Katsucon 2014
Apr. 7th, 2014 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rose_of_painAlmost forgot to do this report. XD Figured I should do it before the next con(s)...
Friday:
So we had a snowstorm hit right before the con, just like it did 2 years ago. Only this time the plow did not come the night before the con. So Friday morning, after a looong night where I had to come to terms with the fact that my Der Tod costume was not going to be finished in time (but at least I could wear it), I sat there waiting to see if our street would be plowed for quite a few hours. Took my time packing, beginning to worry that soon I'd have to start taking things OUT of the suitcase since I wouldn't have the time to wear anything. Then finally the plow came around 1pm or so (might have been 2, I don't even remember). But boy was I glad I didn't schedule any shoots for the day, else I'd have to cancel. Left for con as soon as the street was clear. Got to con and was surprised to see the entire room show up to help me get my stuff upstairs since Alyce said they were on their way to get their badges. Turns out they were told there would be a 3 hour wait so figured they would much rather help me and wait a bit later to get in the line. So managed to get everything up to the room in one go, which was pretty impressive considering I had all of the Hades pieces with me. XD Then we all took our time and I threw on Bilbo and we went to get our badges. The line...hadn't gotten any better though. So we realized it probably really would take us that long. Luckily Alyce and I had already decided not to do our Elisabeth costumes that evening, like we originally planned. I decided not to enter due to the costume not being done, which was a good thing because I would have had to rush to get into it at this point and Jensen had panels that evening and so it would have been hard to get her to help me with my make-up. So I decided I'd try for 3 costumes on Sat instead and just take it easy for the rest of the night. ...though we ended up spending most of that time in that damn pre-reg line.
It didn't take 3 hours. It took four. X_X Becky, who regged on site, managed to go get her badge, wait with us for a bit, go to the Dealer's and make a full run plus buy stuff, come back, and we still weren't even halfway through the line. Seriously longest wait I've ever had at Katsu. Reminded me of the old days of waiting, which I really thought was a thing of the past now. lol Especially this late in the day. Didn't help that I started not feeling very well after the first hour or so. Went to the bathroom and took my binding off and that helped. Bilbo is one of those costumes where you can't really tell if I have the binding on or off at least. I think the exhaustion of working on Tod finally caught up to me and I was hungry and since I hadn't been in a costume with binding on since Dragon Con, I was a bit out of shape too. Finally we did get our badges though we all went back to the room and changed out of costume. So was kinda sad that we basically got into costume just for the line. XD Though I did get a few photos taken and a few shout-outs. I almost forgot that I was wearing the costume since it'd take me a few seconds to realize they were talking to me. XD lol But I didn't get any new photos of it and didn't get to fool around in the garden areas like I had intended with it. Oh well. We were all really hungry by this point so we just went go get food, going over to Baja Fresh since its the only thing cheap and fast really. Brought it back to the room, which omg, as I told Dorian on our way back up "I am so ready to eat this." XD So by the time we did that, most of the con was over for the day. x_x Dealer's was closed. Artist alley was open for like 20 more minutes or so, so we made a quick run of it but a lot of the artists were already closed up for the night. Then wandered a little just to at least make it feel like we were at con finally.
I did run into these two who made my night at least. See, I'm pretty sure they bought that fabric from my store. XD Because those are the only 2 prints from that line we carry and we always joke about it in store so I thought it was brilliant they made these cute outfits out of it. And I think I remember seeing the girl shop in our store before. I still haven't gotten a chance to show my boss yet (I never get a chance to just chat with her lately) but I'm sure she'll get a laugh out of it when I do.
Alyce wore her lolita brand Elisabeth skirt which made me super happy! I'm sooo glad she managed to get that one. It was adorable how ready she was to do these costumes which made me glad I decided to bring mine after all. I would have hated to disappoint her.
But that was pretty much all we did for Friday. The guys went to some viewings but there was nothing interesting me. Though on the way back to our room, I did see that Lionel still had his cockpit up but that only Corey was still around to help him so figured I'd stick around to help since I did originally volunteer for that. Even if I was dead tired. But did get this crack photo out of it...
XD
We packed the cockpit up and took it to Lionel's room, which luckily was just on the 3rd floor but as we were moving the cart...we couldn't stop laughing at the squeaky noise it kept making and we were the only ones going down this ridiculously long hallway (since Lionel's room was aaaaall the way in the corner, opposite end of the elevator we got on) so someone made the comment that it reminded them of The Shining which led to Lionel coming up with a hilarious scenario of two Rei clones being a the end of the hallway "Come play with us, Shinji" XD and this became an ongoing joke throughout the con with him adding more and more to it each time I saw him. lol But anywho after chatting a bit in his room while I tried not to pass out, headed back to my room for some much needed sleeeeeeep. Especially since I had agreed to be up semi early so Jensen could come do the make-up as she had a kinda short window of time open for it.
