Silkkipaino osa 1/3

No niin, ensimmäinen postaus sitten tällä kotoisalla suomenkielellä. Syy tähän on yksinkertaisesti se, että tämän kerran aiheen termit on niin suurta kysymysmerkkiä englanniksi, että hyvä kun ymmärsin itsekään mitä kirjoitin kun tätä siten yritin sepittää.

Eli se kauan odotettu(?) serigrafia (valotustekniikalla) postaus olisi nyt luvassa. Lupaan selittää pitkään ja hartaasti, tämän aiheen kartoittamiseen kun ei menekään ihan pientä hetkeä. Aihe onkin jaettu kolmeen eri postaukseen, ensimmäisenä kerron mitä tekniikalla oikein tarkoitetaan ja mitä kaikkea pitää ottaa huomioon välineitä ostaessa.

Mikäli kysyttävää jäi tai joku kohta muuten vaan oli epäselvästi, niin ehdottomasti kommenttia alhaalle, vastaan mikäli osaan. Joillekin on varmasti joitakin kohtia saatettu opettaa eritavalla, mutta itse olen todennut nämä hyviksi ja toimiviksi. Kannattaa ottaa huomioon kuitenkin eri merkkien ja laitteiden toimintaerot, joita tässä jonkun verran pyrin avartamaan myös. Pakkauoshjeita on syytä tämän tuton lisäksi tutkia huolella.

Mitä tämä ihmeen serigrafia sitten on ja mihin sitä käytetään? Serigrafia, muita nimiä mm. silkkipaino ja seripaino, on painomenetelmä, jolla kehykseen pingoitetun seulakankaan läpi väri painetaan painopinnalle. Tekniikkaa voi käyttää muun muassa kankaalle, kuten tässä esimerkissä nyt teemme. Taidegraafikot käyttävät tätä tekniikkaa lisäksi esimerkiksi paperiin, puuhun, metalliin, jne jne, melkein kaikkeen vaan mihin maali voi tarttua.

Moni varmaan pohtii miksi ihmeessä tätä nyt rupeaisi tekemään kun tavallisella sapluunatupsuttelullakin selviää. Seripaino on siitä erinomainen, että painojälki (muutaman ensimmäisen harjoittelukerran jälkeen) on tasaista ja harvemmin leviää, kuten sapluunatekniikka tuppaa tekemään. Kun sinulla on seula valmiina, printtaukseen ei mene kauaa. Lisäksi tekniikkaa on törkeän kiva käyttää ja saa huomattavasti yksityiskohtaisempia kuvia (esimerkiksi rasterikuvat onnistuu)!

Tarvikkeet ja mitä niillä tehdään

1. Seula

2. Raakeli 

3. Valotusemulsio

4. Kalvostuskouru

5. UV-lamppu

6. Kuvio
7. Valotusemulsion poistoaine

Seula

Eri kokoisia seuloja viime WCS-projektista.

Seula on kehykseen pingoitettu painokehä, jonka läpi maali painetaan. Sitä ostettaessa on muutama juttu hyvä muistaa. Koko kannattaa valita painettavan kuvion mukaan siten, että kun kuvio on asetettu seulalle, ympäriinsä sitä jää vielä kauttaaltaan ainakin sentin vara. Tämä helpottaa etenkin silloin kun raakelin vetosuuntaa vaihtaa ja maalin saa hyvin kerättyä seulan reunoilta.

Seulan tiheys valitaan kuvion yksityiskohtaisuuden ja maalin mukaan. Itse olemme todenneet perushyväksi tiheydeksi 42s/cm kankaaseen painettaessa. Sillä saa hyvin yksityiskohtaisia kuvia, mutta se kuitenkin läpäisee helmiäis- ja peittovärit, eli sellaiset metallinhohtoiset ja tummalle kankaalle sopivat värit.

 Halvimmalla tietenkin pääsee, jos seulan tekee itse. Se on helppo valmistaa ostamalla esimerkiksi taulupohjan, irroittamalla kankaan siitä ja käyttämällä sen kehikkoa. Eurokankaasta pitäisi saada silkkipainoon soveltuvaa valoverho-polyesterikangasta, joka pingotetaan sitten kehikkoon niittipyssyllä. Kannattaa muistaa pingoituksessa se, että ilman oikeita pingotukseen soveltuvia työvälineitä on vaikea saada seulakangasta niin tiukaksi, että painojälki pysyy hyvänä. Valoverhokangas on hitusen luirumpaa kuin ostetun seulan kangas ja tekeekin näin pingotuksesta hieman vaikeampaa. Kun kangas on kiinnitetty kehikkoon, muista suojata seulakangas ilmastointiteipillä parin sentin levyisenä ympäri kehikon siten, että se taittuu kehikkoon saakka. Tämä estää maalin valumisen niittien välistä painettaessa. Ostetussa seulassa kehikon ympäri menee sininen silikonireuna, joka ajaa saman asian. Ajan myötä silikoni saattaa kuitenkin lähteä halkeilemaan ja sillon kannattaa ostettuunkin seulaan laittaa teipit reunoille.

