Gojyo's infinitive sexy

And thus a report about Abunai's saturday!

From my last post, you  know I cosplayed Gojyo that day. And if you've looked at my cosplay history page, you've already seen a picture of the result. But if not- lo and behold, you will be treated to pictures here! So stay around, stay around! 

Our alarm went off at eight in the morning, that day. I'm pretty damn sure there are cosplayers that've woken up earlier to prepare for the day but for us, this was already really hard. I forced myself out of bed and started preparing- slam some cold water in my face, wipe off the remains of friday's remaining (casual) makeup, some more cold water. Return to room. Turn suitcase upside-down for stuff. Sleepwalk-mode was running like there was no tomorrow. 

Around this time, though, I ran into obstacle #1. My bindshirt. Gojyo's blouse is pretty low-cut so if I would wear my other binder, you could see it in my neck and below my arms. So I had to get me a strapless one- since I prefer binders over DIY binding with sporsbra's and all that. Problem: binder had a lingerie closure (with little loops and hooks) on the back and I couldn't put it on all by myself for my life. Good thing both roomies are girls and close friends- so pijamas off, boobs in place, binder on top and Sabrina pressing all air out of my lungs by closing the binder. By now, we were fully awake and giggling like mad. 

Put on the remaining clothes. Now makeup. 

Gojyo has two scars running over his left cheek- but they aren't big, they're quite subtle. So instead of making fake ones ón my skin, I decided I wanted them more ín my skin. I saw it with someone before and they told me it's a special kind of latex (that smells really badly), "Rigid Collodion". I tried it out on my hand- the stuff's pretty awesome. The jar looks a little like see-through nailpolish but if you apply it on your skin, it dries and pulls together a little, making a small kind of "slot". Is that the word? Ofcourse you'd need some makeup to cover the shiny up, but I love the stuff. 

My makeup had to be somewhat manly- so simple, but I had to make my nose, jaw and cheekbones look darker. I got the tip to apply skinpowder there that'd be a teint darker than the rest of my face. It was barely noticeable, but it seems it worked. 

Makeup done and my wig had to go on! I made the antenna bangs that friday (if I have to make them again, I'll make you a tutorial!) but the headband still wasn't on... So I had to apply that one on-the-spot! It was still way too long, so I cut a whole lot of it off right there and just pinned it below my hair. It actually worked, I was surprised! 

Arriving on the con, Lidy had dressed up as my Cho Hakkai. I didn't get recognised a lot- only five people started talking about it to me, of which only one really made a picture. I was slightly disappointed- I know the series is really old and not all that popular but geez, really? I was sad. 

But every downside has a good side: Liza brought a camera. And she knows how to rock that thing! So she agreed to go out and make some pictures with us. 

Abunai's location is partly surrounded by a forest- so lots of outside, trees, grass, park benches, that jazz. Which was good enough for us, since most of Saiyuki plays in waistland anyway. Okay, trees aren't waistland, but hay, it's outside still! I'm not complaining! 

Liza just let us go mad and kept shooting pictures, sometimes suggesting things. It worked because the pictures came out really, REALLY awesome! I'm so, SO happy with them! They don't completely portray the costume itself- but it isn't only about the cosplay, it's also about being able to portray the character right. Right? At least I think so.

Gojyo smokes. Like a madman. But I don't. Liza sometimes does, however. So I got one of her cigarettes. We lighted it and then after letting it burn a bit, killed it with some water. Carefully. So it would still have that "smoked" effect. It was super effective! *badum-tsss*
Be ready for some picture spam!

BLOG LAYOUT WONT LET ME POST PICTURES NEXT TO EACHOTHERRRR. 

This is what happens when your photographer keeps shooting pictures. We were long done posing here and just randomly chatting about the rudiculously of our characters. And this happened. Somehow, this picture really describes the bond Hakkai and Gojyo have, to me. They're really good friends and most comfortable around one another. They both aren't sweeties and have their own, sad pasts, but that doesn't matter as long as they have eachother. Hakkai is really silent and conservative around others but knows how to smile with Gojyo. And Gojyo is a pretty rude, loud ass with Goku and Sanzo, but Hakkai's presence calms him. 

AAHHH I love these guys so much! 

Have some of the less subtle Gojyo. BOOBS,  DUDE. THIS BIG. I SHIT YOU NOT. 

