Thursday, September 30, 2010

Miku Hatsune



Name: Miku Hatsune/初音ミク
Appearance: Vocaloid 2
Variation: "Magnet"
Height: 5'3"
Description: The first product in the Vocaloid2 Vocal Series. It is considered as the most popular and well known Vocaloid. The name of the title and the character of the software was chosen by combining Hatsu (初, first), Ne (音, sound), and Miku (未来, future) thus meaning "the first sound from the future."

Worn at: Northern NJ Cosplay Picnic 2010, Tokyo Fashion Festa Part 2: Cosplay

Why I chose this costume: 
This one is an interesting story as well. My friend uploaded a picture of a pink wig for her Kururu from Air Gear cosplay and I told her it reminded me of Luka Megurine from Vocaloid. Somewhere in the conversation I suggested doing a Vocaloid group cosplay, and we ended up choosing the song "Magnet," because the outfits were the easiest. I was originally unsure if I should be Miku or Rin, but then I ended up choosing Miku so my friend and I could cosplay together. 

Mechanics of the outfit: 
I already had a black dress, so I used that as a base. For the waistband, I took a piece of white cotton (I want to say) bought some black floral lace. Then I realized that I was supposed to buy white floral lace.. But I had already asked the worker there to cut the fabric so I had to work with it. I sewed the black lace onto the cotton to create a waistband. I had originally pinned it, but I realized (since I made the waistband for my Luka) that the waistband would droop, so I'm going to lightly bast it on the dress (since neither of us want it to be permanent).

The hardest part was the headphones. I used this Youtube video tutorial as a guide. I'm going to post an actual tutorial for this later on. The contact lenses are Dolly Blue.

For the wig, I originally wanted to put pigtails in the wig, but I realized I couldn't make high pigtails without stubbing it. I also realized there's another costume I could use this wig with that I wanted to do, so I didn't want to end up chopping off the hair. I didn't buy one with pigtails because I didn't want to spend that much money to use on one cosplay, and there aren't many costumes with just short blue hair. So I just left the hair the way it was. More information on the wig can be seen here.

Personal Feelings:
I had fun with this costume. I don't think I'll do Vocaloid for a while though haha. It's very popular right now, and I tend not to pick costumes that are super popular because then everyone else is cosplaying them as well. There aren't too many Vocaloid ones that I actually want to do. The only outfits that I really love is from "Sandplay: Singing of the Dragon." For more images, check out my deviantArt!


The images are copyrighted to their respective owners.  © TheBigTog, Carroll Kong, and Andrew Baka

ReVamp (3/4/11)
I don't know why I said in my earlier post that I don't think I'd ever cosplay Vocaloid again. After listening to more songs.. I would definitely cosplay Vocaloid again! Anyways, here is the revamped version. Almost everything was revamped.

The wig was borrowed from my friend, Kitsy Dolly. The hat and headphones remained the same. New dress, same shoes, and the gloves and stockings were borrowed. The images are the same as the ones from my other post from Tokyo Fashion Festa.

Pichu Gijinka

Name: Pichu/ピチュー
Appearance: Pokemon Generation II
Variation: Gijinka
Height: 1'00"
Type: Electric
Description: known as the "Tiny Mouse" species of Pokémon, are the pre-evolved version of Pikachu. Pichu is a small ground-dwelling rodent. Its fur is very short, and it has bright yellow coloration. The tips of its large ears are black, and it has additional black markings on its neck and short tail.

Worn at: AnimeNEXT 2010

Why I chose this costume: 
There's an interesting story for this. My roommate is one of the reasons I got into cosplaying. I've always wanted to cosplay, but didn't have the skill or money for it. Then I learned that she cosplayed as well, so that pretty much started me off in cosplaying. She mentioned she was doing a Plusle and Minun gijinka with her best friend, so I was looking up Pokemon gijinkas to do. I thought, why not do a whole Pikachu family cosplay? I decided I was going to do Pichu and my friends volunteered cosplaying as Pikachu and Raichu. Thus, the Pikachu family is born!

