Sailor Hoodie

At Katsucon last year, I saw a group of cosplayers wearing these super cute Sailor Moon hoodies from Weeaboo Warehouse. (I'm pretty sure I walked by them right before their photoshoot for the website, actually.) I decided right then that I wanted one of my own, and while I'm sure the $110 price tag is well worth it, I don't have the funds for that.

So I decided to make my own. I simplified the design, both because I didn't want to copy them and because I had a different image in my head for how I wanted it to look. I wanted to combine the aspects of a sailor uniform and a hoodie and have them work together, having it resemble Usagi's school uniform more by skipping the colored pockets and sailor collar you couldn't see if the hood was down.

Making it was surprisingly easy! I'd already worked with the pattern to make my Amamiya Hibiya vest, so for the most part I knew what I was doing. I initially cut everything out of the same fabric and tried to dye the hood / sleeve pieces, but they turned a slate blue instead of the color I wanted, so I went back to Jo-Ann's and bought "pillowcase fabric" (according to Dad) to sew to the outside of the pieces. It made the hood and sleeves a little heavy and hard to sew, but I'm really glad I made the decision! I had to re-sew the white hoodie facing, half of the bow, and one of the sleeves, but that's honestly the least amount of mistakes I've made with sewing something from scratch.

I'm really proud of how it turned out, especially considering I essentially free-handed the whole thing from an idea I had in my mind. I had faith in my idea and it worked out in the end! (I also had fun messing around with the picture in Photoshop to get it to look like that.)

The hood turned out a little weird because of using three different fabrics for the two sides of the hood and the white facing. It definitely could've turned out worse, though. I doubt I'll be able to get it up over my head with my Usagi wig on ... but it was supposed to be the sailor collar, anyway, so that kind of defeats the purpose. 

I copied the size of the bow off the screen-printed sailor sweater I bought from Anime USA. I made sure that it would line up with the necklace my friend bought for me off eBay. The right side was initially sewed on incorrectly, so it doesn't quite match up with the left even after I fixed it... I don't know if I'll ever want to try and fix it again or if I'll just leave it as is;;

I also have a pin I bought from Anime USA two years ago that's another one of Usagi's transformation brooches, but I haven't tried it out with the hoodie yet. I'm not sure if I'll be able to pin it over the zipper. 

I hand-stitched the lines onto the cuffs because the opening was too small to work with my sewing machine. You can't really see the lines from far away, and I feel like I might try to replace them with thin white ribbon in the future. I've gotten better with keeping my stitches straight and uniform, though, so I'm really proud of that. 

I should probably iron it in the next few weeks ...;;

All in all, the cosplay probably only cost about $25 for all the fabric. (Coupons are the best.) I already had the pattern on hand, and I'm pretty sure I used a coupon on that, too. It took me a weekend to put the hoodie together from start to finish. 

This will be my Saturday cosplay for Katsucon 2015! I'm excited to finally be able to cosplay Usagi in her school uniform (kind of), which I've always kind of dreamed about since I first got into the series back into elementary school. I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable wearing her magical girl outfit, simply because that's more skin than I usually want to show, so I'm really really happy I found a way to cosplay her school uniform and combine it with something I wear every day. Maybe I'll even find my own Mamoru on Valentine's Day...

Anime USA 2014

The con was three weeks ago, oops;;;

This year marked my third Anime USA! This was my first convention that I tackled completely on my own, without any adults, so AUSA is kind of like my "freedom con". It's easily accessible by metro, so I enjoy it for the fact that I didn't have to involve my parents (much) in going to the convention.

Pre-con was a little bit of a mess. There was a lack of planning on my part, and like last year, there was the threat that I wouldn't have anyone to go with. Thankfully everything worked out! I also finished my Hibiya vest in the week before the convention, which was really poor planning on my part. I'm very proud with how the vest turned out in the end, but two sewing machine needles died for the cause ;o;

The lack of planning kind of carried into the con itself. I ended up changing my Friday cosplay plans last minute after deciding I didn't like how it looked on me. There were a few issues regarding communication and synchronizing metro, also because there was track work on the Red line that weekend. (That always seems to happen.) I also didn't vlog as much as I wanted to :(

Other minor bad things that happened: I accidentally spilled my water bottle in my backpack on Sunday and soaked through my lunchbox and electronics bag. I was very fortunate that none of my electronics were ruined!! Seriously, it was a miracle. I did lose my short camera / phone charging cord, most likely in the "oh crap I got everything wet I have to assess the damage" panic, but I have a much longer cord as well. I'm hoping to re-buy the short cord since it's so portable, but since it came with my camera, I'm not entirely sure I can :|

Very good things: I got the Iwatobi Free! jacket I wanted, I got a lot of cool stuff (and still came home with money!), had lots of fun with my new 3DS and checking streetpasses, got to be part of the super cool impromptu Kagerou Project photoshoot and got a couple Hibiya hall photos taken, and I got to wear my Annabeth cosplay down to the Mall and the museums! (Even though my camera died right as we got there.)

