Long story short: I've pretty much hated cosplay with a burning passion ever since I got back from Japan. Not cosplay per se, but the whole "making costumes and running around in them" business. Mostly because I've gone through some surprising self esteem issues regarding my skills as a costume maker and have decided that I'm not as good as I should be. Which I know is stupid, because cosplay is supposed to be a fun way to express your love for your favourite characters but, unfortunately, I'm more interested in seeing how much better I can be at making costumes, rather than expressing my love for fictional characters (that's what Tumblr is for.

I'm trying to get back on track now, making simple costumes and not giving myself any strict deadlines. Which would probably work a bit better if I hadn't already agreed to MC at Desucon Frostbite. Which means I actually have to get my costume done by then. Good thing it's not a very complex costume, as I'll be cosplaying Jack Frost. From Rise of the Guardians. Yeah. I know. I haven't cosplayed such a ~mainstream~ character since 2005 when I did Urahara from Bleach, and I'm feeling a bit weird about the whole thing. I'm so used to no one recognising my costumes that my brain'll most likely explode, come Frostbite.

Aside from all that, I'll be attending to conventions abroad this spring. First J-Popcon in Denmark on 15-17 March and then Animecon in Holland on the first weekend in June. So that's something to look forward to!

Because I obviously don't have enough cosplay profiles on the internet yet, I made one on Facebook. Feel free to stalk me.

Also, hello. I'm back from Japan. Can't be arsed to write up anything about WCS yet, but I might do that later. And I say might because I don't want to make promises I can't keep. : D

Tracon is this coming weekend and I'll be wearing one of my old costumes (after I've done a bit of "why would anyone sew anything like this, oh god, burn it now" -fixing on it), Cupid(o) from the game Shining Tears (I am a horrible person and originally cosplayed the character just to accompany my friend's Elwyn, so I know absolutely nothing about the character. Other than the fact that he probably plays the harp). So if you're coming and see me wandering around, come say hi.

Tomorrow, ~noyn and I will be flying to Nagoya for the World Cosplay Summit.

Not nervous at all. Nope. Nuh-uh.

I'm lying, of course.

There's still a ton of stuff to do before we leave but I've already decided that being a hysterical wreck isn't going to do anyone any good, and that I. Will not. Panic.

So yeah. The point of this entry is to say "OH MY GOD GUYS HOW IS IT JULY 25TH ALREADY WE ONLY JUST WON THE PRELIMS ARGH" and to remind you that the best place follow our adventures is Facebook.

Also: adghfahjsdfgfashjtehgdf.

The rest of the internet is too damn distracting and keeps me way from dA for extended periods of time. Sorry if you've missed me. Although you probably haven't. Stalk me on Tumblr if you have.

Desucon (the Finnish version) was last weekend and I'm still a bit high on all the awesomeness. Especially the lovely feedback I've received (directly or not) about MC:ing the masquerade has been pretty mind-blowing. I love hosting cosplay shows and knowing that people think I'm good at it is pretty amazing. Sorry if i sound like a self-absorbed dickwad; I promise I'm not. I'm just genuinely surprised to hear that people like what I do. I's actually pretty humbling and makes me want to get better and better, so that I won't let anyone down the next time I get on stage. So, you know. Wow.
(I'll be hosting the Animecon masquerade in Kuopio, in case anyone is interested.)

Otherwise I've been trying to concentrate on WCS things. I still have one costume left to finish (... and two to fix) and then it's all about working on the skit. July is going to be terrible but at least nothing can ever top the horror that was last summer (On worst days I worked from 4.30 am to 3 pm, went home and rehearsed our skit with ~noyn until around midnight. Never. Again.). I'm really excited about the WCS and look forward to meeting all the crazy people in person. It's going to be amazing.

