Super Cosplay Kazoku

Otakon 2011 Friday

2011-08-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. We were planning to do FFX, but inexplicably left some crucial stuff at home. So we just checked in, so fast, and wandered about in disguise, as ourselves. Much easier to get around the dealers room this way. Some contacts and a Soul Eater shirt for the kid, then we go find a few friends like Maki and EBK. But first, we ran into and took pictures of our friend Tohma and didn't even know it. Because she was wearing this.

Tohma as Ravage

Can't believe we didn't recognize her, our bad. An amazing cosplay. Next we ran into our cosplay daughter Maki and her friend the Captain.

Just then an awesome Bucky showed up and they looked great together.

Well done guys.One more thing before we have to get into our Darkstalkers stuff. I had to take this picture of Stein and Medusa from Soul Eater, cause our Brendan loves that show.

Now it's time to go back to the room and get all Darkstalkery. Here are the girls getting their Morrigan and Lilith on.

Maki, Kimi and my FFX chest on the left.

Now, we love group photo shoots, but an outdoor shoot at Otakon is not a sane idea.There was a reason people needed ice cold water it was 100 F-ing degrees. So this one was at the outdoor fountains, great. What a surprise it turned out to be a bit of a C.F. A tad disorganized. We took a pic or two and beat feet. We did get a few decent pictures inside near the fountains. The first couple from the awesomely cool Eurobeat King.

Two beautiful girls by EBK.

Morrigan, Donovan Baine and Lilith by EBK.

I must mention our dear friend Regena helped us out the whole time even going outside into the furnace. We also took a few with a talented photographer Paul Karpey.

Morrigan and Donovan by Paul.

I liked this one, and Kimi really liked this one.

Morrigan by Paul.

After all that picture taking we went to dinner at a really nice place. Right across Charles street from the Convention Center is the Kona Grill. It was pretty damn good. It's not that cheap, but they have great happy hour specials.

Kimi at the Kona Grill.

Friday night consisted of lots more wandering with Regena, leading finally to our going to this fan parody video thing. Everyone seemed far more entertained than we were, but perhaps we were a bit tired. We retired.

Otakon 2011

2011-08-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

First of all, here is our Flickr of all our good Otakon pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52656279@N02/sets/72157627208961199/
Full report to follow.

Webcomics We Like: Dr. McNinja

2011-04-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dr. Mc Ninja is truly an insane webcomic. But for some strange reason it all seems to make sense. McNinja is from a long line of Irish Ninja's, and his parents are very disappointed with his choice to become a doctor. Even though he is actually still one of the greatest ninja. From this premise things get much, much weirder. His side kick is a 12 year old bandito who rides a velociraptor, and grew a mustache through sheer force of will. This all still makes sense. If you don't already, you should read Dr. McNinja.

Project: Basic Cosplay Weapons: Mai's Daggers

2011-04-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

Mai from Avatar has quite an array of weapons. I already made a set of her simple stillettos, now I'm making the more difficult, but still relatively simple daggers. I do a lot of work like this out of cedar, but for this project I'm using poplar. This is because I want these to be pretty thin and half inch poplar is readily available at hardware stores. So I started out with a 4' x 1/2" x 3 1/2 " piece of poplar. I cut it into 4 pieces of about a foot each. Ah, but wait, I need a pattern. I took the Mai's weapons schematic, and blew up the picture to make the dagger the size I wanted.

Great Mai weapons schematic.

The 4 blocks with the pattern on top.

I printed out the picture and used spray contact cement, a really useful product, to stick it to a file folder, then cut it out. To make it easier to cut I took two of the blocks and used contact cement again to glue them together. That way I only have to cut twice to get four pieces. Of course I took my pattern and traced it on to the wood, then cut it out with a jig saw.

And here's 4 blanks ready to carve and sand.

If your'e ever making blades it is very handy to mark the center of the blade all the way down the piece. I do this with my center marking gauge which is very useful if you'll be doing this sort of thing a number of times. Of course, if you don't have one, and who does, I made a simple substitute with two popsicle sticks, a pencil and tape. I cut a notch out of one of the sticks, marked the center and taped a pencil on the center line, see picture.

At right a center marking gauge, at left my makeshift one and in back the blanks with the center line marked.

Now it's time to start carving. You don't need to carve the whole blade, your'e just removing some stock to make your sanding easier. With wood there is a definite direction to carve in. Generally with these you want to carve from the tip down to the middle of the curve and then stop and start from the other tip to the middle.

Carve to the middle then stop and start again from the other tip. Keep your hand behind the blade.

As I said you don't need to take a lot off, just enough to establish an edge, most of the work is with a sander. About that, if you are going to do more than one project like this, you will want to get a Random Orbit Sander. Not a 1/4 sheet sander, not a belt sander a Random Orbit Sander. I saw a ton on eBay for 25 to 50 dollars brand new and used ones from 10 bucks. This sander will open up a lot of cosplay possibilities for you. O.K, you need to work your way around the whole piece with a knife. Now it's time to sand.

