MisatoLx

Like I mentioned in my previous journal, I decided to give my La Andromeda Promethium a bigger run, so I took it to the Winter Masquerade Ball, a "Queen Millennia" should be regal enough for a ball.   I ended up reusing the old stones, because unfortunately the new ones remained gooey as caramel.   The wig is a nightmare! Not really wearing it, but just by handling it tangles like mad. The dress is very slippery, and yet it quickly forms rats nests in the back. At least it's a beautiful golden yellow.

Again I took Andromeda to the second, usually the first, event of the year, the Cosplay Photoshoot. It was an average nice day for February, this year it was on Valentine's Day, a bit cold, the occasional drizzle and a few minutes of sunshine. As usual I forgot to ask to have my photo taken with my camera, but there were a few people that took some nice photos, Shadow Shaper and Aniarts, who took one of those great lucky shots, really dramatic, pity it's a weird framing and really harsh sunlight. But I'm still very happy with it.



Since I made this crown, some people asked me how I made it, it's not your average armour design piece, because it has volume and is very glossy, so I took some of the WIP photos and made a sort of tutorial of it. What's not mentioned, besides all the materials, you should arm yourselves with loads of patience and time to make a polished prop like this. In order that the crown would be smooth with no imperfections and have that plastic finish, I worked on it in short stages, an average of 2 hours a day, leaving the glues or paints to dry overnight, so when I touched it again it would be nice and safely dry to go on working on it. This made the crown pretty sturdy and resistant to handling.

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In 2015 I won't "officially" be making a new costume. I'll keep on working on my costume for next year, that'll mark my 20 year cosplay anniversary, and finish the Hokuto costume, fixing my never worn Komagata Yumi costume (Rurouni Kenshin's Shishio's girlfriend) and I'll be making a Space: 1999 S2 Moonbase Alpha Science Officer costume, probably the first I ever wanted to wear since I was a kid.

The thing that motivated me to make the Hokuto costume were the shoes, but I couldn't find cheap shoes with a similar shape to customise anywhere for at least two years. Finally I found some, they're actually really comfortable, and I've already bought the pleather to start working on them. I'll be wearing this one in September at Anifest and maybe at any other event in between if I feel like it.

Yumi's kimono, obi and under skirt have been made in 2002, but at the time I ended not wearing it because I spent so much time helping a friend putting her costume and make up on, that when the time came to put mine on, kimono isn't the easiest and quickest garment to put on, I simply didn't have the patience any more and didn't wear it. It has been folded in my closet ever since, but I've been thinking it would be nice for an event such as Festa do Japão, the Japanese Festival in Lisbon. So in January I dared a few Kenshin cosplayer fans to join me. Why fix it? I purchased a really gorgeous red sablé for the kimono and managed to find a purple fabric with a similar texture and sheen for the obi, but the light yellow for the collar was a challenge and I ended using some cheap common satin, with which I was never happy with. The collar stripes were painted and there were some unfortunate blotches, so now I found a gorgeous pale yellow sateen, closer to the artwork's colour which has green hues, and decided to sew dark blue ribbon to the collar for the stripes, which back then I thought were black. Earlier my hair was longer and I was going to simply dye it that plum colour, so now I ordered a wig and got some new pearls for her hair dress, more accurate in both size and colour.

The Space:1999 uniform is on my wishlist for the longest time. I first watched the series when I was 6 years old and I was completely hooked. Space: 1999 is still my very favourite TV series and those costumes are so awesome! A few years ago, when I had more money to spend, I found that ponte jersey in cream and also got the red for the sleeve. Now I just have to dye the cream beige, buy the sleeve zipper, and pleather for the boot covers and belt and make the costume and props, the Commlock and the badges. I decided to make it because in July there will be an international sci-fi convention in Lisbon and sci-fi is my first geek love and a huge part of what I am. The uniform is long sleeved and ponte is wool mix, OMG I'll be melting in July! I hope the venue has proper air conditioning.

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Leo COUTURE on FB

For many years, ever since my first trip to Japan, where I spent shogatsu, New Year Holidays, probably the most important holidays in Japan, I've been making "nengajou", New Year postcards, featuring the current year animal in the Chinese Zodiac. Contrary to the Chinese, the Japanese celebrate New Year using the Western calendar and they make and send nengajou to their friends and family during the first days of the New Year for good luck. You can google or go to wikipedia to know more about it.

