Friday 18 October 2013

Soifon - My First REAL Cosplay

As the title says, I'm going to tell you about my Soifon cosplay. I have always wanted to cosplay Soifon for Bleach is one of the first animes I've watched and Soifon has always been one of my favourite female characters. I wanted to cosplay her even before I started cosplay, so it was kind of an important cosplay to me in many ways... The most important thing is that this is the first cosplay I did completely without help from outside. Minorea has helped me with all of my cosplays, but this time I did everything from patterns to the final seam all by myself!

I still want to make her katana and weapon in the future, I probably know where I can start working on them (I don't have the equipment at home). ;)

I think that pictures are better at telling about my cosplay. All pictures are (c) Kyuu Eturaitti.


Needless to say, I'm VERY proud of this cosplay even though it's not perfect and I could have done it better. I was so happy that people told me "wow, that's a great cosplay" in Katsudocon and asked if they could take my picture. Someone even said that I fit the character perfectly! ;w; <3

This is actually something that made me think that I'm a cosplayer. Now my "characters to cosplay"-list has grown even longer.. So expect more cosplay projects from me in the future! xD

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Katsudocon - When Nothing Worked Out

Stress has won and I left the first lesson on Monday only after the first 10 minutes of it. I was dizzy, feverish, about to throw up and my head hurt like hell. On the train back home (I go to university in a different town) I really had to fight so I wouldn't start crying. When I got home I started to watch Totoro and the movie had me crying for good 2 hours. I have to say it's amazing to organize a convention.


Katsudocon was organized on 12th-13th of October 2013 in Jyväskylä's Forum -shopping mall. I can't tell you how the event was like for our visitors, because I was organizing it together with Minorea and Pia. I'll tell you instead how we walked through hell while building this convention. I can tell you that nothing went like it should have gone... Promises weren't kept, we were late on program starting times and on the final day one security guard locked me into a seperate section of the shopping mall...

When we started to plan the con, I was sure that everything would work out better than last year. Last year I had been just a volunteer, but this year I was in with the title of organizer. I had two areas of responsibility: artists alley and the website.

When I started to build the website I didn't even remember what was the html for adding pictures on the website... I had to brush up my coding skills quite the bit so I could make the site look as instructed. The website wasn't anything great, but I hope it fulfilled its purpose. I learned a lot of new things about coding, so hopefully I can make something a lot more stylish in the future!

Organizing the artists alley went extremely well. The tables got reserved quickly and a few spots without tables were taken. Only one person cancelled their reservation and everything seemed good and functional. On the night before the convention the reality hit me in the face when we started to build the con: unlike last year, there were showcases on the aisle where we were supposed to build the artists alley. The shops didn't want the tables in front of their display windows. It was really difficult to find spots for all artists until we finally got the place organized and the artists' alley was only missing its artists.

On Saturday the reality decided to hit me with a baseball bat and kick my ass after that. "There's a door through which the janitor needs to go through. You can't be in front of this door." "You're not allowed to have a table in front of our display windows." "Some shop keeper came to tell us, that we have to move away..." WHAT?! Only yesterday we had checked that all the tables were in their right places, the shops were okay with them and everything was fine, but NO! In the middle of the convention the shops decided that no, no one can have their artists' alley spot in front of our store. As the one responsible for the artists' alley I apologize to all those artists who had to move around in the middle of the day! I'm also very sorry, that I didn't have time to come and see you more often. I had to take care of so many things during the day, that I just didn't have the time. ;__; I still hope that everyone on the artists' alley had a great convention weekend and selling your amazing artwork in a shopping mall was a great experience. Thank you, you were an important part of the con! :)

Before the convention I also got to draw the illustrations. I've never drawn chibies so I had to edit the original, extremely cute Katsuna-chan to fit my style better. I'm mostly an animal artist, and I can't draw cute girls at all! The only humans I've drawn have been men... xD But cosplay contest diplomas needed pictures of Katsuna-chan so I had no choice but to start drawing - on Wednesday, a couple of days before the con. It took the whole day to draw the rest of the illustrations because I'm so lazy and slow drawer.. My apologozies for awful illustrations, seriously. :'D

