Katsucon 18: Part 4

      Saturday afternoon's Steampunk panel went quite well, but now we are getting back to some  fighting game goodness.  There's a fighting game shoot in front of the fountains scheduled for when the crazy fountain show goes off.  It's very cool, but you may get a bit wet.  So we went Darkstalkers, as Morrigan and Donovan Baine.Here's a few pics of Kimi getting soaked,but looking great.

I love how it looks like a fountain of lava.

Taking advantage of when the fountain turns purple.

Now I would like to post a nice pic of myself, but I forgot my coconuts in the rush and the outfit just isn't the same.  Forgot my bracelets last time, cursed.  Here are a couple shots of VS pics from the fountain.

Now is the time when we meet up with EBK and Maki, and Luis.  Oh, and our friends Kat and Kitty.  Then we all headed down to the secret wall for a photo shoot.  But before that I took some pictures of Kitty, because her outfit was so adorable.

She is so cute.  Anyway,The theme of this photo shoot was Underworld vs Darkstalkers.  Representing Underworld was Crimson and Roses Cosplay as Selene.  The Darkstalkers girls are Kimi as Morrigan and Maki as Lilith.  Here we go.

Well there you go.  These pics are all by EBK and they are excellent.  Saturday was epic, but also insanely busy.  We cannot complain though.  This was the best con ever and it's due to all the great friends and family we got to hang out with.  Can't wait until next Katsu.

Katsucon 18: Part 1

Generic Katsu from the week-end, Thursday was much quieter.

   
  Well, Katsucon this year was really amazing.  Very busy, but amazing.  This year we rolled in Thursday and that was very helpful.  We actually got to settle in and relax a bit, before the action began.  Thursday we only had one thing to do, a photo shoot with our friend EBK.  Kimi put together a lingerie ensemble for her Morrigan cosplay, and I thought it came out quite well.

Morrigan Lingerie Version

I'm sure the words Morrigan and lingerie have never appeared on the internet before.  I'm glad Thursday was low key, because Friday has a bit more to it.  Of course as usual when their taking pictures I'm working on my Cosplay daughter Maki's .hack Black Rose Sword.  Which came out pretty well considering.

She is so adorable.  Anyway it was a great way to open a great con.     

Otakon 2011 Friday

      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.

Projects: Lilith Bat Ears: Darkstalkers

      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

Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Iron Man

Katsucon 2011 Friday

      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.

Yeah, Katsucon

      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.