This is how little I carved the edges.

So know I hit the edges with the sander working all the way around. The sander really works fast. Use maybe an 80 grit or 100 grit at first then change to a 120 to150 grit. you can experiment and use what works best for you.

Working with the sander.

I kept going until I get pretty good edges. Fro there I finish up with sandpaper. I really like sanding sponges, you can get them at any hardware store and they are great for edges and detail.

After some good sanding.

So after a bit of hand sanding I finally like the overall look. Time to think paint. I did some tests on a piece of scrap wood with a bunch of colors and I could not find one I really liked. So I'm going to mix some. If you do this you need to stick to a formula, hopefully 50/50 cause that is easy to replicate. So I mix 1/2 golden brown with 1/2 brown and I think that's about right.

The sample is brown on right, Golden in middle, and custom on left.

When you have a good blade edge it's pretty easy to see what you need to paint what color. Start with the brown mix and paint the inside. I found a few chips on the edge so before I paint I will fill them with spackle and sand it before I paint.

A couple nicks get repaired.

Now to paint the edge with some metallic silver craft paint. Metallic paint seems to cover other paints a little better, so this is best used last.

I like to paint on a new paper towel cause it's such a clean surface.

Here's the lot of them.

Now we have to wrap the handles with leather like Mai's daggers are. At the fabric store it is pretty easy to find a fake leather 1/2 inch trim. This project requires one yard, $3 a yard. I cut one end straight and hot glued it to the edge like so.

Hot glued to the top of the wrap.

Next you wrap it around a few times, this requires some experimentation. You are going from the top bend to the lower bend. At the bottom I made a slightly angled cut and glued it down.

Wrapping

Cutting the end at an angle and gluing it down.

So after a bit of work here's how it ended up.

Not bad

The wrap is a bit tricky you have to play with it. I think it came out very well though.

Projects: Lilith Bat Ears: Darkstalkers

2011-03-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

The first project I did with Fossape was a relatively straight forward head piece for Alcyone MKR. This is a bit more complex. You have to do things like lapping and fusing the fosshape, and also doing spines. It's still not all that hard, just follow along. Of course, with any project the layout is important. Now with something so organic like wings or "ears" you have to decide what you like. I decided here for perky, and active rather than withdrawn .With fosshape properly worked you can make pieces that stick out very far without any sag. First you have to make a pattern. This is more artistic than mechanical on this one. Here's the picture I used as a model. It's actually Morrigan, but the sisters have the same " ears, " and there are a million more pictures of Morrigan than Lilith.

So I made a pattern and I pinned it to a piece of the Fosshape 600. You always have to remember that Fosshape and similar heat activated products will shrink. I like to make a pattern for how I want it to turn out and cut it a half inch or more larger. But, you can give yourself even more wiggle room, cause Fosshape is very easy to shape with scissors after it has been heated.

I know it looks ragged but there is a lot you can do once you start shaping. I use a flat iron at it's highest temp setting for working Fosshape. You need a hair flat iron that you can use exclusively for projects, never again for hair. This piece is going to need some strength to stick out that far. So we need to fold the Fosshape over and fuse it to itself.

Fold it over, than press it together with your flat iron. To fuse it together you'll have to hold it for 15 seconds or so, depending on your iron. For straight areas you can use the full length of the iron, for curves you have to use just the tip. Keep in mind the side you fold to is now the back.. Next, you have to do the bottom part and fold over the stalk which needs the most strength.

Now you have to work your way all the way along the top edge, this is where you need strength as well. So fold all the edges along the top and the small section going off the stalk on the bottom.

Now this is done it's time to start some shaping. Heat a section good and then sort of hold it in the shape you want, after a several seconds it will start to stiffen.

You can get the hang of this pretty quick. One thing to remember is that it is very easy to trim this stuff with scissors once it hardens. So if your edges look bad or the shape isn't quite right, don't worry. At this point you are just giving curve to the piece. After you get some curve, you need to do some spines. You want to start at the tip of the middle spine and work your way to the claw. The spines are on the front of the piece, not the back that has the folds. With this technique your'e pinching the Fosshape together in your flat iron.

This is a little easier than it sounds but it gets difficult to do near the claw where the material is already stiff.

This what it will look like once your'e done. Now you want to bend the small bottom edge and the top edge in toward your new spine a bit. Just go around the edge with the flat iron bending it up a little.

Now you are at a point where you can dish or bend the area between the spines. This can be done with your flat iron as far as it can reach. You might need to harden the part you can't reach with a hair dryer on high. This takes a while. It would be better to have a heat gun on it's lowest setting. You can get a cheap heat gun for $ 30 or less.

WARNING. If you are using a heat gun do not get it to close to the piece or you can burn a hole right through it. Your'e going to have to play around with this a while. You might want to take a small piece of Fosshape and practice these techniques before you do it on a real piece. Now the whole thing is hardened take some scissors and shape it to your liking.

