Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Gundam 00: Revive Revival

gundam 00 cosplay - revive revivalThe genetic twin of Anew Returner, Revive is an innovator who pilots the Gadessa. He joins the A-Laws and agrees to follow Kati Mannequin's battle strategies even though he was a special licence that allows him to act independently. He and Anew were suppose to steal the 00 Gundam and the 0 Raiser, but failed as Anew was in love with one of the Gundam Pilots, Lyle Dylandy.

Beautiful cosplay! The photgrapher behind this is Shiro Ang, and the model is Jingggg from Deviant Art! Thanks for sharing this!

Gundam 00: Revive Revival

gundam 00 cosplay - revive revivalThe genetic twin of Anew Returner, Revive is an innovator who pilots the Gadessa. He joins the A-Laws and agrees to follow Kati Mannequin's battle strategies even though he was a special licence that allows him to act independently. He and Anew were suppose to steal the 00 Gundam and the 0 Raiser, but failed as Anew was in love with one of the Gundam Pilots, Lyle Dylandy.

Beautiful cosplay! The photgrapher behind this is Shiro Ang, and the model is Jingggg from Deviant Art! Thanks for sharing this!

Monday, September 28, 2009

Why you make it yourselves..?

Occasionally on our various accounts people ask us where we got "that 'n' that" and we always answer that we made it ourselves. We are not fans of ready-made costumes or props. Cosplay for us doesn't only mean having fun in odd outfits (which we do enjoy). The whole process counts. We start from patterns, finding fabrics and materials and also solutions how to make different props and accessories. Contructing part isn't always pure joy. We and specially I do have breakdowns and want to quit, but sometimes little pain just pushes you forward. When you see the finished costume you get an urge to pat yourself in the head.

We choose to do costumes from scratch, because then they are unique. You can be sure that no one else have made it like you have and you even might have done little better than some other cosplayer. Little competition is healthy, I'd say. People do get their costumes bought and it's cool, but we just can't get enjoyment out of that. It's much more satisfying to do it yourself than boss around wearing something that anybody could have.
Sasori's body from 2007 (check Yoki's cute ponytail!)

Whenever you speak or read about cosplay you can't avoid the matter of mass-cosplay. I don't see mass-cosplays as a bad thing if the term is there to describe cosplay from popular series. But when mass-cosplay represents manufactured costumes made by oppurtunist companies, it's just idiotic and a sign of laziness. Ok, the point was, that when anime gets popular companies starts to manufacture costumes from the series. Easy access to costumes makes people to buy them. Big fan base creates herd of cosplayers who look the same.

I see cosplay purely fandom based. Wearing a costume is a sign that you like the series you are cosplaying from. I can't see the connection when you buy costume from company that benefits from your interests when it comes to your hobby. After all you like the series, you aren't the fan of the costume making company. I don't know do the makers of manga or anime get their share when costumes are bought, that is a matter I should see into before I start pointing fingers... But still, cosplaying is your own choice to display your liking and making your own costume is a sign of your devotion.

Then there is the accuracy aspect. Like all mass producted clothes, costumes are also made based on basic figures. They might not suit your bodytype or proportion. When you make a costume you can affect on measurements. Right cut can work wonders even if you don't have the exact figure of your character. Sometimes ready-made costumes lack details. When you work from your reference pictures you can get every little thing fall to it's place. And we do take reference pictures seriously. It would have been really easy to buy hitai-ate for Deidara, but they just are so ridiculously big and not in any scale compared to human that I just couldn't approve it.
Still some bending with the references is good or even needed, because sometimes characters designs just miss seams that are necessary to make a fitting clothes.

Dyeing operation for Sasori's wig from 2007

Of course there are some things that are really hard to do. Wigs are the possibly the most usual objects people purchase for their costumes. High-quality wigs which are styled according to the characters could be a possible choice for us, if we were to cosplay character who has ridiculously long hair etc. We have this far dyed and styled our wigs by ourselves and it really gets easier every time.

But then there is also things that you can't find anywhere. For example Mayuri's hat, ear-chin piece, detonator and... uh... face. When you pursue accuracy you just have to make the work yourself... Or you can commission it. I see nothing wrong in commissioning props or wigs if you give respect whom ever it belongs to. And this I could say about bought costumes too which are purcahed from costume-makers or possibly sewing skilled friends.

Mayuri's hat in making from 2007

There are lot of great tutorials when it comes to making a costume. They are not too hard to find and usually fellow cosplayers gladly answer questions. I recommend that if you have seen some costume which you are going to make and like the result go and ask directly from the cosplayer how it was made and what materials were used. Of course some people wan't to keep their secrets for themselves. If you don't get an answer try someone else (in our case, be patient... sometimes we just are slow or suffer memory loss). Search for forum posts or make one yourself.

