Kantai Collection just finished, and so did a bunch of series I dearly love like Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso. (Both anime titles are links so if you're interested you can just click them and read about them! But please don't forget to come back!) My latest costume project is from Kantai Collection, she is a personification of a Kongo-Class ship in Japan used in the World War and so on. Her name is "Kirishima" similar to Kirishima Touka of Tokyo Ghoul, but she isn't anything like her. In the game the anime is based on, she is a hard-hitter and is often described as an "intelligent gangster" due to her speech pattern and fire power. Kirishima on the left and Alice Nakiri on the right from the currently airing "Shokugeki no Soma" or "Food Wars". If you'd notice I don't really stick around for very long in terms of sharing photos. I get tired quite easily and I know I have a load of other characters to waste my money on. This is a love-hate relationship really, because aside completing the costume there's also the fact that I would WANT and NEED to have a photoshoot schedule, rental, and overall schedule saved for that one cosplay project of the month. (Which would mean money going out the window~) Then we have "Angelise" or "Ange" for short from the dark intergalactic mech or robot anime "Cross Ange" (Full title: Cross Ange: Rondo of Angels and Dragons) They're all very fiery characters actually, Alice Nakiri is one of my favorite characters next to Aldini and Erina. Why didn't I go for Erina instead? Aside the wig issues, it's also a bit of a request. Besides, pretending to do Molecular Gastronomy was seriously fun! (And tiring at the same time) At the right, we have Mirai Kuriyama Idol version with the gorgeous Kristine Dinglasan for the Mitsuki Nase 4 of 12 months done!It's been a seriously hectic couple of months, yet I have not failed on any of my plans! I even completed one that I've postponed for some long. Mostly due to a friend's help (cue in: Abraham Cruz or "Father" for the turrets for Kirishima and a Sewing Machine)
25% into the year and I've broken new ground in terms of costume quality. I am very pleased with the outcome of Kirishima and to note that only took around 2 days at most to make! I have a lot of other things in store! Including a hopefully, helpful blog post on how to "Start" making your own costume or even making a daunting "costume" feel easier! Watch out for that!
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In cooking, even the best ingredients in abundance can be a bad thing. And I'm using this analogy because the latest shoot and costume project I had is a character from Shokugeki no Soma or quite literally "Food Wars". The same thing can be said about almost anything actually, it’s the timeless saying “Too much of a good thing can be bad”. There are certain aspects of Photoshop that we might not want to overuse. (Good example would be filters and those custom brushes— as fun as they are) Although at the very end of it, it goes back to “To each his own” because the overall effect we want differs. But let me just give you a few examples of using Photoshop to simply enhance color and fix minor mishaps like thread sticking out from parts of a costume: As much as I can, I like getting the fit of the costume, costume details, cloth color, armor color, color of the wig, eyes, hairstyle, makeup as perfect as humanly possible. I placed a ton of powder on my arms, neck, and face for the sake of Alice Nakiri. As her upbringing would give off, she spends most of her time indoors, inside a laboratory. And a darker complexion just wouldn't work with the pale silver wig as can be seen in the manga covers (Because currently the anime will be airing on April 2015 and it's currently February 2015) So, I am once again just doing guesswork...hopefully they keep the design so I don't look stupid (again) Admittedly, my cosplay makeup is HEAVY almost all the time, although I don't really put falsies as they have a tendency to make the eyes look too droopy (At least for me). And why is your makeup so heavy? I've noticed that what looks good in person does not have the same look on photos. More or less because of the amount of light I want on my features, but I usually have really red temples, cheeks and lips on shoots Unless the character looks a bit more 'forgiving' features wise, like Makise for example. But for most characters, my makeup will be 5x to 10x more than