When the convention was getting closer and closer, I noticed I had promised to take care for more and more things. I was planning the evening party and Japanese haunted house, I was contacting our Guests of Honor, I was translating e-mails and agreements, I was planning and hosting programmes, I had promised to be hunted character in our programme, I was looking for panelists, I was planning our schedules and spreading out adverts. I just... was involved in everything. In the original plan I was supposed to have a Japanese calligraphy workshop, like last year, but luckily it was left out  - I wouldn't have had time to do it!

Despite myself being so busy, the organizing of the convention seemed better than last year: the shopping mall had promised us two empty business premises, one for panels and one to serve as a picnic place. We were promised real dressing rooms, and it was amazing! But SURPRISE SURPRISE, what we got is a different story. "This dressing room is used by one store." "One shop is opening here 3 days before the convention after all, you can't have it." There were so many empty promises on the shopping mall's side that we all felt like crying. They were supposed to support us, not ruin our event! We got a couple of smaller rooms to use, but they were so disappointing compared to the big rooms we were supposed to have.

Things didn't go well on other aspects either. At some point we were so frustraited, that we were ready to cancel the whole event. The original cosplay contest judges cancelled and our DJ changed his plans only one week before the convention. We had to get new people for these important tasks really quickly, and we were all very stressed out. We were already worried that we would have to cancel the evening party! Luckily DJs Tesno and D-Shark promised to save us and we could arrange the evening party! :)

My own schedule was planned a bit wrongly, so the delay on haunted house's opening can be blamed on that. I was the only one who had experience on Japanese haunted houses yet I was interpreting in a programme until the time the shopping mall closed. The haunted house got finished anyway even though we ran out of cardboard boxes and fabrics. The most disappointing thing in the haunted house (and the evening party in general) was the the fact that the security guards weren't allowed to switch off the shopping mall's lights. The haunted house wasn't dark enough, it would have been so much more scary if it had been dark! During the last year's evening party there weren't any lights in the shopping mall, so of course we assumed it would be like that this year too. Unfortunately a different security service was taking care of the shopping mall this year. :(

Even though the haunted house didn't turn ous as great as I had hoped, it was still a success. I wasn't supposed to be involved in the haunted house after building it, but I decided to make myself into a ghost and haunt there with Uruhara FC. I'm a coward myself and I get scared really easily.. I hate the fact that my friends keep spooking me, but now I know why: it's so much FUN!! It was so amusing to sneak out of the closet, get close behind people's backs and suddenly make a frightening sound. Their expressions were so funny, and it was really nice to hear that people actually were scared afterwards. xD

On Sunday I was so tired that the whole day passed by in some sort of a trance. I was hosting the cosplay date too, and I wasn't prepared for it at all. I couldn't handle my time on stage as a pouting Soifon, so I just decided to be something so I could get the job done. I'm bad at improvising and I'm not funny, but I'm not afraid of being on stage. Luckily Minorea was handling the role of Katsuna-chan in an adorable and foolish way. <3 The participants in our cosplay date were amazing and I kept snickering at their answers by myself. Thanks to all participants and volunteers, who filled in the empty slots!

During the closing ceremony my stress took over. My throat got so sore that I couldn't swallow anymore. My finger started to bleed (I have no idea why) and I dirtied my cosplay during the last 20 minutes... u__u" When we finally started to clean up after the con, I went around and collected signs to dressing rooms and some contests questions. I went to a seperate part of the shopping mall where the males' dressing room and picnic room were. When I returned to the glass doors by the end of the aisle, it was locked! While I had been behind the corned, the security guard had locked the door with a big padlock, and there was no other way back to where the other people were. I had also forgotten my cellphone, so I couldn't call for help. Luckily I got out from one street door. I had to go around the whole shopping mall to the loading bridge through where I could get back in.