Saturday:
Woke up, got my binding on, and then waited for Jensen and her friend to show up for make-up times, which ended up being a pretty intense make-up session. XD Took about an hour or so with the two of them switching off, seeing what worked and what didn't here and there. While Beth got Alyce's hair ready. They did an amazing job on the make-up and I'm soooo grateful for all the help! They had to rush off for a shoot and then Alyce went to go get a parent consent form for her sister to fill out when she'd be coming by to drop off Alyce's niece later that day as we managed to convince her into bringing her to hang with us. In the mean time I did my nails...which weren't done until Alyce and Beth got back, which was like at least 20 minutes. lol Intense costume prep is intense. and time consuming. @_@ Though I then stupidly realized I was supposed to at least put the pants and dress shirt on FIRST because it would be rather hard to get the buttons and zipper up with the nails on. Doh. Luckily Beth didn't mind helping me get that on. XD As well as the rest of the costume. Then finally we were ready to go off and take photos.
To explain some back story on these costumes first...the costumes are from Takarazuka's version of the Austrian musical Elisabeth. Shortly after Alyce and I first met, she introduced me to the 1996 Sorgaumi performance of this show. I was already a fan of zuka at the time so I was very excited and fell in love with it instantly and it was pretty quick that we agreed we had to cosplay from it some day. Over the years we got more serious about it, I saw the 2002 Hanagumi performance, which became my favorite zuka show ever and decided I needed to do one of Der Tod's outfits from that particular one though I wasn't sure which. We both agreed we'd wait til we had the right amount of money and skill to pull them off though. Then I find the perfect velvet for the "Milch" scene costume, which was one of the ones I was considering and as it was on clearance I figured my decision was finally made. But neither of us felt we were ready quite yet so that bag of fabric sat in my house for nearly 2 years before we finally decided it was time. And the fact that 2014 is the 100th year anniversary of zuka pretty much sealed the deal. So these costumes have been at least 5 years in planning and are a huge deal to us both. I'm still frustrated that my costume isn't up to par with what I wanted but I'm currently in the process of finishing the rhinestones (which are all sewn on by hand) and fixing parts of it up. Alyce, on the other hand, is a perfect Elisabeth already.
Elisabeth and Der Tod, photo by Fanboy Photos, aka my friend Utai's husband, who I hadn't met yet at the time and had no idea it was him taking the photo until later. XD Sad thing is that Utai was only a few feet away from us but he didn't know it was me and so didn't tell her and I didn't realize she was there. lol Oops.
We ended up just really taking photos with Tom instead of doing much standing around so I know we didn't give much opportunity for others to get photos but we didn't have a lot of time to work with and knew that it was unlikely anyone would know who we were anyways so just focused on getting shots we wanted. Though later on a girl on tumblr found me and said that she and her gf saw us and freaked but they couldn't escape their own shoot to talk to us. They had done the '07 Yukigumi version of Tod and Rudolf a few years ago. So yay at least someone knew who we were even if we didn't know til later on. XD
Elisabeth shall be mine~
Check out that ONE single boot that I got the outline done on. *sighs* lol At least it didn't look too awkward but yeah, both boots are supposed to have that and they're also supposed to be completely filled in with rhinestones. Still working on that. XD
Getting my creeper-Tod on. Kept channeling more Mizu than Osa though. lol But Mizu has such fun poses/expressions. Poor Alyce probably had no idea what I was talking about when I kept switching this, trying to get it right. ^^;; I think I need to practice some more.
Still probably my favorite shot we got. I just love the angles, etc. Thank you Tom!
Elisaaaaaaabet~ ...attempt to recreate a sign here. Its actually the other hand in the scene but that would have required some awkward contorting of the body there. lol In the show, Tod slides his hand in between like 2 dressing screens. A tad bit harder when all I have to work with is a wall. lol But its like one of my favorite bits with OsaTod and I even had the right outfit for it.
Close-up shot to show the awesome make-up Jensen and Co did
And showing my nails and ring
Alyce had the idea for this one, based off a bit in the original Austrian version of the play.
"Bitch please, I dance my own dance." ...which is pretty much what she tells him in that one song XD
I like the pose but I look way too grumpy here. XD I swear I wasn't actually angry!
Did I mention how perfect Alyce's Elisabeth is????