This could've just been a scene out of one of Kazuya Minekura's artbooks. The manga are pretty awesome, but boy, if you can, look into one of her artbooks! She published eleven by now (no, seriously!) and they're beautiful, every one of them. It has a lot of Saiyuki-related art, in its original setting, but she also draws the characters in completely different settings or completely different moments. Just because it's pretty. One day, I'd like to do a Minekura Artbook Shoot. 

... No words. 

This- kinda... I dunno, man! xD It had something to do with Gojyo not being able to touch any boobs that day, so he had to fall back on Hakkai? But this picture. It's brilliant. I love it so much. AAAAHHH. Spread it all over the internet! 

And onto the last one... 

SO THERE. 

Abunai report!

And thus it begins...

Abunai is already over for three weeks but I didn't want to start writing without having a bunch of pictures back from that saturday. Which I received in the mail last tuesday, hurraaayy! <3

We'll start on friday. I first started typing out all the things that went wrong, one by one. But after not even being halfway and already having typed a piece of text that mostly makes me go tl;dr, I decided I'm not going to torture you guys with that wall of text, so you're gonna get the short version.

• Had to work that morning, till one
• ... When my colleague decided to turn up way too late
• So could only leave half past one
• Finally home a little after two
• Still had to finish styling a wig
• And pack my bag! D:
• Finally able to leave for Abunai around five
• Arrive at Rotterdam Central Station on time! Whoo!
• ... But UberDouche with tiny bag decides he has more right to sit on a four-seats-spot than I do, with my  huge suitcase and two extra bags
• End up sitting in the noisy, cold part in front of the compartments
• Train leaves ten minutes late because they can't find a second conductor
• Extra five minutes delay on the way there, because of red signs and all that poop
• About a kilometer before my endstation, rail switches decide to break down
• Train decides to stop right on top of one, can't go on, can't go back
• Extra half an hour delay in the middle of effin' nowhere, a kilometer away from my final destination
• Cancel all my cosplay plans for that day, because I REALLY don't have the energy for that anymore...
• I weep.

Thank god, it seemed all pretty okay from there on. Sabrina, conroomie and awesome friend 1 picked me up to drive me to congrounds, together with Liza, conroomie and awesome friend 2. And on our way back, we had amazing dinner at the McDonalds (for a lack of better and we wanted a quick snack because by now, it was already a quarter past seven). But I'm not saying "seemed" for nothing! Because...

• Finally arrived on congrounds, need something from suitcase, find out I forgot the code from the lock

Suckiest. Moment. EVER.

• Convention is held in a hotel. Decide if there's a place to break open a suitcase, it's a hotel
• Go to information desk, explain the problem
• Guy with screwdriver breaks open suitcase
• THANK HEAVENS.

By the time I was finally free to walk around on my own, it was half past eight and I was stressed beyond belief. Thankfully, I have the greatest and most awesome friends and they let me rant about my sucky day so much that in the end, I almost couldn't hear my own story anymore. I pulled on my Avengers shirt (to walk around in at least something witty) and it rocked socks. Lookit! We got them from Obscurity, a tiny webshop that's about as obscure as the name sounds. But their service is great. Left is Sabrina, btw, right is me. All casual.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out, meeting friends and having a long and pretty rudiculous chat with a guy I met the convention before. It was brilliant.

Then saturday came by.

I walked around as Sha Gojyo that day, from the (manga/anime) series Saiyuki by Kazuya Minekura. The awesome Lid'l was my Cho Hakkai and the before-mentioned Liza made us pictures. It was awesome and I'll write a separate blogpost about this. Because Kazuya Minekura is my manga heroine. So we move on to...

Sunday!