My first series was made of vectorial illustrations featuring my alter-ego dressed up in something related to the respective year/animal. maybe I will upload that series later to DA. This current series features my Blythe dolls, wearing some kind of prop related to the animal. All the props and clothes (except when noted) are handmade by me, under my Blythe doll clothes label Leo COUTURE. The sayings are in Japanese, because nengajou are a Japanese thing, and in Portuguese, my mother tongue. They say "Happy New Year!!" and "Happy 20--!!" respectively. You can see the previous years here:



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Cosplay-wise, which will remain my feature at DA, at the end of 2014 I had to make some decisions, my budget and sometimes my available time unfortunately don't allow me to make many cosplays a year and I decided to postpone the one I was planning for this year. I will be working on my cosplay for next year, 2016, which will celebrate my 20 years as a cosplayer, and naturally is an elaborate, more expensive and more spectacular costume than I usually make.

During 2015 I will be wearing my La Andromeda Promethium cosplay and a new Yuuko Ichihara one I made at the end of 2014. I hope I can make some nice photos of both to feature here. I will also post some WIPs of both sometime soon. But as cosplay plans don't tend to stick all the time, and I bought some stuff in promotions and Black Friday, maybe, maaaybe I'll make a new cosplay around spring-summer time. We'll see...

Meanwhile

HAPPY NEW YEAR to ALL MY DA FRIENDS and FOLLOWERS!

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Leo COUTURE on FB

Summer isn't actually something I usually celebrate, as I prefer winter or cold weather (I know, I live in the wrong country), but this year the Festa do Japão (Japan Festival) was held on the first day of summer and as I was finishing my new cosplay of the year, I wore it for the first time there.



Andromeda Promethium, from 1000 Nen Joou (or Queen Millenia), by one of my gurus, Leiji Matsumoto, was on my cosplay wishlist for many years, so many that I had her artwork printed for reference in A4 full colour pages when I was able to at a former job, over 10 years ago.

Making the crown was the challenge that made me go ahead, firstly because I now could easily get the materials to make it and also because I realised it wouldn't be too expensive to make. Unfortunately some materials took their time to become available, the dress' main fabric (silk jersey) and the gems' light green pigment. I couldn't make the final parts of the cosplay when I planned and knew I had free time to fully work on cosplays, and  being really busy from March to May with work made me hurry the sewing, the crown painting and resin casting of the gems. As a result I need to recast the gems, as I want them to be a bit greener and more transparent (and with no scratches and faults due to demoulding them too early), and I had a few mishaps with the crown's glossy varnish, which a bit of sanding and a new coat will correct. Speaking of sanding and painting, I achieved the glossy finish with a lot of sanding with fine sandpaper, loads of patience and preferably a bit more time. The crown is made of heat shaped PVC (as a base), EVA/craft foam, about 6 coats of wood glue, another 6 coats of glossy red paint and about the same amount of glossy varnish coats.

The event itself was similar to the previous years but maybe the weather behaved at its best. The first year I attended it was raining for a while, the second was blazing hot during the afternoon and got really cold in the evening, this year it was sunny during the day and rather nice in the evening. But the best part was meeting old friends I hadn't met for many years and catching up. I ended not taking many photos, this year a lot of photos were taken of me, but I guess most were by tourists as the event is outdoors, free and in a very touristy part of town. There is usually a stall, with second-hand Japanese books and magazines, where I grabbed two volumes of the manga Thermae Romae and a satire beauty mook joking with vintage shoujo manga, like Versailles no Bara and such. Totally me! I think the mangaka is the same person who did the Bihada Ichizoku beauty line and anime artwork. Need to find out more about this book.

So, I didn't take many photos, at this event I usually end up not taking many as it's usually quite busy and the sunlight is very harsh, so I just have fun. Here's my small gallery, as usual in Picasa:



I will probably spend a few days by the sea in August, maybe I'll take this cosplay and take a few shots there as it's rather wild (but not futuristic - as it also should be). And now that I have looong blonde wig again, maybe I'll make another Maetel shoot, but only in the winter, as the cosplay is too hot!