Figured we had enough photos at this point (there's more, these are just my favorites) and we wanted to get to the Dealer's since we missed it on Friday. I briefly considered keeping Tod on but then figured I might a hard time looking through stuff with the nails on. They aren't super long but longer than what I'm used to. So changed out, which took a while to get the make-up off and even longer to get the nails off. Ugh, taking them off was NOT fun. I'll have to remember to try the clear nail polish underneath method next time like Eric suggested.
But before I did that, made sure to get this super dorky "Deer Tod" photo for the tumblr zuka community...
...see there was a typo made of Deer Tod a while back and it became an inside-joke. XD Sadly this photo totally blurred but its the best of the 3 we took.
Originally I had planned to wear Prince Diamond next but I thought about it and decided I really didn't have the stamina to do 3 costumes that day and I'd rather just take my time in the Dealer's and then rest before Hades-time.
I was VERY excited to see this My Little Pony group. Its been ages since I saw MLP cosplay that wasn't FiM and they were equally happy that I knew they were Generation 1 ponies. As they put it "thank you for not asking 'what episode were you from?!'" XD They had the whole set of ice cream ponies but one of them was getting solo shots with a photographer so didn't want to interrupt and just got the rest of the group who were waiting for their turns.
Went to every table in the Dealer's that was selling figures in hopes of finding the FFVII Chibi Kai Cloud and was beginning to lose hope as I was finding every chibi Kai BUT that one until I finally found him at like the very last booth all the way in the far end corner. XD Then I was bad and spent like $100 on figures at the AnimeSekai booth. Got the whole Inu x Boku SS set and some Tales of Graces plus the Seishiro that matches my Subaru, solely because he was super cheap. lol While in the Dealer's, my friend Jesse called saying he finally got to the con. He originally was going to come earlier but wasn't feeling well. Somehow he managed to find me while I was still there so invited him to join our dinner plans once he was done shopping. On the way back to the room I saw the Sailor Moon gathering I was suposed to go to with Diamond and did feel a pang of regret not joining them.
'Cause this Endymion (who is doing Tani's Myu version btw, so basically "zuka Endymion" XD) was joking that we should have a fight over Serenity (since my friend Luna was going to be her) though at this point Luna was no longer in that costume anywho.
Sometime around here Alyce's sister dropped Ash off and she got introduced to the rest of us. She was quite hungry so we all agreed it was time to eat. Decided to go to the Thai restaurant for dinner, which had some amazing sushi. *_* lol I normally would have gotten actual Thai food but I was in the mood for sushi. Though I started to get nervous that it would take too long to get food and get the check because I had a shoot scheduled with Hades at 8pm and it takes me a long time to get into the costume and I was cutting it close on time. So got the waiter to get me my check early so I could eat and run.
Went to the room and only helper of mine on time was Dian (who I did get to see earlier at least, she's a friend of mine from college and I was really happy to see her since I haven't in many years) who sat there all shy and awkward since I didn't need her help quite yet. I was struggling to get some make-up on cause I suck at it and I was nervous and in a hurry. Asked Corey to hurry to come and help me but she was running late getting into Alone. By this time everyone in the room was back, which put me into a slight panic because suddenly there was a lot of people in the room and I had hoped to be in costume by this time so not to be crowded. So I admit I did get a little bitchy even though I tried not to be but when I panic, I get upset easily. Felt bad about it though, especially with Ash there. Corey still wasn't around and I was hoping she would be as she has more experience getting people into big ridiculous costumes. lol So instead had Beth and Alyce try to help again like they did last year. I think I gained weight though as it was harder to get on but I did my best NOT to panic over it. Just took deep breathes and told myself it WOULD fit since Dad and I did test it the day before con. Alyce accidentally got my skin in the buckles and boy did that pinch but I tried hard not to cry out too much so not to freak her out (even though owowowow XD) since I didn't want her to feel bad about that. She had a really hard time getting the shoulder pieces on again (we had issues last year but its really just about being patient with them and forcing them on) but I think it was Jesse who managed to do them. Group effort! Though having everyone there turned out to be a good thing because I had several people willing to help carrying my wings down when originally I only planned for 3. lol So it helped cause I could have the others by me to make sure nothing fell off. And luckily Corey had already talked to Lionel so he knew we were running late and had already picked out a spot for us, inside the doors of the Ballroom so it was easy to find him. All and all it went a lot better than last year even despite my panicking. Though I could definitely feel the costume was tighter on me and thus couldn't stay in it for too long.
Lionel could tell I was a bit tense, mostly from the stress of rushing since I hate to make any photographer wait. So he was wonderful and kept telling jokes to try to make me laugh and relax some before we started and I really appreciated that. Definitely calmed me down a bit and the actual photoshoot was awesome and made me so happy to finally get good photos of this costume.