As I said before, I don't think ill of people who buy their costumes. I just give respect to them who makes the effort. Crafting skills are not self-evidence but with imagination and guts you can work wonders.


Sunday, September 27, 2009

STGCC Day 2 Videos!

I think……I should be about done with all my STGCC Videos. I still have some footages of some pretty awesome cosplayers but time waits for no one and I better buckle up and start on the GCA (Games Comics Convention)’s video editing already.

Haruhi Vs Ryu!

I apologise for the very bad audio quality once again. Video was kindly filmed by Dan (yessss that Alto XD). I had thougths of not uploading this video because I thought I fared pretty badly as a reporter/interviewer. Committed the worse error any interviewer could have committed and that was to go on screen totally unprepared! So…I was pretty much winging it though xD.

Nontheless, our Ryu here did great and I thought its only fair I show his awesomeness to the world.

Jia-Er and Valerie’s Sigma Harmonics!

When I first saw them and asked casually what series they were cosplaying , jia-Er very animatedly started pimping the game while jumping a little. And insisting I should play it because, in her own words “its very nice~!!!” .

To me, that’s the true spirit of Cosplay. To do it because you love the character and series. Not just because the costume looked nice or because you want to garner spotlight for cosplaying a new/prominent character. And definitely not cosplaying just to boost your “Cosplay portfolio”.

Channel News Asia

Just got a message from Kheldar. Seems like some local cosplayer were caught on the Channel news Asia’s Almost Famous programme.

Even though the programme was very Japan centric, apparently for god knows what reason, they used some footages from TGCC (The Games Comics Convention).

image

Ariki and Skye were on it :D!

Versailles__Hizaki_hime_by_cerafiMacross Frontier

Ariki and Skye are 2 gorgeous Cosplayers from Singapore. check out their DA to be awed xD. Now…if only I can get my hands on some video footage of the programme……

Cosplay-might-happen-list

In the first post I asked what should we cosplay next. Then I remembered that I had this list about characters that we have thought about doing or planning to do when we get done with our current projects.

Here is the list. Tell us which pair would be cool to see done and made real!


Tokusa and Madarao from D.Gray-man



I so sympathize with these guys. They have so little air time in the manga even though they are interesting and complex characters. And in other hand they have kooky design and the fighting uniform would be rather easy and quick to do. And I'm fond of their personalities. Expecially Tokusa seems truly contra
sting personality. I would like to portray him, but because I have hunch that he is shorter than Madarao I just can't see it happening... But hey, I think Madarao is cool with he's funky hairstyle and all. I would gladly cosplay as him.

Haine... Bishop and Giovanni from DOGS

DOGS is one of t
he few manga that we both actually read. I fell in love with Miwa Shirow's character design and story telling. First I thought that we should do Haine and Badou, but then Giovanni stole Badou's place. We actually got some stuff for this cosplay. I managed to style Giovannis wig and do the patterns for his suit. But then all progress stopped. We haven't planned of going to any convention and we were busy with other things. I don't know, maybe we try again later with these guys.


EDIT: Yoki suprised me! She had almost forgotten the existence of DOGS and read the few updates that she had missed. Now in Haine is history! The new guy is the all-so-bizarre Bishop!


Setsuna and Lockon from Gundam 00


I think this was fully my idea! I really tried to get Yoki to watch this series, but she didn't find it as interesting as I did. But these were my favorite characters. I like drama and I saw these two the most tragical characters. I think Gundam 00 has been my most upsetting anime experience so far. There is many great characters in these series, but because Setsuna and Lockon are linked more than in one way they'd be the couple we'd do (if Yoki would approve).

Yoshimitsu and Tira from Soul Calibur III

This pair have followed us two or three years now. We have made some blueprints for the armour pieces and patterns for the clothes but then we got short on money. I think that character designs in Soul Calibur games are... well... exraordinary, but with all the details and rich materials it gets really expencive. But I still think that we really need to bring these lunatics to life someday or they will hunt us for the rest of our lives. I love Tira. Yoki loves Yoshimitsu.

EDIT: Originally we chose outfits from Soul Calibur III, but then Soul Calibur IV were published. We were bit worried if Yoshimitsu were playable characters when first bits of information started leaking out and there were no mention about him. But he was
! So both of our favorite characters from the series were included with new costumes and designs. Yep, it's hard to choose when you have so many alternatives...


Rush Sykes and David Nassau from The Last Remnant

Well... As you can see this game's character design is very pleasing. This is again my idea. Yoki was quite puzzled when I told her about this list and characters that I had included. I don't understand how she forgot. I chattered with her quite a bit when I first bumped to this game. I think that there is so many interesting patterns and material combinations that they just call me to make them.