Sunday was... Special. In a good way, I guess! Mitzuki and a few others had organised an Adventure Time cosplay group for friday. I didn't attend in the end (as you probably have read) and my sunday was still free, so... We just move the plans forward two days! That's how I roll.
She's going to the same school as me, so a few months before the event we started talking about her planning this. I had just finished watching a big part of the series and told her that it sounded absolutely awesome and I wanted to join, if possible. She said they were only still missing a few major characters, of which one was Lumpy Space Princess. And I inmediately jumped on it.
Thus I ended up cosplaying LSP!
If you don't know who she is... I'll add you a picture:
At this moment, I did not yet realise my everlasting feel of how to pick the most elegant, charming and female characters. This only came somewhere halfway creating this costume when there was no way back anymore... I finished this costume in about a week and a half, including wig. The wig was absolute terror!
Anyway- sunday. I wanted to attend some event around 9 in the morning, though even when we got up at 7, we spent at least an hour and a half on making my arms and face purple! It was AMAZING how many people recognised me though and how many people I got interested, because "If a character looks that mad, I REALLY wanna know what series that is from!". I had such a good time, walking around all purple! It was kinda challenging as well though, since I did risk making things purple when I touched it..
LSP still needs a decent shoot, so I won't go into too much detail about her here. I'll tell you more about the costume when I finally have more decent pictures of her! Until then, you'd have to do with one Kees made of me:

IT WAS MARVELLOUS.
The sunday is always a bit of a short day. It already ends at four... Which maybe was a good thing with this costume, but it also meant a lot of people would pack their stuff early already and leave early too.
We left somewhere half past three ourselves. I stayed over at Sabrina's for that evening because I didn't feel like traveling home still. In that costume. So I drove home with her. Making her car purple too. I'm so, so sorry girl! xD <3

Somehow, the evening-after is always the best, especially when spent at a friends' place. You can chill out, take it easy and do completely nothing. She knows where you've been (together) so she doesn't mind you still walking around in (half) your cosplay. Talk about the weekend, talk about the stuff you bought (I bought a bunch of manga. Whoo! Maybe do a blogpost about this as well once), the people you met, the things you've seen... All without stress and without inmediately having to unpack your suitcase.
All my love for her parents as well, who are totally ok with me just crashing by and eating along with them- while being purple still xD Ohh, and them being ok that I purple-ized their shower! I hope I didn't splatter the purple around too much! Sab, your parents are amazing. <3


Thus Abunai ended! It started kinda sucky but it ended wonderfully. I had one of the best weekends; seeing old friends again, having the silliest conversations (I had an AMAZING talk with Marcia of Pink Hazard about penises!), seeing other great cosplays and cosplayers, spending all the money I didn't have, meeting new people- my weekend was amazing!

Now, on with more costumes! 

A small story about Reed.

It's been a while since my last blogpost and a lot has happened between then and now. Especially a lot in which my Reed cosplay is playing a role! As you guys know, I wore this costume on YaYcon, the 1th of april, on which you can find a report here. It also tells how I won the prize for best costume that event, which was absolutely awesome. My Reed cosplay has meanwhile grown on me a lot and I think I can safely say that of the costumes I've made till now, it is my favourite and the one I am most proud of. Then again, I have only made four until now, so there's not all too much to choose.

A little while after YaYcon, AniWay magazine, a dutch manga/anime, games and japanese culture magazine, wrote a small report about the event and somehow they ended up featuring a picture of my cosplay in it! Again a picture Melissa took of me that day.
Both Melissa and I were pretty surprised to find the picture in the magazine, because neither of us were asked permission to use it. I didn't mind it at all (and Melissa didn't either), but it would've been nice if they would've asked, right?
We found out later that this was because of a communication error. Well, ok with me.
This was on the 8th of June (the date I got the magazine in the mail and posted this picture on Facebook). Nothing cosplay related happened after that, until a few weeks back, because I was working my butt off for school.