Dian took a bunch of photos while I was getting ready and during the shoot, which kinda resulted in a "behind the scenes" type of thing lol. I like this one cause it shows you how the wings actually work. That and I've never seen how the back looked for obvious reasons lol.
She also took this cute photo of our props XD
Now onto my favorites from the actual shoot...
Probably my fav of the shoot ^.^ I love how badass I look!
Pffft. This one was Lionel's idea. Took us a bit to figure out how to pull the Gangnam pose off in that armor. This was the best I could do. XD
Didn't stay in the costume much longer cause it was starting to hurt and I didn't want to make my handlers wait too much longer. So didn't get a chance to pose for anyone out in the con but I did get a lot of compliments just walking to and back from the shoot. I'm still really proud of this costume despite all its issues. This might be the last time I wear it though just cause I hate dealing with the stress of getting it to con and getting it on etc. But I'm very grateful for all the help I have gotten with it. Hung in the room for a bit and then Jesse had to head out. Poor Alyce discovered she accidentally gave her sister part of the costume she had made for Ash (she gave her sister some stuff to take back to PA so they'd have less to pack on Sun and more room for Ash in the car). So being the amazing Aunt she is, she left to drive up there to get it and would bring it back Sunday morning so Ash could still get her chance to cosplay at the con.
Meanwhile I got talked into making a ghetto Shinji costume out of my suitcase in order to do a shoot with Lionel's EVA cockpit. Turned one of my t-shirts backwards, rolled up my long sleeved dress shirt so it looked short sleeved, and borrowed Corey's Eren wig. XD So we did this shoot...in Lionel's hotel room. XD With Al passed out on the bed.
![](https://p.dreamwidth.org/75a4471c902b/3129396-535245/img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/yana_angel/Katsucon%202014/lionel-eva01_zpsd587a960.jpg")
"Get in the EVA Shinji!" "....k" lol Shinji is so not my type of character XD Also check out the food behind us. lol We kinda forgot about that so Lionel then grabbed a piece of cardboard to put behind the cockpit to hide that.
XD
We both kept cracking up during these photos, especially with Lionel's crazy commentary which didn't help at all when trying to keep a pose. XDXD But it was fun, even if I was dead tired by the time I got back to the room.
Sunday:
Woke up to Alyce coming in with Ash's skirt victorious so they got Ash into her Ciel ballgown early enough so there was time to wander the con some before needing to check out. I put on TARDIS and Alyce and Beth got their Xena costumes on since they didn't get the chance on Sat.
So here's Ash as grumpy Ciel
Gabrielle and Xena. These costumes always make me happy ^.^
The TARDIS just wants to be Xena's new sidekick
Went back up to the room and started taking everything down. I ended up manly staying with Ash to watch the stuff while everyone brought stuff down though I felt bad that they had to take all my Hades stuff down. Its kinda sad how I didn't see a lot of my friends until this moment, seeing them pass by with their own stuff towards their cars. lol There was a lot of "oh hey! I didn't see you all con wtf" XD Oh well.
Originally I was hoping to try to put Hades in Katie's car the night before since she offered to give me a ride home but I was worried everything might not fit but her phone died so wasn't able to talk to them until Sun morning. We did try to get it into the car but it just wasn't going to work with me in there as well. So I called my parents (who knew this might happen beforehand) and they came for me to put my stuff in their car to take home while I stayed at the con longer and would go home with Katie and Ian. I was surprised how fast they got to the con. So then went with everyone to the Dealer's/artist alley for the final Sunday round.
We saw this amazing Sakura on the way. The entire dress is machine embroidered and its incredible. I know how hard it is to do that from my own experience so I have full respect here.
Sadly didn't get to spend much time with everyone after all. Katie wasn't feeling good and asked if we could leave soon, as she had spent this whole time on the floor of the hallway, too sick to do anything. Kinda sucked since I had wanted to stay to see the WCS prelims (so odd they had it on Sunday though) and if I had known, I could have just gone home with my parents but hey at least I got enough time to say goodbye to everyone and I felt bad that Katie was so sick. Not like it was her fault. Katie's meds were kicking in at least so she felt good enough to drive and we did have good time chatting on the way home. Katsu wasn't bad but I still feel like I was robbed of my con time due to that stupid snow. I had barely any time to spend with popele and Sat felt like Fri so it was sad to end the con so early. Oh well.