I swear I'm going to get more Annabeth photos in the museums one day.

The only panel I really went to was the screening of the first few episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal. It was really fun to see my friend's reactions to such a girly anime (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑  I spent a good amount of time in Dealers / AA and got to play Portal with said friend (and played Streetpass while he played Diablo), and was lucky enough to play DDR twice.

I started calling AUSA "chillcon" last year, and it definitely was chillcon this year, too. I really just like the feeling of AUSA. It's much calmer than Otakon and was at a much nicer time of year than both Otakon and Katsucon. I think it's a wonderful way to break up the 6 months between Katsu and Otakon.

In reflection: I still haven't learned from bad planning and I didn't improve on my vlogging skills like I wanted to, but I still had a lot of fun. I probably don't have to make any new cosplays for Katsucon, so I'm expecting the next almost-year to be very chill. I'd love to start vlogging from home in that time; I just need to gather the nerve to.

Otakon 2014

This year marked my third Otakon! It fell the weekend before my birthday again, and I've gotta say it's really cool to consider such a con as a sort of "birthday gift" from whatever luck of fate landed it that weekend.

That said, that luck of fate didn't quite carry over into the first part of the weekend.

On Wed, Emily and I tried to do some last-minute cosplay prep for her. We tried dyeing two different white tops for her rave Snow White cosplay, and both turned out purple instead of the intended blue. Luckily, the one she initially wanted to use turned out indigo when we left both in the dye overnight, so she was able to use it.

Emily and I decided to try Thursday badge pickup this year. And in case you didn't hear, it really backfired for everyone this year. We ended up getting a late start up to Baltimore that evening, getting in line sometime around 8:30, and unfortunately we were one of the thousands of people in line at 10:30 when they announced they were closing the doors. That really wasn't executed well -- while I can't blame the con for computer problems, the staffers were just yelling the news from where they were standing, and we really only heard from word-of-mouth spreading through the line. There were even a few staffers standing in front of the main entrance that had megaphones in their hands but weren't using them. So that wasn't very cool.

So Emily and I woke up early on Friday morning and started again with our usual camp-out until the doors opened. And it went much better. We were much further in the line than in the previous years, most likely due to the people in our situation, so I was a little worried about how long we'd have to wait. However, staff was able to open up registration earlier than planned, so while we were in line since sometime around 7, we were inside with our badges around 9. We were really grateful for that.

All in all, Otakon felt a little more chill than the other two years had. My original cosplay plans had fallen through for the most part, so the most recognition I'd gotten was on Friday as Annabeth Chase. I had a lot more fun than I expected as Annabeth! A lot of people recognized the cosplay or at least that I was from Camp Half-Blood. I didn't complete my Hibiya and Isaac cosplays because I figured the wigs wouldn't come in time. So of course they showed up Saturday while we were at the con;; Saturday I wore my Sailor Moon wig and a cute dress I liked, and on Sunday I went as an OC from my novel using the wig for Hibiya.

While I didn't go to any of the Sailor Moon panels or get any autographs, I was lucky enough to get the special coin! It took me all three days;; The Sailor Moon cosplayer had given both Emily and I the stamp sheets on Friday, so I was carrying around her unwanted one in my bag. I was only able to get two of the scouts on Friday, so Saturday morning I asked Emily to grab the sheet off my desk and she grabbed her empty one instead .... Luckily I was able to get the two I'd missed on Saturday, and on Sunday they were all much closer to the Viz booth, so I finished pretty soon after they'd started the event for the day! I also got pictures of all five scouts. I didn't get any of the shirts that they supposedly had, but I got two different official artwork posters, so I don't really mind.

I also totally overspent on Friday but managed to come in under budget in the long run! On Friday, I really only bought the things that I knew I wanted from artists I followed before the con had even started. Saturday and Sunday I bought less. My haul consisted of mainly posters, but I also came home with a Luna plushie, a shirt with "fight like a magical girl" on it, and a little Tuxedo Mask figurine from a blind box!

TL;DR despite the slight rocky start Otakon had, it was still a really good con overall! My con vlogs can be found here, and hopefully I'll have a new video up every Thursday!

Now begins the prep for Anime USA...

