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! :)

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. :)

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!

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. ;)

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!

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! ^^