Rest of my photos here on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyn.hargreaves/media_set?set=a.10152159901327954.1073741866.578667953&type=3
~Lyn
Friday:
So we had a snowstorm hit right before the con, just like it did 2 years ago. Only this time the plow did not come the night before the con. So Friday morning, after a looong night where I had to come to terms with the fact that my Der Tod costume was not going to be finished in time (but at least I could wear it), I sat there waiting to see if our street would be plowed for quite a few hours. Took my time packing, beginning to worry that soon I'd have to start taking things OUT of the suitcase since I wouldn't have the time to wear anything. Then finally the plow came around 1pm or so (might have been 2, I don't even remember). But boy was I glad I didn't schedule any shoots for the day, else I'd have to cancel. Left for con as soon as the street was clear. Got to con and was surprised to see the entire room show up to help me get my stuff upstairs since Alyce said they were on their way to get their badges. Turns out they were told there would be a 3 hour wait so figured they would much rather help me and wait a bit later to get in the line. So managed to get everything up to the room in one go, which was pretty impressive considering I had all of the Hades pieces with me. XD Then we all took our time and I threw on Bilbo and we went to get our badges. The line...hadn't gotten any better though. So we realized it probably really would take us that long. Luckily Alyce and I had already decided not to do our Elisabeth costumes that evening, like we originally planned. I decided not to enter due to the costume not being done, which was a good thing because I would have had to rush to get into it at this point and Jensen had panels that evening and so it would have been hard to get her to help me with my make-up. So I decided I'd try for 3 costumes on Sat instead and just take it easy for the rest of the night. ...though we ended up spending most of that time in that damn pre-reg line.
It didn't take 3 hours. It took four. X_X Becky, who regged on site, managed to go get her badge, wait with us for a bit, go to the Dealer's and make a full run plus buy stuff, come back, and we still weren't even halfway through the line. Seriously longest wait I've ever had at Katsu. Reminded me of the old days of waiting, which I really thought was a thing of the past now. lol Especially this late in the day. Didn't help that I started not feeling very well after the first hour or so. Went to the bathroom and took my binding off and that helped. Bilbo is one of those costumes where you can't really tell if I have the binding on or off at least. I think the exhaustion of working on Tod finally caught up to me and I was hungry and since I hadn't been in a costume with binding on since Dragon Con, I was a bit out of shape too. Finally we did get our badges though we all went back to the room and changed out of costume. So was kinda sad that we basically got into costume just for the line. XD Though I did get a few photos taken and a few shout-outs. I almost forgot that I was wearing the costume since it'd take me a few seconds to realize they were talking to me. XD lol But I didn't get any new photos of it and didn't get to fool around in the garden areas like I had intended with it. Oh well. We were all really hungry by this point so we just went go get food, going over to Baja Fresh since its the only thing cheap and fast really. Brought it back to the room, which omg, as I told Dorian on our way back up "I am so ready to eat this." XD So by the time we did that, most of the con was over for the day. x_x Dealer's was closed. Artist alley was open for like 20 more minutes or so, so we made a quick run of it but a lot of the artists were already closed up for the night. Then wandered a little just to at least make it feel like we were at con finally.
I did run into these two who made my night at least. See, I'm pretty sure they bought that fabric from my store. XD Because those are the only 2 prints from that line we carry and we always joke about it in store so I thought it was brilliant they made these cute outfits out of it. And I think I remember seeing the girl shop in our store before. I still haven't gotten a chance to show my boss yet (I never get a chance to just chat with her lately) but I'm sure she'll get a laugh out of it when I do.
Alyce wore her lolita brand Elisabeth skirt which made me super happy! I'm sooo glad she managed to get that one. It was adorable how ready she was to do these costumes which made me glad I decided to bring mine after all. I would have hated to disappoint her.
But that was pretty much all we did for Friday. The guys went to some viewings but there was nothing interesting me. Though on the way back to our room, I did see that Lionel still had his cockpit up but that only Corey was still around to help him so figured I'd stick around to help since I did originally volunteer for that. Even if I was dead tired. But did get this crack photo out of it...
XD
We packed the cockpit up and took it to Lionel's room, which luckily was just on the 3rd floor but as we were moving the cart...we couldn't stop laughing at the squeaky noise it kept making and we were the only ones going down this ridiculously long hallway (since Lionel's room was aaaaall the way in the corner, opposite end of the elevator we got on) so someone made the comment that it reminded them of The Shining which led to Lionel coming up with a hilarious scenario of two Rei clones being a the end of the hallway "Come play with us, Shinji" XD and this became an ongoing joke throughout the con with him adding more and more to it each time I saw him. lol But anywho after chatting a bit in his room while I tried not to pass out, headed back to my room for some much needed sleeeeeeep. Especially since I had agreed to be up semi early so Jensen could come do the make-up as she had a kinda short window of time open for it.
