Plans, plans... And Valentine's day!

For starters, I would really like to thank everyone who voted our photo on Desucon’s Välähdys- posing competition! And again big thanks to AG, who is responsible of all the photos from Lumiere and Cogsworth. I hope we bump into you at the convention photo booth in future cons!

"--You pompous parrafin-headed pea-brain!" "En garde, you overgrown pocket watch!"

Even if we finally got a proper winter here in Finland, our thoughts are already wandering towards summer. Our convention plans are still wide open, but we hope we are able to attend as many as we can. We have planned to roll pretty much with our old costumes, like Yoshimitsu and Ivy. Wearing them again also would give us a boost to polish and work on the details, with which we had to take short cuts last year. Desucon’s quest of honor might finally force us to re-do Sasori and Deidara. Also we could finally do a proper construction post starring Sasori’s body, because we have had questions about it through the years.

Old costumes aren’t the only ones swirling in our heads. We have sketched a pair cosplay from Star Wars, lolita-Transformers mash-up (to satisfy Yoki and her little Transformers addiction) and what else. In my closet there is still some costumes waiting to be finished, yet I dream of doing more, like Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle.

Next to sewing costumes that I wasn't meant to, I also might do something very different; compete alone. Lately I’ve been thinking about attending to the EuroCosplay preliminaries in June. The idea is a bit weird, performing on my own and all, but Yoki promised to be my best supporter. We'll see what happens! Cosplayer's plans are... well, cosplayer's plans. You can't really write them in stone.

Oh yeah, Finnish people! Lappeenrannan ja Kouvolan Eurokankaissa on muuttomyynti, kankaista -20% ja rullan loput -50%. Valikoimaa on jonkin verran rajattu; esimerkiksi suurin osa peruspuuvilloista ja -trikoista on siirretty syrjään muuttoa odottamaan. Lappeenrannassa osa puuvilla- ja satiinikanteista on myös alennuksessa, sekä kasa riemunkirjavia vetoketjuja.

Last but not least:

Happy Valentine's day for all the humans~

A year full of costumes and conventions

The end of the year is closing in and nine costumes, few projects and four conventions later I can look back to 2011 surprised, astonished and bit puzzled too. I really enjoyed last year even if there were struggles and setbacks. One single thing I’m really pleased with is our character choices. It feels like during the past year we have found characters that we can pull it off well and balanced. We have also polished skills with props and construction techniques.

Our first huge cosplay project reached a milestone in February, when we got our Snowtrooper costumes ready for a photoshoot. Before Tampere Kuplii we constructed the backpacks and were ready to participate in our first cosplay competition as freshly recruited soldiers. At Tampere Kuplii we were selected to the group of ten candidates, who got through to the second stage of the competition, which was an open voting on a website of a local newspaper. In the final battle our troopers carried us to third place.


We continued with Star Wars theme with female characters. For our first Desucon we arrived as Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee and spend the weekend hanging around and enjoying the seats at the main concert hall. I think we have never sat as much at any convention before.

The next costumes to build were supposed to be Ivy and Yoshimitsu, but instead I found myself complying with Yoki's wish to construct “something new” for Kawacon. That something new was femme gijinka Decepticons; Princess Megs and Lady Star. While at the convention we got recruited for the cosplay competition and won, for our amazement. With the bot ladies we had our first real photoshoot with a real, live photographer!

The big project was still ahead. After WCS preliminaries back in 2010 I stated to Yoki that next year we are going to compete. And we did so with Ivy and Yoshimitsu from Soul Calibur III. And came second! That was the crown for our sixth year we have cosplayed together.


But the year wasn’t all about successful costumes and fun conventions. Starting from spring, around the time we started to print the fabrics for our Jedi Knights, I felt like something was wrong with me. My condition developed so that July and August passed by in a haze of pain and drugs. Even if some days crafting costumes or even getting out of bed was almost impossible, I think that working gave me something else to think about, than continually worrying and doubting on my sick leave. I could say that cosplay became my lifeline for a period of time.

Only two weeks before Tracon and WCS preliminaries I got diagnosed with a chronic illness. A week before Tracon I started my medication and without it I think that I couldn’t have been able to step on the stage back in September. Coming second in WCS preliminaries was a huge thing for us. For me just being able to participate was really important.

Photos of Ivy and Yoshimitsu: Emilia Lahtinen.

This year cosplay gave me little more that new techniques and garments to fill the closet. For a short time I thought that I might have to drop the hobby, but now that my health has improved I couldn't think more opposite! I'm really proud of what we have accomplished this year and wait eagerly for the next year and new challenges.

What I wish for next year next to straight seams and sharp scissors is health and opportunities to connect with other enthusiastic costumers. Happy New Year!