Mechanics of the outfit: 
My mom made the base dress and the petticoat underneath. I made the ears, and sewed on the collar. For the tail, I followed the reference picture and made sewed a ribbon in the back. For the shoes, I just wore a pair of yellow Harajuku Lovers converses that I had. I decided not to purchase a wig and just keep my natural hair. I originally had no intention of purchasing another wig because it would've been too expensive at the time.

The ears were the hardest part. I was feeling uninspired and short on time. I made ear covers with the fabric used for the dress, which was a terrible idea because it was a knit fabric so it was stretchy. I was originally going to put foam board inside the covers, and attach them to a headband, which completely failed. Then I used bubble wrap so it would be lighter, which sort of worked, but would have still failed. Suddenly I had an epiphany the night before I had to debut it. I put my hair in pigtails and pinned the ears to it. It completely worked. It flopped from now and then, but it still worked.

Disclaimer: The entire outfit is not made by myself.

Personal Feelings:
Ahh.. This was a fun cosplay. I don't think I'll do another Pokemon gijinka for a while though, haha. Unless I needed a cosplay and absolutely had nothing else to do. I guess because a gijinka isn't an actual official outfit. You could throw parts and bits together to make a gijinka, which makes it different and unique, but it's not official. There's nothing to base it upon. For more images, check out my deviantArt!







Copyright © 2010 Knightmare6 (Philip Ng). All rights reserved.

Kurama

Name: Kurama/蔵馬
Appearance: Yu Yu Hakusho
Variation: Dark Tournament Outfit
Description: Kurama is perhaps the most calculating, cunning, and analytical member in the series and of the main characters. He is able to carefully look past his feelings and see the real situation at hand, demonstrated on more than one occasion. In battle, while his preference is to concoct strategies based on deducing his opponents abilities, he is quite cutthroat when the need arises.

Worn at: AnimeNEXT 2010, Northern NJ Cosplay Picnic 2010

Why I chose this costume:
If anyone knows me, my all time favorite anime is Yu Yu Hakusho, despite the fact that I have yet to actually finish the series.. But my favorite character is Kurama. I don't want to go crazy fan girl, but I absolutely love him. I'm going to stop there. I think I had originally wanted to make his school uniform, but was discouraged because.. well it is essentially a school uniform. So I decided to use one of his dark tournament oufits.

Mechanics of the outfit: 
My mom helped me cut out the pattern, and sewed the collar. I sewed the blue lining. The white shirt I already had. For the pants, I took white sweatpants and sewed an elastic band on the inside. The rose whip is made by my friend, Youkuro, aka. my Hiei. The waistband was the remaining fabric from the lining, which I pinned in. The shoes were Tai Chi shoes that I had in my house. For the contacts, I used Dolly green. More information on the wig can be seen here.

Disclaimer: The entire outfit is not made by myself.

Personal Feelings:
I had fun with this cosplay haha. I met a bunch of crazy fan girls. I also met my Hiei at the convention I debuted it. I'm glad I got to cosplay as Kurama. ^^ For more images, check out my deviantart!

 




© 2010 TheBigTog. Any use of this photograph for ANY reason without the expressed written consent of the author is prohibited.

Tifa Lockhart

Name: Tifa Lockhart/ティファ・ロックハート
Appearance: Final Fantasy VII
Variation: Advent Children
Age: 22
Height: 5'4"
Blood Type: B
Description: Tifa Lockhart is a female protagonist in Final Fantasy VII. She is Cloud's childhood friend from Nibelheim and a member of AVALANCHE. Her personality is much more laid back and selfless in comparison, with a motherly streak concerning all her friends and her attitude to others. Tifa is quick to hide her true feelings her being shyness a key aspect of her character, and she is caring and loving to a fault.

Bright and optimistic, Tifa always cheers up the others when they're down. But don't let her looks fool you, she can decimate almost any enemy with her fists...

Worn at: AnimeNEXT 2010

Why I chose this costume:
Ironically, she wasn't my first choice. I wanted a third costume for AnimeNEXT and I was originally going to cosplay as Yuffie Kisaragi in her Advent Children outfit. I think I was partially discouraged from being Tifa. Then I decided I didn't want to cosplay as Yuffie, and wanted to cosplay as Rikku from Final Fantasy X-2. First her thief outfit, got shot down from that, then her songstress outfit, which was likewise shot down. Somehow I wound up back to Tifa and decided to just cosplay her.