Also, because this merits a separate mention: I'm planning on cosplaying Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones sometime after we get back from Japan (I'm thinking either in Tracon and/or Cosplay Gaala; the latter one because I might actually want to do a bit of a skit and take part in the masquerade as a contestant for a change). I hate him with a burning passion but he's one of the most interesting characters in GoT and has a damn fine wardrobe. So yeah. I'll be searching for the perfect brocade for the next few months. : D

Anything interesting going on in here, anything I should know about? If not, just tell me your lamest jokes.

I'm not dead, I've just been incredibly lazy and suffering from cosplay anxiety, which results in me not doing anything. I'm also flat broke which means I can't even do anything, no matter how much I'd want to.

On that note, I'm selling a whole bunch of anime/manga/doujinshi/whathaveyou on Aniki.fi, so if you're a Finn (I'm not doing the whole international shipping thing, sorry), click HERE.

I'd love to be one of those people who can just draw cool stuff and have people pay them for it, but alas, I'm not. I could, of course, offer to draw stick figures and ask for 10€ a piece just because I'm the Amazing Me, but I'm not quite that delusional yet. Yet.

Yeah.

I'll get back to you whenever I somehow get back my cosplay mojo and inherit an unreasonable sum of money from a distant relative I've never met.

Forget everything I wrote about cosplaying Miraru in my last entry. I mean, I've started the costume (aka. began styling the wig and cursed myself for being cheap and buying an XTPRO instead of going full eBay, because the wig itself is pretty decent but the cap is so small it doesn't exactly fit on my head) but as I was browsing the interwebs I somehow remembered Midnight Venus from the amazingly fantastic Atlus-game, Catherine.

I mean, just look at this chick. She's fabulously tacky and has a glittery red afro. And bling. Lots of bling. She speaks to me in so many ways it's not even funny and she would be a perfect character for hosting the Desucon masquerade next summer. And I love how her gender is marked as "Female ?". : D

So yeah. Miraru will have to get back into the closet of my mind and I'll be hanging around in Frostbite as Midnight Venus.

Which means I'm so going to buy a tacky red afro and glittery hairspray as soon as I get off from work. Teehee~

I was supposed to do Raidou Kuzunoha for the upcoming Desucon Frostbite but I'm too damn lazy to make his props. And Raidou without his props = no. Thus, no Raidou for Frostbite. I will make the costume later on, though, since I have good use for it sometime in the summer. Dun dun dunn! (And I need to shoot Raidou in the Japanese garden in Roihuvuori when there are cherry blossoms. Because ASDFGHSFAP.)

But! I won't be going to Frostbite naked! Although I'm sure some people would love that (freaks). Instead, I'm finally making The Random Chick aka. a beautiful-yet-emitting-a-slight-dominatrix-y-vibe lady, illustrated by Kaneko Kazuma for Kadono Kouhei's novel, Inside the Apocalypse Castle. I had no idea what her name was (and I've been lusting after the costume for quite a few years, now), until I decided to read ALL the reviews written for the book in Japanese and try to understand at least a few words. Just so that I wouldn't have to call my character The Random Chick. She deserves better than that. I ended up using Google Translate because I keep forgetting that Japanese people use kanji and kanji are evil (not really, I just suck at memorizing them) and found out what the character is called. She's Miraru. The random dude in the picture is Kiraru. They're twins. In case you couldn't tell. I have a feeling they might be slightly evil.


Thus, my costume plans for 2012 are as follows:

Miraru from Inside the Apocalypse Castle
(Desucon Frostbite, Jan 14-15)

Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner -series
(Whichever event comes before Desucon and isn't thirty lightyears away from Helsinki)

Solush from Last Exile -fam- The Silver Wing
(Desucon IV, Jun 8-10)


I'm supposedly hosting the cosplay shenanigans in the summer Desucon (again) and I'm not sure if I should make one more costume just for that or just go with Miraru. It would be fun to do a show as a sneaky vixen instead of my usual wacky old guys. And Solush really isn't hosting material (sorry bebe, you're still my favourite gay soldier). Thoughts?