Otakon cosplay plans

I know it's still too early to really be posting about Otakon, but I wanted to talk about my cosplay plans. I've already got most everything planned out, and I've already ordered the two wigs I needed, so I really just needed something to funnel my excitement into.

Amamiya Hibiya from Mekakucity Actors

The song "Kagerou Daze" was what got me into the Kagerou Project fandom and the Mekakucity Actors anime, so I thought it'd be nice to honor my recent fandom by cosplaying the kid that got me into all of it in the first place. I also considered cosplaying Kisaragi Momo, but I decided to postpone that. Also, Otakon falls pretty close to the Heat Haze / time loop, so I figured it was relevant. He'll probably be my Saturday cosplay, since it'll be the most recognizable.

 Isaac O'Connor from Paranatural

Paranatural is my favorite webcomic right now. It's not all that big, but I love all of the characters and the premise of it. Isaac is pretty much my favorite character, and pretty much ever since he was introduced into the series I wanted to cosplay him. I'm not sure anybody would recognize me at the con, but I still want to do it anyway. (So he'll probably be my Sunday cosplay.)

art by burdge / coloring by juliajm15

Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series

I've been looking at a lot of Percy Jackson fanart recently, though I initially found the artists through coincidence. Annabeth would be really easy to cosplay and still pretty recognizable, I think, so I'll probably be her on Friday. Originally she was going to be a backup for my Chimecho cosplay, since that one is a little more revealing than I'd like, but honestly at this point I'd rather cosplay Annabeth than Chimecho. I'm still not sure what I'd put on the t-shirt, though, because I've seen a couple different fanart designs and I'm not sure which one I like the best. (Probably the one where "CHB" is in stick-like black letters so the C looks like <.)

I don't think my plans will change between now and Otakon. The only thing I can think of would be having to drop Hibiya because the wig is currently on backorder, but that's a worst-case scenario. I'm really looking forward to Otakon at this point! I have easy cosplays planned that are of characters I really adore, and hopefully I won't have to worry about the weather!

Current Makeup Kit

I do actually use makeup. Just ... rarely. Really rarely. Meaning: cosplay. And concealer and maybe mascara if I want to look nice for the day.

I don't remember where I got most of these or how much they cost. They were most likely from Target or CVS and were most likely under $5, especially if I had a coupon. Everything is definitely under $10. Because I'm cheap. Also, I'm super pale, so keep that in mind in regards to the colors I chose.

BB cream: I used this as my foundation until I found my foundation again, which matched my skin color better. I use the BB cream now for when I don't want to look as pale as I normally do. (And it has sunblock in it.) 

Foundation: I actually forgot I  had this for the longest time;; It had started to separate so I put didn't use it often. And then it got completely replaced by the BB cream until I rediscovered the foundation bottle. I shook it up more and it works just fine! 

Eyeliner pencil and mascara: I bought these because they were supposed to work well with my eye color. There were at least three different color options (at least for green, blue, and brown eyes). I actually can't tell what color my eyes truly are, because different people tell me different things and they're more of a mix of both colors to me. 

I really don't remember what set I bought. The other set I was debating was something along the lines of "sapphire blue".

Concealer: I think I've had this the longest? I use it to cover up zits if they're really bothering me. It doesn't make them go completely away (you can still tell I have something), but it does do a really good job at making them look less bad. 

Eyeliner pencil: To be honest, I don't think I've ever really used this for eyeliner. I've always used it to darken my eyebrows;; The black tends to smudge, though I don't know if I put too much on my face at one time. The green has worked really well when I've used it for my Gumi cosplay. 

I keep everything in a cute bag I picked up from Otakon! I also have a SHINee "Sherlock" pouch and a cute Rapunzel and prince-like couple, but I don't have pictures of those bags. All three were made by this lovely artist!

The other side of the pouch is cute too! 

I also attempted to swatch my concealer, BB cream, and foundation (from left to right), but I think I used too much... 

I don't think my hand makes for a very good model, because a lot of my face has a pinkish tint that my hands don't have. It's also winter so my hands are constantly dry and cracked, which is pretty obvious;; 

I also did a Target run before Katsucon. The liquid eyeliner I haven't opened yet, but it was to replace one I had a year ago that got lost in my backpack and dried out. I suck at liquid eyeliner, so it'll mainly be for my Matryoshka Gumi makeup. The pencils are combination eyeliner / eyebrow pencils, which have worked well during a cosplay test so far! The powder foundation is to (hopefully) keep my makeup better ... sealed? Is that the right word? The powder foundation is also really nice. 