Clef and Ascot from Magic Knight Rayearth

Magic Knight Rayearth is the one and only shoujo manga from which we might cosplay. I don't know how we chose these characters. I think it was only based on liking. There were also massive props and for me patterns and silhouettes that I really hadn't done before. All the previous we thought were worth trying and making. I really don't remember why we burried these gyus... But still... we never know what happens next.



There you go! This is my part of listing the characters we could or might cosplay. Yoki will do her own list and add the ones that I possibly have missed.

What do you think about these characters?

Bleach: Lilynette Gingerback

The young, female fracción of the Primera Espada, Coyote Starrk, Lilynette Gingerback is depicted as short-tempered and vocal, often showing emotions that Coyote does not. Coyote is the Espada that represents “Loneliness” but prefers to be surrounded by friends, even going to the point of pretending to be weak as weak ones don’t have to fight by themselves. It was through this grief that Lilynette was born.

She is also the one who holds Coyote’s power instead of a zanpakuto like the rest of the Espada. When they combine into Los Lobos, Lilynette is one of the guns Coyote wields.

It would be difficult to cosplay Lilynette in an actual convention, that’s for sure. So I guess there will only be private photo shoots for this cosplay. Nice job!

Bleach: Lilynette Gingerback

The young, female fracción of the Primera Espada, Coyote Starrk, Lilynette Gingerback is depicted as short-tempered and vocal, often showing emotions that Coyote does not. Coyote is the Espada that represents “Loneliness” but prefers to be surrounded by friends, even going to the point of pretending to be weak as weak ones don’t have to fight by themselves. It was through this grief that Lilynette was born.

She is also the one who holds Coyote’s power instead of a zanpakuto like the rest of the Espada. When they combine into Los Lobos, Lilynette is one of the guns Coyote wields.

It would be difficult to cosplay Lilynette in an actual convention, that’s for sure. So I guess there will only be private photo shoots for this cosplay. Nice job!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia: Caren Ortensia

fate/hollow ataraxia cosplay - caren ortensiaA member of the Church and Burial Agency, Caren is a kind-hearted priestess who believes her only purpose in life is to help others. When she is hurt, she does not blame the individual who hurt her, but places the blame on demons. When she is at fault, she apologizes to God and not to the person she was wronged.

Strangely enough, despite her projected kindness, she loves exploiting other people’s weaknesses, antagonizing them to the point of humiliating them. She also deliberately wears her priestess robes without the skirt to seduce men.

That is one scary priestess. And yes, I know she’s suppose to have white hair, but that has never stopped me from featuring cosplayers like her. Awesome job!

Fate/Hollow Ataraxia: Caren Ortensia

fate/hollow ataraxia cosplay - caren ortensiaA member of the Church and Burial Agency, Caren is a kind-hearted priestess who believes her only purpose in life is to help others. When she is hurt, she does not blame the individual who hurt her, but places the blame on demons. When she is at fault, she apologizes to God and not to the person she was wronged.

Strangely enough, despite her projected kindness, she loves exploiting other people’s weaknesses, antagonizing them to the point of humiliating them. She also deliberately wears her priestess robes without the skirt to seduce men.

That is one scary priestess. And yes, I know she’s suppose to have white hair, but that has never stopped me from featuring cosplayers like her. Awesome job!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Mirai Gundam

Gundam of the Future aka Mirai Gundam is finally done! 5 days worth of work and countless hours... Countless because I didn't keep track of how long it took me to make it. There were some extra unaccountable work that I did not foresee. But here is my blog's first anniversary project finally done. In case you don't know, mirai means future in English.

Beware, there are a LOT of pictures! XD

So what started all this? Why, it's Mirai Suenaga of course, the mascot to DannyChoo.com. I knew I wanted to make another Gundam kitbash after the Saber Gundam, but I couldn't figure out what. Then I thought a Mirai Gundam would be feasible with the use of Nadleeh! Oh and if you saw my first post about this Gundam project, I've added a red herring... which is the GN Archer. I didn't use any parts of it on Mirai Gundam :P I have another plan for that one.

Now a word of warning: I am not that good of a modeller... I only have something in mind but I cannot execute it well. So please don't mind the crappy paint job and overall of it, lol. I may take some advice and wouldn't mind having a suggestion for which paint I can use instead of markers for future references if I have time to fix it.

Here's a quick tour of the Mirai Gundam... In the front you'll notice the "d" on the chest. That was a printed out decal from my computer and stuck on with glue. It's not well done and some of the paint stuck on the front of it before. I had to fix it real quick with white paint. Hopefully it's not too bad. Forgot to mention... instead of the ribbon on the chest, I opted to colour in the core in the blue ribbon colour.

The neck piece that is used for the Kyrios torso tilts forwards and backwards, so it has a bit of an effect on the hair at the front.