Saturday:
Woke up, got my binding on, and then waited for Jensen and her friend to show up for make-up times, which ended up being a pretty intense make-up session. XD Took about an hour or so with the two of them switching off, seeing what worked and what didn't here and there. While Beth got Alyce's hair ready. They did an amazing job on the make-up and I'm soooo grateful for all the help! They had to rush off for a shoot and then Alyce went to go get a parent consent form for her sister to fill out when she'd be coming by to drop off Alyce's niece later that day as we managed to convince her into bringing her to hang with us. In the mean time I did my nails...which weren't done until Alyce and Beth got back, which was like at least 20 minutes. lol Intense costume prep is intense. and time consuming. @_@ Though I then stupidly realized I was supposed to at least put the pants and dress shirt on FIRST because it would be rather hard to get the buttons and zipper up with the nails on. Doh. Luckily Beth didn't mind helping me get that on. XD As well as the rest of the costume. Then finally we were ready to go off and take photos.
To explain some back story on these costumes first...the costumes are from Takarazuka's version of the Austrian musical Elisabeth. Shortly after Alyce and I first met, she introduced me to the 1996 Sorgaumi performance of this show. I was already a fan of zuka at the time so I was very excited and fell in love with it instantly and it was pretty quick that we agreed we had to cosplay from it some day. Over the years we got more serious about it, I saw the 2002 Hanagumi performance, which became my favorite zuka show ever and decided I needed to do one of Der Tod's outfits from that particular one though I wasn't sure which. We both agreed we'd wait til we had the right amount of money and skill to pull them off though. Then I find the perfect velvet for the "Milch" scene costume, which was one of the ones I was considering and as it was on clearance I figured my decision was finally made. But neither of us felt we were ready quite yet so that bag of fabric sat in my house for nearly 2 years before we finally decided it was time. And the fact that 2014 is the 100th year anniversary of zuka pretty much sealed the deal. So these costumes have been at least 5 years in planning and are a huge deal to us both. I'm still frustrated that my costume isn't up to par with what I wanted but I'm currently in the process of finishing the rhinestones (which are all sewn on by hand) and fixing parts of it up. Alyce, on the other hand, is a perfect Elisabeth already.
Elisabeth and Der Tod, photo by Fanboy Photos, aka my friend Utai's husband, who I hadn't met yet at the time and had no idea it was him taking the photo until later. XD Sad thing is that Utai was only a few feet away from us but he didn't know it was me and so didn't tell her and I didn't realize she was there. lol Oops.
We ended up just really taking photos with Tom instead of doing much standing around so I know we didn't give much opportunity for others to get photos but we didn't have a lot of time to work with and knew that it was unlikely anyone would know who we were anyways so just focused on getting shots we wanted. Though later on a girl on tumblr found me and said that she and her gf saw us and freaked but they couldn't escape their own shoot to talk to us. They had done the '07 Yukigumi version of Tod and Rudolf a few years ago. So yay at least someone knew who we were even if we didn't know til later on. XD
Elisabeth shall be mine~
Check out that ONE single boot that I got the outline done on. *sighs* lol At least it didn't look too awkward but yeah, both boots are supposed to have that and they're also supposed to be completely filled in with rhinestones. Still working on that. XD
Getting my creeper-Tod on. Kept channeling more Mizu than Osa though. lol But Mizu has such fun poses/expressions. Poor Alyce probably had no idea what I was talking about when I kept switching this, trying to get it right. ^^;; I think I need to practice some more.
Still probably my favorite shot we got. I just love the angles, etc. Thank you Tom!
Elisaaaaaaabet~ ...attempt to recreate a sign here. Its actually the other hand in the scene but that would have required some awkward contorting of the body there. lol In the show, Tod slides his hand in between like 2 dressing screens. A tad bit harder when all I have to work with is a wall. lol But its like one of my favorite bits with OsaTod and I even had the right outfit for it.
Close-up shot to show the awesome make-up Jensen and Co did
And showing my nails and ring
Alyce had the idea for this one, based off a bit in the original Austrian version of the play.
"Bitch please, I dance my own dance." ...which is pretty much what she tells him in that one song XD
I like the pose but I look way too grumpy here. XD I swear I wasn't actually angry!
Did I mention how perfect Alyce's Elisabeth is????
Figured we had enough photos at this point (there's more, these are just my favorites) and we wanted to get to the Dealer's since we missed it on Friday. I briefly considered keeping Tod on but then figured I might a hard time looking through stuff with the nails on. They aren't super long but longer than what I'm used to. So changed out, which took a while to get the make-up off and even longer to get the nails off. Ugh, taking them off was NOT fun. I'll have to remember to try the clear nail polish underneath method next time like Eric suggested.
