Desucon 2013 (part 1)

I had amazing time in Desucon 2013! All the cosplays there were as amazing as the weather and I met many of my Finnish furry friends. ^^ I'm bad at telling about how the convention was, but you can't expect anything but a well organized event from Finland's most popular Japanese popculture convention.

I had fun fursuiting on Friday. It was cloudy so it wasn't too hot and I managed to fursuit for almost 3 hours straight. I even met some really cute kids who waved eagerly at me! They were too afraid to touch me though... xD It was my first encounter with kids while wearing my fursuit and I'm really happy that I was able to bring a smile on their faces. :3

On Saturday we cosplayed Liz and Patty from Soul Eater with Minorea. People liked us and we were told we fit the characters perfectly! I think the cosplay succeeded nicely too. We had an amazing photoshoot with other Soul Eater cosplayers too, but I haven't got any pictures yet. I'll show them to you in my next blog entry along with better pictures of our cosplays. ;)

Pictures by Kyuu Eturaitti.

In the evening we wore the pink and yellow kigurumis Minorea made for us along with some crazy gyary make-up. I'll upload those photos later too!

Sunday was for fursuiting too. Unfortunately it was way too hot and I had to take off my fullsuit right after I finished with the photoshoot. But Emilia Lahtinen took great pictures of my fursuit! They are amazing and some of them are really cute. Take a look!

Starting off with a cool howling pose!

Look at my sexy back!

"Eh, you called me cute?" *blush*

This is my favourite picture of them all! Gaikotsu looks so cute here~ <3

"Cuddles, anyone?" The moment I made this pose the photo assistants screamed "SO CUTE!!"...

...and they gave me my well deserved belly rubs!

I'll update with the second part once I've got the rest of the pictures! ^^

Quick Cosplay Update

Hi! I'm about to leave for a train to Lahti and Desucon 2013 in an hour, but I still have a little time to show you some pictures on my progress.

The shirt. It's not very beautiful, I know. xD

The hat. I don't like how the other side looks, but I have no experience with covering hats. So I'm pleased I managed to do something like this! It still needs the stitches.Oh and because the hat I used underneath was really thick I couldn't sew the canvas on.. I had to use glue instead and I really hope those wet looking spots dry away!!

Me wearing the costume. Minorea has my tie, so I couldn't wear it for this photo. I bought the shoes for 2 euros in a second-hand store!

I still have some things I'll work on on the train: I'll sew on the white straps on the jeans and the hat, but other than that my cosplay is ready! Minorea will borrow me one of her wigs because mine didn't arrive in time... ;__; 

I'm going to my friend's riding stable on Sunday after the convention. One week of sitting on a horse ahead! :3 After that my dear friend Linnéa will come from Sweden for some midsummer fun we're going to have with our Sugar Gay group (unfortunately all of as can't attend). It's going to be lots of fun! So, I'll do all this in 1,5 weeks of my summer holiday! I won't return back home in between these activities so my luggage looks like this...:

Ready to travel!

Ponyta Quadsuit & Cosplay Update

I'm sorry I haven't updated more  frequently, but I've been busy with well.. making cosplays for  Desucon (one of the biggest conventions in Finland) and also making my Ponyta quadsuit. To be honest I sent in my cosplay portfolio for Nordic Cosplay Championship! Keep your thumbs up because I really want to go there with my Ponyta! Four cosplayers will represent Finland in NärCon in July and those four people will be announced in Descucon next weekend!

I drew the redlines around a duct tape dummy that Minorea helped me with. The redlines show where I need to add the padding to!

After I made the redlines for the quadsuit I've made fast progress. I have the back legs finished (the paddings are not sewn in yet though), I started with the furring of the head and finished my arm stilts too!

The head with fur on. Time to start trimming!

I added light red felt on the ears and the nosestrils. I painted shadows on them with darker light red too.

I covered the duct tape dummy leg with padding with canvas I used as a model for the fur fabrics.

Finished back legs (without padding).

Arm stilts made from PVC-pipes.

You can see how the arm stilts actually work in the video below. I wore my Gaikotsu fursuit head while trying them out.

For Desucon I'm going to wear (of course) my Gaikotsu fursuit, but only for one day. That'll most likely be Friday. For Saturday we're going to wear our new kigurumis with Minorea. They will be really bright coloured ones with pink and yellow, and we'll both wear orange wigs and ganguru gal make-up. At some point (maybe on Sunday...?) we'll join Soul Eater group cosplay. Minorea is doing Patty and I'll do Liz Thompson.

Patty & Liz

I'll be pretty lazy with this cosplay so I'll just wear old jeans instead of making them myself. The shirt and the hat will be done by me though!