 I took before and after photos of a quick makeup test, but I don't like how they turned out, so I'm not going to include them. Sorry! Anyway, this is all the makeup I use when cosplaying. And it'll probably stay that way for a while, as I don't see myself running out of any of the makeup anytime soon;;

Katsucon 2014

Katsucon XX was held Feb 14 - 16 at the Gaylord National in National Harbor, Maryland. It was my fourth year of attending Katsucon! I still can't really believe it. I've been con-going for four years now, and I think it's only gotten better as time has gone on.

I spent most of the weekend with Emily and her boyfriend Jason. It was a little bit awkward, especially on Friday it was Valentines Day and I was third-wheeling, but it was still fun nonetheless. Neither of them had been to Katsucon before (and it was Jason's first anime convention), so I acted as a kind of tour guide for them. Luckily, I've finally gotten a good handle of the Gaylord's layout, so we never really got lost.

I also got to meet a lot of sempais this year! I was lucky enough to cross paths with mangosirene, domineau, alexpinku, and stickehbun, and I also got to meet up with staciastarburst, who I started talking to through tumblr. I also got to talk to uberwren, dejavudea, and Alec from DTP. It amazes me that people know and remember my name / face after meeting them!

I spent less money than I have in previous years, but I think I came home with more? I don't have a definite comparison compared to other conventions or previous Katsucons, but I still came home with $90 after buying many posters from AA and a few things from Dealer's. I think one of the favorite things I bought was my Tsukino Usagi / Sailor Moon wig, which was only $40! I've always dreamed of cosplaying Usagi, and I'm finally taking those steps to completing it! I also got tons of cute Pokemon / RotBTD fanart (including a Jack Frost tote bag), and I got a print from the artist of High Tide, an animation short that has made me consider pursuing animation.

I didn't have any big cosplay plans this year. Friday I wore the blue hamster kigurumi I bought at last year's Katsucon. Saturday I wore a combination Jack Frost / Danny Phantom cosplay I made a week before the con, and on Sunday Emily and I cosplayed as Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton.

I think for once I didn't have any sort of problems with the convention at all! The past three years there have been conflicts regarding friends or sharing the Gaylord with another con, but this year there didn't seem to be any major problems! I'm really grateful for that. I was able to buy everything I wanted to, and much more than I actually needed to. I had lots of fun with my friends and I didn't feel any sort of insecurities about my cosplays. I wish I had recorded more video and vlogged more in-depth, but that's something I can improve on in the future, and I still was able to get around an hour's worth of video.

5.21 updates

I had a few posts planned out in my head, and of course I totally forgot them by the time I sat down to actually write them. Go figure. So I'm just going to talk about a few things that are on my mind and hope that suffices.

So within the past week or so, I've recorded a lot of video. About two hours based on my really rough calculation. Theoretically good, right? I have stuff to put into videos and make them interesting. But all this video is bothering me and is more of a hindrance than anything. I use my vlogs as a way to remember things, but since I'm posting them on YouTube I also want them to be interesting. And I try to trim them down in order to keep my own attention, since I tend to have a hard time re-watching my own videos during the editing process. The problem is finding the line between keeping things interesting and making the video really disjointed in order to get it to a reasonable time. I'm afraid of making things confusing by cutting out parts of conversations, but they're also not all that interesting to watch... So yeah big dilemma there.

Saturday, Chris and I went on a "hike" in a nearby ... park? Nature reserve? Big wooded area with trails. I took over an hour of video, keeping the camera running almost the entire time we were in the woods. Mainly because I was scared of what would happen if I turned it off. (I do not like being that isolated, and there were deer and probably tons of other animals out there.) But how do I cut that down to something anybody can sit through? That's a lot. ＿ﾉ乙(､ﾝ､)_     And I don't look all that good in some of the video I recorded on Sunday, so I'm cutting that part out too. If I can ever cut last Tuesday's video to under five minutes.
--> TL; DR The more video I have to edit into vlogs, the less I want to do any of it.

On another note, I also decided on a Chimecho gijinka for Otakon. It might be a little difficult (and kind of expensive, considering) but I'm excited for it because Chimecho is one of my favorite pokemon and is an essential on my team in two games.

School ends in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to the summer. I'm still hoping to do the "no Internet for (x amount of time)" project, and also doing vlogs where I sit down with a non-moving camera and talk at it about whatever topic I can find. Easier to edit because background isn't moving. And also I'm going to find a way to sell most of my manga, trade them with someone, or stick them in a tumblr giveaway. Because I could really use the shelf space for something more useful. Like my growing collection of Happy Meal toys.

5.9 Cosplay Plans

Let me make a post about cosplay! So I can organize my thoughts.