But before I did that, made sure to get this super dorky "Deer Tod" photo for the tumblr zuka community...
...see there was a typo made of Deer Tod a while back and it became an inside-joke. XD Sadly this photo totally blurred but its the best of the 3 we took.
Originally I had planned to wear Prince Diamond next but I thought about it and decided I really didn't have the stamina to do 3 costumes that day and I'd rather just take my time in the Dealer's and then rest before Hades-time.
I was VERY excited to see this My Little Pony group. Its been ages since I saw MLP cosplay that wasn't FiM and they were equally happy that I knew they were Generation 1 ponies. As they put it "thank you for not asking 'what episode were you from?!'" XD They had the whole set of ice cream ponies but one of them was getting solo shots with a photographer so didn't want to interrupt and just got the rest of the group who were waiting for their turns.
Went to every table in the Dealer's that was selling figures in hopes of finding the FFVII Chibi Kai Cloud and was beginning to lose hope as I was finding every chibi Kai BUT that one until I finally found him at like the very last booth all the way in the far end corner. XD Then I was bad and spent like $100 on figures at the AnimeSekai booth. Got the whole Inu x Boku SS set and some Tales of Graces plus the Seishiro that matches my Subaru, solely because he was super cheap. lol While in the Dealer's, my friend Jesse called saying he finally got to the con. He originally was going to come earlier but wasn't feeling well. Somehow he managed to find me while I was still there so invited him to join our dinner plans once he was done shopping. On the way back to the room I saw the Sailor Moon gathering I was suposed to go to with Diamond and did feel a pang of regret not joining them.
'Cause this Endymion (who is doing Tani's Myu version btw, so basically "zuka Endymion" XD) was joking that we should have a fight over Serenity (since my friend Luna was going to be her) though at this point Luna was no longer in that costume anywho.
Sometime around here Alyce's sister dropped Ash off and she got introduced to the rest of us. She was quite hungry so we all agreed it was time to eat. Decided to go to the Thai restaurant for dinner, which had some amazing sushi. *_* lol I normally would have gotten actual Thai food but I was in the mood for sushi. Though I started to get nervous that it would take too long to get food and get the check because I had a shoot scheduled with Hades at 8pm and it takes me a long time to get into the costume and I was cutting it close on time. So got the waiter to get me my check early so I could eat and run.
Went to the room and only helper of mine on time was Dian (who I did get to see earlier at least, she's a friend of mine from college and I was really happy to see her since I haven't in many years) who sat there all shy and awkward since I didn't need her help quite yet. I was struggling to get some make-up on cause I suck at it and I was nervous and in a hurry. Asked Corey to hurry to come and help me but she was running late getting into Alone. By this time everyone in the room was back, which put me into a slight panic because suddenly there was a lot of people in the room and I had hoped to be in costume by this time so not to be crowded. So I admit I did get a little bitchy even though I tried not to be but when I panic, I get upset easily. Felt bad about it though, especially with Ash there. Corey still wasn't around and I was hoping she would be as she has more experience getting people into big ridiculous costumes. lol So instead had Beth and Alyce try to help again like they did last year. I think I gained weight though as it was harder to get on but I did my best NOT to panic over it. Just took deep breathes and told myself it WOULD fit since Dad and I did test it the day before con. Alyce accidentally got my skin in the buckles and boy did that pinch but I tried hard not to cry out too much so not to freak her out (even though owowowow XD) since I didn't want her to feel bad about that. She had a really hard time getting the shoulder pieces on again (we had issues last year but its really just about being patient with them and forcing them on) but I think it was Jesse who managed to do them. Group effort! Though having everyone there turned out to be a good thing because I had several people willing to help carrying my wings down when originally I only planned for 3. lol So it helped cause I could have the others by me to make sure nothing fell off. And luckily Corey had already talked to Lionel so he knew we were running late and had already picked out a spot for us, inside the doors of the Ballroom so it was easy to find him. All and all it went a lot better than last year even despite my panicking. Though I could definitely feel the costume was tighter on me and thus couldn't stay in it for too long.
Lionel could tell I was a bit tense, mostly from the stress of rushing since I hate to make any photographer wait. So he was wonderful and kept telling jokes to try to make me laugh and relax some before we started and I really appreciated that. Definitely calmed me down a bit and the actual photoshoot was awesome and made me so happy to finally get good photos of this costume.