Typical situation with changing plans

Changing plans with costumes, conventions or schedules must be one of the most typical situations (or problems) amongst cosplayers. We are no exception. After Tampere Kuplii we unanimously dropped Bakacon from our convention list because of Yoki’s exams. Now, after being somewhat crippled for weeks first by back problems and now with swollen knee and notorious spring flu, I’m completely assured that it was the right choice.

As a duo, it’s really easy to tell the other party if a costume idea doesn’t appeal too much or if you've had a change of heart. Dropped and changed costume plans happen so casually between us that we don’t even remember to report them. I think our long-term readers have noticed that. If I were to count all the costumes we have thought about doing, the list would possibly be at least double the length of the list of the actual costumes.

Crazy things have been introduced here on our blog with our possible projects. Talking about lists, I thought I could make one and try to clear out what new costumes we are going to do for this summer:

Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

That was short… These costumes we will wear at Desucon, which is the next convention we are going to attend to. Of course we have plans for the autumn, but at this point it’s too early to go there.

"I find the lack of your ergonomics, while constructing your lightsaber disturbing!"

Back from Tampere Kupl-z-z-z

Home, sweet home, I say and send hearts to Yoki who needs to travel three hours more. But I bet we both are really happy with how the con went despite the tiredness. I will write more of how everything went from the last minute repairs to well rehearsed competition entry next week. Now I can hardly get this two paragraphs post ready. It has already taken ten minutes…

My Tusken impersonation. I'll also load the few photos we took next week.

I think this will only apply to the Finnish readers, but you can find an open voting on Aamulehti’s webpage for the best costume at Tampere Kuplii! Go and cast a vote!

Upcoming cosplay from March Story

We got our costume plans for the summer conventions somewhat cleared last weekend. It seems that instead of Luminara and Barriss we are going solo to Bakacon. Yoki has been growing her hair out for Snufkin and I know she is dying to wear the costume again, so it’s Snufkin for Yoki! Now that I actually need to do a single cosplay I thought it would be good time to reveal my project, which I started last autumn as a time killer. I have done a lot for the costume and also have featured the making process here many times without giving series or character information out.

The character I’ve been working on is March from March Story. March Story is written and drawn by Koreans, but in my books it’s manga. The comic was first published in Sunday GX and first volume was released by VIZ last autumn. I’m looking forward April, because the second volume should be out then. I think March Story is one of the few comics I have fallen crazily in love with. Cosplay-wise it’s also the only costume I’m making based on a character which might or might not be recognized by anyone at all. The visual side of the manga is great, but the story is also good! If you are interested in tragic stories spiced with humor, carnivals and bloody and thorny things I think you should check the series out!

Cover of the first volume of March Story.

We laughed with Yoki some time ago, that our cosplays are rather monochromatic and March is no exception. It’s also bit challenging to do a costume based on only few colored covers and panels, which vary rather much. But then again, that’s the fun of it too! I’m now working on the jacket, which is coming together nicely. I’m doing the black shapes by appliquéing them. Only thing I’m feeling bit insecure is patterning the crazy hood. I’m not good with hoods. I tried to avoid them while back at school and now I’m feeling the consequences of not paying attention to them.

I’m going to make a better update from the costume in a week. By then I hope I have solved the problems with the silly hood. The earlier posts featuring this costume includes information about how I striped the pants, constructed the suitcase and did the buckles for colonial shoes.

In the convention post I stated that Snufkin and March have similarities. Don’t they?

Luminara Unduli, the knee buster

I recently started one of this year’s big projects, which is Luminara’s robe. It’s not a big project only because of its size, but also in the way I’m going to execute it. I thought that I would now, after making some progress clear out why the “Project Luminara” is big and why it got a slightly barbaric nickname.

I’ve wrote about searching right fabrics for our Jedi duo’s robes some time ago. While with Barriss I got really close to what I was looking for, the selections in fabric stores didn’t fill the requirements of what I visualized to be the correct or acceptable material for Luminara. And I went through few of them in the bigger cities in Southern Finland. In the end I chose wool flannel, because it seemed like a good bargain and the brown was subtle enough to act as a background for the upcoming pattern.

First try out with the possible construction modeled on a mannequin.

The original robe material for the movies seems like it was woven. I never thought weaving it as an option, if anyone wonders. I’m not that good with looms or that crazy. Printing was the first option from the start. My dear home town doesn’t have good craft store, so it was time to travel, again.

I went to visit Yoki on my free days, found a shop I was looking for and fell in love a little. It had like… everything! And the staff was really helpful. It’s been years from my last bigger scale printing experience, so I happily took notes from professionals. I ended up dragging along three kilos of printing emulsion next to smaller containers of black pigment and pearl cover paste in plain and blue for Barriss’ cape. No casualties on this stage yet, if sore neck is not included.