Here I'm cutting the middle spine at a jaunty angle. But shape the whole piece to your liking. Once your happy with it it's time to paint. Spray paint seems to work real well on Fosshape. Last pair of these I did I winged it, but this time I'm going to mask it.

I masked it with blue tape and sprayed the hell out of it with red gloss plastic spray paint. Then I let it dry for a long time, overnight is best. Now to mask over the red and paint the inside part black.

Well there was a bit more bleed thru than I liked. I tried to cover the black that bled and the red wouldn't cover. I ended up using some craft paint that happened to be a perfect match to finish it up. I also used Ivory craft paint for the talons.

Well here they are done. They came out pretty decent. Have at it. Oh yeah, here is the Dazian website where you can order Fosshape

Web Series We Like: There Will Be Brawl

2011-03-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

It's hard to describe the brilliance of There Will Be Brawl. Here is the beginning of the info page from their site." In a dystopian Mushroom Kingdom, corruption and avarice reign supreme." Brawl is a very adult show that utilizes many well known Nintendo characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Link, Kirby and a ton of others. Their behavior is a bit different from the games, although you may have suspected some of it. I knew Mario is a drunk, and Zelda is a bitch. Anyway, it is a must watch for those of you who have not seen it. of the amoral elite. When a series of grisly crimes pushes an unlikely champion to seek the truth, a mystery unfolds that could completely destroy everything he holds dear.an Mushroom Kingdom, corruption and avarice reign supreme. Even the greatest heroes of the land have buckled beneath the overwhelming will of the amoral elite. When a series of grisly crimes pushes an unlikely champion to seek the truth, a mystery unfolds that could completely destroy everything he holds dear.

Project: Basic Cosplay Weapons: Mai's Stillettos

2011-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

I wanted to start a series on making cosplay weapons, but some of the stuff I make is a bit complex. And I'll get there, but let's do a few simple projects first. Mai, the awesome Fire Nation warrior from Avatar, has an array of weapons. I'm going to make a set of her stillettos, then a set of the more complex daggers.

A great schematic of Mai's weapons I found from a simple image search.
The stilletto is of course at the top right. It's a basic cylinder, slender, with a flat 4 sided not rounded tip. The tip is silver, the shaft is a reddish brown, and it appears to have fletching.

So how to make one, or four. I started with a quarter inch dowel and cut it into 4, 6 inch lengths. Then I took each one and wacked the tip with a hammer a few times. This is for two reasons, to get it to flare out a little and to make it more safe. If the strands are busted up a little it will bend rather than go through some one. You can't be to safe with cosplay weapons. Now I'm gonna carve the point on the end cutting down to the center on opposite sides, then a little on the other two sides. You don't want a rounded point, you want flat blades..

Carving the first flat side. Note smashed wood.

When I was done I filled cracks in the piece, mostly cause I hit it with a hammer, with spackle

This is the only spackle, all others suck.

Next I thought it would be nice to taper the back of the stllettos a bit just for looks and maybe a place to hold them in the fingers. This shows three of the points and one of the backs. Now they all get sanded with a 150 or higher grit sandpaper.

Time to paint, I'm using craftsmart brown, and metallic silver. Cheap ass craft paint. Now try not to overlap these paints cause it looks funny. First some brown on the shaft and silver on the tips. It will take two coats

Once your happy with the paint job we're going to do some light fletching.I got some white turkey quills from the craft store and sliced them right down the middle with a shrp knife. I then trimmed some of the hard middle of the feather down, cause these stillettos are small they need delicate fletching. I then cut 1 inch sections of the feather, we need two for each stilletto.

Once I trimmed the hard part to my liking I used some gel type crazy glue to glue them on. Gel crazy glue is much easier to work with.

Now you take a very sharp pair of scissors, Ginghers , and trim the feather like it is in the Mai weapons picture.

Like so. And there you have 4 stillettos to pierce the hearts of the Fire Lords enemies. Or you can just hold them while people take your picture, either way. A simple project, but you will learn things doing simple things that will help you later.

Project: Straw Hat Pirate Flag

2011-03-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Most of this is similar to the Kuja Pirate Flag I made so this will be some pictures and notes. First I found a good picture on the net. I then sized it so it was 6 inches tall. This way one inch on the screen corresponds to six inches on the 36 inch flag. It makes it easier to lay out, by far. So I would measure every thing on the picture and blow it up.Again I'm drawing on file folders to make a rigid pattern.

This was more of a challenge and took way longer to lay out than the Kuju Flag. But a lot of it was still circles. A compass and a straight edge were my main tools. Once I got the basic shape I then separated all the pieces with an 1/8 inch gap. You can see it's done at the top of the picture, but not with the teeth yet. Once I had it all laid out I had to cut out all the pieces. I was very careful to label each piece with the color they are supposed to be, and the teeth with their location. So now I had to attach the Heat n Bond to all my different colors, then place my patterns on them and cut em out. And I made a classic mistake. Most pieces have no side they work either way, but the teeth need to be laid out backwards to work. I cut out a set the wrong way. Doh.

