It's Nearly Over...

I've actually been taking quite a few costume photos at Connecticon this year! I'm pretty proud of myself. However, I neglected to think about how I'd get the photos to my computer while in CT... oh, dear. I suppose there won't be any photos until Sunday or Monday. Sorry. :<

I picked up a lot of Pokemon-related merchandise this year, and dropped some money on some hardcover volumes of Black Jack (discounted heavily... awesome!), nice prints from the artist alley, and a Totoro piano book. And a handful of Japanese goodies, since Connecticon lets vendors sell them :3

I also was gifted a Jirachi on my Pokemon Diamond game! And here I had thought I'd missed my chance to get it. So cute, and with a crazy 140-power move. o_o;

That's all for this little update. I'll be hitting the con un-costumed tomorrow for a few hours. I'll be going to a makeup panel, and maybe try for an autograph. A relaxed day.

Hope everyone attending has been having a good weekend.

Connecticon is here!

...why am I still awake? It's Connecticon time, I should be sleeping! Oh, well. I'll be quick here.

This year I'll be going to CTcon for all three days, and I have what I believe is a functional camera, so I'm going to try to post some pics and notes throughout the weekend. I don't have any particular goals this year... my friends aren't really around for entering the Rock Band tourney again or anything... so I'll be floating, which is, frankly, pretty awesome. I'm going to try to get a mix of experiences. I might even try out the scavenger hunt ^_^

Poor Mike's wig still makes him look a bit like a Beatle in this photo... oh, well. I still like it. It's from Anime Boston last year, but the costume is relevant... read on... ._.;

The costume situation is a little sad. My wig never arrived (I still haven't heard word about it despite sending emails... I'll provide updates on this saga for the sake of helping those of you considering making a purchase at limebarb... I'm trying not to judge, yet), so no Pokemon this time around. That was okay and planned for. I spent some time today ironing my Souseiseki costume, hemming the cape (the only thing I had time to fix on this costume for now, which is fine), and getting everything else together. I planned meticulously! I organized, as I do best! And yet, somehow dropped the ball and left the clothing parts of my costume hanging on my fridge door. Oh, my. I guess that black plastic bag made it blend in... you know, to the white fridge... >_>

Not my finest moment. >______> Uh... I blame work-related stress?

Fortunately I have some other costumes here, and for the sake of comfort and cuteness, I'm going as space commander Haruhi Suzumiya again. I really like the costume, so I'm not exactly upset about it ^_^ Look for me in red, if any one is ever at all looking for me. I don't think Kyon will be making an appearance this time around.

And, from now on, my checklist goes with me into the car for a once-over just before pulling out of the parking lot. Just in case.

I'm going to rest up for the big weekend. Hope you're doing the same!

Oh man, am I actually making a post? Yeah. Don't fall out of your seat.

Life is nuts right now. Really. Here's a costume-related update.

• Connecticon is this weekend! Yay! Since I already ordered the wig from limebarb.com (I just can't do wigs, at least not now >_>), I decided to bring out my Pokemon Gijinka costume for the occasion. I only have a few days to fix it up. I did a test run the other night with what I have done, and, well... it makes me look fat! D: Let's just say it needs a little help. Additionally, everything still needs fasteners and the like. I'm going to try to fix up the vest to give a little more waist definition. The nice thing about this costume is since it's based on someone's interpretation of a Pokemon, I can modify it however I please! I'm thinking of a lower vest neckline, and maybe ribbon or some other kind of tie around the waist. The shoes are also a bit problematic, but they will likely stay as they are, unless I find some kind of miracle solution at the craft store today. The stores in this state are awful, though, so I'm not holding my breath.


• My job future is a bit uncertain, so I've had to stop production on my WoW Druid costume. However, I've already bought lots of planning materials and books, so the planning will continue. Patterns will be made! Techniques will be learned (in theory at least)! Horray. Horrah. In this vein, I'll be making one or more posts about leatherworking techniques in the future, so look out for that.


• I ended up with no photos from Anime Boston this year, as I broke my camera about half an hour into the event. Boo! It was a complete whirlwind this year, anyway... so strange...


• And, finally, once I DO have some certain money again, I will be posting a list of upcoming projects. It seems I won't have anything done for Blizzcon this year (again >_>), but hopefully I can still pull off a costume for the Harry Potter premier!

That's my world right now... a bit all over the place, but the costumes are finding their way into the shuffle. Hopefully things will stabilize for me soon. I also have some tutorials in the works, which I know I always talk about and rarely post. But they're in progress. Truthies.

Leave a comment if you're going to be at CTcon next weekend... we'll look for each other!

Costumes for the New Year!

Happy New Year! I don't know about you, but I've had a crazy couple of months. I'm ready to start fresh and break open the packaging for a fresh new 2010. That last decade is old news, man.

I've graduated from school and even managed to get myself a job (for now), so things are going pretty well. The only unfortunate thing is that I'm still in the tiny living space I was last year, which makes costume creation extra-challenging. I'm hoping to be in a larger space by halfway through the year, but... who knows. I'm sure I'll be moving at least once this year.

So what's on the cosplay docket for Triene this year? Well, let's see!