Dian took a bunch of photos while I was getting ready and during the shoot, which kinda resulted in a "behind the scenes" type of thing lol. I like this one cause it shows you how the wings actually work. That and I've never seen how the back looked for obvious reasons lol.
She also took this cute photo of our props XD
Now onto my favorites from the actual shoot...
Probably my fav of the shoot ^.^ I love how badass I look!
Pffft. This one was Lionel's idea. Took us a bit to figure out how to pull the Gangnam pose off in that armor. This was the best I could do. XD
Didn't stay in the costume much longer cause it was starting to hurt and I didn't want to make my handlers wait too much longer. So didn't get a chance to pose for anyone out in the con but I did get a lot of compliments just walking to and back from the shoot. I'm still really proud of this costume despite all its issues. This might be the last time I wear it though just cause I hate dealing with the stress of getting it to con and getting it on etc. But I'm very grateful for all the help I have gotten with it. Hung in the room for a bit and then Jesse had to head out. Poor Alyce discovered she accidentally gave her sister part of the costume she had made for Ash (she gave her sister some stuff to take back to PA so they'd have less to pack on Sun and more room for Ash in the car). So being the amazing Aunt she is, she left to drive up there to get it and would bring it back Sunday morning so Ash could still get her chance to cosplay at the con.
Meanwhile I got talked into making a ghetto Shinji costume out of my suitcase in order to do a shoot with Lionel's EVA cockpit. Turned one of my t-shirts backwards, rolled up my long sleeved dress shirt so it looked short sleeved, and borrowed Corey's Eren wig. XD So we did this shoot...in Lionel's hotel room. XD With Al passed out on the bed.
"Get in the EVA Shinji!" "....k" lol Shinji is so not my type of character XD Also check out the food behind us. lol We kinda forgot about that so Lionel then grabbed a piece of cardboard to put behind the cockpit to hide that.
XD
We both kept cracking up during these photos, especially with Lionel's crazy commentary which didn't help at all when trying to keep a pose. XDXD But it was fun, even if I was dead tired by the time I got back to the room.
Sunday:
Woke up to Alyce coming in with Ash's skirt victorious so they got Ash into her Ciel ballgown early enough so there was time to wander the con some before needing to check out. I put on TARDIS and Alyce and Beth got their Xena costumes on since they didn't get the chance on Sat.
So here's Ash as grumpy Ciel
Gabrielle and Xena. These costumes always make me happy ^.^
The TARDIS just wants to be Xena's new sidekick
Went back up to the room and started taking everything down. I ended up manly staying with Ash to watch the stuff while everyone brought stuff down though I felt bad that they had to take all my Hades stuff down. Its kinda sad how I didn't see a lot of my friends until this moment, seeing them pass by with their own stuff towards their cars. lol There was a lot of "oh hey! I didn't see you all con wtf" XD Oh well.
Originally I was hoping to try to put Hades in Katie's car the night before since she offered to give me a ride home but I was worried everything might not fit but her phone died so wasn't able to talk to them until Sun morning. We did try to get it into the car but it just wasn't going to work with me in there as well. So I called my parents (who knew this might happen beforehand) and they came for me to put my stuff in their car to take home while I stayed at the con longer and would go home with Katie and Ian. I was surprised how fast they got to the con. So then went with everyone to the Dealer's/artist alley for the final Sunday round.
We saw this amazing Sakura on the way. The entire dress is machine embroidered and its incredible. I know how hard it is to do that from my own experience so I have full respect here.
Sadly didn't get to spend much time with everyone after all. Katie wasn't feeling good and asked if we could leave soon, as she had spent this whole time on the floor of the hallway, too sick to do anything. Kinda sucked since I had wanted to stay to see the WCS prelims (so odd they had it on Sunday though) and if I had known, I could have just gone home with my parents but hey at least I got enough time to say goodbye to everyone and I felt bad that Katie was so sick. Not like it was her fault. Katie's meds were kicking in at least so she felt good enough to drive and we did have good time chatting on the way home. Katsu wasn't bad but I still feel like I was robbed of my con time due to that stupid snow. I had barely any time to spend with popele and Sat felt like Fri so it was sad to end the con so early. Oh well.
Rest of my photos here on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyn.hargreaves/media_set?set=a.10152159901327954.1073741866.578667953&type=3
~Lyn
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Date: 2014-04-15 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-15 04:44 pm (UTC)OH and did you get my PM on facebook? I was curious if you're still thinking of going to awesome con this weekend or not?
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Date: 2014-04-15 05:36 pm (UTC)Sorry, I thought I had replied on facebook!!!
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Date: 2014-04-15 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-17 03:18 pm (UTC)