So, recently our cosplay group has been discussing (mostly Ami and I) doing characters from the 80's (early 2000s if you live in the States) Anime called Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac for its brief run in the USA). It stemmed from me finding out that the game Saint Seiya: Soldier's Soul was available through Steam! I quickly snatched it up and through story mode got Logan interested enough in the series to start watching it subbed on CrunchyRoll, and now here I am halfway through rewatching the whole thing and I've COMPLETELY rekindled my love for it and then some!! I quite obviously am from the USA so I got the very short, poorly done Dic Dubbed Knights of the Zodiac circa 2002, it was a heavily censored and localized mess, with all blood and violence either turned blue or erased, but the imagery I did absorb as an impressionable 7 year old was enough that this series stuck with me LOOOOONNNGG after its run! While the Dub never did make it to the real plot of the show, after looking it up and making it much further in the subbed version I've fallen so head over heals for it! It's a long one, but definitely worth the watch! I'm sure anyone reading this who remembers it will agree! Now that I've successfully roped both my little brother and Logan into cosplaying the main 4 Bronze saints (we are lacking a Phoenix Ikki), we have a definitive lineup for NebrasKon 2017, Myself as Hyoga, Ami as Shun, Logan as Shiryu, and Cameron as the titular Seiya! I'm sure you're all thinking "BUT THAT'S A YEAR FROM NOW!" I'm aware, but more on NebrasKon 2016's lineup later in this post!
For now I present to you a new cross stitch pattern!! A portrait of Aries Mu in his casual clothes from the Sanctuary Arc of Saint Seiya! There's really no good way to describe Mu, but he's the kind of character you love no matter what! This was a lot of fun to make, and really only took a couple of hours! I look forward to stitching or perler beading this, whichever comes first, and as always, if you get around to it before me, I'd love to see it!
There's surely going to be more of these to come, I'm thinking Hyoga or Shiryu next, if you have a favorite Saint (or God Warrior, or Marina, or Spectre etc) let me know and I may just make a pattern for you!
On to the next topic! Kogata Daycon, a local one day event, was on the 15th, and our group, along with my mother attended! While we were there, a reporter for the local paper ninja shot a picture of us three ladies and it wound up front page news! Don't believe me check it out! (pardon the black, I had to cover up our last name)
We were wearing our Code Lyoko cosplays, and my mom was Cosplaying Integra from Hellsing! More great news, we took best in show in Kogata's Cosplay Contest! It was a really good end to a really fun day, now the grind to get everything done in time for NebrasKon 2016 is in full swing!
Our line-up this year is quite extensive and complicated, for Friday the 4th we will have a full swing Lord Of The Rings group with the following players: Myself as Legolas, Ami as Gimli, Logan as a Nazgul, Dylan as Sarumon the White, my dad as Gandalf the Grey, and my Mother as Galadriel, Cameron who found he couldn't complete a full set of armor for Sauron in time will be cosplaying Mettaton from Undertale! Saturday Dylan will be dawning Mettaton as Cameron plays Gaster from Undertale, Logan, Ami, and I will be playing Genesis, Cloud, and Zack from FFVII Crisis Core respectively, and Sunday will be our Ace Attorney cosplays with the addition of Logan as Apollo Justice era Phoenix Wright! If you happen to be in the area that weekend, or even have a ticket and see us around the con don't be afraid to say hi! Until next time happy crafting!
So, it seems like it's been FOREVER since I posted here, haha sorry about that but I'll bring you up to date on my latest activities, rest assured.
First off, I recently quit my job at Subway, due to some bad customers and complaints about coworkers that I won't get into...(Not to toot my own horn too much, but they're already begging me to come back to work for them), anyway that gave me some much needed time to binge anime and relax! I got really into Kiznaiver and Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, as well as the new Ace Attorney Anime! (I'm actually waiting for crunchyroll to upload the new episode as I type). I also got to play more games! The biggest plus though, is that I have more time to draw and work on cosplay! Our latest cosplay endeavor was to create costumes from a french cartoon that took my childhood by storm back in middle school! A show I would rush straight home after school to watch on Cartoon Network's MIguzi! I'm of course talking about Code Lyoko!
So, the characters Logan, Ami, and I decided to become were William Dunbar, Aelita Schaeffer, and Odd Della Robbia respectively. While Ami and I chose to recreate their season 1 appearances, since William wasn't in the first season, Logan chose to go for Xana Possessed William, and the end result was pretty spectacular!