About three weeks before the end of the schoolyear, a small request was posted on the forum of AniWay magazine- two girls that study journalism were searching for a cosplayer to interview, for their last schoolassignment. If you were a cosplayer and wanted to cooperate, you had to answer some simple questions and send those to one of them by email. I volunteered along with a few other people, figuring "I have so little experience, they probably won't pick me anyway". Well, guess what happened!
About a week later, I had the end-of-year fashionshow for school, for which I had made a dress and a short jacket. They wanted to record there and then, two days later on friday, interview me about my cosplays at my own place. I was kinda scared that they would interpretate the hobby wrong, it would definately not be the first time that would happen, but they knew a few small things about it already and were interested in everything I told them about cosplay. They asked me if I could dress up for them (they filmed everything and it would become like a short documentary) and I put on my Reed for them, filmed my bedroom, the livingroom, me sitting behind my sewingmachine and a dozen of small other things. They also asked for pictures I had- of me in my costumes and pictures of me with friends. And if I had any music that I liked and that they could use.
The monday after that, I left for France with five other friends, for a small holiday and because that thursday, JapanExpo would start! It would be my first time on a convention outside of the Netherlands and I was pretty psyched. I brought Shego, Reed and my school-made dress with me to wear. The expo was so big! So many wonderful things! But more about that in another blogpost.
That thursday I got a text from one of the girls, that they had finished the interview and sent it to me as well, they were curious about what I would think. I couldn't watch, ofcourse, because I didn't bring my laptop along and couldn't download such a file on my phone, so that had to wait till I was back.
We arrived back home monday evening and I watched the small movie on tuesday- and it was amazing! They did such a wonderful job on portraying me and my hobby!
It's called "De kunst van het namaken" (or "the art of recreating") and is, for now, only in Dutch. I'm gonna see if I can find someone who wants to add subtitles though, because I think it ended up being a really good example of what cosplay is about, for people who don't know what it is. This might sound egoistic, since it's about me, but I really think so.
The best part is the part where you hear my mom talking. She's telling how I never got influenced by the big crowd, always did my own thing and made my own choices and that's why she trusts me and supports me in all the things I do. I'm so proud of her. Mom, you're the best! <3

All these things that have been happening, all these wonderful things. And now finally holiday! At the end of summer holiday, from the 24th till the 26th of august, it will be Abunai! so I will spend my time till then making two new costumes for me and one for a friend. I'm really looking forward to it, finally being able to wear something new again. Cosplay is sometimes such a waste of time and money, you put all this effort in making a costume and then only wear it one to three times. Sometimes a little more, but mostly not. I don't care. I wouldn't mind wasting all of my life on this hobby of mine. <3

YaYcon report!

Oh lord. OH lord. OHH LORD! I am SO behind on updating this blog in EVERY way possible! I am slightly unlimitedly ashamed of myself. BUT! This does mean I have a lot to update about! For example, I'm doing pretty good on my project-a-month-challenge. But more about that later (in another post, in a week or so. Hopefully.)

© Teahouse

Now first, something that can't wait forever, a report about YaYcon! Which was absolutely amazing.
YaYcon is a dutch yaoi and yuri convention, held for the third time this year at the Atak in Enschede. It's a pretty small con still, mostly because the Netherlands isn't such a big country so the amount of yaoi/yuri fans isn't all that big and the (very logical) 16+ age limit (which I LOVE <3 ) takes away some of the fans as well... This DOES mean the con gets so cozy! It's a really small crowd with mostly likeminded people that are all there with the same interests and for the same purposes- have a good day out.

There were a ton of small events to visit- but unfortunately, I didn't do much else but run around and, funny enough, spending most of the con on a stage.

I went to the con with my friend and conbuddy Sabrina, arriving there with car and fixing my cosplay in the parking lot. I had decided to go cosplay Reed from the webcomic Teahouse. This did not go completely without trouble and I kept my friends updated about the progress of this project through my Facebook profile. The comments mostly were amazing, sweet and made me wear a pretty much permanent blush on my face. But one progress picture in particular stood out from all the others. Namely, the first picture on the progress of my pants. xD
Most people know by now that for a while now, I have a cat listening (well, not really listening...) to the name Perry. He's become somewhat of an "easter egg" in most of my pictures and turns out to be pretty photogenetic. And thus, while I was trying to make a decent picture of the pants progress, Perry decided to sit down behind me on my bed, stealing the show:

Well hello, cat!

© Melissa van den Hoogen 

Pretty much ALL comments I got on this picture resolved around Perry. And when I posted the second progress picture one of the very first comments I got was "Hey, where's Perry?". What I didn't know then was that Esther, a friend of mine and one of the main organizers of YaYcon, found this so funny that she decided to use this in the YaYcon openingceremony. Another friend came chasing me down all through the building and dragged me to the main stage where the ceremony was held, not telling me what this was about AT ALL until I got there- where I was pushed up the stage, all startled and having no idea at all what was going on! Suddenly, I got applauded for my pants. A more amazing start of your day is almost impossible.
In the back, on a big screen, they showed the progresspictures of my pants. First the one without Perry, which didn't do much to the audience (of which not much at all if not none I have on Facebook) and then the one with Perry, on which suddenly, everyone went "Ahwww!" What IS it with that cat?!
Then, after that, Esther (on my right here) gave me a small Hello Kitty plushie as a way to say sorry for pulling me up the stage and everyone thinking my cat is so much more awesome than my pants. Which I can forgive them for.