Raakeli

Meidän kaunis, likainen ja paljon käytetty raakeli.

Raakeli on lasta, jolla vedetään maali seulan läpi kankaalle. Raakeli on tehty puusta tai metallista, ja sen teräpää on joko kumista tai silikonista valmistettu. Halvempi, joskaan ei yhtä hyvä, vaihtoehto on käyttää tavallista ikkunalastaa. Isoja kuvia tehdessä ikkunalasta on huono, sillä siinä ei saa painettaessa jaettua voimaa reunoille asti, joka johtaa siihen, että kuvion reunat voivat tulla epätasaisina. Eli suosittelen investoimaan ihan oikeaan raakeliin mikäli painettava kuvio on kauheasti kämmentä isompi. Sen koko tietenkin määriytyy seulan ja painettavan kuvion mukaan. Raakelin pitää olla niin pieni, että se mahtuu seulassa hyvin kulkemaan, mutta niin iso, että saat seulaan valotetun kuvion painettua kerralla.

Valotusemulsio

Ei viitsitty ottaa itse pulloa paketista pois sen valoherkkyysominaisuuksien vuoksi.

Valotusemulsio onkin tässä tekniikassa tärkeä juttu, ilman sitä ei tätä voi tehdä. Koostumukseltaan emulsio on hyvinkin erikeepperimäistä, ja vaikka emulsion värillä ei ole mitään väliä, sitä löytyy markkinoilta ainakin punaisena, sinisenä ja vihreänä. Valotusemulsio levitetään seulalle, ja kuivuttuaan sen päälle asetetaan valoaläpäisemätön kuvio. Sen jälkeen seula altistetaan uv-säteilylle, jolloin emulsio valottuu.

Kalvostuskouru

Kalvostuskourua tarvitset valotusemulsion levittämisessä seulalle. Olemme Dalinin kanssa käyttäneet pihiydessämme raakelia emulsion levityksessä, ja todenneet, että homma on aivan älyttömän sotkuista ilman kourua. Mutta toki ilman kouruakin onnistuu, emulsiota vaan saattaa hieman sottaisimmilla otuksilla ( kuten meillä) mennä hukkaan.

Valotuslamppu tai -laite

120 euron valotuslamppu... persaukiset cossaajat.

UV-lamppu kannattaa hankkia siinä vaiheessa, jos oikeasti meinaa tehdä tätä hommaa paljonkin. Lamput nimittäin maksavat sievoisia summia. Myös auringossa valotus onnistuu näppärästi, jos vaan hieman jaksaa kikkailla ja testailla. Lisäksi aurinkovaloituksessa ehdottoman tärkeää olisi omistaa painepesuri mikäli emulsio päättää jymähtää totaalisesti seulaan kiinni. Kerron näistä lisää toisessa postauksessa kun käyn työvaiheita läpi.

Kuvio

Kalvotekniikalla tehtyjä kuvioita.

Kuviolla tarkoitetaan sitä kuvaa, jonka haluat seulalla tehdä. Tärkeintä on muistaa, että ne kohdat, jotka printissäsi haluat painattaa on oltava valoa läpäisemättömiä kuviossasi. Kuvion voi tehdä esim mustasta kartongista leikkaamalla, se voi olla tavalliselle riisipaperille tulostettu mustesuihkutuloste, tai sen voi itse piirtää läpinäkyvälle kalvopaperille esimerkiksi pigmenttitusseilla.

Valotusemulsion poistoaine

Lopuksi printtauksen jälkeen tarvitset valotusemulsion poistoainetta saadaksesi seulan puhtaaksi. Kahta erilaista valotusemulsion poistoainetta löytyy sekä Emo-tuotannolta että Seriväriltä. Itse olemme todenneet Serivärin vihreän hyytelömäisen poistoaineen mukavammaksi, sillä siinä näkee missä ainetta on. Emo-tuotannon poistoaine on nestemäistä ja läpinäkyvää. Kummatkin näistä toimivat kuitenkin yhtä hyvin.

Tässä nämä tärkeimmät tarvikkeet. Lisäksi tietenkin tarvitset perustarvikkeita kuten mäntysuopaa rasvanpoistoon, kangasmaalia printtaamiseen ja suihkua seulan puhdistusta varten. Kerron lisää näistä työvaiheissa, joita käsittellään seuraavaksi.