Hopped on yet another bandwagon, this one of the Worldcosplay.net kind. You can stalk me here: [link]

Oh, and happy Christmas/whatever!

I've spent my brief vacation at my parents' place in Lahti, eating like a sumo wrestler (and feeling like one). It's a good thing I only have one box of chocolates left, otherwise I might have to rent a truck to take me back home to Helsinki. Amusingly enough, my mum got me a kettlebell for Christmas, which means I have no excuse not to get back in shape, asap. : D

I jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon. Which is kind of ironic, since just a few months ago I though Tumblr was a completely useless service that I didn't understand. I still don't understand it and I've no idea what to do with my account (other than to post cosplay stuff; maybe some behind the scenes shots? I don't know). Maybe I'm just one of those people who feel the need to be everywhere. (You can slap me if I ever fall for Twitter, though.)

So, you know. If you feel like stalking me, head over to recosplay.tumblr.com.


In other news: I had yet another WCS related nightmare. In this one, ~noyn and i went up on stage and our music was all wrong. When we complained about it, we were told that we should just go along with it and stop whining. I woke up screaming. Seriously. I wish I was making this up.

Otherwise every single conversation Maiju and I have had about our WCS plans has gone something like this:

"We should plan this thing."
"Yeah, we should."
"..."
"..."
"I'm hungry."

We're so going to rock.


Oh, and! I have a photoshoot tomorrow. I'll finally get proper pictures of my Shiki (Togainu no Chi - shut up, I liked his design)! If anyone has an awesome Akira costume laying around and would like to join me, meet me at the Malmi railway station tomorrow at 2 PM. You know you want to.

Man, I'm productive today.

I made a video. Of the cosplay kind. It has music playing in the background and it's kind of funny.

You can watch it HERE.

Briefly in Finnish:

Oletko 14-18-vuotias cosplay-/lolitatyyppi? YLE haluaa sinut brändikuviinsa!

Käväisehän siis Anikin foorumilla ja lue tämä viesti.



Onto other things:

If anyone feels like writing a 100-page report for my thesis, raise your hand. I hate writing reports and that damn thing is keeping me from working on my costumes. Or planning photoshoots. Or doing anything fun, really, since I'm supposed to be an adult and put my studies before my hobbies. And I have to turn in the damned report on December 2. I'm screwed, aren't I?

Also, are there any cons worth attending anywhere in Europe before next Summer? I already know I'm going to fly over to Denmark at some point but I'd love to visit other countries, too. Especially now that flight tickets are ridiculously cheap.

I've been thinking about uploading some of the cosplay photos I've taken but have decided not to because I'm not a photographer. But. Today I decided I might as well, considering this is my gallery and I can damn well do whatever I want with it. And I already uploaded something I drew. So there!

I uploaded a few shots from our DOGS-shoot in July. Might add something else too, later on, but I'm at work right now (kids, this is how we grownups spend our days at the office) and those three were the only shots I had available.

Also: I crave for a photoshoot. I need one. Or two. Too bad it's freezing outside and none of my costumes are warm enough wear when the temperature drops below +10 °C. My life is so hard!

I'm still alive, just drowning in work and other boring things you have to do when you're an adult.  A proper update... at some point.

SUOMALAISET!

Sain ryhmäni kanssa opinnäytejulkaisuni valmiiksi. Se on eKirja ja sitä voi lukea paitsi iPadin kaltaisilla lukulaitteilla, myös suoraan tietokoneelta. Klikatkaapa siis tästä ja käykää katsomassa, mitä olemme saaneet aikaan. Klik klik!

Ja PS. Jos satut olemaan järkevä täysi-ikäinen ihminen ja haikailet asunnonpuolikasta Helsingistä, hihkaise. Tarvitsen kämppiksen. Lisätietoja, jos jotakuta oikeasti kiinnostaa.

