin TV series. Yoki will wear Snufkin, which dates back to 2008 and I’m going with my "new" Alicia costume. I’m currently adding some wefts to the wig to make it fuller and slightly longer. That is actually the only update the costumes need.

The second costumes are from different sources. Yoki is crafting an original character costume from her stories with white robe and blue capelet. She will also be wearing a white wig, her ultimate pet peeve. Thanks to my hoarding abilities, we had a perfect color and style on our storage for the costume. There is still work ahead with the undergarment, but I'm quite confident that everything will be ready in time.

I'm still not sure how my second costume will turn out or rather if I get one important component in time, so I'm going to get back to that later. But if everything goes well, the outfit will be cool!

Even if Yoki’s costume is still under construction, we were able to fit the robe. The pattern for the robe is altered based on our Snowtrooper dusters, only with different cut on the front and slightly wider sleeves. Yoki put on the robe and then suddenly… cosplay.

We both burst into laughter. With her new haircut Yoki looked exactly like a character from a comic book we’ve had for ages! Well, for twenty years or so. We had to dig up the comic for comparison. Does anyone else have weird moments with accidental cosplay?