what I would wear normally. As usually cosplaying is accompanied by a photo shoot for memories! (Look at all the money I spent on this one! Hahaha.../cries) I don't really edit out my pores, or airbrush my face. I do however, edit huge pimples out of the way. At times though, when I'm lucky enough, my skin behaves and am practically zit free. Just the overly oily face issue, which helps light reflect on my face. And it also helps me reprint my face on other people's clothes when I hug them :| The most tools I use in photoshop are possibly your favorite tools as well: The dodge, burn, sharpen, and healing brush tool! (I WISH YOU WERE REAL!) Am not a huge fan of blurry photos, I like crisp images! So crisp you can feel the crunch! Lame jokes aside, there are times however that a HUGE amount of photoshop is also used on my photos, similar to the amount of makeup I wear the photoshop makes the photo a different thing altogether. I'll update this, but the actual shot was in a park's parking lot. And there was no amount of metal present on the shoot itself. The only thing real there is me, my costume, the wig flip and the red string. (Except that the red string wasn't shining on the actual shoot, it was dull and positively ugly) Everything in the background and the foreground metal was rendered from scratch in an open source 3D program called "Blender". (That's a link btw, and so is this if you're interested) So if you ever thought that 3D is something you need a crack and serial for? No, not really! But it does help if your system has the power to render these images sharply after you model them. Warning: There's "Everything in moderation", but there's also wanting really spicy things. My main point is, just do whatever you want but do it in good taste and for the sake of making something look good. If simply changing your curves on photoshop without the proper exercise can make you happy? Well then who am I to stand against that?
Admittedly, I’m an easily affected person and it’s actually pretty hard to live like this. Because try as you might there will be times that you just get depressed. It can be triggered by absolutely anything, yet is so hard to escape from once it sets in. I give you tips that I do myself to escape the sudden feeling of sadness or loneliness that can sometimes sneak up on us: Make lists: As the image I made says, it can be of anything! Even figures you want to buy, people you want to see soon, stuff you’d like to do for Christmas. KEY IS: Don’t put any pressure on yourself, just a list of stuff that makes you happy or makes you look forward to tomorrow. This is also funner to do via an old fashioned pen and paper or your planner! There's an altogether different feel to it. Besides you don't need to type in passwords, lock in codes with pen and paper. You just look at it and it's there. Plus you can easily doodle things without judgement or fear that it might be accidentally uploaded into a cloud server. Tweak your daily routine: From the walk you take to work or school, the food you eat, to the things you do after work, during lunch or even at home. Do you spend all day in front of your PC or in general, in front of Facebook? Try going out for a nice drink! After work or school, take a scenic route and just let your heart race a bit with the walk you’ll take. Play a random game at the arcade, eat a slice of cake. Listen to music that ‘feels’ you: Something that has the words on your mind and heart, and SING TO IT! Added bonus if you even dance to it with matching air microphone or air guitar. You can do this in an empty bathroom at work or at school, or an empty elevator (I did this a lot back at my first job whenever I was stressed, I can also somehow brighten the day of the security people when they see the crazy person dancing in the elevator alone) Prepare/Cook/Make something for yourself Am not talking about easy fry food, instant noodles, cup ramen or easy oven lunches. Go for making yourself a nice dinner from actual raw ingredients! Take the time to prepare it, get a recipe from the internet and then try it! Or make yourself really good tea, or a good coffee drink! If you don't have a blender, a good iced coffee is heaven to a depressed spirit.
Making lists, playing a game, even singing a song gives us a sense of fulfillment even for a little while. Don't over indulge on the sweet stuff though, as being healthy actually gets you feeling happier than the sudden sugar rush you can get.