Here I lay out my patterns, trace them, and cut them out. I found that cutting out the eyes and nose was easier if I stuck a sharp knife into the piece and turned the piece into my knife.

It's safer cause the knife is stationary and it seemed easier and more accurate. You do need a very sharp knife, in this case a utility knife with a new blade. The surface I'm working on is a piece of cork laminate flooring, a very good surface. Anyway, I cut it all out, time to lay it out on the flag.

First thing is find where the center of the flag is with a tape and put the part of the skull between the eyes right there. I worked my way out from the center, to the hat then the teeth, then the bones. To try and orient the cross bones I laid a straight edge across the whole flag. So I ironed away and here is the result.

The photo looks pretty good, but the light colors on the black don't look quite as good as the black on red of the Kuja Flag. I still think this is pretty cool, and though time consuming, not all that hard. Maybe a thicker weight nylon might look a bit better against the darker colors. I'll let you know, but making flags is cool. Next, some cosplay weapons.

Webcomics We Like: Questionable Content

2011-03-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

This is a new one for me that I just stumbled on a couple months ago. Once I found it, it was consumed voraciously. Questionable Content is a comic about a bunch of young people living in a small town up North. Doesn't sound like much, but this is very cleverly written. It's also chock full of anime references as well as indy hipsterness. There are a lot of engaging and complex characters which is usually why we end up liking stuff. So give it a try.

Blogs We Like: Costumes and Cons

2011-03-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

The clever Costumes and Cons is currently putting together a resources page on their site. It's full of links to all sorts of helpful Cosplay stuff. Like general cosplay, sewing, wigs, and other tutorials. A really nice idea. A link to resources is HERE. But besides this you should go to and follow this cool cosplay blog. And then come back to ours, and so forth. If you have good web resources you know of please send them there way.

Project: Alcyone Headpiece: Beginner Fosshape

2011-03-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Fosshape is an amazing material that is very useful in a lot of different cosplay projects. Fosshape available from Dazian , is a white felt like fabric that you can mold and harden with heat. It comes in two grades 300 and 600 which is twice as thick. I have used both and find the 600 better for most applications. I just did Morrigan from Darkstalker wings, and you just can't make something that substantial with the 300. The 300 is better perhaps for smaller lighter pieces. That's why I'm using it for this project, Alcyone's Headpiece.

Like just about every project, although less than most, Layout is very important. I found as many pictures as possible, then I had to start sketching one side of the headpiece to make a template. With many projects you are trying to achieve symmetry, so whether it's a sword or wings or a headpiece you really need to make a template for one half of what you want to make, then transfer it to make the whole.

Lay out one side on heavy paper, this is a file folder.

Cut the pattern out and draw it twice on the fosshape.

Then cut it out and prepare your flat iron.

So after you have your design cut out in fosshape it's time to heat the stuff up to stiffen it. I have found that a flat iron you use to straighten hair is perfect for working fosshape. You can get one of these pretty cheap and just use it for cosplay projects. DO NOT use it on hair after you have used it for fosshape. So the trick is to work the piece with your flat iron and hold it in place till it cools. Which happens pretty quick. It's a good idea to take a small pieces of fosshape and practice working it into the shapes you want.

Using the flat iron to work the piece.

Remember you can reheat and reshape a number of times, but it does get stiffer and thinner the more you heat it.Work the whole piece so it all gets stiff. You hopefully will end up with something kind of like this.

Fosshape shrinks when you work it a bit, and it does so kind of unevenly. Fortunately, fosshape is much easier to cut once it's stiff. So go back with some scissors and even things out, and sharpen the edges. Once I get it just right it's time to paint it. Spray paint seems to work far better than other paint. And you need to spray the hell out of it a bunch of times. Fosshape is very porous and you need to spray it from a bunch of different angles to get in all the nooks and crannies. Note, you can still work Fosshape just fine after you paint it. But, you will get paint on the flat iron that is hard to get off. Once I get the color and th shape right all i have left to do is hot glue it to a hair band so it will sit on the head right. Of course, you have to put the hair band on, an futz around with the piece till it sits just right. Mark it with something ( colored pencil ) that you can see on black and hot glue it thoroughly. It's best to use one glop to tack it down, let it cool and then put lots of glue on either side to really secure it.

This is the finished product. It looks kind of wonky, but it looks great on. Fossape allows you to do all kinds of cool things and is well worth looking into. I'm gonna make this a series showing increasingly harder projects, I did some much harder stuff for Kimi's Morrigan Cosplay.

Project: Kuja Pirate Flag

2011-03-14T08:22:00.000-07:00

To spice up future photo shoots I wanted to make some of the very cool pirate flags from One Piece. Since we do Luffy and Boa Hancock, we need a Straw Hat Pirate Flag and a Kuja Pirate Flag. I decided to try the Kuja Flag first because it was just 2 colors. First off, you have to have a good picture of the design. Well you can find one by doing an image search. I just happened to have a nice picture on the side of the box of the Boa figure we got at Katsucon. So I took that scanned it and then cropped and expanded the pictures until they were around the size I needed.