No casualties occurred when I started to cut the templates for the print either. I was not going to use a screen or a stencil; instead I cut wormy and bulky pieces out from clear plastic film (Thank you for clearing the word out, Batsy!). These pieces I placed randomly on the fabric to create the pattern. Compared to screen printing, I chose this slightly slower method, because I can skip the screen washing and as long as I’m able to keep the printing space prepared, I can work when ever I feel like it. When the tools you are working with is the fabric print and a piece of foam it’s really quick to pull them out, work a while and then be going. For example, one morning I arranged the plastic pieces on the fabric while I waited my eye liner to dry. Small progress is progress still.

The printing is the brutal knee buster! I work on the floor, because my sewing table is not nearly big enough for five meters of fabric. If I want to stand up, I’ll need to stretch for few minutes before my left knee feels like cooperating. Either the working posture is horrible or I’m just getting old.


I calculated that with this speed and overlapping projects I’m ready in two weeks with the printing. Then I’m going to dye the whole fabric to make it darker and possibly if I feel like it, create more texture to the robe with needle felting. Big project is big. And I’m wearing a support bandage on my knee.

Never too late to learn

The opportunity to challenge yourself to learn new and improve your skills endlessly is one reason why I cosplay. If I hadn’t plummeted to the wondrous world of costumes, I would not be as multi-skilled as I am now. Making and planning out costumes is Eureka after each other and I don’t know have I ever experienced such hunger for knowledge on my school years than I’ve had when I’ve willingly used hours or days to find the best way to build a certain prop or construct costume. Perhaps I might be little duller also. Objects would be just items. They would not raise ideas what they could be or how they could be used. Or I would not be able to startle the salesmen in hardware stores by starting a conversation about Dremel parts.

When I started making costumes for me and Yoki in 2006 I was first year student in bachelor degree of Arts and Crafts. Our studies were a combination of designing and executing, aka pattern making and sewing, so I had some base skills to start with. By the years I improved and finally I was at the point where sewing became a partial profession for me. That still doesn’t count out the fact that some of our costumes I’ve done only two, three years ago amuse me greatly. I think I would rather eat snails than display the way I made Jasdero’s and Debitto’s pants. The technical solutions and execution seems to take some time to get ripe. This applies in my case to lining clothes properly, making functioning and complicated attachments and for some reason button holes. They just need to be done repeatedly to create certainty.

Even if I studied in school where we handled fabrics daily, I learned to appreciate quality over… well, price only few years ago. But still, I lean towards making solutions that work best for the wished result. Sometimes flannel works as well as wool, only that it’s lot cheaper. Like fabrics, things should not be viewed only what it is said to be, but how it could be used; glue can be a stiffener or varnish, machine dye can work as fabric print, mosquito net transforms into a crinoline or skeleton for armor.

I have noticed that imagination improves with skills. My first Eureka occurred, when I figured to use methods I learned at school on book binding class to Matsumoto’s vice-captain badge. After that I started to combine different materials and methods experimentally with each other. Yoki’s grand idea I first suspected then awed. In 2007 we agonized how to create smooth fabric surface for Mauyri’s hat. The idea was the simplest; stretching white stockings on the crown part.

Our first weapon props we commissioned on our metal expert. When our ambition to be as self-sufficient as we could grew, we started to explore ways to do bigger props ourselves. Our first tryout with Finnfoam or insulation foam was a true learning process. The swords we did back in the day where far from perfect. My sword snapped in half, because there were no supporting structure inside. Yoki sanded her sword many days, because she didn’t realize that putty can be smoothed with water. After building few things with combination of insulation foam and putty, we tried to look up for things that could speed up the process up. We acquired power tools and learned to use them (safely). With our current Snowtrooper project we found ourselves vacuumforming. That is surely a thing we would have never tried if we hadn’t started to cosplay.

With cosplay, the development on the skill side is connected to displaying the costume as a full set. The longer I have done costumes, the more important it has become to be to make the cosplay look clean-cut. I like neat costumes, groomed wigs and nice make-up. If a costume fits well and looks like it have got some attention, all is good even if it’s not exactly like the reference. I personally think that I need to step up a little with different kinds of make-up and wig styling. I also have sometimes habit of over-doing, especially with Photoshop.

Photoshopping and editing live footage at the current level is also something that I think I would have passed, if it wasn’t for cosplay. I love storytelling and with cosplay it’s possible to make it as a visual experience. With photographing I’m just a newbie, but I’m eager to learn more. Other things I still would like to learn or in which I would like to get better are mold making, working with latex, wig dyeing and styling, sword construction, and body painting. Also I could improve my posing, acting in-character and socializing.

Lastly I must admit that I shamelessly stole the topic of improving in cosplay from Wepi, hostess of Kukkii se perunakin- cosplay blog. She went through her cosplay history and what she had learned after each year in the most enjoyable and inspiring way.

Reporting in

January has been really busy and it seems it's going to continue like that. I've had my commissions under constructions and they should be done by the end of the month, plus we have worked hard on our Snowtroopers. Peculiarly, they are actually showing signs of completion. Last few days I have spent finishing the molds which had to be re-done or fixed. Yoki started varnishing them today, so if my calculations are correct we should be able to vacuumform all of the upgraded pieces on Saturday. I had already ordered us some more plastic, which arrived few days ago cut and prepared. We heart Foiltek.