Hyödyllisiä sivustoja silkkipainovälineiden hankkimiseen;
Seriväri Oy
EMO-Tuotanto Oy
Hobby Point Oy

-E

PARSAKAALI

THIS IS SPARTA!!!

We are bursting with enthusiasm because of our  next summers great plans! So much to do, so little time, but with our dear motto in mind, as written above, we are going to make it! Sometimes making a cosplay is like going to a war with all these intense preparations and practicing new techniques to kill the enemy (to get your shit done)!

 Because we live in different cities, we use this awesome invention called Dropbox to exchange our war plans (cosplay ideas) back and forth. At this moment, there's almost 80 different costumes we have in mind to do.  Well, at least the characters won't run out. The difficulty is to choose one though...

Usually while choosing the characters, we try to look ones from the same series. It's no fun to cosplay alone (at least in our opinion)! Another thing we like to think is what challenge will this and that cosplay bring. Can we learn something new? Do we have time to do this and that as well as it should be done? The personality, the look of the character and our own body structure is always on our mind when choosing a new cosplay project.

We are interested to know more about your character selections; Are we the only ones with these huge folders of different characters to cosplay? How do you choose your next cosplay?

---

For upcoming Cosvision we are planning to make Hôzuki no Reitetsu cosplays. Dalin will make Okô and Ennah will make Koban.

Koban

Okô

We have already collected all the materials and the next phase is to start the project. Dalin will have to dye her main fabric from white to this kind of lilac gradient from light to darker color. The yellow-green lines are going to be made with patchwork technique. As for the snakes, she's not that sure yet how they will turn out. We bought puff paint for textiles fro HobbyPoint. That is going to be used for the snakes scales to get the more 3D effect to make them look more natural. As for the wig, it's already dumped in the fabric softener to get the shininess away.

Ennah has already started the pants for Koban. She started making the patterns and has already cut the fabric. Ennah is also going to use the silk screen printing technique for the octopus print. The tutorial for that will be posted later (only in finnish though >:). The biggest part is going to be the head and luckily Dalin has made one before, so she will help as well. The collar is going to be a separate part from the top. Also, if we can find one, we will make the disposable camera as well, so Ennah can take some pictures as Koban. Our Cosvision blogpost will be from Kobans point of view, as he is a reporter.

We'll be seeing you at Cosvision! Come say hello, till then...

Ps. You have no idea how many times we have yelled this while in cosplay crisis! ;D

D&E

FROSTI TIME

So, Desucon Frostbite 2014...

We saw some amazing and fabulous cosplays, it’s always really inspiring to visit these conventions and speak with people on how they made their costumes and props! Especially the cosplay competitions are always so amazing to see. Congratulations to all cosplayers who participated to NCC and HallCosplay!

Overall, the convention was so great, it wasn't overly crowed like usually and we found the new changes, like the age limit, great. The level of cosplay was a bit higher than usual, but that is to be expected for a cosplayers who have had more years to polish their skills.

We also told you that there was supposed to be three of us dressing up as these hybrid creatures. Only Dalin made it somehow. Ennah managed to get half of the materials for the goat/lamb costume and our friend S didn’t have time to finish her dragon costume on time. We are trying again for summer Desucon. We are still bit unsure which cosplays we are going to make for Desu. We were thinking about making something from Hozuki no Reitetsu or Moomins. Dalins little brother wants a Kuroko Tetsuya cosplay from Kuroko no Basket.

We met a cool Team Flare cosplayer at Frosti and discussed about the chances to have a Pokemon X and Y groupcosplay for Desucon. Everything is still open, but at least Ennah is pretty hyped about that. 

Many of you are probably interested in Dalins wolf costume;  She had to make some quick compromises regarding the corset, gloves and rest and the accessories. Corset was supposed to be completely different and made out of black leather with straps. Gloves were sewn on Friday evening with Ennahs and S’s help and tail was strapped and sewn on Saturday morning. There were also supposed to be more accessories on the wrists. She ran out of time, but it came out quite good.

Sadly the Saturday didn't go painfree, as Dalin was sick inside the wolf costume, sweating her brains out because of the fever. It seems that the overly used motto "Cosplay without pain is pretending" is almost always true.

The whole costume is in parts to make the dressing up more convenient. There’s head, gloves, shoes, shirt, corset and pants.  The head is fairly easy to take off and put on. There’s a strap holding it steady and tight at the back of the head. You can see out of the inner corners of the resin eyes and partially from the mouth when it’s open. The shirt is just a pullover and the pants stay up properly with suspenders and elastic band on the waist. The corset hides the seam of upper and lower part of the costume and brings more shape to the costumes silhouette. The tail is strapped around the waist with belt and some strings. It’s also partially sewn to the pants.

Kyuu Eturautti / Creative Commons Zero

It was really hilarious trying to fit Dalin in to a car with the costume on… She was half sitting half lying in the backseat and barking directions for  the driver.