Little Boa, the design from the box, and one of the snakes blown up to the right size.

Of course I forgot the important first step. I went on eBay and ordered a 3' by 5' red flag blank. You could sew one but the blank was $12.75 and smaller ones are even cheaper. Someone just put a bunch on eBay for 4 and 5 bucks, look up flag blank. 3' by 5' is a pretty big flag. I wanted the design to almost go to the edge of the flag, so I figured the skull would be about 15", + a couple inches for the teath, and each snake about 8.5". With some spacing that's about right. You could of course play with the proportions a little. So I had a snake pattern, now I need a skull. Its just several circles with teeth, so I just need the bottom part and it's easy enough to extrapolate the rest. So I blew up a picture of the bottom of the jaw and cut it out.

I traced that design onto 2 file folders taped together. Then with 2 different compass' I drew a 15" circle for the head and the smaller circles for the eyes and nose.

I used a regular little compass and made a compass for the big circle with a paint stirrer, a pencil and a sharpened pop-sicle stick.

So I laid out the skull, cut it out and cut out one of the snakes too. Next step, use some heat n bond on some black nylon. Heat n bond is an adhesive sheet that you iron on to fabric so that you can stick it on another piece of fabric. You can get it at any fabric store. What you do is iron it on to th black nylon fabric. Then with the heat n bond stuck to the fabric you can then transfer, trace your pattern on to the heat n bond. It has paper on that side that you later peel off, so it's very easy to draw on. Then you just cut them out.

Skull and snakes ready to be ironed on.

So this project is not that hard and the finished product came out very well.

This picture does not do it justice it looks very professional. I am super happy with the result and it was a little time consuming, but pretty easy. Believe me you can do this.

Project: FFX Treasure Chest: Part 2

2011-03-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

So the basic box is done, time to make the top. I'm gonna do this with pole wrap, a product made for covering unsightly supports, usually in basements. First I cut three half round pieces the width of the side of the box minus the thickness of the pole wrap x2. Then 2 the size of the actual side. Then I drilled holes through all three and glued a dowel into them that I used as a spacer. The center half round I cut the center out of. The pictures should make this clearer.

2 sides and 3 cut out center pieces.

The dowel is glued through the 3 center to give you your spacing.

Now it's time to put on the pole wrap. I glued it and tacked it on with some brads.

That's pretty easy. Now I have the basic parts, it's time to stain them, then put them together.

Just used basic walnut wood stain. Now we put the top on with some hinges and add a closer so it can't slam on your fingers. Also it will stay open if you want it to.

Again these are the easy parts. Now you have a decent chest. Now to paint it to look like the chest in the game. This requires lots of blue or green masking tape. Not the tan stuff.

You just have to start taping where you want to make the lines like say the gold stripes on the top.

Tape it off and paint it gold, wait for it to dry take off the tape and do another part. Keep going till you have stuff filled in. I used a metallic gold craft paint. Of course ideally I would not paint it, I would cut the pieces out of brass and steel. But god that would take forever.

So I filled in a bunch of gold then I mixed some gray and silver to fill in the side bits. Well I worked away at it and here are a few pictures of the Finished, for now, product.

I have to say I'm not entirely pleased with it, but now I have a FFX chest so there's that

For You Avatar Fans: Ozai's Angels

2011-03-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

If your an Avatar fan, you should check out this Tumblog, Ozai's Angels. The name alone is brilliant, I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it.Go HERE and check it out.

Breaking Down Cosplay

2011-03-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

This was discovered by Cosplay Progress and Stuff which is a cool blog you should check out. This guy Jordan O'Leary does a web series where he explores different topics. Currently he's doing a series on Cosplay. Iv'e watched the first three and it was interesting to see an outsiders view of us. You might want to watch this. Here is a link to his site, Breaking-Down.

Breaking Down | Cosplay | Episode 1/6 from Think Switch on Vimeo.

What We're Watching: One Piece

2011-03-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well, we've gotten ourselves deep into the colossus that is one Piece. There are currently something like 500 episodes and counting. Not the kind of commitment I wanted to make, but once you get in it's hard to stop. The thing is, it's a very easy show to watch. It's a colorful, fun, larger than life show But, even though you can go through episodes pretty quickly, there is an awful lot there. It really turns out to be a rich world that keeps expanding before your eyes. There's a real advantage to the ocean full of islands world. Th scenery changes and they can explore different areas, characters and ideas. That's part of the charm of the show, but like any good show it's very character driven. Besides the main characters, One Piece is rich in good characters that come in and out or only exist in one story arc. It does start off a bit slow, the fight between The Straw Hats and The Black Cat Pirates seems to take a long time. After that the show seems to fly. A combination between better pacing and our getting used to the show. Anyway, we really like it and are about 100 episodes in. It's worth a look.