Backpacks still lack putty, sanding, paint and details.

Yoki will probably include some video clips from the different stages of our armor project on her next transmission. When I inquired about the upload date, she mumbled something about shooting it this weekend.

I also dug my other unfinished costumes out from the closet. I left my single cosplays alone and started to unravel the pile from the "pair end". I constructed the base for Luminara's head gear earlier this week and roamed through fabric stores looking the right fabrics for the Jedi duo's robes. I have actually spent months on this task and now I think I'm pretty close. I just wish that wool and velvet wouldn't cost so much.

As trivial information, I estimated that we have spent at least 150 hours on our Whiteys. Phew...

Bubbly start for the new year

The topic refers shamelessly to me; I was dressed up as Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls next to my two good friends as Blossom and Buttercup when the year changed. But it could also refer to bubbling spray paint, which is not in any circumstances a good thing or fizzy drink containing caffeine, which will keep us going when we try to meet the deadlines with our Snowtrooper costumes. Gladly, our deadline is a relative concept. More defining limit is the time we have snow on the ground, because our photoshoot and vid ideas require it badly.

I have already written about next year’s cosplay plans in few posts, so I'm going to leave them out. Currently we are trying to choose the conventions to attend to. There seems to be too many of them! I'm worried that our usable costumes run out before the events do. It's not a big deal in a way; we like to re-use our costumes, but they just seem to be quite hot to wear at summer conventions. I don't know how we survived last Tracon with Joxter and Muddler.

Back to bubbles or Bubbles more specifically. We got the idea of dressing up as the Powerpuff Girls years back with my friends, when someone stated that we were just like them. We are almost the same height and our hair colors match the characters. When we realised we were going to attend to party themed superheroes, we didn't need to think twice. Because we only dressed up for home party, I took the freedom to buy the cheapest fabrics. I ended up in basic sheet cotton 1 meter per dress. One dress cost about 7 euros. The dresses are not exactly like the original ones. I altered them to look like 70's mod dresses. Also everyone decided on their own what kind of belt and stockings to wear. I was bit hesitant with the role of the cute and weepy one, but gladly these few photos prove that it was somewhat achievable. The pics are published with the permission of the photographer.

How we afford cosplay

We have been cosplaying as a duo from 2006. At the beginning we tried to keep cost of the costumes minimum. Because of that, we do not look at the photos of our first cosplay willingly. We look at them if we would like to have a good laugh. But to put it short, we had horrible wigs, cheap fabrics and well… the make-up collection wasn’t something we could be proud of. We even tried to make Yoki’s eyebrows white with potato flour! And the second round with Hitsugaya's eyebrows wasn’t that much better, even if we used white eyeliner. Yoki looked like Santa Claus without a beard in photos! Yoki promised to take our first cosplay as the next topic on her transmission videos on Youtube... which makes me rather scared. If interested in the horrorful first time, keep an eye on Yoki transmissions!

Now we do pay attention to all the things we lacked with out first cosplay. Of course we try to make wise purchases, hunt for discounts and pay attention how much we can spend. Quality is usually expensive, but generally well worth it. I also try to sew our costumes so that there isn’t “something like that” solutions in structures. This hasn’t yet affected to us affording cosplay, but we might someday sell our old costumes and I wouldn’t ask money from them if I didn’t know that they are worth it.

Yoki is a university student and I’m working in clothing industry. Because Yoki obviously has smaller income, I put bit more into cosplay from my own pocket. But not everything, because we have afforded almost half of our costumes with bottle money! I must admit that we have gotten bit lazy with picking up bottles these days, but in the beginning of our cosplay career we did costumes purely on bottle deposits. Now we have about 70 euros left from last summer to be used in the current projects.

To feel like I’m not using only my paychecks on cosplay, I take commissions every now and then. I’ve done normal clothes next to ball gowns and things that you can’t find from stores, like a custom cow bathrobe. Currently I’m making an outfit for “feminine Kakashi”. It’s going to be a masquerade costume for the celebration of last day in upper secondary school.

Then we have our parents. Usually they steal material or hotel bills secretly and pay them or offer some “lunch money” for conventions. They sometimes even come along to photoshoots to act as drivers or assistants. They usually have no idea what we are doing, but turning the camera to right direction or patting your shoulder when you are going berserk, is more than enought. Who wouldn’t love supporting folks?

Every year we try to make a plan for our costumes based on how much time and money they need. Last year we did only one duo, because we had Snowtrooper still in the making and our summer was full of other activities. Next year we are going to break a record; we have planned three duos. One of them is nearly finished. For Snowtroopers we have nearly purchased all we need. We only need to construct few components, put the whole set together and debute the bastards (warm feelings, no?) . For Luminara and Barriss we have also bought almost half of the fabrics already. I almost wanted to put up a party, when I realized that we only need to buy one wig! It’s a blessing money-wise.

