Costume Interview: Okita Soujirou & Saito Hajime

Oh man! I am so happy to finally finished and uploaded this video! Lenneth and Jesuke's fans will so thank me :D

Below is a costume interview of Lenneth and Jesuke cosplaying as Okita Soujirou and Saito Hajime from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan *cues fangirl screams*.



Okita Soujirou: http://lennethxvii.deviantart.com/
Saito Hajime: http://jesuke.deviantart.com/


The video was filmed at Cosfest 2010. Apologies for the lousy camera work, really really bad audio quality and the overwhelming crowd at the back. It was really hard to fathom what the cosplayer would say and do so more often than not, my camera can't keep up with them. I know I can stop the cosplayers and request for them to say them same thing again, but I didn't want to inhibit the cosplayers. From ym experience, interviewee tends to share more when they feel comfortable and uninhibited.

My camera doesn't have an external microphone so that means I need to keep a close distance with the Cosplayers T_T *sigh*
I still have quite a lot of costume interview to churn out so look forward! And leave me a comment if you enjoyed it ^_^!

Summer Comiket 1985

Richard pimped me this video of the 1985 Comiket video and so I thought I'd share xD. And exactly as he said, yes, they already had Doujinishi then. In fact, I've heard before that Cosplays started off as a Doujinshi group's mascot to garner attention.

Anyway, it was fun watching xD

I've been busy with my new computer recently, trying to install all my usual programs but failing quite badly due to the whole Win XP & Win 7 difference T___T. I can't even get my Live Writer to link up with my blogger account which is ohsofrustratingargh!!!! So in the mean time, expect little updates =( I'll probably be more active on facebook than here so, pop over to TCC's facebook instead.

WCS Summary Video + Cosplay Tips video!

Hi guys! Pimping some videos from youtube ^_^

A 200 3 – 2010 compilation video done by the WS Organizing team. Its a nice way to have a quick recap of all the past contestants and whatnot. Even though I am slightly put off by the obvious race preference in the video footages.

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And I found another cosplayer on youtube! Aurellion from Youtube gives some insight into what it takes to be a cosplayer and how to start things cracking for your very first Photoshoot. Watch below!

Aurellion covers how to do basic cosplay makeup for female characters

And she gives you an insight and breakdown into what goes on behind a cosplay Photoshoot and what you should look out for. Absolutely adores how much details she managed to cover in this video.

That’s all, Tata!

SOYC 11 (Start of the Year ) Cosplay Event

The official date for SOY is finally out! Check out the information below!

Time: Saturday, April 9 · 11:00am - 6:00pm

Location: Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Centre. 535 Clementi Road, S599489

Created By: Start of Year cosplay event

More Info
SOY is back for the 4th year!. SOYC 11 !. Yes we have moved from January to April this year, April 9th to be exact.
Expect the usual Group and solo Cosplay competition, Karaoke competition and much much more.
Booth registration is not open yet so do stay tune.
Do follow our twitter account @soycosplayevent for updates
and if you have any questions you can email them to pr[at]soy-japtsubasa.net

Official Page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Start-of-Year-cosplay-event/209723725560

Video Games Award 2010 on Animax

The Spike Video Game Awards (VGA) is an award show hosted by Spike TV that recognizes the best computer and video games of the year. Beginning in 2003, the Spike TV Video Game Awards garnered much attention, since video game awards were not common prior to its introduction. The VGAs feature live music performances and appearances by popular performers in music, movies, and television. Additionally, preview trailers for upcoming games are highlighted. The show is produced by GameTrailers TV's Geoff Keighley. The event has been held at various locations in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California as well as Las Vegas, Nevada.

The 2010 VGAs were the world's biggest global gaming event broadcasted in over 175 territories worldwide.

A week or so ago, I received an invitation from the ever gracious Animax, to a preview of the Video Games Award 2010. Now, personally I am not a gamer but I thought, oh well, I’ll try watching it anyway. And boy was I pleasantly surprised =)!

To give you guys a bit of prelude to the entry, in the coming Sunday 23rd January, Animax Asia will be airing the Video Game Award 2010 at 7:10pm on Skycable Ch46. And a selected group of fans/bloggers have been invited to preview it online.

 
When you see a host holding a chicken like this, you know you just gotta watch on 

The show this year was hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, an actor and voice talent. Other celebrities that appeared included names like cast members of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Danny Devito, Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney, Academy Award Nominated Director Guillermo Del Toro, Halo: Reach star and VGA Nominee Nathan Fillion,  Thor: God of Thunder star Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Munn, AnnaLynne McCord, and Tony Hawk.

Also featured musical performances by winning violinist Diana Yukawa, My Chemical Romance and José González.

I swear I was sincerely afraid her dress would slip……………...and I would miss that epic moment =X

For a die-hard gamer, the highlight of the show would have to be the official announcement of numerous big game titles and new games previews. I’m not going to list them out and spoil the fun , though if you’re itching to know, you can try searching.  For the list of nominated game titles, pop over to Animax’s VGA microsite.