Like the title says! We now have a Facebook page, too! We're like, totally hip and Web 2.0 and social and... media. I don't know. But we are.

Team Finland 2012

Go like us already!

Hey dudes and dudettes!

We (~noyn and I, that is) finally managed to get our official WCS blog up and running (it still looks rather dull, so if anyone feels like making us a fancy header image, we're not going say no)!

Follow us: Team Finland 2012

You know you want to.

Long story short, I am now a part of an international (well Danish/Finnish, at least for now) blogging collective that's going to start writing stuff in a blog called int.cosblog. It's going to be awesome.

So if you're cool and want to know what's going on in the cosplay scene in Europe, you should totally follow us.


INT.COSBLOG


You know you want to!




~noyn and I will also be launching our Team Finland 2012 blog soon-ish (aka. as soon as we can be arsed to think about anything WCS related), so keep an eye out for that, too! I will be promoting the blog like mad once the time comes, so it'll be pretty much impossible to miss it.

So, umm. Yeah.

We kind of won the Finnish WCS preliminaries which means ~noyn and I will be going to Japan for the Final sometime next summer. I still haven't quite wrapped my head around this but then again, I still have plenty of time to do so.

Other than that, I have actual costume plans! And I'm going to share them with you! And if you're cool and know anything about the characters I'm doing, I'd be thrilled to gather a group of cosplayers from the same series! Exclamation point!


Planned costumes for 2011-2012

CosplayGaala III
Miki Kaoru from Adolescence of Utena
(Rest of the student council would be much appreciated. Or Kozue. Actually, Kozue would be asdfshgsf awesome.)

Desucon Frostbite
Raidou Kuzunoha from the SMT Devil Summoner games
(Random demons would be much appreciated.)

???
Solush from Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing


So yay! Now I'll drink some more tea and try to get rid of this damned flu that's apparently been waiting to attack since late June. Damn you, flu, damn you!

This started out as the description for the random sketch I just posted and would have turned out to be an entire wall of text so I figured I'd just ramble here.

If you have browsed my journal entries (which I know you have, because obviously you have nothing better to do than to stalk everything I've ever done, duh), you may have noticed that there's a lonely entry from January 2006 in which I, quite dramatically, announce I won't be drawing anything anymore. Because I'm not good enough. Which, as you know, is a very advisable thing to do.

In all honesty, I never really was that good. I probably could have gotten better if I'd kept practising, but to me, drawing never was something I was all that passionate about. Even after attending art school for ten years. I just like(d) drawing pictures. I don't even have a very visual imagination (which I know sounds silly, considering I'm a cosplayer), so in the end, not pushing myself too hard to do something I had very little potential for was a pretty good decision.

So, I don't know, have you people had hobbies you thought were your thing but turned out to be everything but? Or, what are the things you've just quit, for one reason or another?


To set an example, here's a list of the things I have quit:

- Gymnastics after one practise at three years old. Bitches we're telling us to be giraffes when obviously we looked more like trees. I couldn't stand such deception.
- Guitar after fifteen minutes at eight years old. My dad bought me a guitar, sat down with me and told me there were all these chords I was supposed to learn. Nuh-uh, no one ever said anything about chords, I thought I could just start rocking out!
- Drawing. See above.
- Art school after ten years at 18, when I had one year left before "graduation".
- Special fx make up studies after a year at 19. I didn't as much quit as "not finish my final project that would have resulted in me getting a degree". I just didn't feel like knitting a wig. I though it would be fun but it was one of the most tedious things I've ever done.
- Marketing studies after six months at 20. I was supposed to call people and sell them business things. Oh-hell-to-the-no!
- Tequila. Enough said.


In cosplay related news: WCS costume and performance is coming along. Be sure to come and support us (and everyone else) at Tracon in September!

... Cause, you know. Desu. As in Desucon. Past tense "deshita". No? Ok.