When we plan our cosplays we also take in consideration the wigs, contact lenses and supplies we already have. It can bring down the cost significantly. One way for me to think that I use less money is to buy stuff in a whim, like glues, clays and tools. I always try to have all the basic stuff needed in some point of the costume making process in stock.

And sometimes to afford cosplay, it's wise not to think about how much money you have spent on it already.

Height issues

The six years elementary school lasts here in Finland were horrible for one of the tallest girls in the class. For lunch the class had to line up; short ones first, tall ones last. Sometimes the best bread had already run out when we tall girls got there. The boys were midgets compared to you. You couldn’t ask anyone to dance the slow songs in the disco and you really couldn’t have a crush, because it would have looked ridiculous if you walked hand in hand.

How I view my height today is quite the opposite. I'm comfortable of how tall I am. Me over fifteen years ago didn’t appreciate it, now I kind of love it. Still it took long time to change the way of thinking about a thing you really just need to accept at some point. With cosplay we take in consideration my and Yoki’s height when we choose characters. Usually it comes along rather naturally, we don’t over think it. As a duo we try to respect the height differences, even if we don’t match the heights exactly. Few of our planned cosplays we have dropped unnoticed because of differences were really off. These have been pairs, in which I would have cosplayed a character who is significantly shorter than Yoki’s.

I personally think that I would look really silly, if I even tried to cosplay some cute, little moe character, especially if the character is perceived as a cute, little moe. Some characters have such a strong image, that fighting against it seems futile for me. As an opposite example I must bring up Samara, who is a little girl killed at young age. Still I had no problem cosplaying her, because next to her scary looks the height simply didn’t matter that much. The height usually comes along, if it’s a descriptive feature of the character, like in cases of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist or Allen Walker from D.Gray-man.

In animation and comics, preferably in Japanese ones height usually connects to age and gender. Tall characters are typically male or/and adults. This has probably caused us to crossplay a lot; I’m 174cm or 5.7 feet and Yoki is almost 169cm or about 5.5 feet. Only recently we have found female characters that we can cosplay and feel comfortable in with our bodies. There are strong ladies with a real body out there, sisters.

It doesn’t bother me to see two meter tall Luffy or short Kakashi. We don’t follow the characters sheets slavishly and twit others for not following them. But I must admit, that height issues gets to me sometimes. This happens when I see a great, accurate cosplay. I admiringly slide my eyes from nicely styled wig down to hand embroidered jacket, ribbon decorated velvet pants and BOOM! Dominatrix platform shoes! Like wee-tee-ef! Height is not that important that it should ruin a great ensemble. The illusion is more likely to break because of unsuitable shoes than ten missing cents. Again I call for proportions and self-esteem whether you are missing or having too many centimeters.

You can wear any color on your hair you like or change your eyes with a flip of the fingers. But one thing you can’t subtly change is your height. If I were to add any height for a character I would do it if I can hide the what ever I’m going to use to lift me higher. This would work great with long hems or capes. Or use heeled shoes which would resemble the characters footwear or fit the period of time or the spirit of the series. Photography offers many ways to fool the eye. With cropping, angles or taking the composition with many characters in consideration you can do miracles. If the feet doesn’t show pretty much anything can be used, like a stool to fake height.

So yeah, for a person who really doesn’t think about height, thinks about it awful lot. Doing accurate is a lot of fun. Still there are many things about cosplay you can stress out next to height, which really is something that you can’t do much about… other than stress of course. Height is a perspective thing to say the least.

Mirroring Mireille

I’ve had these process pictures of Mireille hanging on my picture folder for quite some time... about a month. I kind of went and bought the fabrics for Mireille a day after the post, in which I announced the idea of cosplaying this assassin chick. I couldn’t resist the urge, obviously. I don’t have images from the skirt yet, it still needs to be finished.


In the picture I’m wearing a corset underneath the top. I’m bit exited to be able to wear a corset first time for cosplay. The belt is just a prop and it’s slightly too high; Mireille’s narrow belt sits, at least sometimes, little lower.

I’m still looking for nice pair of base shoes to create the footwear. I have almost dumped the idea of finding a pair of boots close to the design. The height of the ankle part is not common and the shapes on the tip of the shoe and on the heel are more likely to be found in pumps than in boots. The other thing I still need to work on is the gun. I haven’t found any toy guns, other than serif’s pistols which I could modify. I did find some nice airsoft pistols, but they were bit too expensive to be used only as prop.

But there is no hurry for me to finish this cosplay. Taking the weather and the amount of fabric in this costume in concideration, I think I’ll wait for the summer.



And the wig needs some styling. I could start with a comb. Seriously.

"WCS? I don't know what you are talking about..."

