| STAC 2005: Alichino |
Alichino - Myoubi | Yanagi
Taken by Evildolly. Alichino - Ryouko | Seishurou
Photographer unknown; let us know if you know!
Taken by Evildolly.
Alichino - Matsulika | Tsukisou
Alichino - Tsugiri | Sanada
Alichino - Enju | Ruka
Alichino - Hyula | Si Ye
Alichino - Girl #1 | Ren
Taken by Evildolly.
Con Report
STAC 2005
...as according to M...
We improved a little! XD Writing about the con three months after! XD;; no matter, at least
it's done.
This con was a nightmare. Perhaps not the con per se, but the prep for it. I actually meant
to make costumes for all of them, but my O'levels prevented me from effectively doing so.
I also discovered, with much horror, that I was getting old and picky, so my sewing time
for each costume increased because of the rise of quality [aka. a reduction in falling-
apart possibility]. I will admit right now what we cheated on - Girl #1 and Hyula. I simply
didn't have time to do either, even though we'd already bought the cloth. T__T So we put
them in Alichino-isque clothes, which worked out actually. I also discovered with even
more horror that my MSD pattern was only suited to stretchy material, and I'd pretty much
screwed up the Myoubi costume [which Yanagi somehow managed to salvage by
wearing the white wig and wearing the horrible thing itself]. [I realised later my MSD
pattern also didn't take into account thick cloth and stuff like that, which sucks.] The only
costumes I didn't screw up are those that I did earlier on, and worked on like crazy - Matsulika's
and Ryouko's.
Actually Matsulika's costume is not truly complete - I screwed up white boot covers
[Matsulika's boot covers had a very specific style.] But the rest of it is. I worked especially
hard on the corset, after close study of the seam lines and panels in the manga. I would
say it has about....16 odd or more panels [a little more than the Seigaku jersey] and I think I
did a pretty good job with the boob cups, considering I've never even done boob cups
before, much less fakie boob cups. [I built in fakie boobies too.] This costume also has my
first proper pair of pants - black, tiny vinyl shorts. XD We also went insane searching for
the specific type of ribbon because no one seemed to have it. Matsulika also had a crazy
skirt thing, with gems all around it and white organza flowing from the bottom. [I really
regret that we competely forgot about sticking a gem on Tsuki's forehead! T_T] All in all,
this one was probably one of the most complicated and one of the best costumes I've
done so far.
Then there's the Ryouko costume, which can't be seen properly in these photos, but was
really interestingly vampiric and had a manskirt as well as a gigolo shirt. I actually
revamped my entire SD13 boy pattern, forming several ranging from "tight" to "jacket". The
gigolo shirt turned out especially good [though it can't be seen here] and the jacket ended
up very nicely neat.
Enju's costume was also perfect. We found the exact pattern of cloth for the collar, and I
did very neat work with the cotton that made me really happy. That image of Enju fitted
Ruka perfectly because of his closed eyes of course. As for the Tsugiri costume - we
planned on duplicating my own, but then decided on a simpler one, the one he wears
when he meets Girl #1 again. Which is luckily, a billowy cloak thing. XD I actually did it on
the morning of the con, and I think it looks rather neat for that rushed situation! XD
The hugest problem with this cosplay was - the wigs.
We had ordered the wigs in two batches a while back, and we got the first batch
[Matsulika, Myoubi] after several months from our order. We attempted to put in another
order as soon as possible after experiencing the processing time for the rest of the wigs,
but it just so happened that later it was discovered - a week before the con - that the wig
colours were wrong, blah blah blah, lots of problems, translated HAY DUDES GUESS
WHAT? WE NEED WIGS FOR THE OTHER FOUR OF YOU BUT THERE IS NONE NOW.
Now Hyula's [Si Ye's] was not too big a problem - but Ryouko's, Enju and especially
Tsugiri's wig were huge problems. I know you're all going to be incredulous but yes, we
had no suitable colours nor styles for these characters even though we have a wig
collection the size of Rhode Island. For Enju, we had to - very unhappily - settle with a
curled wine wig [as opposed to our intended carrot]. We made a Ryouko wig out of the
combination of an old Acquire wig, Copic Markers and a ton of hair gel.
As for Tsugiri, he has short white hair, and we needed it in MSD size. We had nothing
even REMOTELY white in MSD [which was not Yanagi's Myoubi wig], and Domuya just
happened to handily be closed when we visited it two days before the con. [And Evildolly
said there was nothing like that, anyway.] So we were majorly screwed. Until I decided,
look, I've muddled through two hard years of doll sewing without any ounce of sewing
knowledge, and I've improved over the past few years, let's try sewing a fur wig. It was
definitely better than Tsugiri with black hair.
And so that night before I made a pattern for a fur wig and sewed one for Sanada's
head. Jun pounced on it with hair spray and forced the fur down and damn, it turned out
better than we ever thought it would. XD; I remember on that day I was groggily telling
people it was fur and they seemed rather surprised it was so. [Yeah Feli? Babbit?
Evildolly? XD]
So as you can prolly tell, I'm not really satisfied with the cosplay itself.
On the other hand, I must really talk about the setup. Jun had actually decided that this
year - after we witnessed real Dolpa - that we should attempt a real booth setup. She
had a fantastic idea, and we ended up toting plywood, styrofoam, cloth, feathers, sand,
dried grass and even caulk [the stuff you use to seal your bathroom tiles] to the con. We
were late [as usual, stop sniggering], the styrofoam cutter was insistently not working,
and so a lot of rough tearing ensued, with spray-on adhesive and sand and contained
mess. And so you can see we ended up - surprisingly - with a rather decent-looking
booth! I was actually mostly away during the time Jun was doing the booth, and I think
she did a great job. We also subsequently did not move anyone until the end of the con,
titty boom. XD;;; We will be doing proper setups again in future, it just adds so much to the
booth.
The con itself was alright, my group mates were very tolerant of my tardiness and the
time I had to spend with my dolls [thank you awfully Ivory and Plhu ♥] and lots of friends
actually came to help out in the moving of our items up to the con area and the dismantling
of the booth [thank you Mainey, and Ivory again XD, Bern, Tashigi, Nic and more]. It was
great to see more of our dolly friends [us being acutely late in gatherings and all XD;;]. It
was also wonderful to see the significant increase in the number of BJD in the con!
I got to meet some dolls and people I was wanting to meet for a while [that means you, Bright Zanya!
::snug:: and Babbit too.] I also definitely have to thank everyone who took photos of our booth, I'm
really glad you guys enjoyed it, and it was lovely of you to come up to tell us that [like
Pudding Neko! Thanks!]. There were also people who were supersweet and gave us
stuff for our boys - Shannen who gave us adorable doggy-pins, and Bright who shoved
her SD13 Boy size Psychiccer Rikku costume into my hands.
And to all those who were so kind as to buy our postcards - thank you. I'm happy you
thought they were nice enough to buy, and I was always pleasantly surprised whenever
anyone bought a full set! It means a lot to us.
All in all, it was a con/cosplay which started out all ready to kick our asses, but it turned
out pretty good in the end despite all the crap that happened. We'll try to be more
prepared for the next EoY - but that's what we always say......... [Also, please come and
see us at the EoY if you can, alright? We always love to meet people who enjoy Tangled
in person, and we're not scary at all in person! We swear we won't eat you! We're very
nice people! XD]
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