After leaving Logan alone to work on William while I stressed over every little detail of Odd and Aelita's outfits (Ami's still not a very successful seamstress), I finally feel like I can trust him to make his own costumes...so long as they don't require complex wigs. His wig did turn out pretty good though all things considered! He ordered and styled it himself, I was a proud Senpai!
Ami on the other hand caused a lot of trouble the night before our meet up! As I toiled away air-brushing Logan's cosplay I told her to make her leggings...which I will tell you now, was a mistake...she made a pattern that would have worked....had it not been so small, she gave no room for seam allowance, and didn't cut the fabric out along the stretch...making the fact that it was stretchy pointless....This was at nearly 2am...and I was freaking out! Luckily, Logan's leggings from his Darkar cosplay were the right color and nearly the right size...after patching in some excess fabric to make the inner thighs roomier to account for her more feminine curves, (thankfully this was hidden by the skirt) we were saved! Our costumes were all really well received and they made my Senpai, VDR cosplay's day! (if you don't know her work, you should really check out her facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/vdrcosplay/?fref=ts )
As I was saying above, I also got some time to draw recently, and while thinking about remaking my first cosplay, Deidara which I did around 2009, I decided to draw a realistic rendition of him from his Akatsuki Inception, if you're no stranger to my blog, you probably know I'm rather fond of him, so I gave this drawing a lot of effort and love! Let me know what you think! Also If you want to keep up with us and all our cosplay WIPs, check out our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/konspiracycoslay/?fref=ts I'm currently posting updates on my Zack Fair cosplay over there! Until next time!
So, I bet you can tell from my title that I've been Hella busy!!! And here I am to tell you guys all about it. First off, Torii-con 2016 was on February 27th, about 2 weeks ago, and our group cosplayed the Heylin Villains from Xiaolin Showdown. I myself played Jack Spicer (of course), Ami was Wuya, and Logan was Chase Young. We also were fortunate enough to have a Hannibal Roy Bean, hand crafted and air brushed by Logan. I'm probably goning to go into a little detail about how each one of these was constructed, but for in progress pics and to see us in action you should really check us out on facebook! (https://www.facebook.com/konspiracycoslay/)
The first costume I'm going to talk about is my own, Jack Spicer. Let's start from Top to Bottom. The wig was a Derek in apple red from Arda-wigs that I spiked and trimmed to get that short flowy look. I wasn't happy the first few times, but try try again. The goggles are made from a couple of plastic discs I cut from a donut container and tinted with Yellow mod-podge. After tinting I painted on the red swirls and glued black craft foam around the edges...the strap is hot glued on elastic. The white makeup is special ordered Star-Gazer gothic foundation and the black is just liquid eyeliner...it takes around 45 minutes to get all dolled up like that haha. The coat is made from some sort of heavy weave material similar to denim but a little lighter, it's sewn like a normal long coat, aside from stiff interfacing in the collar to make it stand up, and wire in the tail to give it that cartoonishly evil look. The under clothes are just pants with an elastic waist, and his read pajama shirt with the Frankenstein face hand painted on...though it's not visible in any of the pictures I have so far. The boots are just my work boots with a couple of foam cuffs covered in gold liquid lame', and my Heli-pack is a foam floral dome painted up and straps hot glued on...the clip is just a back pack clip with some clay on it to look like his clasp. The third arm sash he's sporting is made similarly to the tail of his coat.
Wuya is just a simple lined dress with a zipper down the front and frog style clasps to give it that asian inspired look. Her wig is an Ororo in crimson from Arda-wigs that I sewed apple red wefts into and styled heavily to give her highlights that tentacle look. Her reversing mirror is just a craft mirror from Jo-anns that's been painted and had foam glued to it.
Chase is an elastic hemmed costume satin under-outfit with armor on top. The green armor was constructed by cutting pieces of craft foam and layering them between fabric to give it that plated look. The eye on the sash is a felt applique that's been airbrushed to give it that dark outline. The chest plate is similar to the plate-skirt but with vinyl sewn on top of the green to give it that finished shiny look. The Shoulders, gauntlets, shin guards and spikes are all made in the same fashion. They were cut from sheets of plastic that was then covered in craft foam and painted up to look gold, they're all held on with corset lacing up the back. The spikes were made from home-made worbla pie and hot glued on. Hannibal bean was made by Logan all by himself, so for info on that you'll have to shoot him a message on our Facebook Page.
Cosplay talk aside, I have for you a new cross-stitch pattern! Here's a portrait of Rukia Kuchiki from Bleach! As always if you sew this before I get around to it, please share! I'd love to see it!