Pair who will be representing Finland in World Cosplay Summit 2011 was chosen few weeks ago. Congratulations! I don’t recall many pairs with two male representatives in the two years time Finland has been one of the competing countries. Guys are commonly the underdogs amongst roaming chick hoard when speaking of cosplay, so it’s nice that Finland stands out with this setting. And I think that the finalist will represent Finnish cosplay well, not only because of testosterone.

This year was also bit different from the previous ones in few ways. One, Finnish cosplayers blog now. Two, they bravely speak their minds. The low number of participants on the WCS preliminaries has been one of the main subjects in many, many blogs and forum entries. I do agree that four is too few. But what can you do?

Participate! After quick recovering time Finnish cosplayers started to throw challenges to various directions and generally encourage people to step up and compete. I’m really looking forward to next year, because 2011 preliminaries will possibly be toughest one ever. Regarding that, I hope that there will be some kind of prequalification round or rather monitoring for the competitors, so that the last minute cancellations could somehow be minimized. Withdrawals are the greatest curse with cosplay competitions in our country. People seem to be too keen to sign up, but not being able to conquer their shyness, stage fright or what ever.

And what we are going to do? Participate! I threw the idea for Yoki last summer to chew up and we quickly came to decision that we just need to take part. After the preliminaries we were more certain that we will be there to increase the number of the competing pairs. That is, if we even fit in.

In the future there might not be as many posts here on our blog, at least costume construction updates and process pictures will decrease. I don’t want to leak precious plans to our opponents! Even if I’m really eager to do so.

Redoing takes wits

We are currently redoing some parts of Yoki’s Snowtrooper costume, completing it and making one for me. The main reason behind the reconstruction is partly new insight on the references and partly the hurry we were in last winter. Mostly we need to redo attachments and some detailing. For my outfit there is some vacuum forming ahead for the armor parts and finishing touches for the clothes. But I’m not going to write about the making in general, but my feelings towards the second take on the process. The process being preparing the vacuum forming molds, which is not really my cup of tee.

For me, beside wits, this second take acquires guts, patience and nerves. Of course it’s nice to improve and make the costume better, but getting back to things for which I have cursed for once already doesn’t appeal to me much. And when you are not actually redoing parts of the costume, but the molds for them… Aah, I don’t have words to describe the atmosphere at times. Yoki really has to bear various feelings when we are in the same room working. She suggested that we could do behind the scenes vid from making of the Snowtroopers and I immediately proposed that I could run around doing angry “bawabawa” sound while going. And that is not even exaggerated. I know what I can be alike.

We don’t even need to do a pile of molds, just one. Four or five needs tweaking and fixing. The thing is that it’s just so slow! The process of cutting, sanding, puttying, sanding, varnishing three times and taking two steps back and then continuing gets gruesome at times. It can take three days to prepare a mold. Three days and nothing new is born. Three days!

We have thought of redoing Sasori and Deidara for a while now and that actually sounds appealing. The costumes are years old and our skills have improved both in sewing and fabric selection. It also would be nice to get creative with Sasori’s puppet body after years of experience with various materials and methods. Sasori and Deidara are as well characters that I think we won't stop cosplaying for a while. They have too much to offer to be retired yet.

When thinking about redoing Sasori and Deidara, I noticed that one reason why I find it hard to work now is that I have never got to wear the Snowtrooper. I think I might be less frustrated if I had worn the costume myself already, so I could look at it subjectively. Getting out on the costume is the goal for me as a cosplayer and now the completion is missing.

Cosplay is about moods. Drastically changing moods if put more precisely. It’s almost necessary for a complete experience to go from utter desperation to giggly satisfaction. With Snowtrooper I have experienced only the negative side, which really affects the working atmosphere. That’s why the redoing this particular project feels like there is no end to it.

But gladly I have seen a ray of light. When the costumes are ready I’m sure that I will be proud of them and from the things I have learned during the project from new techniques and from myself. Cosplay is also about persistence and conquering yourself... Or that I'm trying to convince myself at least.

Zombiewalk with Samara Morgan

I started with the Samara’s dress about one and a half weeks before Halloween. Patterning and sewing took little time, dyeing ate the majority. I started with the dyeing in the evening, so that I could continue on the morning, let the fabric dry when I was at work and then start the cycle again. I bended some rules with the dyeing and was quite happy with the result. There were few mishaps, but the final result was better than I had expected. Over all the material choices, technical solutions and structures worked well. I’m pleased that I chose to line the whole dress, even if I thought it would be pointless to see the effort for Halloween costume.

First I thought Samara would only be qualified as a Halloween costume. Boy, how wrong was I. Through my costume history Samara might be the one I have enjoyed the most as an event outfit. Even the fact that the make-up took approximately two hours didn’t bother me. There were no props to be handled, the costume was comfortable to wear and acting like the character didn’t require much. Mostly I just stared in front of me, face as blank as possible. Probably slightly evilishly.