After this, Melissa took me apart for a small shoot- which I'm really thankful for. The main spot for the pictures was the MangaKissa there because even when it wasn't much of a couch, it was the fanciest seat present in the whole building. Which says quite a lot. I am the worst at pulling serious faces, so among the pretty pictures, quite a few were taken as well where I am the most out of character you can imagine. Some of them are pure gold. <3
By now, even though I'm only a starting cosplayer and I don't even know Melissa for that long, I'm starting to concider her a good friend and pretty much my personal photographer. :') I'm so honored!

© Melissa van den Hoogen

I finally had time to relax a bit, talk some with her about Tegendraads and hang around with friends before going to my next appointment- Gay's Anatomy!
My friend Lid'l had organized a live-model drawingworkshop on the con and clearly had decided that it needed a witty name, so named it Gay's Anatomy. I actually think I have to admit that the YaYcon crew is absolutely amazing in witty names- I forgot most of them, but if they could, they had thought up a name for something that would've surely given you giggles.
Anyway! She was kinda short on models (at first), so I offered to model for her. It was quite fun. Since I was crossplaying, I wasn't really sure if I had to be concidered a male or female model.
I got grouped up with one of the two artists from the doujinshi circle Tea Tales (I still don't know her name T^T ) and we had the most wonderful of conversations while modeling there and trying to stay serious and not awkward out. xD That's HARD!

© Melissa van den Hoogen

So that was the second time I had to be on a stage that day... A little while after Gay's Anatomy was over the Crossplay fashion show/Cosplay acts, done by Lid'l and Stephanie. I had told myself I'd attend so that I would have a good motivation to finish my cosplay (which worked) and since I only attended for the fashion show-part, I didn't have to practice an act or anything, I only had to do a little round and be all pretty on nifty music. And since the character Reed is really all sophisticated, reserved and stick-up-his-beautiful-buttocks, I decided he needed epic music, so I chose Iron from Woodkid, prolly more known because it was used in the trailer/commercial for one of the Asassin's Creed games. But that's details.
It wasn't my first time on a stage for an act, but going on your own seems to be entirely different from going with a group. I tried to stay calm and not drink too much from my fake wine (which I carried around all day- advice to you guys: DONT DO IT. Luckily I didn't spill but gawd, was I scared for that a few times!). But all the stress and hard work seemingly paid off because at the end of the show, I walked off the stage with the prize for best costume! Melissa really caught my most beautiful moments that con.. :')
And as a prize, I got a little goodiebag with the most awesome of stuff in it. I only found time to look at it decently back at Sabrina's place that evening and we had a few good giggles about the precious pieces that we found in it. <3

It held:
- An artbook-y, full-color magazine with BL illustrations
- A small set of Metropolis figures
- A keychain from a FF:AdventChildren character (of which I forgot the name)
- A small set of three copics/markers, which I donated to Sabrina because I don't draw much.
- A postcard from the German doujinshi group FireAngels (which I censored pretty nicely, if I may say so C: ). It's totally gonna be on my wall!
- And last but not least, a button saying "I'm a filthy Seme". Seriously, YaYcon, where do you get that stuff? xD
... I'm thinking I forgot something. D:

Also, because I won, I got to wear this absolutely adorably cute little crown. I'm gonna save that picture for the last. :')

The convention was running pretty much on its end by then. I was absolutely exhausted from a whole day of running around but the day wasn't over YET. Because I had won, they wanted me on the stage at the ending ceremony as well. I practically lived on that stage that day! It was a little scary.
But then, finally, we could pack our bags. I stopped at the FireAngels stand for a bit, even though they had already packed up as well. One of them kept a vlog, seemingly, and asked me if I could dance for her for the camera. I told her I had absolutely NO idea how Reed would dance and she was like, "ohh, I don't care, just do something". And thus, I did the silliest thing my mind could come up with (which wasn't all that silly at all, but real fun none the less). Here's her youtube account on which it should eventually end up on, by the way.
After that and saying goodbye to our friends, we finally went home. It was one of the best cons of my life. <3