Desucon came and went, I hosted the masquerade (as Castor) again and had a blast. Apparently it went well since a lot of people have been telling they were thoroughly entertained. This warms my heart. Which is a good thing.

I also took Utena out for a walk for the first time in a while and remembered (yet again) why I should stick to characters who make wacky faces every three seconds. There's no smizing with this face, nuh-uh!

I tossed some pictures of Castor (taken by the oh-so-awesome ~yayagami ) in the gallery as well as a bit of Utena (shot by equally awesome ~YumiKoyuki ). There's plenty more to come, so stay tuned!

Next convention for the summer is Nekocon on the second weekend of July and I'll be prancing around (how very in-character of me) as Heine Rammsteiner from DOGS. My personal Badou is also going to hang around. But you know. He's just Badou. He braids his hair and paints his nails. Or something. And Naoto and Nill will be there too so = awesomeness a-plenty.

And then it's September (what, don't your calendars have September right after the second weekend of July?) and time for the Finnish World Cosplay Summit Preliminaries which I will be taking part in, along with ~noyn . We will be making mysterious costumes from a very mysterious series. Which is, obviously, Naruto. Yeah. Uh huh.

It's way too late and I need to sleep. Try not to get yourselves killed while I'm not watching, ok?

So ~YumiKoyuki tagged me which must mean it's high time for me to type up a bit of an update!

Here's the taggity-thing to get things started:


You must post these rules
Each tagged person must post 10 things about themselves on their journal
You have to choose and tag 10 some people and post their icons on the same journal
Go to their pages and tell them you tagged them
No tag backs


1. I'm a terribly judgemental person and not nearly as nice as most people think. Trust me. But that's what makes me awesome.

2. I'll graduate a year from now. Which means I'll have a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism. I have no idea what to do with my degree other than to frame it and hang it on my wall as a proof of me having the patience to sit through three and a half years of college.

3. Speaking of which, I'll be working at YLE (kind of like the Finnish BBC for the few of you who aren't from Finland) starting this September. Which is awesome.

4. I've recently gotten all excited about studying Japanese again. I studied it for four years from 2002 to 2006 (it was a time when being a J-tard was still so lame that me and my bff were the only students in the class) and kind of forgot about it after I moved to Helsinki. Now I've been studying the basics again and I'm really into it.

5. After high school I studied sfx make-up techniques for a year. It was a year of complete and utter failure. To a point where one of my teachers told me not to touch the more expensive materials because I'd just make a mess.

6. One of the reasons I'm hell-bent on graduating is that my mum has promised to get me a dog as a graduation gift. Her reasoning was that "If Obama promised his kids a dog if he got elected, you might as well have one if you graduate." Because obviously, me graduating = Obama being elected. (She'll be a yellow Labrador and I'll name her Hildegård Marygold.)

7. Sims 2 has ruined my life. Well, not really, it just has a habit of being much more interesting than most of my school work. Or sleep. Or, you know, life.

8. Stating the obvious but stating it anyway: I don't do relationships. Meaning that I'm not into the whole idea of two (or more, whichever rocks your boat) people annoying the shit out of each other for an indefinite amount of time. I like to like people with no bothersome strings attached. (And that just made me sound like a total ho. Score.)

9. I am incapable of filling these things with facts such as "I'm 164 cm tall!" Which means I spend way too much time thinking about the things I'm going to write and trying to come up with something that would properly describe me as a person.

10. I get all teary-eyed and heart-achy whenever I hear a show tune about dreams and making them come true. Which means that most of GLEE breaks my heart. I'm a bit lame like that.


Aaaand I'm not tagging anyone because I'm a rebel. Rock'n'roll forever man and all that.

Also, do me a favour and help me decide what to wear on the second day of Desucon this coming June. There's a poll in my blog ( [link] ) on the left side of the thingamalingy and you don't even have to understand Finnish to vote! Awesome, I know!

So yeah. Have a nice life and I'll try to come up with something worth uploading sometime in the undefined future!