I'm still trying to figure out what my cosplays are for Otakon. I know I want to cosplay a Flareon gijinka, but other than that I don't really have any ideas. The main problem is the weather -- it's going to be super hot in Baltimore in the middle of August. So I'm wary of any cosplays that are a considerable amount of clothes. And it kind of rules out the cosplays I already have.

I just realized I could easily do an Ash Ketchum cosplay easily if I get guy's shorts instead of jeans and maybe go for a black tank top instead of a t-shirt.

Ok so that's two cosplays. I can't think of any more that are fairly easy. Oh well. I'm planning to make a skirt for Flareon, which is going to be my first time fully making an article of clothing. Usually I just buy something and modify it. It shouldn't be all that hard, but I also need to make (or find) shorts to wear underneath it. Or I could try making shorts instead of a skirt. Plaid shorts, though? Maybe I can find some at a thrift store.

This post was kind of pointless because I didn't accomplish much. But my tentative cosplays for Otakon are:

• Flareon gijinka
• Ash Ketchum (slightly modified so I don't die of heatstroke)

Matryoshka Hoodie How-to

For once I remembered to document the steps I took in making a cosplay! Surprise! This is for the face on the hood of my Matryoshka Gumi hoodie. Only one side is painted, but that's enough for a tutorial, right? I used this one from deviantart when painting my yellow Matryoshka hoodie, but for the red one I went from memory.

Materials: white and black paint, a small paintbrush and a wider paintbrush.
--> Note: I used acrylic paint. It works, but the face on my yellow hoodie is starting to crack a little. I don't really like fabric paint but that's probably a better idea.

First, I painted the white circle for the eye and the black crescent for the mouth. I think I free-handed this one, but it's a good idea to trace the pattern on in pencil. 

Then I added another layer of paint to make it darker. 

Then I added in the details. This is after one more layer of paint. The eye looks pretty good, but obviously it takes a few layers to make the teeth look nice. 

I think this is a couple more layers of paint. Not sure how many. 

But anyway, it's fairly easy to make! Just a little tedious because it requires more than one layer of paint and waiting for paint to dry can be agonizing. For me, at least.

1.27 -- cosplay update

This morning I tried to work with the pants I bought yesterday, but I figured it was too much work than it was worth. I pretty much would have needed to take the entire thing apart at the hems and re-sew it, and even then it wasn't guaranteed that it would work like I hoped. So instead, I went to AC Moore and bought Rit fabric dye in Cocoa Brown and dyed the original pants I bought for Jack.

The color came out better than I expected, so I'm really happy with the results! My hands are stained slightly brown because I was too impatient to track down latex gloves, but it should wash off in a few days. 

We also went to a consignment store today and I tried on a few pants to see if I could avoid using dye (because of the whole turning-my-hands-colors issue.) I took a picture of two I considered, but they were either not the exact color or not the right fit. :L The sweatshirt is my mockup one; I really like wearing it around the house and out places, even if it probably gets some strange looks.

Yeah, my hands look strange. I also painted more frost onto the staff, so it looks a little bit better. And cooler, in my opinion. Hopefully sometime this week I'll work mutilating the pants, and I'm hoping to add glitter to the frost on the sweatshirt. 

1.26 -- cosplay

Today we went to a thrift store and I found better pants for my Jack Frost cosplay, so I decided to compare my cosplay to the mock-up pieces I have. Sorry for the quality, I took all the pictures with my iPod.

The sweatshirt on the right was the first one I tried to make, but the dye didn't work out as well as I hoped so I've been using it as an everyday sweatshirt instead. The one on the left was ordered off Amazon in Royal Blue and turned out a lot better than the first one. 

The pants on the left are corduroy pants I bought from Target when I bought the white sweatshirt (that later turned periwinkle). The darker ones I just bought today. They still need to be modified a lot, though. 

The pants need to be tighter both around the legs and waist, because they're loose on me;; 

My gijinka Audino for a group cosplay from Black Adventures I'm hoping to do with my friends. I was originally going to by a cream-colored dress of some sort, but looking through my closet I realized that I have clothes that work just fine. I like how the pants look, but they're actually for a different cosplay and the skirt is closer to the look I was going for. I also forgot that I bought a white scarf for this cosplay as well;; 

I decided I'm probably going to wear fem!Green Oak to Katsu instead of my Matryoshka outfit. It looks really good, and all I have to worry about is finding shoes for it. The outfit is also entirely re-used, either from buying the pieces second-hand or from cosplays that I'm not using. I tried on the skirt for the heck of it but I don't like how it looked. 

So, my current lineup for Katsu is Jack Frost, gijinka Audino, and fem!Green Oak. None of them are 100% complete in the way that I'd like them to be, but I need to focus on Jack because it's the least done...