And lastly, this past weekend, I went to see Fall Out Boy in Concert in Des Moines Iowa! I don't have a lot to say about it other than don't share a hotel room with Ami and Logan...they snore...and talk in their sleep....in that order haha...I didn't get much sleep, but the concert was a blast! They played a great mix of new stuff and classics, they even did a lazer light tribute to the late and phenominally great David Bowie. If you can see them on their next stop do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not much else to say, and I'm sure I've rambled enough...see ya later alligators!
I haven't done one of these in a long time, mainly since I haven't had the time to watch a new series, start to finish. I came across this series by winning a cosplay contest, a couple DVDs of it were the prize. It was sometime around 2010...I watched a couple episodes back then, but never really got into it, however a couple weeks back I was sick and stayed home from work....with nothing better to do I popped in the DVDs again, and gave it a go. It must have been my mindset back then that kept me from getting into it, because this time around...I couldn't get enough. So! Let's start the Review!
Heat Guy J is an anime licensed by Geneon first, and then Funimation, that came out in 2002. It sought to seamlessly blend CGI with traditional animation in the same way and time period as Disney's Treasure Planet....with similar success. You can still tell what's CG and what's animation, but it still looks like it belongs together and the animation is rather clear and crisp. It's visually appealing and that's just the tip of the iceberg!
The plot centers around City Safety Management: Special Division agent Daisuke Aurora (Dice/Dais for short), and his android partner J. Dice is an upbeat rather optimistic young man in his early 20's. He's tough, doesn't complain too much, all things considered (his backstory is pretty sad, but he doesn't sweat it) and he's a very likable guy!
His partner, an Android simply known as J, is also pretty likable. He's known as the "Heat Guy" by most of the criminal underground, due to the large quantity of steam he releases to cool down after intense physical exertion. J takes on a fatherly sort of role for the orphaned Daisuke, who's only real family is his older brother Shun, the head of the City Safety Management office. J often advises Dice on how a "Real Man" should act, which can lead to either really deep, or comical commentary. Despite having no real feelings, J's AI can learn to act on it's own by observing the actions of the people he surrounds himself with. As the show progresses, Dice's lazy attitude and lax interpretation of the law start to rub off on him and he becomes pretty human.
The third and final member of the City Safety Management's Special Division is Kyoko Milchan. She's a stern and sensible young lady who's in charge of the budget and essentially being Dice's keeper. She started out pretty annoying to me, but as the show goes on, her quirks and charm start to grow on you in an undeniably cute way! She show's that she's a decent tactician too, rescuing Dice from his rival's clutches while he's under some pretty serious drugs.
The last solo character I'm going to talk about is Dice's main rival/enemy, Clair Leonelli. He's the only son of former mob boss Lorenzo Leonelli, a character who's funeral kicks off the series with a bang! Clair is semi-psychotic due to years of both physical and mental abuse from his father. He's a pyro-maniac but also an excellent strategist and leader to his men. I won't go into a lot of details but Clair easily became my favorite character from the moment I saw him to the moment he was last on screen.
The show is full of other interesting characters, that all have an interesting way of weaving into the story. One off characters you think will only matter to the episodic plots manage to work their ways back in multiple times making you rather glad you saw them too! A favorite of mine would be Kia Freeborn a guitar playing wanderer who was seeking revenge against his deadbeat father. Seems like a simple one-shot story you know Dice meets him and convinces him otherwise, story's done right? I thought so too, but he still manages to become an integral character in the final act of the story! The same goes for Clair's three goons, Giovanni, Ian and Mitchell. I won't say how, but those three really manage to surprise you, and make you love them!
This show has so many good things going for it, that it pains me to think that so few people know about it! It's a true gem. It manages to have that laid back episodic feel of Cowboy Bebop with a good Buddy Cop feel mixed in. The story easily wraps itself up in 26 episodes, yet it leaves you wanting more! I was satisfied with the end but demanded more epilogue, a downside I suppose, to having so many characters whose stories worked their way in and wound together. Another kudos to this show is its catchy opening, FAKE by Try Force. It had me singing along within the first few episodes and it really sets the feel for this show. If you aren't completely sold on this series, just watch the embeded link below, then check it out streaming dubbed or subbed on HULU!
I'll be back next week with new cosplay, cross-stitch patterns, and everything else I'm usually known for...I'll also be talking about my trip to see Fall Out Boy in concert!
