Breaking the radio silence

Hi everyone!

It has been a while since I posted last time and I honestly feel a little sad about it, but no can do really... In this post I just want to share some stuff that I've been doing, plus some plans for the future. It's a little different from the usual stuff I do here, so buckle up!

So obviously not much cosplay progress here. I'll give an update on Paya later so at least there's that to look for. I've been working for a couple of months as a cook, but now the restaurant has closed for a while. It'll be a few months until it opens again so I try to keep myself busy by working in a super market when needed and I'm moving in with my bf soon. The apartment we're trying to get is being renovated currently, so we'll hear about that when it's done. Honestly I'm looking forward to it, my room is quite small and I have a lot of stuff and nowhere to store them. This of course also means that costume making is quite limited.

While I wait I still want to be creative though, so I'm learning to make blueprints of props with Inkscape.  I've never considered making blueprints of props like.. ever for some reason. And sure it isn't really necessary, but I feel like it makes things clearer having the prop printed on paper in it's actual size. I don't have much experience in this field yet, but regardless it feels way simpler to me transferring the print to foam (or whatever material I'm gonna use, lol). We'll see how this goes, I'm going to update this later.

The inspiration to start learning this came from Kamui Cosplays video about this subject and I'm really thankful for the videos and stuff they provide. <3 In the video Benni showed how to make blueprints on Adobe Illustrator, but also provided a free alternative that is Inkscape. ^_^ Truly amazing~!

A work in progress -screenshot, I still gotta clean it up and fix it a little :3

The weapon I'm making a blueprint of is Bounty Hunter Peaches gun btw. The artist who made the design is called fonteart. He makes amazing original designs of various characters and I am planning to turn at least two of them into a cosplay. ^^

Bounty Hunter Peach

Knight Peach

I've always wanted to cosplay Peach for nostalgia reasons, so instead of making the princess-y attire I'm gonna make these two! ^^ The Knight version goes pretty well with my bf's idea of Mario with a blacksmith design.

Moving on, I have also tackled my wigs! It's been a lot of work to wash them. Some wigs have been with me since like 2011 and they honestly smelled like it (SOS). So much dirt, hair product and dust, ew! Washing them was quite satisfying though. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep them all, but at least I'm re-purposing and styling them. I have been planning to write a wig -washing tutorial on here maybe. I feel it is important, but we'll see. Anyways, here's some before and after wigs.

First we have my old Chizuru wig. The ends were in horrible condition so I had to cut it about 7 cm off. Also it had a lot of hair products left from all those years I cosplayed Chizuru, yikes!

After washing, cutting and a little heat styling the wig looks much better. The bangs still look a little wonky so I might have to fix that later. Still, I'm happy I finally gave the much needed makeover!

Next one was my old Mikasa cosplay wig. I instantly had an idea what I wanted to do with it so this is a keeper for me. :3 This wig also had a lot of product and was quite messy (I probably dunked it to the bag right after use, no combing or anything). Also my styling work wasn't the best either. I had to thin out the wig quite a lot. 

Here's my baby! I love her so much now! I still have to spike her, but that's for later. The general style is there. :3 Thinning job made it sit way more nicely on my head too. looks a little more natural. The picture doesn't give it justice (thanks to horrible lighting in our house, previous pics were taken at in-laws house). The wig is going to serve as Lady from Devil May Cry btw. ^^

~<3

Now the biggest project....

Ahh yes, Ciel Phantomhive from Kuroshitsuji. I remember the time when the show was the thing, and of course back in the day I had to cosplay the pink dress -version. It was a little tricky to figure out what I wanted to do with this wig since I'm not going to cosplay Ciel at all, but I figured out something.

The wig itself didn't have much product in, but I haven't washed it ever since I got it so there was a smell on it.

After washing and drying I combined the twintails into a massive ponytail, then I combed and tied the back part of the base wig.

I cut the bangs and gave the sides a little bit layers. I didn't put any product into any of these wigs, since I'm going to style them properly later.

I cut a huge chunk off from the ponytail and gave it some layers. I kept the curls so the actual styling process would be a little easier. This wig is going to be my new Sheena Fujibayashi -wig! :D I used to have a blue one for her, but that doesn't sit right with me anymore, so I went with this one. Her hair is definitely more grey than blue after all, lol. I think I went with the blue one originally because in the games cover art, her hair looks blue, I'm not sure if this was the case, but oh well~ :')

This wasn't probably that interesting, but that's really all I wanted to get out. Once we move and get all our ducks in a row I hope I'll post here more regularly with some actual costume/prop making progress. Thanks for checking in. :3