Oh, and what I haven't told you yet! I got recognised! OHMYGAWD! I didn't expect much of the dutch audience, because Teahouse isn't a really big-shot anime or anything, but only a (pretty well-known) webcomic. But there were still people recognising me! I was so happy! Three or four people wanted to take a picture with me, of which two were so shy a friend of theirs had to ask it, so cute! >///<
One of the girls that I went on a picture with is the Italian doujinshi artist Daeva and she featured our picture together in her Netherlands trip/YaYcon report on her Livejournal! Sabrina linked it to me, and I was so happy to see this! All the positive comments I got on my costume, the people that wanted to take a picture with/of me, I felt so blessed! They really made me feel as if all my hard work on this cosplay wasn't for nothing. <3 I loved it all so much, thank you!!

Oh, and that picture I promised you of me wearing my crown.

© Melissa van den Hoogen

I'm sorry this post ended up so long.. xD I hope you had fun reading it none the less! And I hope to see you all on this amazing piece of con next year! <3

One project, one month

Starting next year, I'm gonna set myself a challenge. I still have so many things (cosplays, clothing, stuff for Tegendraads) I wanna make, but never actually get to making them, simply because I don't make time for it. And today, I decided that has got to change! So from January on, I'm gonna try to finish one project every month, no matter if this is a cosplay prop, a piece of clothing I still wanted to make for myself, a commission or a new load of stuff for Tegendraads. I'll have one month to realise it!
So why not start now? Well, I AM gonna start now (or- this tuesday, because I'm still missing some fabrics for my first project), but since december is coming up, I'm not really sure I'm gonna have much time to finish it.
And why one a month? That's pretty simple, actually. Because when I would write down what I do every day, I'll probably realise that I'm wasting a huge amount of my time on... Well... Absolutely nothing, really. Hours and hours every week/month that I could've also spent on  making awesome things. And thus! Let's spend those hours on awesome things. B)

By the time I start, I hope I can say I'm the proud owner of a digital camera again, so that every month, I can actually keep you all updated about my progress. Like I'm supposed to do.


So that's it for now! A post in which absolutely nothing interesting happened. BUT! I do hope it has given you all something to look forward to. I am, at least!

A small Abunai! 2011 report.

I know- I am horribly late. But I still like to write some about the event, because for me, cosplay-wise, a lot has happened.
Abunai! was helt from friday the 26th of august, till the 28th. Which was, for me, the weekend from the first week of my new schoolyear. They couldn't have planned it better. :B

It all started the schoolyear before! I'm not the only geek at my school. I know of at least two others in my year that are into cosplay as well and they've become pretty good friends of mine. One of the two participates in the Cosplay Competition pretty much every year and for this year, she was one or two people short. So she asked me. It was gonna be a Lucky Star act, and even though I've never seen the show, I said yes because it sounded like a whole lot of fun to me. She also asked me to help with the uniforms. We had to make six summer uniforms, and she wanted to make them all herself, so she was at least sure that they were all exactly the same.
This, I can tell you, was HORROR. The unspoken rule seems to be that you can't be a proper cosplayer if you aren't a horrible procastinator, and we, ofcourse, followed that rule. It is a sad thing that we don't have pics of this.
It was a good learning experience for me, though. One thing I learned, is that pleated skirts aren't as easy as they look and pleating and ironing them goes with a LOT of pins and needles.

Thanks to all the cosplay act work, I barely had time left to work on my own cosplays. I had planned to do the Masked Croissant and Shego for this event, but in the end I only had time left to finish Shego. About an hour before I had to go pack my stuff and by skipping two of my schooldays. Then again, I think more experienced cosplayers will now go "Deal with it." on me.
Then it was time to go! I traveled with two friends of mine, with which I also shared a hotel room. The luxury of a hotel room is unbelievable. <3
Friday was, for us, mostly orientationday. What was there to do, who were present, where was everything (the building was a maze, I tell you), etc, etc. And since I only has two cosplays- Shego and the Lucky Star one, I spent friday in my casual clothing. That day, I ran into the two most awesome cosplays I've seen on Dutch cosplay ground. Danbo (or Cardbo), a character from the manga Yotsuba&! and a Sesame Street monster of which I only know it's made of awesome and says a lot of "Yipyipyipyip!"! Ofcourse, I asked both of them if they wanted to take a picture with me. :B
If I come across something awesome, I can get totally overexcited- a little like a kid in a candystore. I like to believe it's one of my charms. But it's also the reason that I posed almost the same on both pictures. xD
Back in the hotel and after a good cup of tea with some delicious cake, we went to our room and I decided that I was gonna do what I still wanted to do for years- take a picture of yourself while brushing your teeth. Don't ask me why, I just always had that craving, somehow. Which resulted in the following picture:

From left to right: Sab, me and Liza

Then, after a good night's sleep, there was saturday. The day of the Cosplay compo. I had to be there around 10 with the six skirts I had made and bumped on a huge line at the door. I explained one of the gophers I had to be indoors early because I had to be there for the acts, but he told me, "Doesn't matter, just get in line.". The damn bastard didn't even check if I had a day- or weekendticket (the line was for people with a dayticket)! After about half an hour, it seemed the guy was just a complete douche and uninformed and I could get inside. After which we had to wait more than an hour before we could start rehearsing the acts. Ofcourse. At least gave us enough time to change. 

In the act, I had to fill in the role of Misao Kusakabe. I still hadn't had the time to watch the series, so I knew pretty much NOTHING about this character. But I got told, "You two are character-wise pretty much alike. Just be yourself. C: " And thus I did. 

One of the things that Abunai is well-known for are the technick fails with the Cosplay- and AMV contests. And this year wasn't anything different. Though despite that, the act went really good and was pretty amusing, according to the people we asked. The whole thing was recorded, but the vid isn't online yet. I'll put a link here when it is, ofcourse! What I CAN give you, is a pic of us on stage. (I'm all on the left- aren't you proud of me? =w= )

Here's a group pic, btw! 

On the left is our brilliant Gaga Pudding- we gave Lady Gaga a role in our huble little act as well!

I decided to spend the rest of the day in my cosplay, it already being around 3 PM and being too lazy to dress back into my casual clothes. Plus the cosplay was comfortable. I was pretty tired from all the act fuzz, which resulted in some pretty dull pictures, of which I'll share the most awesome with you: 

While my friends were waiting for me, they got me a bottle with juice to drink, because I was EXHAUSTED. I seemed pretty happy with it, and for some reason placed it on my head. (my wig made my head pretty flat on top) This had to go on picture, according to one of them, and thus I striked a pose. I am a really wise Misao. *nods* 

And thus came sunday. This was the day I'd walk around in my Shego cosplay. I already got in my cosplay at the hotel (the looks at breakfast from the other guests were priceless), but I'm still a bit of a makeup noob, so took my makeup gear with me and asked a dear friend of mine to do it for me, because I know of her that she likes to do that kind of stuff. She made me look really evil! <3 

I got recognised a LOT. My Misao cosplay wasn't all that recognisable- at least not without the rest of my Lucky Star cast. So I wasn't used to all that fuzz yet. It was really nice and funny to hear everyone whisper about you behind your back (in a positive way), and a (for me) surprisingly big amount of people wanted a pic of me. Only Sab was left that day to spend time with me, and I'm happy she thought of it as amusing, having to stop EVERY time because someone walked up to me for a picture! 

I think the most memorable non-shoot moment of that day was in the dealerroom, when a 1.90 meter long Red Scout came walking up to me asking me "Can I hug you? You were always my favourite character. <3 ". On which I gave him a hug, replying (in character) "Ohh, but baby, I'm everyone's favourite character~" 

A friend of my Kim is a pretty big Kigo (KimxShego) fan and she asked us for a small shoot. We were happy to participate. And thus, next, I shall share with you some of them pictures! Also including some other pics of me that were made that day, btw. 

I like this one- It's Kim, Lizz and me discussing some pose possibilities. I think it's one of the few pics of me from that day out of character. 

And then I walked into Superbig! I thought she rocked my socks, and she thought I was awesome, so ofcourse we had to go on picture together! 

Here's one from the shoot. There aren't many moments Shego is caught off-guard.  Go Kimmie, grab that chance!

And the pic that showed me the biggest flaw in my costume: my crotch. B)  I still  like it, though!

If you wanna see more pics, also from Abunai! itself, you can visit Lizz's site, or give her gallery a visit! 

So far my weekend report. I loved it. Spending time with friends again, new experiences, everything. <3 

And to close this post off, a pic of my most geekish part of my Abunai! dealerroom haul! 