After the convention I'll go straight to a friend's stable where I'll join a riding camp and after that we'll have some midsummer fun-time! I'll do my best to update on Ponyta and Liz before that. :)

1st Quadsuit Project - Ponyta

I challenged myself with a more difficult form of fursuiting: a quadsuit. For I love both fursuiting and cosplaying I decided to combine my hobbies: I'm going to cosplay Ponyta from Pokémon.

I don't even know where I got all this inpiration, but I started this new project couple of days ago. It took me only one morning to finish with the head's base! This time it's slightly easier though because I don't need to worry about the head fitting my head, eye vision or ventilation. I'll just place the head on a helmet on top of my head.

Foaming in progress.

Today I had the time to do the last touch ups on the base and cover it with duct tape. Next I will cut out the duct tape and use it as a model for cutting out fabrics. I'm excited I'm getting this done so fast!

First I planned to do the mane and the tail from yellow and orange wigs, but I changed my mind. I want it to look more like the character's fiery mane, so I'm making it from yarn. It will be a lot of work to tease the yarn so it would look good, but I've already made some of the front mane.

Mane of fire! The mane still needs to be straightened and rearranged.

The head looks more like Robot Unicorn Attack than a Ponyta at the moment, but I hope it will turn out to be a wonderful little Ponyta galloping on four legs. x3

Mimicon 2013

I attended Mimicon 2013 in Mikkeli, Finland. This was my 1st apperance in a convention wearing my fursuit! Even though it was a convention related to Japanese popular cultural, I got good reception: people came to hug me and wanted to take photographs of my fursuit. I also got many questions about fursuiting such as: "Is it hot?" and "How can you see in it?"

I have to say it was REALLY HOT! The sun was shining through the whole weekend and the temperature was a bit above +20 degrees celsius. Despite the hot weather I managed to wear my fullsuit for over 2 hours straight!

"It's so hoooot..."

I even took part in one of the convention programmes: cosplay date. The object of this silly game is to be selected as a date by the character who is seeking a partner. The characters prepares 5-10 questions and the contestants (A, B and C) answer them. Because it is a cosplay date, you need to stay in character and answer like the actual character would answer. The questioner chooses a date based on the answer to their questions.
I had lots of fun in this programme. I actually mimiced all of my answers and the host 'translated' my acts to the audience and the questioner behind the wall. The audience reacted really well and laughed a lot when I mimiced in my fursuit. Even though Gaikotsu didn't win the heart of DOGS' Bishop, this has to be the best experience I've had on stage ever!

Gaikotsu is waiting for her turn to answer the question.

The rest of the blog entry will be pictures of my fullsuit! Enjoy! :)

 

"Draw me like one of your French girls."

Gaikotsu having a drink.

Gaikotsu is such a fool...

...but she knows Taekwondo!

Gaikotsu with Minorea, who cosplays Naru from Love Hina.

Gaikotsu got summoned by Itachi! Minorea cosplays as Itachi.

1st Fullsuit WIP

Hey everyone! I've almost got my Gaikotsu fullsuit done! I never expected I could do it, but today I wore it for the first time and it was quite comfortable to wear! 8D I'm really excited to wear this suit for this weekends MimiCon. It's a Japanese popculture related convention, but we'll have a small furry meet there. :3

The after I had sewn almost all part together. I know it's a bit weird. xD

And here's how it looks on me!

I still need to make the hind paws and a new tail for myself, but other than that it's done! I'm so happy! I have new paws too and they are way better than my old ones~
I still haven't fixed the head, but I'll do that today. :3

2nd Gaikotsu Fursuit Partial

I finished my new partial in time for Oulu super meet! Actually I sewed the last bits of it on my way to Oulu on the train... And then some old sewer lady came to me and told me I should become a theater costumer. xD

These are the first sneak peak pictures I took of her with my laptop webcam (I hadn't finished all the sewing at this point):

This was me at the Oulu super meet. We went to a really cool bar! They made us flaming Rammstein -coctails and we got them after a cool fire arts show.

Me, Gestapo (the fox) and Rimawolf at the bar. Notice how similiar Gaikotsu and Rima are? That's because we are sisters! ;)

Here are some proper pictures of Gaikotsu:

Here are some things to fix in the head:
- make the muzzle/snout straight
- make it easier to wear
- make the elastics less tight
- add something to support the ears (they are kind of floppy atm)
- make eyes less puppy like
- repaint the mouth with better paint (the crafts shop keeper told me the one I used for this head is good for Fimo, but it's just crumbling off... u__u)

I also decided to start working on a full suit today! I've never done anything like it so I'm experimenting a lot! I got the top part (no sleeves) finished today and took some pictures:

And just for fun.. I did a short video so you can see how well the jaw actually works! I know it's a bit off at the moment, but I will straighten it. x3