The big news in the convention community of the Boston area and, honestly, the east coast as a whole, is that PAX is coming to Boston! We're all very excited about it. I haven't decided if I actually want to cosplay for it... I might just ride it out and use it as a networking and learning opportunity, as games are my career of choice, and I think I could learn a lot at the con without having to think about costuming. Plus, it could leave me more free to report on any cosplay there for your enjoyment! :D

Anime Boston is immediately after PAX. I think it's finally time to pull out the Pokemon Gaijinka costume that I created oh-so-long ago! I can actually afford the wig commission, and there is very little other work to do on it, so I think it will be perfect for a con that's so close to already being here.

Further down the line are the "up-in-the-air" cons... i.e., the cons I plan on going to unless something (new job, moving, sudden loss of funds) prevents me from going. These are Blizzcon (woo!) and Connecticon. Will I be able to create my Stormrage gear by Blizzcon? In this little room, probably not. But I'll see how it goes. For Connecticon I usually pull a costume out of the costume closet that hasn't seen much love lately, or that is convenient for me to wear. My friends and I will likely enter the Rockband tournament again this year... will we come out on top again? We shall see.

The idea of Otakon this year was batted around, but like the aforementioned two cons, I don't think I'll be able to commit to it as early as I'll need to to make it happen. Next year, then.

Finally, if you didn't know, the second-to-last Harry Potter movie comes out (it had better!) in the fall of this year. I have wanted to make a Bellatrix Lestrange costume, and I may seize this movie as my opportunity. Or, it may have to wait until the last movie comes out next summer.

At any rate, we shall see how this unpredictable year unfolds for me. What are your cosplay goals for the year? What cons are you going to?

Connecticon 2009 freakin' rocked...

It's true! Connecticon was completely awesome this year. I didn't make it to any of the panels I wanted to see, but it was totally worth it.

I went with some friends, and most of them made it to at least a few of the panels they wanted to see, so that worked out. For one of them, it was their first con, so that was all very exciting.

Four of us made a second attempt (from last year) at entering the Rock Band tournament under the name Tanhaüser Gate... and we won! :D I did the whole thing in Haruhi Suzumiya cosplay... oh well. I love that costume! (PS... this photo of me in my Space Commander Haruhi cosplay is actually from Anime Boston this year, but since that post was lacking photos and I wore this costume to CTcon as well... here it is! Shh...)

I'll add links/photos when we're actually able to get our hands on them. I'm pretty sure they're being held hostage in the cameras of the guys who came out from Harmonix to judge. They were very nice! They gave us prizes and let us talk to them for a while about games, a business which I hope to enter very soon, so it was a very valuable way for me to spend some time.

All in all it took about 6 or 8 hours to do all of the tournament stuff, so we missed most of the con stuff. It was totally worth it. Like I said.

On Sunday, we roamed about a bit more. I went to an anime sing- and dance-along panel, which was run by a voice actress. It was pretty fun! I'm sure there's some video on the internet somewhere of me in a Carmelldansen conga line at 9:30 in the am in a Haruhi costume... ah, conventions. I got to sing and dance Hare Hare Yukai a few times in my costume, so that made me very happy. An enjoyable time overall... I hope they do it again next year. ^_^

Later on Sunday, we dropped by the Legend of Neil booth to play some Settlers of Catan with Sandeep Parikh, who was in The Guild and who had been very nice to us all weekend long. He tried to make a lot of bitch trades with me, and I was having none of that. I can't remember who won. I think it was him, the jerk. Then he signed our posters. :<

I wish I had gotten to check out more cosplay, but I didn't have much time because of the tournament. I saw some very good costumes! My personal favourite was a little girl I saw at the beginning of the day Saturday who was dressed as Yotsuba. It was great. She was so cute! I feel kind of bad that I put it on the internet :<< but I had to share her cuteness with the world. I wish you could see the hair better. It was a good idea; they made it out of felt. It looked much better in person!

I really hope I can make Connecticon next year, because they just keep making it bigger and better every year. Maybe they'll also remember to put the Rock Band tourney finals on the program so we can play to a crowd of more than a dozen!

...it was still awesome.

Did you go? What did you think? What did you do? And, most importantly, what did you wear?

[end]

Pokemon Gijinka

So this whole Pokemon Gijinka thing seems to be pretty popular nowadays... about as popular as Gurren Lagann cosplay is right now, it seems. This is a costume someone designs for a person to look like or at least exude the essence of the Pokemon.

Personally, I am completely into it; I love love Pokemon, and I don't love fur suits. :<

Also, I am interested in fashion and costume design, and the ways artists are translating pokemon into interesting costumes for males and females is really interesting and inspiring.

I'm planning on doing one of these designs if I manage to get myself over to Connecticon this year. Depending on how much time I have, I'll be doing one of these three:

Gabite: Probably the most time consuming/complicated of these, but its a cool Pokemon.

Azumarill: Cute Pokemon, cute costume... it would probably take second longest of the three.

Drifloon: My favourite Pokemon (really), and a simple costume to do.

I downloaded all the designs in a .rar file that was posted on 4chan in /cgl/... however, I believe they came from this site (it's in Japanese... but if you look for the links on the left that are numbered 1-50, etc, you should be able to see them easily). Other artists make these as well; however, this seems to be the most widely known and used.

What do you think about this trend? Or the Gurren Lagann trend? What cosplay trends are you into or would you like to see?

I can't wait to go to Otakon this year and see what costumes are there.

Also, Zabuza's Sword step-by-step instructions are almost complete... should be posted soon.