Why I decided to cosplay Shego and styling her wig

It's been a while! And I'm TERRIBLY sorry. And the worst part is- I don't have a proper excuse at all. After my last blogpost, I didn't do anything but work on my cosplays (and boy, was I on deadlines! D: ). The other cosplay I had planned for Abunai! 2011 was Shego, the sarcastic villain from Disney's Kim Possible. Shego has a certain charm about her to me. She's evil, yes, and she'd fight Kim till her last breath. But at the same time, she's smart, loyal and caring. I like this contrast in her, though I never know the exact reason why I'm drawn to a certain character.
I just know that when a friend of mine said she'd always wanted to cosplay Kim, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands!
Too bad my camera died halfway the cosplay process, and I can't find the pics back that I had made of her costume... So I'm gonna give you as much as possible.

In this post, I'm gonna show you how I styled her wig. If you've styled wigs before, you're probably gonna curse me- but as I already said once, I'm still only learning!

I started with a long, black, wavy wig without bangs and a side-split (which was on the right side, lucky me!) that I bought from a friend of mine once. The first thing I did was cut the small pluck of hair that hangs loose from the rest on her forehead. It was kinda scary, cutting in wigs, because I hadn't done it before, but all went well. After I attacked that pluck with hairspray so it would stay in place, I started to divide her hair, parting it in horizontal layers. I decided that, to create the "bigger" effect, I wanted to "flick up" her hair in the middle so it would stand out wider. I divided her hair in a high layer, on top of her head which I rolled up and kept in place with curler pins. The rest I divided in a middle- and a lower layer. The middle layer I split in three and rolled those up as well, and I braided the lower/neck layer, since I wasn't gonna do anything with that part of the wig anyway.





This is what it looked like from the top and back. Looking back on it, I think it's kinda hilarious. :')
You can also see the braid on the right picture. What you can also see, is that I (tried to) split the hair  on the braidlines. Made it way easier, logically.

After that, I took the hairsausages apart one by one. When I took the first one apart, I found out that the amount of hair was too big to comb up all at once, so I had to split it in half again and then comb it up. As seen on your left.
It looks pretty bad like this, and it was. :') It'll get less though.
Combing it up proved to be pretty hard. But then again, a kanekalon wig reacts a whole lot different on what you do with it than real hair!



Here's what it looked like when I was done with the middle-lower half. It looks horrible, I know, and it would probably send shivers down a professional cosplayer's spine, but still. :') I used a lot of hairspray along the way to keep it up like this.
After this, I started combing up the middle-upper half. And instead of combing on top of the selections of hair, I combed it up on the lower side. Again, using a lot of hairspray along the way. 

Done with this, I let the middle-upper half hang down on the lower half, and it formed a really weird bobble. With help from some water to unharden the hairspray where needed, I evened it out a little. Because I had combed up the lower half of the middle-upper part, the hair on top wasn't all strangled. You could still see I flicked up the hair midback, though...



Done with this, I finally took the knot on top out and tried to divide the hair evenly over the rest, making the combing up less visible. Using a lot of hairspray again to keep it all in place, I tried to hide the strangled-up parts as good as possible. I succeeded a little.

Here's how it finally looked like:

Thanks to the extra light on the middle picture, it looks a lot worse than it actually looked in reallife. 

Most people are probably gonna say this is no way to treat a wig, but this is what sounded most logical to me back then (and now still) and it worked. The hair stood out bigger, but not unnaturally big. It was just perfect, really. And that it maybe looked a little messy didn't matter all that much, seeing as Shego's hair is wavy from itself. Next time I wanna do something like this, I think I'm gonna try to find another way to make the hair look bigger. C: 

Well, there! A Shego wig! I'm proud of it. It looks incredibly Scene-style without the actual cosplay, but look what it does when I'm all dressed up! 

Can you believe that's the same wig? Well, I certainly can't! Also  look at my Kim. Isn't she pretty? <3 

More pictures can be found on Lizz's site, or in the file with all the pictures Melissa shot that event. 

For next time, I'll try to find the pics back that I DID make while working on this cosplay. They have to be somewhere, right? D: 

Making this cosplay certainly was an interesting process, because I had to work with Lycra, so I do think it'll be interesting to share. C: 

And that'll be all for today. I'll try to kick up the next blog posts a little faster! x3