Boa Hancock and Strong World Luffy

Webcomics We Like

2011-03-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

I, for one, have been exploring the world of webcomics. There really is a great variety of stuff out there. Although, I find the sheer volume of furry comics disturbing. If your'e into that you are in luck. I am not. Thankfully, I have found quite a bit that I like. One of my favorites Iv'e been following for years, is the great Non-Adventures of Wonderella. Wonderella is the Homer Simpson of Super Heroes, utterly irresponsible. Although Homer is a much better person. I liked it so much I actually bought what I was getting for free.

Another of our Faves From the Adult AMV's

2011-03-06T16:58:00.000-08:00

Another NSFW AMV we saw at Katsucon. This uses the very popular Hetalia anime, and a fine song about dicks.

Project: FFX Treasure Chest: Part 1

2011-03-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

I lost my mind, so I thought I'd make a Final Fantasy X treasure chest from scratch. Crazy. Anyway, here's what I did. The first step was of course trying to find as many pictures as I could. Google has crap. Luckily I was playing FFX at the time so I took pictures of game screens. Still there is no perfect picture.

Well, that's the best I got. So I went and got some cedar 1x8s from the Lowes, cut them to length, and then glued them together to make the sides about 14" high. With 4 sides put together I made a 1/4" groove ( dado ) about 1" from the bottom. This is for the 1/4" luon I cut out for the bottom of the chest. The bottom gets put into that groove while the four sides are glued together to make the basic box.

Gluing the sides together. Nice to have lots of clamps.

The 4 sides with dado's cut, and the luon bottom.

Gluing the box together with the bottom in place.

There you have a nice basic box. Lots of sanding then ensues. This is the first step and I thought it turned out well, but there is so much more. I think I made it to tall relative to the length and width. It's going to end up taller than it should be, but there is a limit to how big I want it to be. I do want to take it to cons. Next time, HA HA HA, I'll make it shorter and longer, not wider. Next working on the top.

Favorite Adult AMV from Katsucon

2011-03-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

This was perhaps my favorite of the adult AMV's we saw at Katsucon. It is of course quite unsafe for work.

Blogs We Like

2011-03-03T17:28:00.000-08:00

Regena in the Front

Our dear friend Regena started a blog called Cosplay, Conventions...Makeup and more. Please go check it out cause she is cool. The End.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Iron Man

2011-03-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

In honor of the Marvel vs Capcom Photo soot we just did. And, of course our new Darkstalkers Cosplay. I thought this would be an appropriate video to post.

Katsucon 2011 Wrap-up

2011-02-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

A very good Katsucon if I do say so myself. Just a couple more things. I took some pictures from our room and from the elevator I liked.

View from the room.

Cosplay from on high.

Now for a few random cosplay pictures.

And once more the link to all of our Katsucon photos on Flickr.
Katsucon 2011 Flickr

We'd also like to thank the following people for making this a great Con for us. Genjitsu from ACP, J. Stephens from Marvel and our friends Regena, Maki, Luis, Ernest, The Steampunk Family, The One Piece Group, Ajie at Cosplay One and the renowned Eurobeat King. Thank you so much every one we'll see you soon.

Katsucon 2011 Saturday

2011-02-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Saturday again found us incognito taking pictures with Kimi's fancy new Nikon D-5000. There was a lot of good cosplay out there Saturday, here is but a sample.

Adorable EVA girls, with a Pen-Pen, Yeah.

Really cool How to Train Your Dragon

Breathtaking Cosplay. :)

Great Team Rocket, wish I got a better shot of Jessie's hair it was epic.

Kick ass Jack Skellington.

Oh yea, also these big headed thing started dancing, weird.

Now time for us to get dressed. It's Lantis and Alcyone from Magic Knights Rayearth.

By EBK

We wandered for a while and then hit the sports bar for dinner. The ribs were quite good, and it's not as frighteningly expensive as the other places. One non con going young lad referred to Kimi as the devil lady. Which is crazy cause those are clearly bat-like ears not devil horns. It's amazing how fast the day went, it was already into the evening and he had not done Auron and Lulu yet. But first, I saw one group of cosplayers while I was Lantis that I just had to get a picture of.

Mei, Ty Lee and Azula from Avatar

Unfortunately I took this with my crappy pocket camera so it's not very good. But this group was very good. They were perfect like they walked right out of the show. They had the characters down pat. I wondered for a second if Azula was about to do something terrible. These girls get it.

EBK again

Anyway it's time to switch to Auron and Lulu and head out again. Again we walked around then headed to the Final Fantasy shoot at the fountain. Which was a totally disorganized mess. A giant contrast to the One Piece shoot. Less said the better. Well time to head up to the bar and meet up with The Steampunk Family.
Who are also my actual sisters family.

Phineas and Madame Von Hedwig

We also ran into world renowned cosplay photographer Eurobeat King who took the above picture and a few others. well time to fly. Before going up to change we ran into two more cosplays I really liked.

Detective Conan

The cutest Detective Conan, and some old school Leiji Matsumoto characters Harlock, Emeraldas and Maetel. Who all originally appeared in the classic Galaxy Express 999.