Angled side view shows the "d" logo on the side of the arm that's supposed to be a part of the uniform for Mirai. And I gotta say... this is the first time I've seen a Gundam with "socks"! I laughed and laughed at this fact. It just looks so strange XD


Here's the back side... the hair had to be repainted just before I took these photos. Some of the paint peeled off because the hair is actually a flexible piece instead of other materials. In the future I may have to repaint it again.


Another side view shows the hair tie on the side of Mirai's head. It was hard to paint it because I was all shaky and couldn't paint in a straight line. I can see visibly how the paint is rubbing off here... I'll fix that soon.

Here's the Mirai printout I used for colour reference. You can see that I was trying to compare my Gundam markers to the original art.


Mirai Gundam with GN Rifle! What do you like best? Mirai with a gun...

Or with a beam saber?

Or perhaps with dual beam sabers?

I'm trying to do all the poses that Mirai does, but unfortunately Danny's mascot page is offline at the moment... Either that or I can't find it at the moment. If I remember other poses that I haven't done, I'll post it here or make another post.


Mirai Gundam with hanky? Do Gundams cry GN particles?

This is the Mirai Figma pose that was shown at Tokyo Figure Show... though the arms are a bit too long here ^^;


The pantsu exposing pose... And YES, I painted the bottom part white for this reason! :P Cannot unsee?

Here's a pose where Mirai is supposed to be in a maid uniform... but I don't have one, so go with this one ok?

I visited Chun on Thursday to show her this Mirai Gundam. She suggested I do outdoor photos. It was a nice day outside, but it was kinda windy. As for the people watching me, I didn't even notice. I was focused on the Gundam not falling from the wind and trying to get the right focus for the camera.

So here she is outside... Had to prop her up on the box I was carrying her in because there weren't any stable surface outside.


Mirai... it's not nice to read over someone's shoulder... or their wrist for that matter. A bronze statue that sat on the bench at the mall I went to.

The mall had an indoor garden with perhaps fake plants... I thought it was a nice setting for this. Just as I finished taking these pictures, my brother called and I tried to quickly grab the Gundam as I was talking... Unfortunately I dropped her on the pot of dirt right beside this bridge... Thankfully it wasn't so dirty. I also noticed a security guard passing by, but she didn't say anything to me.

There's a waterfall in the background.

This is what it'll look lilke IF Danny uses Mirai Gundam as part of the DannyChoo.com banner XD

Here's that kneeling picture again. This time she's holding a smaller version of her Gundam ^^

I really liked this dual wield beam saber pose! So much so that maybe we can use it for a Figure.fm header?



And finally, I had to do a parody of that Hidamari Sketch scene... Gundams are a bit hard to handle unfortunately ^^;


I think I'll have more things I'll do with Mirai Gundam in the future, she is after all, Gundam of the future!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Secret Gundam Project II: Days 2-5

So this time my Gundam project took about 4 days to finish and I have no idea how many hours it took. Before I post the final Gundam I'll show you the progress it took to get there. Some of you may know what this Gundam is just by looking at the first picture.

The pictures above and below are the results of day 1 and 2. Colours are set and I've decided which piece needs that colour.


I saw the back of the torso and looking at the colours, I immediately thought of Kinder Surprise XD


On the third day I was cooped up in my room, so I decided to colour using the markers which doesn't give too much fumes. The knees and the legs get their colours along with the feet. I originally got a gray marker to colour the legs... but it was way too dark. So the next day I coloured it silver.


On day 4 was my last day of work, so I was able to stay up and worked a lot more on the kit. I've finally tried out the first actual paint I'm using on a kit instead of markers. I'm very surprised how well the colours match properly to the original.


And here's that ballcap joints that I was trying to make for the arms so that it could connect to the shoulders. I had an annoying time filing down the original ball on the left to what it looks like to the right. Filing, sanding... it was a pain in the ass I tells ya! One of them I actually used the plastic cutter to chop it down to size. The latter worked better... I'm in the process of acquiring actual ball caps. Hopefully they'll fit.


And here's the Gundam leg that gave me a good laugh. I believe this is the first time I've seen a Gundam with socks XD


On Wednesday, the fift day, I managed to get the labels/decals on the pieces I need them. I originally wanted to use the markers to make it, but it was futile. I printed them out on paper instead and cut them out, but they're so fricking tiny! I couldn't find a glue stick... So I went with this super glue thing called Mr. One Push Button. The thing I wanted to glue on is so small that some of the glue came on my fingers. My index finger and thumb was stuck for a second. It hurts like hell for a while after I pulled them apart >_<

The Gundam's all done now and I took pictures of it outdoors for the very first time (on Chun's urging). All will be revealed on Friday.

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