Dalin made some really weird acquaintances while wearing that costume. Even though the costume wasn’t a stereotypical furry costume and more like realistic looking creature, surprisingly many people wearing furry costume came up to her with such familiarity and kindness that it was kind of weird. Not to offend any of these people, but Dalin is too dedicated to regular cosplay and isn’t going to join to furry-clan, even though the furry camps sounds fun. They put up a “wanted poster” for her on the wall. (Or so we think, considering the situation where we were.) Unfortunately Dalin’s emotional level for another human beings is somewhere below worms, so flirting with her is a final boss battle level stuff.

Dalin also made it to a cosplay music video and she’s really hyped about that. You can check that here;

Now when Dalin is partially done with the wolf costume, it’s time to think about our next bigger and more important project. You dear followers probably want to know what it is, but we are going to keep it in secret until the time is right. The only thing we are going to tell you right now is that is going to be EPIC!!

Ps. Thanks to everyone that commented and took a picture of Dalins costume, she's still a bit hyped about the response it got.


-D&E

KARJALANPAISTI

Well hello fellow cosplayers, it's Ennah here!

Desucon Frostbite 2014 is sadly over. I saw many of my dear friends, met cool new people and had an overall blast weekend. It had been over a year from a last 'real' convention  experience, since my whole Tracon was spend doing WCS-stuff.

I was going to do the major animal hybrid-costume project we had going on with Dalin, but decided that it might be wiser to do that one later when I have more time to do it. Better to do it in peace than hurry, right? I will be doing the goat-costume next summer!

I got Nintendo 3DS for Christmas present from my lovely parents. The first thing I did, as a hardcore Pokemón kid, was buying the new Pokemon Y.  I got so obsessed with it that I finished the game in four days. I have always wanted to cosplay someone from Pokemón, and I really liked one of the Elite Four trainers outfit. I'm talking about Drasna, who is a dragon-type trainer.

Drasna from Pokemon X and Y

I thought her bracelets and other accessories would be fun to do. I haven't really done much stuff like that, and my 3D perception is definitely not the best, so I thought this would bring me some challenge. I am more comfortable working with fabric, but getting away from my safe zone has always been one of the things that motivate me as a cosplayer, because you really can't learn too much.

I started of doing the shirt, which was ridiculously easy. The skirt was a bit of a challenge, but the main challenge was to find the right shade for the fabrics. For the shirt, I had to have a bit of elastane there to give it the right look, but for the skirt, the same material wasn't right. Finally I found this velvet fabric, which wrong side was the right color and shade. For the more reddish brown I used linen.

Most interesting part was definitely making the shoes. I bought some second hand shoes from flea market and started to build stuff around it. I was surprised how easy it really was! You can almost make anything with a creative mind, masking tape, newspaper, glue and wall filler. It might sound that I'm using weird stuff for making these things, but they were durable enough for me. I really don't watch much cosplay tutorials, so the stuff I'm using comes from what little experience I have.

Making the shoes.

I really enjoyed making these shoes, and I'm pretty happy how they turned out. The only damage I really had was on the heels. Walking for one day in the heels was maybe bit too much, as small pieces of filler broke off at the bottom of the heel. Oh well, nothing that I can't fix later.

Shoes with the first coat of paint and the neck pieces

I did the bracelets and the other pieces with the same technique as the shoes, doing the shape in cardboard, gluing newspaper and mask tape around it, and finally covering the whole thing with thick layer of wood filler. I was a bit sad because my usual wood filler ran out, and I had to get another brand, which wasn't as good as my normal one. As it dried up, the filler started to crack, and I had to do many layers of it before I could even think of sanding it. One thing I found out though, was that as the filler dried up, it was more durable than my usual filler. 

Bracelet pieces

Sanding all the pieces was hell, because I had to do it inside my house. It's been really cold here in Finland, and sanding outside wasn't an option. It definitely isn't healthy to do that, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I had to vacuum my whole room every time I stopped sanding something. 

Bracelets

I had so much trouble with my wig for this cosplay. I bought one from eBay, and found out that they hadn't even had sended it month later. Luckily Dalin was in New York with her class, and she bought me one there. I really can't believe my luck and thank her enough for getting me the wig I needed. 

All and all, I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I've got more confidence in my abilities and even though there are always imperfections (like the wrong order of pearls in the neckpiece -__-), I do think that in this cosplay, the good things override the bad parts. 

Kyuu Eturautti / Creative Commons Zero

MEHUJÄÄ

Oh damn, Frostbite is coming and fast!! 

