Stories from 2013 ♥Cosplay♥

こんにちは、みんなー！

チョコですー！！

Hey guys!

So I've started my short segment on Youtube that will run up until I find out whether or not I'll be able to get a student visa to study at a Japanese language school in Sapporo!!

The first video will be about cosplay, so in this post, I'll write a little bit more about it and post photos!
You can watch the video about it here!!

So onto the blog side of this...

Cosplay for me in 2013 was really put on the backburner due to school. I bought a lot of wigs and planned so much, but I didn't have the time to do any of them.

The two costumes I managed to complete in 2013 was my Ulquiorra (Final form version) cosplay...

Photo thanks to Terry Ng

Photo thanks to Neil Creek Photography

And my Karakuri Burst - Kagamine Rin Cosplay.

Photo thanks to Trung Do Photography

Photo thanks to Neil Creek Photography

Each were difficult in different ways.

First let's start with the Kagamine Rin cosplay, since I didn't talk about it in the video.

I won't call it a furisode, but that was what it was intended to be, but the robe I'm wearing was especially difficult. I'd never tried to make a yukata or anything before so trying to make a furisode was really hard, the sleeves are much longer than a yukata! They still weren't as long as I wanted them to be!

It was also the first body hugging, wrap dress that I'd ever tried to make, and although making the dress was easy enough, making a figure-hugging dress with fabric that does not stretch to fit my body was the real challenge. It only JUST fit. Walking was difficult to say the least. Other than that it was really fun to wear! I had such a great day when I debuted this with my best friend. It was the first time we used liquid colodion to make the scars on our faces!

Photo thanks to Regan Lau

Now onto Ulquiorra.

There were so many frustrating and difficult moments, but it all came together in the end and I felt really pleased with what I achieved in a month!! Especially when I had school 4 days a week 9am-3pm and then worked on weekends and then for two weeks I did around 30 hours each week before the convention and still got it done!

Working with expanding foam was interesting, but very tough! I looked at tutorials from Kamui Cosplay, who I think is amazing! Check out her site here, and her exapanding foam tutorial here!!
As you can see in my first picture, the horns were massive, probably about 60-70cm tall, yet they were so light!

Photo thanks to Neil Creek Photography!

Trying not to smile was so hard for me! I wanted to stay in character!!
Anyway, that cosplay was particularly stressful for me and I worked with a lot of materials I was unfamiliar with and only had a month to work out how to use them effectively!
But I think cosplay also became more and more stressful for me because I'd only ever cosplay to conventions so I always wanted to do something big for it. And because I had done a really popular cosplay from the year before, I wanted to jump out of my comfort zone more.

I kept trying to push myself to go one better and better each year.

I went from doing Kagamine Rin (Synchronicity) to doing something as big as Saber from Fate/Stay Night and then Ulquiorra in his final form (Bleach). 

Photo thanks to RXL Photographics

I felt a bit pressured, but I felt like I wasn't good enough, or maybe people wouldn't like me.

But my main reason for stopping cosplay and simply admiring it was because my focus was shifting more to learning Japanese. I felt like I was growing up too, and although that doesn't necessarily mean that when you get old you shouldn't cosplay. I felt that personally, because I was growing up I didn't feel like it was such a big priority anymore.

Last year was also the year I bought my first cosplay, here are a couple of pictures for you!

Me (Left) with the lovely Reni Leow (Right)

Photo thanks to Michael L Nguyen

Photo thanks to Trung Do Photography

 I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit more about my experiences last year and learning a little bit more about me!

_チョコ♥