Harlock, Emeraldes and Maetel

We went up and changed into our secret identities and headed out for a late night screening of adult AMV's. Several of them were pretty funny and clever, the rest were kind of lame. Still an amusing end to a great day at Katsucon

Katsucon 2011 Friday

2011-02-25T19:13:00.000-08:00

Boy we were working on projects right to the last minute before this one. We only just managed to get to the Gaylord and check in before the One Piece shoot. As Boa Hancock and Strong World Luffy, we rushed up to the Gazebo to find a very cool group of Cosplayers. I was especially fond of Ramen Pirate who was also Strong World Luffy. Things just flowed well, a lot of great pictures were taken, and everyone was totally cool. Also the gazebo when that area isn't crowded is a great location. All this stood in direct contrast to a later shoot, ( cough, cough Final Fantasy Sat.9pm, cough ). Another quite helpful soul was the Straw Hat's musician Brook who, of course, provided music. Really helped to set the mood. Kimi did a YouTube video as a tribute.

That was such a great start to Katsucon, but we had some business in the dealers room. I needed a new wig for Lantis. First though, we went to the sports bar in the Atrium for a snack. That place was not open last year, but we found it to be good bar food and was cheap compared to other food there. Also our Bartender actually recognized our fairly obscure One Piece Cosplay and was very nice. After a quick shopping trip we needed to get ready for Marvel vs Capcom. But here's a few cool Cosplayers we saw along the way.

Trinity Blood

Great D-Gray Man group

Otome Youkai Zakura

A very cool outfit and an adorable little Kiki

Of course, Kimi's Morrigan wig came in the mail Friday right before we left so it needed some work. Very luckily, Regena was getting ready with us, and was a life saver with the wig. Off to the Marvel vs Capcom shoot which was on the upper side of the fountain. Now this is a great place for a photo shoot if you have say 10 or fewer people. It's just too small and too crowded a space. But, it was actually pretty well run, and the best was made out of a lousy space. Those pictures have gone up on Marvel.com

Group shot turned out pretty well. All in all a good time.

We hung out for a while then went over to Moon Bay for some cocktails and food, see the other days post for Morrigan with a Margarita. Then we actually got out of costume to hang out at the bar and relax. We ran into Misato Katsuragi in the bar and Cobra Commander in the Lobby.

Misato

Cobra Commander

Met lots of nice people, hung out, went to bed.

One Piece Photo Shoot Katsucon 2011

2011-02-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

This is the Vid that Kimi did for the One Piece photo shoot. It's her first try so I think it came out quite well. Thanks to everyone who made that shoot a great time.

Marvel vs Capcom Shoot

2011-02-24T16:08:00.000-08:00

Friday night we were in the Marvel vs Capcom photo shoot. Well low and behold, there we are on Marvel.com. LINK HERE. There's me with the big sword, Kimi's Morrigan right in the middle and Regena as Felicia. Also prominent on their page are individual shots of Kimi and Regena. There's one of me in the full gallery. That's pretty cool as I hear Marvel is a company of some note. Next up full Katsucon report.

Regena Felicia

Donovan Baine

Kimi Morrigan

Katsucon 2011 Photos

2011-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

Click on link for our Flickr account photos from Katsucon 17.

Yeah, Katsucon

2011-02-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

Getting ready for Katsu has been a big pain. So many props and accessories to make. Well we finally got here just in time for the One Piece shoot. Kimi is lying down as Boa Hancock. I did Strong World Luffy.

We wandered a bit then had to go get ready for the Marvel VS Capcom ACP gathering. Pictures from that are going to be on Marvels Site to celebrate the release of the game. We met up with Regina who did Felicia, Kimi was Morrigan and I Donovan Baine. Full reports later on,but let's close with Morrigan enjoying a cocktail.

Techno Punk 1801-2099: The Soundry

2010-10-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

My sister, scion of the Steampunk Family, is going to be at the Soundry helping to open up their Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Anime exhibit, Technopunk 1801-2099. Everyone should go, because it will be cool. Go to their website and check it out

Evangelion: 1.11

2010-08-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

The family doing Eva at AWA 2007

You are ( Not ) Alone is the first of the Eva rebuild movies, and I thought it was quite good. Of course, it is almost identical to the original six episodes. This is not a reboot, it's almost shot for shot the same. If you liked the original I can't see how you wouldn't like this. Of course the visuals are very impressive and I like the pacing it really moves. One thing that stuck out to me was that things seemed well explained. You could watch the original series a couple times and still not be sure what just happened. It was deliberately obscure. Anyway go buy it and watch away can't wait for part two.

My Top Five Manga: Right Now

2010-08-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

When I wrote about Nana the other day, I said it would crack my top five list. That got me thinking as to what I would actually put on my top five list. I came up with a quick one that is subject to revision, in oh about the time I finish writing this. Here's what I came up with.