We started to plan our Hakkenden cosplays, but Dalin called quits for it. She realized she couldn’t fit out of her apartments door with the costume. In case if you’re wondering what the hell did she planned on making if it couldn’t fit out of the door; well, look down to last post. See that huge black fur ball? Yes, that one. That’s the one she was planning on making. That's the one that she will make when her doors give in!

So now about the other costume Dalin has in store for Frostbite!

*

Last year when I was studying in Holland, I visited Elfia Fantasy Fair -event in Haarzuilens. There were some incredibly awesome and gorgeous costumes and the whole area of kasteel de Haar was really magical place. If you are ever planning to go and visit some other European events I really recommend going there. Couple costumes caught my eye and I really wanted to try and make something similar myself.

These two little furry cuties are my inspiration for Frostbite. I proposed the idea for Ennah and she was excited about the costumes. I’m not 100% sure, but I think these costumes that I saw there were made by ClockworkCreature. 

I’m designing a wolf hybrid costume and trying to make it as realistic looking as I possibly can. Considering the other ,and the only, one with an unhuman anatomy structure was Cherubimon cosplay, and that was an easy job.  I have most of the materials ready and the next step would be patterns, planning and sculpturing the wolfish body shape. Ennah wanted to make a sheep costume and our third companion “S” is making a dragon hybrid costume. So little time, so much work.

Anyways, I started to make my wolf costume about two weeks ago. I’ll show you some pictures and tell a little bit what I did.

I’m not so good at writing tutorials or what you should do and how, but you probably get the gist of what I am doing here! If there are some parts you want more details put us some messages!

After many sketches and planning I started to build the head out of chicken wire. When the head was cut and molded to the shape I wanted the next phase was to cover it inside out with paper mache. I used the same technique with Mitsuhides armor parts so I have already written the detailed process of this technique. The reason why I use this instead of worbla or some other plastics is that this is the cheaper method.

So, when the head was covered and still wet it weighted ridiculously, but when the paper mache dried up it got lighter. The most essential part is to keep it in the right position when it dries. It’s pain in the ass to try and break it and mold back after the paper mache is dry. It’s like playing surgery and your patient broke their jaw and you as a surgeon need to break it even more to rearrange it back to it original shape so it heals properly. I had to do this couple of times because I wasn’t satisfied of how some parts just wouldn’t work. Like the jaw. Especially the joint part which holds the jaw connected to the head and allows it to move up and down was a pain to get on the right place. 

After that was done, tested and working I sculptured the nose by using clay. This was easy part with the help of some reference pictures of wolfs. The teeth’s are made out of Fimo clay (or Cernit clay, same thing).

I also made the lips and gums from hot glue. Yes, that was the most brilliant idea I had that actually worked. After playing couple of hours dentist with gluing the teeth’s on their right places I was ready to paint.

When everything was painted the next phase was to cover the whole thing with fur. Cutting the fake fur is a nightmare. There’s fur and hairs everywhere in my apartment and I don’t even bother to vacuum anymore because it would be on the same condition the next day. Oh, how badly I would like to have another room as a work space.

The horns were molded from chicken wire and tinfoil and covered with paper mache to get the structure and to harden it. (Yes, I’m too broke and stingy to even use worbla to make the horns.) Also I destroyed one silver-white wig for this project to get fabulous hair for my hybrid wolf creature.

The eyes were interesting to make. I bought this clear resin from Paperilohikäärme-shop in Tampere. It’s really fantastic material and I was excited to try it out. To put it simply, it’s two liquid components that you mix 1:1. I poured it on these molds and let it dry and harden about three days before smashing them out of their molds. And I really mean smashing. They were so difficult to get out that I had to hit them with hammer and break the mold around them. The resin took this considerably well and didn’t break no matter how much I had to hit them. The surface was quite dim and wasn’t as see-through as I wanted, so I mixed a bit more resin and with paintbrush added a thin layer of resin on the surface. After it hardened it cleared the whole piece and was like glass.

My first idea was to paint on paper the eye and then cut and glue it to the resin eye. I tried this and it didn’t bring the color and the essence of an eye as clearly as I would have liked. So, I painted it straight to the resin eye with acrylics. This came up really well and now the eyes are just perfect ;DD

I have really tight schedule with this project. We are leaving to New York with my class on February and we are coming back on Friday 14^th morning. Yeah, cutting close with Desucon Frostbite. Good thing I live in Lahti so I just need to come straight from the airport and leave the stuff home, change clothes and walk to Sibeliustalo!!  I will be wearing this wolf costume on Saturday, because I’m probably too tired on Friday to even think about putting something as complex as this on me.

See you at Frostbite!!!
-D

PORONKÄRISTYS

It's Dalin time !! Hi again.

I'll put all my earlier cosplays which I haven't yet mentioned in this one post. This time there's also one extra person besides me in the projects who I'm going to introduce to you.