It wasn't the only time the security guards failed.. If the shopping mall announces that it closes at 18, it's supposed to close at 18:00, not at 18:20!! It was awful to prepare the evening party while all kind of people walked in and out of the doors. We had no idea if they had a ticket (it was required for the evening party), because we couldn't control who got in and who didn't. On the next morning the shopping mall was supposed to open at 12, but the doors were opened at 11:45. Luckily we got our volunteers to look after each booth in case someone would steal something. The vendors weren't happy though since they were prepared to come back to the shopping mall at 12 because no one was supposed to get in before that..

I can't even remember all the horrible things that happened while organizing the convention. It must have been some miracle that all programmes were held and the convention ended without bigger disasters. And no, organizing a con wasn't just horrible. We organizers had fun too, and it was nice to hear that people actually enjoyed our event and its programme. I met old and new friends and it was amazing! It was nice how all of us supported each other and none of the organizers or the volunteers were left alone with their problems. Big thanks to our volunteers, helpers, panelists and Guests of Honor. You made this convention possible! ^w^

Next year we won't have Katsudocon anymore, but we are already planning something new. We have already asked one place if we could have our convention there. It's way better than the shopping mall and we are very excited to organize our con there! We are looking for other organizers and planning the theme of the con too. So this wasn't the last convention in Jyväskylä - we will be back in spring 2015 with something better!

You can find pictures from Katsudocon here: http://kuvat.aniki.fi/index.php?cat=118


In the next blog entry I will tell you about my COSPLAY in Katsudocon. ;)

Monday 23 September 2013

Tracon 8

Tracon 8 was a bit of an adventure for me - it was my first anime/manga related convention in 4(?) years without Minorea. Actually I had no one to go there with, I had just planned to meet a few people during the weekend. I mostly bothered DJ whose place I was staying at, but she ditched me from time to time. MEANIE! :C

I wore my Gaikotsu fursuit for Saturday. The weather wasn't too hot so it was nice to walk around in my fullsuit. The moment I stepped outside after changing to my fursuit, a group of Thai pushed their children around me and started to take pictures. This has never happened to me so it was surprising. And even more surprising was the fact that after the pictures with childen were taken, the PARENTS came to stand next to me one by one so they could get photos with me too.. :'D

After I got rid of my fans I went to the park and found a big pack of Finnish furries. It was a lot of fun to hang out with old and new acquaintances. Some of them took pictures of me, and I'm afraid these are the only pictures from Tracon (I was stupid and forgot my camera home).

© Lutu
Gaikotsu staring at Terppa's My Little Ponies. © Lutu
 After hanging out with furries I decided to go check the artist alley. I bought beautiful prints from ShadeofShinon and Foolmoose.
Here are links to the prints I bought:
http://shadeofshinon.deviantart.com/art/Wise-398754961
http://foolmoose.deviantart.com/art/Lilium-martagon-305509925
http://foolmoose.deviantart.com/art/Convallaria-majalis-299966133
I can't wait to buy frames for them so I can put them on the wall!

The artist alley was really crowded so I got really hot in my fursuit.. I had to go change! Later I put my fursuit on as a partial for the furry meet. I was stupid and forgot to bring a long sleeved shirt. That's why my skin was visible with my handpaws. I felt so bad about it... (TT__TT)

Me and my sis Rimawolf! © frostdanger
© Frostdanger
I didn't even go to any programmes besides the World Cosplay Summit preliminaries and cosplay competition. The costumes were great, but the performances... the quality of most of them was just low. Out of 11 I only liked 3 performances, the other ones were really boring. The fact that you can make amazing coslays doesn't mean that you shouldn't put effort in the performance on the stage! The winners' performance was one of my favourites and they had lovely outfits - the right people are going to represent Finland in WCS! Best of luck to them! :)

The Tracon's own cosplay competition was simply lame. All of the contestants posed in the center of the stage for a little while and then walked away - WHAT?! They had amazing costumes, some of them even better than the ones in WCS. And they were only allowed to pose for a little while.. ? It was really boring competition to watch, especially when it continued with two more costume competitions with loud music on the background and contestants walking in and out of the stage in a steady flow.