University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City Let's look at the facts first: Firstly this rate sheet is accompanied by an entire .PDF document you can find here (or click here). Examining that document, it states that you either have to pay a 10% security bond for cleanliness and security of the applicable rental fee or 5,000 pesos (Whichever is higher) For a public school, this is rather steep and even more is the fact that they should at least offer a lighter fee to the students. If it were a group project I suppose 1,000 pesos can be shared easily enough by at least a group of 10 or more people. But what if there's only 2 in a group, or even worse...just one? And this kid, not aware of this fee, have used the grounds relying on the information that the usage of his school facilities would be automatically free. Maybe 1,000 pesos isn't much to you, then let's move on to the non-UP people, now we're paying nearly premium. That's the same price for 3 hours in Heirloom Manila, or even in Secret Garden. Now, if that were the case why don't we just head on over there? Well, school is designed to be accessible as those two other places I mentioned are not. The fees are rather steep, they're nearly premium rates for private classy pre-nuptial places. Not that UP isn't, but let's remember that this is a PUBLIC school and 13 million went to this place from the US-Philippines war damage commission quite some time ago. Logic also tells us that taxes should be covering the maintenance of public schools, public hospitals and public parks. And yet we see these things, and then we see paychecks with that big wet 10% bite and we wonder where those are going when we pay maintenance to what our taxes should be used for. And if the fees aren't unfair to you, what's this: Is the economy spearheading by 10% as well? What is the basis of this 10% annual escalation? Thankfully, in all this I rarely shoot at UP Diliman due to the inconvenience of how far it is. But for people and even students who need the grounds...in summary, it's all a bit too unfair isn't it? Quezon City Memorial Circle Elliptical Road, Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines (Google Map Here) This was for my Miyazono Kaori shoot from Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (The Lie you told in April), and as my fourth or so time shooting here I had always thought that the entire park was accessible for everyone. And by accessible, I thought this was photography friendly all the way but as we approached a place called the “Flower Garden”, one of the prettier spots of the park we were approached by a guard who asked us to go to the Admin Building before commencing with the shoot. While I was a little bit irked, as I was seeing other people strike poses and do photos (although not in a wig and costume) they were still taking photos. But anyway, we followed suit and found out objective. We were given a map, as you can see above that had pink highlights. These pink highlights served as places that SHOULD NOT BE PHOTOGRAPHED. Now, this perplexed me, so looking at this NO ONE was supposed to shoot there. But we were the only ones halted by the guard.
Quezon City Memorial Circle costs around 25 pesos more or less to park in (There's also a free parking) and the entire park is free. There are restaurants and smaller self owned stores in some of the smaller pockets of the park. This is not for the feint of heart, but if you keep hanging on to the conviction that you'd still want to go through with the shoot then more or less you'd get something for your efforts.
Oddly enough, 2014 felt so fast and yet slow at the same time. There were definite moments of struggle for me more or less through the farther half of the year due to crazy changes in my shift. What was your favorite cosplay project? Priciest would be Kogyoku Ren as would appear most obvious, the venue was also quiet beautiful to add. The sad bit is that we were so late to locate and finally get into the area that we only had the evening to light us. There was also the fact that the Buddhists in the temple were resting so we were restricted to a small area. The most excruciating, with bitter sweet memories to boot was Makise Kurisu in her default outfit. That was made for, and planned for a contest by Tokyo Otaku Mode. In which a certain phrase that had not been translated properly caused me to misunderstood the mechanics completely. Easiest to portray was Rin Tohsaka, it was also the easiest to pull off and wear inside malls. It's not as obvious compared to wearing a salmon pink wig or a blatantly blonde wig. (I'm probably shooting myself in the foot with saying this) The cheapest overall, would be Kirishima Touka as most of her stuff was already in my closet together with the wig and the contact lenses. Although it was one of the more challenging in terms of the post processing technique required. Too much flare, or too much of anything can cost it to look cheap and positively fake. Something that people tend to do