I have already posted some works from 2010, but there are also some even older projects from 2009 when we made together with Ennah some custom-made cosplays from Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu and some OC projects. One of these OC-like projects was my Marry Poppins steampunk version for Tracon 5.

Enough of those let's move on to more recent ones.

At Animecon 2011 in Turku I cosplayed Hannah from Kuroshitsuji 2. This was really stressful cosplay. Finding the right fabrics and shoes for this cosplay was almost impossible, and I almost couldn't finish it in time. I had to sew some parts like hooks and buttons in the car while we were driving to Turku.

Ennah didn't have a costume this time because she did a Rozalin cosplay costume for one of our friend.

Hannah Anafeloz - Kuroshitsuji 2

At Tracon 2011 we did a small group cosplay from Star Wars series. So at this point let me introduce you to my little brother! I'm not gonna tell you his name without his permission (or he will try to kill me when I sleep) so lets just call him "T".

Adi Gallia - Star Wars

Anakin Skywalker - Star Wars

This was T's first time in any cosplay event and first time cosplaying as some character. He was 11 years old at that time and highly influenced by my obsession towards anime, manga and cosplay, so he wanted to come with us and see what it was like.

See, this is why I shouldn't get kids. You never know how badly I could manage to raise them. Well anygays.

Finding the fabrics for these was also one kind of a hunting trip. I especially wanted that all the fabrics were made from natural materials. As in cotton and linen mainly, but not this plain awful bedsheet cotton material. I tried to search some good wool fabrics also, but that was even more frustrating.  The boots were a lucky find from flea markets.

The light saber that T has in the picture isn't like the one Anakin has in the movies. T got that as a Christmas present, and we approved that he could take it with him.

After this he was really exited about cosplaying and wanted to come with us to next cosplay event, which was next year Desucon in Lahti.

Hitsugaya Toushiro and Matsumoto Rangiku - Bleach

In Desucon 2012, T was also with us. I made a Bleach cosplays for both of us and this was the first time I made katana swords. It was surprisingly easy after finding a good tutorial from internet, even thought I could have made them more properly. The painting on them was little bit off, but I was kinda pleased with the shape.

It's amazing how every time when I start a new cosplay project my whole apartment just transforms into a one big and chaotic work studio for couple of weeks.

----

We were at Tracon 2012, but because my school had just started again I didn't have time or money to make any new cosplays for that event.

Well then there's Desucon Frostbite 2012 and 2013 ....and on those both times I was in Holland. On the fist time I was just visiting my friend there and unfortunately we got really cheap flights on those days so I decided that okay, we'll go next year then. Oooh, how wrong was I. The next year I was on Holland again, but this time because of my student exchange program. Also because I was there I missed the summer Desucon.

I have made a promise that I will be going to Desucon Frostbite 2014 no matter what !! There was already a one close call when I got informed that we will be going to New York in February as a studying trip with my class. The trip is only partially on the same week as Frostbite, because I insisted that the we need to get back in Finland before 14.2.

...oh good lord, I'm such a dork. To insist moving a trip to New York because I want to play dress up and go out and take pictures of others who play dress up.

Oh, I decided to give you a hint on what I'm planning to do for Desucon Frostbite 2014.

- D

KERROSKIISSELI

Yo, Yo, Yo... HEY MAN !! It's Dalin again.

I'll continue with my past cosplay projects and next one is from our Alice in Wonderland project. As Ennah earlier mentioned we had a cosplay group project in Desucon 2010. The characters were from the original series, but the costumes were designed by me and Ennah.

(C) Hevimankeli @ deviantART

The Queen of Hearts costume was actually my thesis project in my last year of vocational school in Hyvinkää. There are some small steampunkish elements visible on some props and accessories. I was really into steampunk at that time so I insisted that we should use it on this project.

It was really fun making this costume. It wasn't a 100% cosplay, but close enough. Designing the costume was a tricky part because the design changed like 10 times during the process. I wanted to bring out the personality of Queen of Hearts; temperamental, pompous, cruel and arrogant.

Somehow I can identify with this character (which is probably a bad thing...) so designing the costume and being the character while wearing the costume was really easy. I actually made a lot of research about the book and all the adaptions so I knew how the characters acted and their habits which helped a lot while designing the costumes with Ennah's help.

Aamuposti - Saturday 5. June 2010

I made it to the local news paper with this thing. It was during my entrance exams in Lahti when I got a phone call and they wanted to interview me about my thesis work. They also interviewed a few others from my class.

The greatest memory from Desucon 2010 while wearing this costume was when a two younger girls came to me and just stared a few minutes without saying anything. When they decided to speak they just blurted out to me "did you know that you have a really big boobs..." I was kinda lost at words on that moment and just started to laugh. Thank you for that, whoever you two perverted girls were.

