Thursday, November 14, 2013

Jack Frost Cosplay - Staff and Invisible shoes

Hi guys!!!


Before posting about my wonderful weekend at Comic-Con Montréal, I feel like I should show a bit how I made the staff and the transparent shoes for my Jack Frost cosplay. I didn't make that for my Aoba cosplay (especially the jacket) and I alway get a lot of questions so I think that from now on I should explain a bit more how I make my cosplay stuff.


Let's begin with the stick/staff!

I made one last year for G-anime since I was cosplaying Jack Frost too back then. But unfortunately it broke a bit during the con and also completely on my bus trip... so I had to think of a way to make a sturdier one for Comic-con.


Here is the previous version of the staff:

And here at a shoot at the end of the con, you can see the paint peeled quite a bit on the tip:


So I decided to make a new one with real wood this time to avoid it breaking and peeling that much. I asked first if it was ok with the weapon check though because I didn't want to work hard and then be refused at the entrance...

I went to small woods near my appartment and picked up some sturdy branches. One already had a shape that could fit so I took it right away. I took a few smaller ones to make the curve in the staff. Then I looked awkward going back home with all those branches in my hands... but it was definitely worth it.

I used a knife (I would recommend a small saw though) to cut the wood pieces the shape I wanted and then used duckt tape to hold them together. I tried hot glue and quick grip glue but nothing worked.

 I used green duckt tape but noticed it would show too much so I bought brown tape (it was somewhat very expensive for tape...) and retaped the top part. I also carved swirls all along the staff with a knife, I think it is what took the most time.

After that I mixed paint to get a light blue and began to paint in the carved swirls.

And improvised for the taped part since it wasn't carved. I also used brown paint to cover the tape since it wasn't the same brown as the wood. I tried to match the color the most I could.

 I then used a sponge and white paint to apply the 'snow' on the staff. For the 'magic ice' I used light blue glitter glue that I applied in the carvings and regular glitter that I sprayed about everywhere possible (even on the floor and the cat...).

I took some pictures to compare both the old and the new staff. The old is on the left and the new on the right.

You can see the paint cracked a lot on the old one. It didn't crack on the new one, except a bit on the part with the duckt tape but it is easy to repair with a bit of white paint.


The old one was taller, but broke at the bottom. The new one still is taller than what the old one was when it was still intact. I would say the new one is about 2 meters high.




That's enough staff pictures for now!


I don't have much pictures on the transparent shoes, but I do have a link to the original tutorial! It is really useful for all the cosplays where the character doesn't wear any shoe.
http://andsewingishalfthebattle.com/invisible-shoes


Mine didn't turn out exactly as hers, but they still did the job. People were really thinking I wasn't wearing anything and thought I was crazy!

I won't repeat everything from the tutorial above, but I'll still talk about the basic stuff.
To make those invisible shoes, you just need a transparent sole, some stretchy net fabric and a marker that fits your skin tone. You basically just need to sew the fabric straps to the sole where your second toe and middle of your foot are, and tadaa!

You need to be sure of where to sew the straps though because mine were a bit loose at times... I didn't do the marking step and really should've!


That's mostly it for the staff and invisible shoes tutorial. Hope it helped!

Next up should be my Comic con recap. Also I have enough material to make a tutorial for the lights in my Rin cosplay, maybe I'll do that if you are interested.

*Kinerai*

Monday, November 4, 2013

Otakuthon 2013 recap

Hi guys!
I'm a bit late with this post. but I was very busy lately so I can only post this now sorry ;^^

So this goes back to mid-august. My friends and I went to the biggest anime convention around here, Otakuthon. It is our 5th time going there!

 
As usual it was very awesome and we had a lot of fun. We met new people and took a lot of picture. I don't remember that much what we did exactly during those 3 days. But I'll try to remember the best I can!

Here was my cosplay list for the convention:



 Rin Okumura from Ao no Exorcist on Friday and Saturday.


















Aoba Seragaki from Dramatical Murder on Sunday.




















Friday
So as usual my friend came to my appartment on Friday and we hurried a bit to get dressed in time. She was cosplaying Mephistos Pheles, also from Ao no exorcist so we had a lot of ears and various things to stick to our heads XD It took quite some time and spirit gum to make her beard stick correctly. After tediously dressing up, we were finally able to head out!

We arrived a bit earlier, so none of our friends were there yet. Fortunately we were asked for some pictures so we were still pretty busy. The convention was only starting at 5 PM on Friday so we got a lot of time to take pictures and search for people.



Finally we were able to meet with our friends and eat a little something together before the convention began.



 And take some pictures together too...



Mephistos' hat was falling of...

We also met a Shura cosplayer while taking pictures!



The fire on my cosplay was supposed to lit up but it was hard to see inside...

Our friend was taking pictures whenever she wanted so there are some funny ones too XD


And everyone together now!


And of course the mandatory 'Take off' pose! (you have no idea how many takes it took to get it somewhat right)


Afterwards we went shopping when the dealers room openned. I didn't buy much that day... except a beaded scott pilgrim thingy... along with a bonus beaded moustache... one of my friend decided to buy a moustache too... which led to this of course!



Friday ended very fast. We were exhausted too so we went to sleep almost early. But then I couldn't stop thinking about how to improve the lights in my sword... so I got up at 3 AM and arranged my sword. It was kinda necessary... you'll see in the next pictures!


Saturday
Saturday is always the big day! This time we got to take other cosplayers in photo and to attend a few pannels and projections too. 
The battery pack on my tail kept falling of so I took a new one and re-wraped it around the tip of the tail. I also bought new batteries... it really made a huge difference between the new batteries and the ones from the dollar store. The lights were a lot more appearent! So I wraped everything together during the subway trip; it was really funny to see people look at us because of it.

When we arrived I met a friend who was cosplaying Leagues of Legend with her friend and we took pictures together.



Then we went to see a few pannels and went shopping again. When we were a bit tired we decided to take pictures of cosplayers.



The big pokemon group!


A friend of mine who was cosplaying a character from High school of the dead.

Another friend who is cosplaying Wonderland Undertaker from Kuroshitsuji.



I remember someone at the store buying a lot of green fleece... they told me it was to make a cactuor cosplay. I didn't know how it would turn out really... well it did turn out awesome!




 At the end of the day we went outside to try to take pictures that would show the lights in my cosplay. It did work out in the end.






Another cosplayer wanted to battle with me...


Take off pose again!


 We saw a Jack Frost in the distance...

The last we could get before it was too dark outside to see anything but blue lights.


 After that we went home again and took one last picture together by the fountain. We were all pretty tired, I'm sure you can tell.


Sunday
Subday was kinda slow and calm. We didn't really take any pictures. The only ones I have are from other people who took pictures of my Aoba cosplay. I know I talked about the work in progress on it so I feel that I have to show how it looked a bit.


 It was a bit painful to wear because the boot covers kept wanting to fall appart and I had to see one of the jacket's buttons back on too... so it needs a bit more work on it I guess...

In the end we went upstairs to eat and relax. While being seated I spotted someone with the same wig as I. The whole time I was wondering if someone else was cosplaying Aoba... I was so happy to find out that yes, they were!

We took a picture together of course!


That's mostly it for Otakuthon 2013. Only a month after I attended Comic con Montreal... so yes this post should be done soon. I have way less things to show so it will be a small post.


*Kinerai*