Mechanics of the outfit:
I cannot even begin to describe what a pain in the butt it was to make this costume.. It wasn't the design that was the issue. It was the fabric. I didn't buy pleather, I want to say it's vinyl pleather, but I'm not totally sure. It was basically a knit (stretchy) fabric with a film of the shiny stuff on it. I had to experience this first hand when the film on the back of the pants started to melt(?) off. I think it was because it was hot and I was sitting outside during the convention. But the cape in the back covers it so it's not too big of a deal.

The only parts I made are the pants. The rest my mom made because I ran short on time (and I don't know how to sew a vest yet..). I cut up the shirt, the shoes, gloves, and ribbon I already had.

Disclaimer: The entire outfit is not made by myself.

Personal Feelings:
I have to admit, prior to cosplaying her, I never played the game. In fact, I still have yet to finish it! But I watched "Advent Children" and just been reading online, and the more I read the more I fell in love with her character and her personality. Her personality is somewhat similar to mine, and I love that she isn't like the generic female character, she's strong, a heroine even. For more images, check out my deviantArt!

© 2010 TheBigTog. Any use of this photograph for ANY reason without the expressed written consent of the author is prohibited.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Yuna's Tiny Bee Guns

Err.. Skipping cosplays haha. I haven't been able to work on a lot of stuff recently because I underestimated the intensity of some of my classes. They aren't difficult. They are just time consuming. I'm currently stuck on design homework, so I'm updating this blog.

Updating once every 2 weeks seems too little.. But we shall see what happens. My cosplay plans for 2011 are changing once again, so when the new year begins, I'll update it.. again.. haha. I have another surprise, but I'll announce it once it's confirmed ^^

In other news. I'm not sure if you know of Hiyoko-chan/Teeny from TotallyToasty, the girl from my previous posts with the awesome FFX Yuna tutorial. Well. I sincerely look up to her for her cosplaying, and the other day she said she was selling some of her cosplay things on deviantArt. One of the things she was selling that caught my interest was her FFX-2 Gunner Yuna Tiny Bee Guns seen in the image on the right.

I do plan on cosplaying as her one day.. I also didn't want to have to go through the trouble of making prop guns. And Hiyoko-chan's craftsmanship is pretty high quality. Had to seize the opportunity ^^

I'm going to revamp them a little bit. There are just slight smears in some places and I want to fix the lettering on the guns. Nothing too serious haha. This way I can feel a slight sense of accomplishment.. ^^

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

2010 Northern New Jersey Cosplay Picnic

On August 14th, I went to the 2010 Northern New Jersey Cosplay Picnic in Chatham, New Jersey. The picnic was held at Passaic River County Park. It was held by the lovely Tanya Wheelock and her sister Autumn Wheelock. Where do I begin to describe this experience..

This was the first cosplay picnic I have ever attended. Overall, it was a lot of fun! It was only a small group of people, so it wasn't too bad. Getting there was probably the worst. There is no address for the place. The main road you take winds around. It took us at least.. half an hour of getting lost?

But all in all I had a blast! I invited my photographer friend I met at AnimeNEXT, TheBigTog. If you remember, he shot my [first] Tifa Lockhart photoshoot. ^^ Anyways, I did two photoshoots. The first, my friend (the Hiei from AnimeNEXT) wanted to do a "shipping" photoshoot for Hiei and Kurama. So I went to the picnic dressed as Kurama.

Then after the photoshoot was done, I debuted Miku Hatsune from Vocaloid, with her outfit from "Magnet," while my friend cosplayed as Luka Megurine. We debuted the headphones and waistband that I made ^^ I will be making a tutorial for the headphones soon!

After I did my Miku x Luka photoshoot, I just hung around with everyone and we went our separate ways. I made a bunch of new friends ^^ I had fun haha. Will definitely go next year if there is another one. I'm going to upload some photos from the two photoshoots in a different post. I had Miku shot a few times by several different photographers, but I think I'm only going to upload the ones TheBigTog photographed on Blogspot. For the others, check out my deviantArt!