- D

JAUHELIHA-PERUNASOSELAATIKKO

Hello, Ennah here!

Dalin already updated one of her older costumes, so I thought I'd do the same. I decided to put all my older cosplays here in the same post, as I haven't done as many cosplays for myself as Dalin.

Over the years, I've done many custom-made cosplays for my friends from the series/games like Disgaea, Magic Knight Rayearth, Chrono Crusade and Shingeki no Kyojin.  After WCS preliminaries I really feel like I should keep a break from all the other cosplay projects than my own, especially now that we know that our next WCS-project is going to be humongously big!

So the first group cosplay project that I made with Dalin was a OC-version of Alice in Wonderland. It was just before the Tim Burton movie was released that we started designing our own versions of the characters. I wanted to 'cosplay' White Rabbit, as he was my favourite character in the books. We wore our costumes for Desucon at 2010.

At that time, I was still studying for clothing seamstress vocational degree, and I made the jacket as a part of my schoolwork. The 'swedish aristocrats gaypants', as we called them then, were from this vintage-themed upholstery fabric.

All together we did 4 costumes, Dalin did her Queen of Hearts, I did this, and together we did also Cheshire Cat and White Queen for our friends.

White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat

After that was this one project we both were very enthusiastic to the moment we put our cosplays on and walked to the con. To this day, we do not really talk about the project, as it was a bit... embarrassing one (but still, it was one of the funniest and greatest experiences with cosplaying that I've had, and the costumes were good... kinda)! There still might be some photos left in Dalins computer...

The next project was also with Dalin, as we did our Digimon cosplays for Desucon 2011. I was not as familiar with Digimon as Dalin, because I was more of an Pokémon child for myself. Still, one of my favourite characters in Digimon  was Wizardmon, and I decided to do that one. 

The fabrics were kinda hard to find, and many cosplays that I had seen so far had colors horribly off. Finally after going around Uusimaa's fabric stores, I found some at Eurokangas in their scrap box. In the cape, the white patterns were actually from adhesive fabric that I had ironed on, because I didn't want any stitches to be shown on the other side. 

The thing I have with my cosplays is that I'm really, really lazy to get them photographed. To me, being in a convention with my costume means more to me than getting good pictures. With Wizardmon, we were having a blast all day at Desucon, and before we left, my friend took couple of pictures of me. I probably should probably get this one photographed better ;;___;;.

The next project was for Tracon 2011, as we decided to do a Star Wars -group. I remember being a little girl and watching the older movies with my dad. He would always tell me how he had went to see the first movie in theater when he was just a little boy and how amazed he was by all the cool special effects.

So this project was dear to me, and first I was troubled by which character should I do, Amidala in her Black Invasion costume or Tusken Raider. We were supposed to have Amidala attending to our group, so I decided to do the Tusken Raider. The sewing part was simple to do, and the funniest part was to dirty up all the fabrics so they looked like they had been used a lot. 

The head part had an old respirator inside, and I builded the whole thing around that with duct tape and iron wire. Then I covered the whole thing with fabric and created the 'mouth part'. 

So that's it. It's a shame that I haven't had the time to make more cosplays for myself, but I've promised myself now to prioritize my own cosplays before anyone elses. I'm not saying that it hasn't been fun doing those costumes as well, but wearing my own handmade costume and hearing peoples thoughts on it really get's a smile on my face.


***

I've done some progress with Hajimes outfit, the skirt is almoust done. I have to stitch the hem and put the suspenders on.

The only fabric that I had to buy for this cosplay was the black skirt-material. I bought this really nice cotton fabric that has a bit elastane on it. I had to put some adhesive fabric on the lining so that the tight part on the waist doesn't stretch.

Loving my Vallila's mandariini carpet

We always do our patterns from scratch, using only our own measurements. It's easier to get the right fit when you do your patterns yourself. These particular patterns were easy to do, I just had to get the fit from under the bust to waist tight and the rest of the skirt was cut bell-shaped.

Pattern pieces

That's it for now. Next post is probably going to be Dalin's again, as she tells you more about her older projects.

- E

OMENAPIIRAKKA

Hello, everyone! It's Ennah here!

Today's short topic is a bit unusual one for us. I thought I'd share my thoughts to you about choosing characters for your body type. Both me and Dalin lean on the more heavier dress size than the "usual" 38, and the challenges with choosing characters are not new to us.

Let's be honest with ourselves, you can’t cosplay every character you happen to like and make it look perfect. The most important thing in cosplaying is attitude and your dedication, but remembering your body shape and type is also crucial. If you are a bit bigger on the stomach-area, cosplaying as someone in the bikini might not be the best idea. That doesn't mean you should be a skinny 34-sized girl and look like a doll.