 

The highlight of the show for a non gamer like myself would have to be the awesome game trailers shown. Pop over to Animax’s Microsite to view the nominees trailers.

 

I would also have to admit that I am very impressed by the organiser’s dedication to details. And for producing a show that is interesting, even to a non gamer. The stage props, usage of LED lights and Augmented Reality was really quite a first for me! I felt like I was right in the game itself!

Like seriously, dude, check out the smokes and glistering gold buddha!

    

Check out the floating screens on the foregrounds! Those are augmented reality and will only appear to the home audience. Guess this is the only time we on the couch can shout “SUCKS TO BE JOO!!!!” at the live audiences xDD!

And with people like Dane Cook around, I guess you can expect a lot of crack xD

 

Probably the best part of the whole award was the exclusive animation  for the “Character of the Year”. If a non-gamer like myself find the Out-of-character (or maybe, more “out of situation”) footage funny, I’m sure the fans will be even more thrilled.

The show is also interesting for its random jokes, gamers are really quite crazy humorous you know =).

So remember to catch the SouthEast Asia broadcast of the Video Games Award 2010 on Animax, 23rd January, 7:10pm! Just remember, don’t watch it with minors, the show isn’t exactly safe for work/kids/family ^_^;;

And the results was announced…

Those of you who follow me on Deviantart would have seen this post already. Wasn’t wanting to do an entry here but figured I should give my supporters from the blog an answer too.

Thank you minna-san, for voting for me endlessly and listening to my shameless pimps repeatedly. The Smiling contest has officially announced the winners and as expected, I didn't win.
But I just thought I should officially tell you guys about it since I owe you guys one =) And yes, I'm disappointed with the results. Going to Japan is definitely on my Bucket List. In fact, it has been the biggest reason of my joining numerous Cosplay Competition. I aspire to be a world traveler because I know that the world is big and beautiful and it would be a shame to be stuck in my little cement confinement watching my time go by. Sadly, financial ability does not allow and I have to turn to such contest. But ah well, I guess I'm just not popular enough and does not have friends who are super h**ker =(

On a totally different note, I FINALLY had a Defence Devil Photoshoot! Its the costume Zeph and I wore for AFARCC. Here's a preview picture from Facebook. 

*Tags Adrian to above pic*

WWCPJ: Reached Penang, Malaysia!

Yeay!! I'm so excited ^_^ Should have updated earlier but I didn't I don't know why. Anyway, those of you whoh follow TCC's Facebook page would have heard the news. World wide Cospalyer Photo journey has reached Malaysia!!!!

This is the photo taken by Riko, the 5th participant ^_^. Stolen from her Facebook without permission =X *hides* And I wonder if Riko deliberately folded the scarf so as to hide the doodle/excitement o_o

I'm so excited whenever I think about WWCPJ. And guys, the Worldwide Cosplayer Photo Journey is STILL ON GOING. I know the initial plan was for it to end by December 2010. But as the mailing took much longer than expected, coupled with high request from you guys, I've decided to extend it till June 2011 =). So for those of you who are still interested, pop over to the WWCPJ page (wwcosplayer.vze.com) and leave a comment with your email ^_^!!

Kiddy Grade: Agent ID Cosplay Resource

Hi guys, someone messaged and asked where I got my GOTT ID Pass graphic. Adding that no matter how she searched, she just couldn’t find high resolution images of the Pass. And you know what? I totally believe her!. Because I too, couldn’t find any high resolution images of the damn pass at all! I had to manually trace the graphic myself using Photoshop and Flash.

 

So, being the generous me *gets bashed* I decided to open these up for sharing. They are not totally accurate because I was running out of time and didn’t include the details but I guess they can be something you can work from.

Click on the 2 images below to download the high res.

Click on the individual picture to download

Some reference pictures of the pass to share too. Kiddy Grade’s a pretty old title and I’m doubtful if anyone will even need this but ah wells, just in case yeah?

I can’t remember which website it was that showed Eclair’s statistics but this is a screencap of that page and they had Lumiere’s information too.

Kiddy Grade Photo shoot!

Series: Kiddy Grade
Eclair: Kaika
Lumiere: Noshuu
Photographers: Yuanie, Sour_cheese, Songster69 

Hi guys! This entry shall document the adventures and perils of a cosplayer out door! Like, literally, out of the door LOL. Alright, that was a silly way to start this entry. Basically this is a Photo shoot entry for me to dump my memories of those wonderful time spent and share some little tips.

 

After nearly 4years, I finally got to shoot this series. Yeah, 4 long years, HOMG! Main reason for the delay was the lack of a partner, Eclair needs Lumiere! So you bet I was happy when Noshuu agreed to be my Lumiere!

 
The whole project  was very much delayed (for nearly one year) because Noshuu and I couldn't seem to find time to do it!  It was like, first there was EOY, then there was WCS, then there was short holiday getaways and then cosfest and all that. Plus she had to do her own costume from scratch so that took time too. I ended up having to redo (tailored!) my entire costume too because the PVC were flaking after so many years T.T what a waste of my effort to preserve it. 