with post processing photos (Adding too much or too little of shadows, grunge and noise— it’s something that can make or break a photo) Surprisingly enough, I did no Miku Hatsune cosplays for 2014 while there were plans I never really went through with it. There was even a concept art I drew for the 3D environment we were supposed to composite my cosplay in. That's happening this year though. Shiro looks so frail and small, while Kaori was so bubbly and emotional I tried my best to show that. But obviously, nothing can beat true quirkiness and a beautiful smile as well as a truly smaller individual. But that's the fun of cosplay isn't it? To portray someone you can be completely similar with or completely opposite with (ie, male to female and vice versa and even becoming mech, or an alien life form)
Cosplay know no bounds! Not race, gender, culture or social standing, maybe just that limit on your credit card though or the amount of time and money you're willing to spend. ;D Hope you had a grand 2014. You might think you’re against drama, but I’ve noticed people time and time again saying that they’re not into drama but are actually cultivating it almost daily on their walls. It’s almost as if they’re asking for it, and don’t even know. Negative Call outs Ever called out someone, to face him/her over a conversation on your wall PUBLICLY? No matter how cool you think that is, that’s actually drama fodder. And that’s just not going to cut it. If you REALLY don’t want drama, just talk it over either in person or private PM. No matter how aggravated or cheated you feel there’s always that step first before bringing stuff into public. There's no point in dragging other people into it, as you will do that when you tag someone to TALK to them about serious matters that should be handled in private. "I Hate Anon" You are infuriated with this person, and you just want to tell everyone that you utterly despise the way he’s tried to talk to you again and court you for the nth time. And you’re just so damned tired of it you have to tell all of your friends or anyone who might see your wall. How about, just try blocking or ignoring a person completely? Trust me, as much as it’s nice to get your point and feelings across— steering clear away from jerks like that will save you from more stress in the future. I have done this time and time again, and the only things that I focus on are my myriad of hobbies. PROTIP: You can't become a better person complaining about others. You might become a better critic of other people, but there's too many of those already and you don't want to be part of that, right? Fodder for Trolls You turned on the Anon in your ask.fm account, and you’re now getting questions that are bordering on rude to perverted questions. People like the power of being anonymous, ALL THE TIME. I mean if I were invisible and wouldn’t need to pay for whatever wrongdoing I committed, I can't really guarantee a hundred percent that I won't at least get free meals from places I really like. Or get games or travel for free and such. You see, if someone had the power to be immune to punishment or cause and effect there's really no telling what he/she will be capable off. So don't go around testing it if you can't handle it. My Wall, My opinion We all have this mind-set: Whatever I want, I can post on MY WALL. No, not really while yes you CAN post almost absolutely anything anywhere on the internet. If it somehow annoys or hits someone’s nerves hard, you WILL get burned for it. More so if you’re giving negative opinions. That’s the weird aspect of the internet, there are a TON of self-righteous people just waiting for you to make a mistake and act like you’re the biggest jerk in the face of the planet. Even though there’s around a 90% chance that what you voiced your opinion about isn’t as bad as people sexually harassing or stalking other people. So just watch what you say and to who. If you REALLY want to stay away from drama, you really can. I have been issue free since…I don’t know, I mean I’ve probably been ridiculed so many times, featured on some satire blog twice or so but I don’t really read up on it. I just now it’s “There” floating around. Think about it: There are around 7 billion people in this world, and tons of them have varying ideas and beliefs. You might only meet up to a hundred of those, but that’s still a hundred different ideas. So take care not to burden yourself with the unneeded soap operas. I always try and tell myself: If you have time to complain? Just use it to improve or learn something new!! Am not perfect or anything, but I do know that some people are naturally attracting drama even when they don't mean to! And these are possibly some huge flags you can avoid doing whenever applicable. As these are sure ways to attract an audience and some trolls who might be not what you're looking to attract. Other than those? There are really lots of better ways to spending your afternoon than staying at home or just simply staring at your Facebook endlessly.