I think that the happening, where I wore the costume affected the experience also. Even if Samara isn’t practically zombie, Zombiewalk might have been the best event to take part in this particular outfit. The character was recognized by many and I lost count how many people wanted to take photo WITH me. That was rather new to me. Usually there are one or two scenarios like that at conventions. Now I even got stopped during the walk itself. I must say, it was flattering and fun.

Photo taken by Tommi Joutjärvi.

The walk itself went well with few interruptions on the way. I want to thank my companion, who went with me with short notice, that being a day. Weirdly and also little sadly, it wasn’t Yoki who attended with me, but my older brother. Thanks to our LARP background, it wasn’t hard for him to scrape together an outfit. On the five minute drive to the starting point of the walk, I made him a pale, sunken eye make-up. I have no idea how it really looked like. It was too dark everywhere to evaluate the result.

During the walk we had some problems keeping track of each other. My brother’s vision was blocked by a scarf and mine by hair. I was able to follow him by voice, while I myself hobbled forward without a sound. The next evening the limp walking style proved to be straining. My right calf was stiff and sore for the extent where I could not walk properly and my lower back felt little weird. Samara survived without a scratch. Keeping eye on the next wear, I only need to take off the excess glue and toilet paper from the cuffs of the “skin sleeves”.

My brother is the faceless lurker behind me on the far left. Photo was taken by Tommi Joutjärvi.

As cosplay fan video nerd, there are few additional ideas I’ve been pondering, the weather just aren't the best for them. But that is for sure that Samara will be seen in the future.

The next time Zombiewalk is organized I’m going to drag Yoki with me. Take a notice, old friend!

Cosplay thrill junkie

Last Friday it started in half way of my workday. It was like my stomach was replaced by whirligig. Two hours before I could leave, I was going through the steps my make-up would require and in what order to put on the different pieces of the costume. I also made a schedule for the whole process; how long did the glue take to dry, when could I eat and were there time for fix things if I screw something up. When I was free I cycled to home like I had a hole in my head and got almost hit by a car. I got home with pounding heart, excitement tossed me around my flat before I halted and said myself, “Okay, now I’m going to take advantage of you”. “You” being cosplay thrill, anxiety to dress up, curiosity to see the impact of your costume and longing for the gratification of your work.

I have performed for ten years and I’ve had only few serious stage frights. Usually I only have a nice itch before the show starts. The process of putting on the costume is like preparing to take the stage. First appearance in costume is like a launching party of an actor. My pre-costume thrill is little negative like a bad stage fright. It makes me impatient, sloppy and nervous. It takes deep breaths to harness the anxiety and turn it to positive energy. But when it’s achieved, the concentration is on its own class and it’s easy to drive determinately towards the wished result. In other words, the good cosplay thrill is starting to kick in. When at stage it works the same way. The excitement turns to a power source; it makes you more sensitive and shows you that you care of what you are doing.

Theater and cosplay aren’t so different for me; both of them keep me interested because of the atmosphere, relations between the “show” and “audience”. From acting I have learned that I want to make people feel and part of anxiety before the performance is the urge to see how you manage to do it. Finnish audience is in a way ungrateful, because it restrains reactions. As a difference between theater and cosplay, in theater you are performing an act; the audience might just be interested in the text itself or in the work of the director. Some might only be there for public relations.

In cosplay the reactions are produced by you and your creations. The audience is everywhere. You can raise feelings in people who don’t even know what cosplay is. Compliments or only long looks assure you that you have done well and that is something I’m aiming for. The best thrills I get just before stepping out in costume, where it from car to convention area or from my apartment to the staircase. The pleasant, tickly feeling makes me smile stupidly even if I try to keep a straight face.

I want to make an impact with my work and what could be better demonstration of it than horrified screams of teenage girls or tipsy young man inquiring had I bathed in well recently. It's the best reward one could have. For a moment, in random encounter at random place you feel you have something in common with that particular bar fly, who obviously likes horror movies. Your performance has been accepted and it has touched someone, raised curiosity and questions or need to stare just a moment longer.

Warm zombie, no zombie?

The big question is how I’m going to keep myself warm next Friday. I pondered some ideas yesterday and came to a reasonable and manageable result. Even if warmth doesn’t suit zombies, I’m trying to construct sleeves, which would look like decomposed skin. Positive side for them is that if they work, they will cut out time from the make-up process. This far things are looking good.


Greater hindrance with taking my little girl out is the weather, which promises rain for Friday evening. Usually I make the costumes so that they endure some punishment from Mother Nature, were it rain or snow, but with Samara I feel insecure. I don’t mind rain, but I mind the pink particles I cursed earlier. I've washed the dress for the last time, but there is still a chance that some survived. Of course it could be hilarious for Samara to look more like Hello Kitty at the end of the walk...