I read some other peoples' blog entries and I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who noticed this thing: the worst thing was the audience. People kept yelling stupid and irrelevant things and most of people laughed at their 'jokes'. There was a time when the stage was dark for quite the while, but you could see the WCS contestants on the stage, ready for their performances.. They were already anxious yet they had to listen to stupid bricks yelling their 'jokes' from the audience?! Having experience from couple of smaller cosplay competitions I can't even start to imagine how awful that must have felt.. :(

Aaargh..! Time to stop ranting and head towards the end of my blog entry!

I was supposed to cosplay Soifon on Sunday, but.. I didn't have time to finish the upper part, so I decided to wear only the lower part of the cosplay, BUT... I hadn't finished the wig and people were waiting for me in the morning, so I didn't want to make them wait for any longer.. So I just fursuited. xD But I WILL cosplay Soifon in Katsudocon! See you there! :)

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Future Cosplay/Fursuit Plans

I think that every cosplayer has the same problem... Too many ideas, too little time! I've had some of these ideas for a long time and some of them I got only recently. For some cosplays I've already decided when I'm going to make them too!

Bleach - Soifon

Time: Tracon 2013
Reason: Soifon has always been my favourite female anime character. Even though I'm too tall to actually be her I still can't resist the urge! I didn't have any cosplay prepared for Tracon 2013 and I didn't want to wear my fursuit for both days - that's why I decided that I'll do this cosplay now or never!

Hinoi Team feat Koriki - Night of Fire (the girl in blue)


Time: -
Reason: I don't even remember who originally came up with the idea, but we realized with my friends that one of us would be perfect Koriki.. And then we started to gather other people to do it with Minorea, Hobitti & me. We had planned to do it last year already, but we missed one member and now that we have all members we don't have any convention we can all go to! Difficulties of a bigger group... We've even practiced their dance! :P

Shingeki no Kyojin - Hanji Zoe


Time: -
Reason: I can't help but love the series and the characters' outfits are so cool! I always like the weirdest characters out there and now I'm a fan of Zoe! Also a friend of mine is going to cosplay Levi so we'll be perfect together (I'm taller than her)~

Pokémon - Ponyta


Time: 2013
Reason: I love Pokémon and Ponyta has always been one of my favourites. I always use Ponyta when I play Platinum on DS. I also wanted to do a pony quadsuit.


Amy Fox


Time: Nordic Fuzz Con 2014
Reason: Amy Fox is my original character and also my second fursona. I really want to try and make a sexy fursuit out of her. ;)

Mononoke Hime - Shishigami


Time: 2014
Reason: I thought about making a Shishigami quadsuit a long time ago, but I didn't really think about the realization of it before I joined "Studio Ghibli group cosplay Finland". We're aming to do the biggest Studio Ghibli group cosplay in Finland ever and I didn't even think before I signed myself in as Shishigami.


Hellsing - Hellhound


Time: -
Reason: I love Hellsing, dark creatures and quadsuits. So how could I resist making a quadsuit of Hellhound?

Final Fantasy X - Kimahri Ronso or female Ronso


Time: -
Reason: I recently came accross these amazing species in Final Fantasy (I've never played it, I just found some pictures on the Internet) and started to dream about making a fursuit right away.. I still haven't decided whether I make Kimahri Ronso or just some random female ronso.

Guild Wars 2 - Harathi Sharpshooter


Time: -
Reason: I just want to make a centaur one day and I really like GW2's design on them since it's not so usual!

Disney's Aladdin - Rajah


Time: 2014
Reason: Minorea asked me if I could do Rajah since she's going to do a group cosplay of Disney princesses. Rajah was one of my favourite animal characters when I was a kid, so of course I want to do Rajah!

Lord of the Rings - Arwen Undomiel


Time: -
Reason: I bought Arwen's necklace from Head Hunter Store and Dean told me I should cosplay her. I haven't been able to get the idea out of my mind, so I really have to make it happen some day!

Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Asmodeus


Time: -
Reason: Minorea was asked to join a group cosplay of the Sisters and she told me that they're still missing one person. I agreed without knowing anything about the anime, so it's time to start watching something new. :D


So yeah.. If I had been asked about my cosplay plans for the future couple of years ago I would have given you a list of humans. Now only 1/3 of my cosplay plans have nothing to do with fursuiting.. Hmm, people change, they say!

If you have any anthro/animal characters in mind you would like to see cosplayed, I'd love to know! It's surprisingly hard to find anthro characters to cosplay. :)

Saturday 17 August 2013

Updates and a Rabbit

I was very eager to work on many of my projects, but the flu I've been suffering from for 6 months took a turn for worse... I had a doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago and was diagnosed with bronchitis and sinusitis. I took a course of antibacterials and two other medications, but they didn't help at all. I got a new course of antibacterials on Monday and I really hope I'll get better now. The meds make me really tired and I've felt depressed because I haven't been able to train Taekwondo at all.. :(

Some good news though~ I bought new equipment for fursuiting and cosplaying: an animal hair trimmer and a sewing machine!

Zoofari's Animal Hair Trimmer. It includes 6 different comp attachments. Unfortunately I haven't been able to try it out yet. :(
Singer Tradition 2259 sewing machine. It runs so smoothly! When I needed a sewing machine before, I had to go to my parents'.. Mom's machine was so old and it jumped around on the table when I tried to sew.
 Thanks to my new sewing machine I've managed to work on some commissions so everyone will get their fursuit partials in time! :)

This cute raccoon tail was a commission to Dani!
A bodysuit commission to VzioN. It will have digitigrade paddings.
 I'm currently working on a commission to a friend of mine. It's my first fursuit head commission and it has been fun so far! It's my first toony fursuit and also my first non-canine - Usagi the samurai rabbit from the comic series Usagi Yojimbo!
 
The head is on a foam base and it has a moving jaw. It still needs cheeks and ears before I start furring!
My school will start on 2nd of September. I'm excited to start a new school even though it will be a lot of work. My major will be Russian language and culture and minor language teacher studies. I'll also apply for English and Finnish once school starts. :) It's going to be busy life from here, but before school starts I'll update on my future cosplay/fursuit plans!

Wednesday 31 July 2013

Animecon X

Animecon X was held in Kuopio on 13th-14th of July. The whole convention was kind of a disappointment for us because the convention hall was really hard to get around and things were organised badly. The only amusement was my friends and the furries I met there. And of course the cosplay show competition!

For Saturday we decided to use our lovely kigurumis with gyary make-up. I heard some people call "OMG, GYARUS!" when we passed by and some people said that you can't be sad around us. I felt happy and energetic the whole day, yaaay! We went to bother the people at the photoshoot stall (photos © Kyuu Eturaitti):

We almost managed to do our fusion properly this time (we faileld it the first time we tried it)!
 After the convention day we went to Minorea's parents' place to build our stage prop - a demon! I started our project with "he must have horns!" and then I scribbled this idiot-looking demon on the cardboard. Minorea cut out the yellow highlights and glued them on him after some good spraying of black paint on the grass.


It was time to debute our new cosplays on Sunday. We cosplayed Panty and Stocking from the series Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Minorea had planned to cosplay Stocking a long time ago so I had no choice but to be Panty.


Panty was the weirdest character choice for me to cosplay for many reasons:
- I've  only watched 1 episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
- I hate the drawing style and I think it's just a really annoying anime
- The character's personality doesn't suit me AT ALL
- I have never ever done a dress before

Me as Panty on stage. This is probably the only proper picture of me in this cosplay because I kept fooling around during our photoshoot... Panty was very OOC the whole convention! xD © Tapio Matikainen
 Luckily it was only a small dress and I didn't need to be Panty for more than one day. I really had to rush with the dress because I was leaving to Norway for a 4-day motorcycle trip just before the convention. I finished the dress in one day and didn't really try it on. The next time I tried it was on Saturday, the day of the convention. It was okay, but... The upper part wasn't wide enough. Because Panty's dress had an open back the breast part of the dress showed half of my boobs! Luckily I could blame it on the character even though I had a crisis on Sunday morning whether to wear it or not. :P