The first time I did Eclair, I was running really low on time. And missed out a lot of costume details which I insist on not missing out this time round. They were specifically her gun, gun holster and gold lip stick. You can tell from the photos that I gave up on tying a ribbon around my thigh so let’s just pretend we didn’t notice that :P

I made her cross earrings and lips stick out of paper clay! I covered the cross paper clay with white nail polish. Lipstick was originally a concealer. I used up the concealer and cleaned it out to be used as a prop. Then I sprayed the entire thing gold.

Her gun holster was made out of fabric, cardboard, double sided tape, safety pins and a bit of sewing. Just a bit. Yes, this is the ghetto-est prop I’ve ever made. But hey, I attached magnet and a pin to the opening part so it really does work xD *gets bashed*.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m finding myself going in a downward spiral of laziness. These days, I’m less concerned about the durability of my props and more concerned about just finishing the task so I can use it for the shoot =\ Its a bad direction I’m going , I know... but it saves time. Especially since costumes aren’t something you keep for long. Nowadays, I just don’t feel the need to be persistent on quality/workmanship as long as it’s enough to get pass the photos. *gets bashed again* Anyone on this with me =( ?

Enough with prop talk, back to Photo shoot.

I learnt the hard way that if one wants really awesome photographs, they really need to plan. And make sure all the props are well prepared before the shoot.  The last thing you’ll want, is to be running around like a headless chicken, play too much and end up having no nice pictures. As much as I enjoy goofing around with my friends, I value the opportunity of a Photo shoot to create ‘Art’ more than anything and I think it’s a waste of everyone’s time and resources to not make good use of it.

Since it was so long ago since we last watched the series and were pretty empty on inspirations. We went back to re-watch the anime and remembered what made us liked it. The arc where Eclair and Lumiere rebelled against GOTT and ran around hiding. Anyone a fan of Kiddy Grade here xD??

So yeah, we then set about searching for a location that would look abandoned and desolated. We managed to find it but it was pretty inaccessible and we had to spend more time on logistic arrangements.

Organizing the shoot was difficult! There was so much logistic arrangement , site recce-ing and schedules matching. We even drove down to the proposed location  just to check out the location.

As you can tell from the pictures, the shoot location had no shelter at all! When we went to check out the site the first time, we were quite literally toasted! But god was kind to us and on the actual day itself, the skies were cloudy and comfortable >w<!

On to some Behind-the-scenes photographs!

 
The Final product

Some behind the scenes photos of Noshuu (Lumiere) waving my red lipstick weapon.

The Final product

LOL at pitiful Sour_cheese who had to lay on the dirt to get that shot. Kudos to all the photographers that day for getting down and dirty to get the shot. That shot has got to be my favourite from that day >.< .

 
Scarecrow Lumiere :D

Thought I’d use this chance to share a little tip with you ladies. You know how some costumes have very wide collar openings and they always threaten to show what they are not supposed to?

I faced the exact same problem with Eclair’s costume. Of course I could make the collar width smaller but it would look less accurate and I didn’t want to negotiate that. To make matters worse, I have really tiny shoulders, so the collar openings are literally 1 inch away from my shoulder ends. So I took the chance to explore this method I’ve been toying in my brain.

I used 2 safety pins (or rather, I got helpful noshuu to help me pin them on the day itself because I was too lazy to prepare before hand *gets bashed x3* ) and pined them at the blue dots indicated in the picture below. Then I got my bra strap to run through the pins, kinda like a loop for a belt. I must say this method worked beautifully ;D

  Green bra is of course not visible on the outside :P Is drawn for illustrative purpose!

The safety pins in action.

The pins should probably be vertical instead of horizontal but it still works fine =) Oh, another thing you might notice from the photos above, is the use of dressmaker’s sponge for the sleeves. I swear it has to be the best method ever and it’s cleverly invented by my tailor and me *nose grows longer*. I swear by dressmaking sponge/foam and I always use it for parts of any costumes that need some sort of solid form but still needs to be flexible enough to allow movements.

 I enjoyed the shoot very much despite the uncomfortably skimpy costume and all my butt cheeks flashing  =.=. Stupid gonzo and all their fan servicing actions/panty shots *Clenches fist* ! There were many firsts for us that day. it was Noshuu's first photoshoot ever and it was Yuanie's first attempt as a saikang/photographer xD well for me, it was the first time I ever shot at the location and the first time I ever wore so little =.=;;; It was also my first time working with Sour_Cheese!

It was fun talking with everyone and we all got along great xD Much thanks to yuanie who's car was the main thing that made this shoot possible! Am very thankful that you pushed your work aside for us TOT

Hope I didn’t bore you too much with this entry ^^; Leave me a note if you enjoyed reading it and if y ou feel I should continue documenting personal Photo shoots on this blog or not D:?