I'm feeling nostalgic

Ten years ago I watched my first anime marathon. Anime was relatively new in the beginning of 2000. And by this I mean that there where established audience, but still it was considered as underground. Of course there where Pokemon airing in Finland already and it was anime for sure, but for me it was more like a children’s thing. My first real touch to anime was as a seinen and shounen fan… believe it or not… Sailor Moon. Somehow it didn’t appeal to me even if I saw few arcs, but years later I really got into Magic Knight Rayearth. Is a small part of me dreaming of being magic girl saving the world every now and then? I don’t know about that, but apparently there is something shoujo-ish lurking in me.

But not everything was pink in fairy land. The series which got me hooked few years later was Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell and earliest find Escaflowne, which as mecha anime gave me a reminder how much I had liked Transformers in the nineties. To back up my interest in mecha series, my older cousin had sky channels on their household, which aired anime or would we say “American anime” in English. Through him and next to Transformers I had watched some episodes of Voltron, Saber Rider and one that I really can’t remember. There where a young boy, red droid as his helper and… something. Well, it wasn’t my favourite to start with, but if someone got anything out from my description, please enlighten me. When we were kids, we also had Starzinger on VHS subbed in Finnish. It’s hilarious to watch now, because we have still have the same debate about the names of their attacks. Was it “Dogmissile” or “Gro-aarmissile”?

Noir team, Mireille on right. Picture from a fansite.

Now from nineties back to the millennium. Little later, after Sailor Moon marathon, I also explored series titled Noir. It was more of my liking with the girls with guns concept. I happened to remember the series while I was browsing through cosplay.com’s newest costumes. Mireille jumped from the crowd and for a moment I thought from where I knew her. Obviously her design is not the most elaborate in the world, so that couldn’t be the reason. And then it struck me! It seemed as if the blond curls and high slit had never left me. I Googled and ended up rekindling old memories with Noir.

And then I got struck again! I have to make Mireille! I’m now rather obsessed about it. I fight the urge to dash to the nearest fabric store. The most horrifying thing is that I have blue eyes already and emphasizing contacts and the god damn curly, blond wig with bangs! Someone help me!

Note: Being nostalgic can be dangerous for cosplayers.

Edit: Yoki enlightened me with the mystery series, it was Macron 1. Thank you!

Samara likes... pink?

Apparently, because there is pink spots all over her mossy and decomposed dress. Oh, how did it happen? No, I didn’t drop marker on it. It’s all because of my featherbrains and lack of knowledge with powder substance dyes. I did dissolve the dye before use, but evidently the pink particles dissolve lot slower than the blue, green and violet ones. And the pink particles are also light weighted; they tend to travel easily when measured to be dissolved, to places where they should not be. Like the shoulders of the sleeves. There are pink dots. They weren’t there before I ironed the sleeves with steam, which made the treacherous, invisible pink particles to activate and spread. Now I officially hate pink.


I will find some way out of this problem. There is still one weathering dye wash to go and I’m prepared to ink them if nothing else helps…

Actually this wasn't the first bump on the road with this costume. I redid the bust for the dress yesterday. It was bit too snug to wear, especially if I'm going to put something underneath. It could we wise. Next week it's going to snow if the forecast is correct. I'm off to think how to keep my legs and arms warm. Make-up might not be enough.

Halloween is just around the corner

It’s little over a week till Halloween and I’m starting out with my costume. And it begins as it always begins, me on the floor kneeling and crouching. Today I used my free time making patterns for a dress. When making costumes, I always start from basic patterns. I have two or three different sizes on my closet fit for me and Yoki. It’s quick to pull them out and start cutting and taping the wished forms from them. Personally, I hate going through piles of magazines in hopes of finding close enough patterns. Sometimes it might be quicker, but my short temper rarely bends on this matter.


Next to making rather easy patterns and cutting the pieces out, I sewed the bust and started to dye the sleeves and the hem for the dress. I’m not sure if my take on the dyeing process will work or not, or rather will the colour stay after first wash. What I’m using is antique grey Dylon dye intended for washing machines, which I found when going through my mixed supplies, but I’m not going to stick with the normal routine. I’m just messing the fabric with the dye free hand. Does anyone have any ideas how to make the dye stick? I might try ironing to attach the colour after the pieces have dried. But still, I’m not too convinced that the colour will stay; at least it will get lighter. Then again, it’s a Halloween costume. I don’t know will I ever use it in other circumstances. For future projects this could be taken as a learning process.


The mossy and decomposed dress in making belongs to a girl, who gave me few nightmares back in the days; Samara Morgan, “misunderstood” kid down the well. She is also typically associated to a ring type thing and a video tape. There are two western versions from two movies obviously. I chose the first one. I think I haven't even seen the second. According to Youtube the "second" Samara is more spider like, quick and evil thing.

If it’s not crazy cold, I’ve planned to take my little girl out for a stroll for local Zombie walk... even if she doesn't practically eat brains or any random body parts.