Minorea gave in and joined the foolishness! <3
Minorea had planned our cosplay competition show and I put together the voice. We weren't awarded, but it was a good experience even though the organizer let us down many times. We got information about everything too late and things didn't go well in any way:

- we didn't know if we were accepted to take part in the competition earlier than two weeks before the con
- we got information about voice and light requests after Minorea contacted them
- we got no information on schedules and what we were supposed to do (i.e. photoshoot, judging, practicing etc.)
- the only chance to practice was on Saturday evening, after the convention closed for the day => we had a small child with us so we couldn't wait till that late
- we asked for another chance to practice before the conpetition => the organizer answered around 1am with "yeah, you can practice at 9am" => we were 1 hour drive away from the convention place and we had our alarms set to 9am; it was frustrating to notice this message after you had woken up
- because we had no time to practice the lights didn't work the way we wanted them to work

We had an amazing assistant though! She brought us water and offered us her shrimp chips while we were waiting for our turn. She was so nice and totally saved our day! :)

"You had better not get all fat again!" © Tapio Matikainen
All of the contestants © Tapio Matikainen
 After the convention we've got nice critique from people. Now we know that we need to make the sound clip slower so we have time to move around. But people thought it was funny and just like the show! Not just dancing around in cosplays like many of the other contestants. I'm really happy even though no one was supposed to see me carrying our props around and our great monster wasn't visible to the audience because the lights didn't work the way they were supposed to work.

Here's a video of our show:



..yes, my stripping virginity was taken. xD

Next time I'll give you some fursuit updates. ;)

Sunday 28 July 2013

Desucon 2013 (part 2)

Finally I got some pictures so I can finish my Desucon 2013 update!

We had one thing we really wanted to take part in on Friday: Shibari workshop. Shibari means Japanese bondage and this was the second time we took part in it. The last time was a few years back so we decided to take part in the beginners workshop.. I really wanted my own rope too which you don't get from the advanced workshop. Now I have nice 10 meters of bondage rope!

We didn't really think that the costumes we chose for the day would be the costumes we use for the workshop... So I had no other choice but take part in it wearing my fursuit! It was so hot and I had to take my hand- and feetpaws off so I could do things properly.  But it was lots of fun!  Minorea wore her Scandinavia Meets the World - Sister Sweden cosplay which had.. quite the small dress~ (*^w^*)

Minorea is trying to tame a wild wolfdog...
..the wild wolfdog tames her instead!
Gaikotsu won the final battle!
On Saturday we first wore our Soul Eater cosplays. The Soul Eater group had an amazing Death the Kid and we took great photos together! Sadly, we only got one picture from the actual photographer (Emilia Lahtinen). The another picture was taken with Minorea's camera:


After we had finished with the Soul Eater group cosplay we changed for something more comfortable: our new pink & yellow kigurumis! Minorea made both of them and they are so cute and colourful! I think that the Hello Kitty -face and the bunny ears are perfect! ;w;


The idea for these kigurumis started when Minorea read about Japanese twin- style: friends dress and make up as similarly as possible so that they look almost like identical siblings. We decided to try it with bright coloured kigurumis and gyary make-up - and succeeded! Minorea's mom started to talk to me and she didn't realize I wasn't Minorea before I started talking back to her... and I couldn't recognize myself from one picture... xD

TG stands for Tentacl Girls - that's us!

All together it was a very nice convention and I loved to fursuit again. It was nice to do a 'real cosplay' after such a long break and I had so much fun wearing my new kigurumi~ It's so comfortable that I wear it at home too (I'm wearing it at this very moment too)! Thanks to my 'sister' Minorea who made it! ;) <3

This one was edited by Minorea. I just had to steal it from her blog because it's so cute! <3

Next time I'll tell you about Animecon X!