GTO
Love Hina
Kare Kano
Nana
Genshiken

GTO's mix of comedy, drama and insanity is irresistible. I'm sure they exist, but I have yet to find someone who doesn't like GTO. It's a must read. Love Hina is really a personal pick. I could read it over and over, but I can see how it wouldn't work for some people. It also has a bit of a slow point right before it's fast paced and glorious end. Kare Kano is a shojo title that transcends the genre. Great likable, and detestable, characters. It goes from funny to sad and everything in between and makes it all work. Nana has maybe the most likable characters, but also the most real. Everyone in this book does good and bad things. You can sympathise with every character. How can I leave out Genshiken, it's a good book that just happens to be about Otaku culture. Again with likable and realistic characters. I've sort of left out a lot of older stuff because it's just a different animal. Also, I left out Miyazaki's brilliant Nausicaa Manga, as it is on a higher plane than other manga. Really you should read that first, it's great. Any way I'll change my mind momentarily, so I should stop now.

Manga we're Reading: NANA

2010-08-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

Kimi and I have both been reading Nana by Ai Yazawa. She's read all 21 volumes, I'm up to 16, but I can still comment on this book. It's really good. I think it would even crack my top 5 manga of all time, barely. Alot of you probably no the basics as it's had 21 books, a lengthy anime series and a live action movie. I might have left some stuff out, like the PS2 game and numerous albums. Anyway it's about two very different girls named nana, a rare name, who end up moving away from home, and living together in Tokyo. It's a typical shojo title focusing on the girls, their friends, and relationships. However, the characters come across as imediately likeable, flawed and very believable. It's well written, poignant and funny, and the artwork is quite good. This book has style. I can highly recommend this unless you don't like Shojo. In which case I suggest you try reading some.

Kimi is ACP's link of the day!

2010-08-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

My cosplay Lulu was choosen as American Cosplay Paradise's link of the day!

Thanks ACP!

Otakon 2010: Part 3

2010-08-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday at Otakon will be brief. We waded through the dealer's room for quite a while, but all we accomplished was getting some manga, Sensual Phrase, and signing up for Katsucon. We already have a room so we thought we might as well. Then we wandered back to our usual haunt by the fountains. On the way we saw some good cosplay

This cool looking pair.

And a Lupin the 3rd group.

Back at the fountains we said bye to EBK.

And went back to get our stuff and go.

We had a great time, but boy we could have managed things alot better. We walked way more than we had to..

Otakon 2010: Part 2

2010-08-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a Magic Knight Rayearth day, we were doing Lantis and Alcyone. But first, we slept late, ordered breakfast and took forever to get up and out. This later fact will become important to the story. First we ran to the Clamp photo shoot out on the 3rd floor terrace

Next order of business was to go take some pictures with Super Kawaii Magazine.

So we ran down to the dealers room all the way in the back and waited a bit, and just as we were about to get started the F-ing fire alarm went off. We took refuge in the Hilton bar, then took a cab back to the Sheraton. You can see the heels Kimi was walking in. Anyway we went back and finally got it done.

Now it was time to hook up with a friend of ours who was doing Caldena from MKR. That character was pretty cool and she makes a fine pair with Alcyone.

We spent alot of time around the fountains, took some more pics with EBK and checked out other Cosplayers. Alcyone also did a commercial spot for Vincent of Sci-Fi Ninja Theater

For the evening Kimi will be wearing her white Alcyone from the OVA. We spent some time with a very cool Umi cosplayer and got a few pics with her.

While we were hanging out we saw some awesome cosplay.

Gundam

FF 13

Bioshock

It was a busy day and we were about to head back to the hotel when we ran into a whole set of Magic Knights. They were really awesome. We chatted, took some pics and hunted down EBK for a Quik shoot.

That was quite an eventful day.

Our Otakon Photos on Flickr

2010-08-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

A few photos from Friday and Saturday mostly by the fountains.
http://www.flickr.com/people/52656279@N02/

Otakon 2010

2010-08-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

We got to Otakon around lunch time on Friday, checked into our hotel and went straight to registration. Both of us got through in less than a minute, a far cry from say, Katsucon. Love the bar codes. Time to Cosplay. We went Auron and Lulu from FFX for the evening. First thing we did was run to a FF shoot which we passed right by and ended up in the midst of a Pokemon shoot. Very luckily we ran into a Tidus, Rikku and Yuna.

Photo by Eurobeat King

They turned out to be extra cool and we sought out the FF shoot together, which we actually made on time. After that we went searching for our friend and noted photog Eurobeat King. There were of course a number of impromptu photo ops along the way. Down by the fountains we found EBK, Refractor and a few others. We ended up doing a number of lengthy photo shoots. Our new found friends were real troopers.

Rikku keeps an eye on EBK

We also ran into Tidus' dad Jecht

Unfortunatly Lulu ran into a Tonberry, with unfortunate consequences.

Lucky for her Yuna was nearby to revive her. Glad we ran into her. We parted from the rest of the crew to hang out by the fountains. We then met up with a few friends, and went wandering.

We also found another Lulu.

And a cool Rikku, along with a chocobo.

It was a really great day. Next we'll explore our Saturday adventures, and put up a link to all our Otakon photos.