What you should do is to think of the characters you like as well as your body shape; what do you think are good qualities in yourself and what do you want to show off, and what would you rather cover a bit.

Depending on your character, shaping your body is possible. If you have a dress, it's easy to do a corset boning inside your dress that will slim your waist slightly and give you a better posture. Usually your costume will look even better with boning inside, as it will give it some support it needs as well.

One of the things I really love about cosplay is the transformation and how far people can go to look like their character. When it comes to crossplayers, unfortunately many of them don't really think about their own silhouette when they start making the cosplay. It's easy to spot a woman in men's clothing if you don't bind your bust or make your waist more unnoticeable. The same goes of course for a man, if you don't get yourself curves.

Then there is people who stop themselves of cosplaying something they love because they don't have as much curves than the character. There are great ways to get you some hips, and it doesn't even have to cost that much.

Drag Queens for example, don't have the womanly curves at all. What they do is use these things called hip pads which many of them make themselves. There are great tutorials about how to make your own hip pads from high-density polyurethane foam sheets.  I'm actually a bit sad that I have bigger hips, because I would love to try to do padding myself. (Please recommend me some character that has a humongous hips so I can do those ;__;)

Here is agreat video by petrilude about making your own hip pads. He also does great make up tutorials and drag queen stuff;

There's a lot of different things you can try to shape your body to match your character, but one of the most essential thing is to buy the right fabrics and make your costume as fitted for you as possible. You can always try to play with the fabrics and try to manipulate them so that the "problem areas" don't show as much.

***

On the sidenote, I have decided to start making a quick cosplay from my leftover fabrics that's been piling up for some time now. After quick inventory, the next cosplay will be this;

Ichinose Hajime - Gatchaman Crowds

I'll  upload some pictures while working with this project, probably not any tutorials though. This cosplay is really one of the more simple ones, it's so nice to do something that doesn't immensely stress you out.

- E 

MUSTIKKARAHKA

Dalin here !!

We were actually thinking on telling you guys a little bit about our past cosplay projects now when the WCS 2014 project is over. So I'm gonna start with my Cherubimon cosplay from Digimon movie: Hurricane touchdown! Supreme evolution the golden digimentals and from Digimon Frontier. 

As a kid I was a huge fan of Digimon series (probably even more than Pokémon). Cherubimon was one of my favorites from the movie and it was hysterical when I realized after many years that I actually could do a Cherubimon costume. Fueled with this idea and the fact that no one had ever done this level of cosplay of this character, I decided to make something amazing !!

Cherubimon - Virus mode.

I made the costume for Desucon 2011, and at that time it was one of my most challenging costume I have ever made. It took one week to make this whole thing and now afterwards when I think about the making of this costume... It's kinda difficult to comprehend how I managed to build this thing only in seven days !! In the end Ennah had to help me out on some parts which I wasn't able to do by myself. Like gluing some filling and making sure the costume fitted on me and there wasn't any horrible mistakes anywhere. 

I just remember listening Digimon theme songs, OST's, episodes and movies as a background sound the whole week and not sleeping much. 

Digimon episode playing at the background...

As for the materials, there's a lot of filler (vanu) inside the hands and thigh-belly area. 

For building the inhuman shape there's also all kinds of supporting structures made out of iron wire, wood, duct tape, hot glue, sleeping mat, plastic bottle and cycle helmet. The violet, dark green and light blue fabrics are fleece so you can just imagine how hot this thing was to wear when there's almost +30°C outside. This thing is huge and heavy and when a 177 cm tall, not so skinny person like me is wearing it... it's quite massive sight.

Playing with the patterns and shapes was easier than it looks like. If you have even a slightest clue on how patterns and especially 3D shaped patterns work it's not so difficult to make something like this. 

Planning 

I always start cosplay costumes by drawing the character and writing all the details and work phases on multiple times and on countless different papers (which I sometimes somehow manage to lose somewhere). Thoroughly planned procedure will help a lot when making the costume and it will eliminate the possibility of making too many mistakes.

Yo Dude I'm gonna hit ya through that brick wall !!

One of the most delicious memories while wearing this costume was when I started to run after this about 5-year old kid and he started to cry and run away hysterically while screaming his mum and dad. Oh the wonderful memories. That kid was probably traumatized for life. Afterwards people came over to ask to hug them because I was so cruel to that kid. Can't even remember how many people I hugged at that day.

We actually made it to the front page of local news paper with my friend who cosplayed Dipp from Katamari. With a hug picture, how surprising. There was also a small picture of us inside where the actual article was. Ennah was cosplaying the Wizardmon btw. She will tell you more about that in her own post.

It's a shame that there isn't a picture of how I had to cycle the 3 km distance from my apartment to the event location while wearing that costume (without the huge hands of course).

- D