Shinju's Workshop

It’s been three weeks since I started working on my Athena from Saint Seiya costume. As I expected, things turned out to be more difficult than I thought. In theory, everytuing seemed perfect, but in practice, well… lots and lots of problems emerged.

I finally managed to get some time to share them with you, so if you encounter them, you don’t have to go through the same ordeal.

Since I completely finished a small part of the armor, I thought I should post all the steps that it went through, together with lots of photos.

The part of the armor that I started with is this one

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I thought I should make a separate post about the cosplay competitions at Holdfeny Con, since that is my main field of interest and because I have a lot to say about it.

I will also post all the videos and photos I have from the competitions, hoping that they will make the cosplayers happy (I was so happy after Mondocon when somebody tagged me in a Facebook video!).

The things I know about the cosplay competition in the first day are from the inside: going to meet the jury, going up on stage and talking to other cosplayers while waiting backstage or waiting for the photo shoot.

Although everything was delayed and my feet hurt like hell, waiting to go meet the jury was fun. it was the perfect moment to look at the others’ costumes. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want to spy on them. I just wanted to learn new things. And when I could, I asked “What material is this? Where did you buy it from? How much did it cost?” or “How did you do this?”. And again, this helped me find new materials for my Athena cosplay. The Mondocon experience taught that being locked in the box of your own country doesn’t help. It’s a limited box of knowledge and when that knowledge ends… what are you going to do? That would really bore me to death, I think. That’s why I try to find out as much as I can about the methods and the materials that other cosplayers use. Improving my technique is vital to me.

An overall impression of the cosplay at Holdfeny Con? Well, first of all, something surprises me all the time I come to a convention in Hungary. Many many cosplayers off the stage. Almost every three persona you find somebody who cosplays or has a cosplay-like costume! And I think this is an amazing thing! Cosplaying for fun is a nice thing to do. You must not have a perfect costume, worthy of going up the stage, you just have to feel good in it and enjoy yourself. And apparently the fans in Hungary know how to do this.

As for the competition cosplay, well, that is a bit different, at least that’s how I see it. It always requires more responsability and a lot more work, but it still must be something to be enjoyed. Since it was a summer convention and summer is the season of having fun and not of working, I didn’t expect extraordinary costumes for the cosplay competition. And I was wrong. There were some costumes that were quite impressive and the cosplayers have worked a lot on them. I thought that was a great thing and that showed me that there are some cosplayers in hungary that are really into cosplay and who take it seriously. I must congratulate them for it. it takes a lot of effort and determination to have this hobby. Lots of work and money that only come back to you in the form of people enjoying your costumes or maybe winning some prizes.

Of course, that doesn’t mean all the cosplayers are the same, some don’t care that much about how “perfect” their costume is but the cosplay experience overall. Since I am a perfectionist, it’s hard for me to understand it, so I’ll just keep quiet about it.

There is one thing I will say though: there were things I would have done differently when it came to many of the costumes I saw, but I will not post it here, since I believe it’s not something I should say publicly. So if you believe you can handle some negative feed-back, feel free to ask, I promise I won’t bite! Maybe we can learn from each other interesting things!

Anyway, let’s see what videos we have from the first day:

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I wanted to write about HoldfenyCon from the moment I stepped out the convention center, but I felt so tired that I feared no one would understand what I write.

So now, with a rather fresh mind I am trying to tell the world how HoldfenyCon was for me.

I will skip the adventures we had to go through to get to Budapest (we must always have some sort of adventures, and not the pleasant kind) and go straight to the con.

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So many conventions lately!
That leaves me in a pretty unusual situation: Not enough time to make a cosplay costume for each of them! It usually takes me a few months to make a costume, since I’ve been looking for challenges, and sometimes they can be pricey, so I have to adapt somehow…

But I still want to participate in cosplay competitons! What do I do? I adapt older costumes. That seemed as the best choice.
I always loved my Yoko Nakajima cosplay. Maybe because it was the first cosplay I did with my heart (I didn’t care much about the previous Matsumoto, except for the big boobs) and because it was my first cosplay to participate in a competition.

And thanks to a friend of mine, my boyfriend and I started reading the “Twelve Kingdoms” books. And I fell in love again with this wonderful world and with Yoko. And since we are going next week to HoldfenyCon in Budapest, I took out of the closet my old Yoko cosplay. And to tell you the truth… I was horrified!

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Finally the time to write here. I have so many things to tell, I don’t even know where to start. But let’s start with the conventions I have been to in the last month.

The first one was Mondocon, which took place in Budapest, Hungary, on the 14^th and the 15^th of May.

I am not going to get into details about how we got there, or why they didn’t let us pass the border to hungary at 2 am, this is a story for another post. For me the biggest shock was changing the environment, and not in the way that you are thinking! For more than a month before Mondocon I was a hermit, locked inside my home and working around 12 hours a day on my cosplay costume. And suddenly… a huge crowd of people at the entrance gate of Hung Expo, the Convention Center where Mondcon took place.

(click on the photos to view them bigger)

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Hey, everybody!

Although I am up high  in the Alps right now I managed to find out about the tragedies that have struck Japan in the last week and since I finally got to some internet, I thought I should write a few words here before I start the post. But… nothing right comes to mind. What can be said in such moments? Except for the hope that I keep in my heart that the situation will not get worse and worse… Having to deal with earthquakes and tsunamis was not enough apparently, the nuclear reactor is now giving much trouble than anyone could have ever thought. Despite all this, I trust the Japanese people will fight this with all their power and knowing their determination and strenghth, I know this will have a good ending.

And now bacl to cosplay. Since this week I am away and because my internet sucks big time, I decided to show you the screenshots I am using as reference for my cosplay.

Before you look at any photo, I have a challenge for you guys! While paying attention to the details in the screenshots I discovered the guys who made this anime made some mistakes (drew something one way in a scene and in a different way in another scene, so right now I don’t even know how to make some accessories). Let me see how many of these mistakes you can find!!!

That being said, here come the screenshots:

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As I was mentioning in the last post, I am starting a project. A video blog on making cosplay costumes. And since I will be part of the jury at Otaku Festival in May, I thought I should make a cosplay costume and also show the world how exactly I am making it. This is a tutorial targeting the beginners, since it has everything explained in detail, but also for any other cosplayers who like to share experience with other of their kind.

So, here is Episode 1, the Introduction to the whole series:

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This a new start for Shinju’s Workshop. Since I don’t plan to do much with this blog besides presenting the lolita dresses we make, I was thinking of making it a bit more useful. You’ll see exactly what I am talking about next week *wink*.

One more important thing… from now on, I will stick to English. And it will be mainly about cosplay. For now I want to keep it a secret so you’ll have to be patient untill next week!