Meanwhile I'm already preparing my cosplay for next year, which ended up becoming a group cosplay (yay!) and the one for 2016, as it will be my 20th Anniversary and I want to spread the expenses in two years as I want to do something special (=expensive).

The next event near me is at the beginning of September, Midori, which I don't know if I will be able to attend due to work, and after there's the second edition of AniFest, which I will surely attend and wear Adromeda again (hopefully I won't ignore the photobooth this time ). I hope there will be a ball again in December and there's also a ComicCon (which I don't know if it's official or not) planned for Oporto. I still don't know if I will attend that one, it all depends on my finances, ticket price and if I'll get some company or not.

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Leo COUTURE on FB

Although I made this costume during last summer and already wore it to AniFest in September, it was so hot during the event and I was so uncomfortable with my shironuri make-up, that I ended up not making the slightest effort of having my pictures taken.

During this time I concentrated my energies in starting a new cosplay, more on that on another post, and fixing Non's problems, took the insoles from my boots (they're a bit big for my foot, which slide to the front, ending in hurting my toes - still not entirely fixed it), bought a new white foundation from Illamasqua and translucent powder from SmashBox (more on that here) and fixed the cape's collar. It was just a small thing, when I first cut it, I did it as a straight rectangle, but it was a tiny bit too high and the fact that it wasn't tailored was annoying me to the point of thinking about it at odd times. So, I made it rounder and now there's nothing I feel needs to be changed with my Non Gou costume, from Majokko Megu-chan (in Portugal, Nádia from Bia, a Pequena Feiticeira). So, Here are the photos taken at this year's Cosplay Photoshoot, the annual cosplay meet during Carnival holidays (which aren't holidays any longer - government issues).

 
This costume has some history attached. It was on my first cosplay wishlist when I started cosplaying, as Non is one of my favourite characters from one of my favourite anime series, with beautiful character design by Shingo Araki, the same designer from Versailles no Bara and Saint Seiya, amongst many other gorgeous works. I decided to make it back in 1997, but almost everything went wrong, couldn't find the right fabric in the right colour (it was still really hard to find purple cotton twill this time around), the only wigs available were those cheap, poor quality Halloween wigs and I couldn't find one in blue (at some point, ANY blue) and I ended up improvising one with wool, which ended up a predictable disaster... I was happy with the dress part but the cape was too short and didn't hang like I wanted. It's amazing how a short cape takes SO much fabric! And I can't even mention the facepaint, if I suffered back in September, you can't imagine the level with the paint I could find on a very limited market. But there were some positive aspects, A friend made me the medallions out of brass (which I changed a bit now for accuracy purposes), I reused the zippers as they were the perfect pink colour, had pretty similar boots and the white tights come from the same store (Rei das Meias).

Being much more comfortable, I could enjoy this year's Photoshoot much better, even if there was a drizzle most of the day. But through the wig I couldn't notice it much and the temperature was quite fine. As last year I arrived soon, late morning, had lunch with fellow cosplayers and anime fans at the nearby mall and hung out with AnaIsabelaSantos and her mom, Gaaaooo, Miminhoo, MirianRose, Sofy-Cos, Hemno-Snap, ApokalipsRyder, Lunnacry and her cousin (Portuguese group candidates to the ECG competition), Suse, AsheriaWorkshop and sophie-art. At some time a small group went to take some photos, initially I wanted to take the chance to have some of me taken, but by then I had already changed into comfortable boots and wasn't in the mood any more. Just took some myself. At sundown we went back to the mall for some food and chatting. The eating area was full of very colourful and pretty wigs! Nothing like a cosplay meet to colour things up. Then I went to the after-party at Xtreme Games, a games parlour/club where the Xmas Ball was held. Over there I met KuroKaren and KuroKikkai, who were unfortunately on the process of taking down their beautiful Chii/Elda=Freya costumes, and some really nice Star Wars fans. It's definitely nice to promote cosplay parties, instead of just anime/comics events, it's the best way to hang out with people who like this hobby. The music wasn't the very best and it was a bit too loud to have a decent conversation without ruining your voice, but the drinks are cheap, it's near my home and there's plenty of room for improvement.

So, as usual I uploaded my pictures to Picasa, please enjoy and identify yourselves and characters if you'd like to. If you'd like to use any of my pictures, not that they're anything special, please ask first.


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Leo COUTURE on FB