Your Local Cafe/Coffee Shop One of my favorite places to hang out most often are at cafe's. PROS: They're semi-private places and people taking pictures of themselves or their companions is a common day occurrence. People wouldn't bother you so much and most of the time, coffee shops are really nicely decorated. It's also easy to fix yourself up or wear the wig at the cafe itself. CONS Chair availability and lighting, as you shouldn't bother people as much there's really no room for massive lighting equipment. Besides you aren't renting the place! So you'd do well to at least be prepared to process the tinges of yellow of your face or to compensate for the lack of light through flash or small reflectors. But remember to actually buy things from it and not overcrowd one table. It's one thing to take shoots for free at a place, it's another to rob them of their customers. Public parks + Empty lotsComparisons: The picture on the right hand side is better lit than the one that was shot in a parking lot due to over exposure and uncontrollable wind. My wig was flying all over the place and so were my fringes. A slight wind can toss a wig all over the place and make you less like the character you're trying to portray as you can see Public Parks I've always been astounded by my friends who go around public parks and do all sorts of poses. It's something that's completely nerve-wracking for me. (And that's why I usually rent studios as well) But sometimes, you can't get plants and other such greenery in studios, there's also a lack of 'texture' if you just go to a studio. PROS: Texture and bokeh for the image, there's a lot of possibilities for the composition of your images. There's always the possibility of a beautiful sky shot, or the wind giving you an added visual beauty through uplifted skirts and twirling wigs. Plus if it's not free, you usually just have to pay a minimal fee of more or less 50 php or a dollar or less. CONS:: Not for the weak of heart, I was really anxious as people started to wave at me. And as children started to just stare at me through fenced walls. And although there were times that I forgot about the fright, it always does come back as people tend to really flock over people in costumes. Plus Public parks mean all sorts of people from all walks of life. Not all of them will respect your 'privacy' and will jump in to get pictures of you as well. Vacant lots, Parking lots, and Rooftops As long as you don't start setting up lighting equipment and reflectors you won't really be bothered. They'll leave you to your whims. Most people go along their business in places like these! PROS: Does not hurt the wallet, texture galore and composition is something that should be easy to come by. There's also wide open spaces that usually make a picture breath taking. It also makes it feel "real" unlike the white background photos I usually go for. Cons: No place to retouch, and you would have to get to these places with most of your costume already on. Which means being ogled from wherever you parked/came from up to where the empty lot is. Another is there really isn't any place to retouch and you're at the mercy of nature. If it rains, then let's hope your makeup is waterproof! (And so is your photographer's gear) I hope this helps someone out there!
As shooting shouldn't be 'just a dream' if you've worked hard for a costume, am sure you can muster up the courage and organize a shoot with friends!
LISTEN to those around you, they will offer you a good point of view to something you probably can't see on your own. We as supposedly open minded individuals (Come on, we watch things with non existent technology, time leaps and magical girls!) should be the one's to see that there is a point to some of what our parents our siblings are saying.
Social Behavior This is a general thing, when in public do not talk in such a loud voice that the person peeing at the farthest cubicle can hear every bit of your conversation. Keep private matters private, even if you're so goddamed proud of what you did with your wig and how you had to save it to make it look like it does. As for changing into costumes, do not occupy an entire sink just for your stuff. That isn't your bathroom. It's for everyone! And if you don't want people wanting us cosplayers gone from those areas then the best we can do is share and be polite about it. We aren't paying anything extra to make use of the public toilet so we shouldn't be expecting special treatment. And when a guard is yelling into a megaphone straight into your ears, resist the urge to kick or yell at him and simply do what you're told. Though a friendly, "Kuya/Sir I can hear you just fine" with a laugh even if the guard looks mean or pissed wouldn't hurt. From Admiration to Stalking Just imagine, if you had a little sister, and she tells you that a group of guys are blatantly waiting for her outside of the comfort room area or in a staircase to her class or office wouldn't you fear for her? A GROUP OF GUYS WAITING is never a good thing more so if you don't even know them, it's one of the scariest things to actually experience. If it's something that would cause someone discomfort or fear, than that's definitely stalking. Conventions are different as people there are in the area for good reason, to share a commonality that is the hobby. But to randomly approach a stranger just because they look like a 'cosplayer' or that she or he is REALLY so goddamned cute, is NEVER a good thing. THERE ARE PLACES to make friends and outside a comfort room is NOT IT. Or a staircase or an elevator, if you make the person feel like they're 'cornered' into talking to you. That won't lead to anything good, it might even get you into prison for harassment.
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