The cosplay adventures of J.Kazama

Altair. Oh, how much I have to love thee

2010-03-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

I've been asking myself lately. Why the heck do I choose the cosplays I end up doing?

Purely for the hell of a ride they give me buy building them. And I always end up saying, "oh, this one gave me one hell of a trouble".

Bull*****.
(sorry for the cursing, though xD)

Altair won the oh-no-you-didn't award, and we're just getting started on him. Clothes are nothing, seriously, they're almost finished. I just gotta find the perfect linen pants at my job and voila. I already have the boots, and doing the weapons is going to be easy. Except for the hidden blade, of course. But I found a quite great tutorial on Youtube (may the gods bless whoever invented Youtube and his/her infinite wisdom xD) on how to make the blade, so I can sleep better a few more weeks.

However, and this is the cause as of why my arm hurts so bad right now.
You know, in the hand Altair has his hidden blade, he has this sort of arm brace, armor kinda thingy. It's a five plaque bracer that has some engraved designs and that Fev from cosplay.com threw together in some fancy way that makes you go all "oh, yeah, I can do that, it looks easy".

Oh hell it's not easy, I tell you that!

Mostly, because it's leather. Kids, don't play with leather. It's evil! Haha! I almost cut my fingers with the chisel because leather is so hard to work on. Plus, I suck at drawing. I'm not an artist, my forte is building stuff, never drawing anything. I can't even make a straight line straight, and I'm not kidding! Ok, you can laugh now.
I'm only doing that in leather. The rest, I bought like 4 yards of vinyl for the belts and the holders and the rest. But leather....geez...Please remind me never to use leather again unless I get the right materials to work with it, savvy?

-J.

And the final product is unveiled!

2010-03-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

Woah! So much work, I forgot to update this thing! Sorry, sorry!

Well, after so many weeks of hard work, some restless nights thinking in what to do next, a nasty cut in my left hand and an injured ankle, I finished my Devil Jin cosplay.

Please ignore my face, I was tired! I didn't slept for two days! Horror!
But I'm really happy with the result. I won 1st prize on the top 10 (which is basically a 4th place overall) and it was my first formal competition! So I'm very happy for it.
Overall, the con was really fun. I had a very awesome time with my friends, and though I didn't won, I'm happy I dropped some jaws with my gloves, hehe.

Anyways! This CFF page is closed, a new chapter in my cosplay life begins. And what are we making now?

Altair!!! This baby will be unveiled at Puerto Rico Comic Con day 1! ^_^
I love Altair Ibn'La-Ahad, even more than Ezio! xD So I'll be doing Altair.
And as an added bonus, I began working with my cosplay for Kaisen 7.
Big Sister from Bioshock 2! This baby will be a pain in the ass, but so worth it!!! xDD

Week one wrap-up! And more Jin related news =D

2010-01-20T01:10:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot about this.

But yeah, this last 3 days I couldn't even concentrate on Devil Jin. That last statement is a lie, considering that even with a killer migraine that needed medical attention, I returned home from the hospital and started thinking in what to do next.
Yeah, ever since I was four years old I've been suffering from migraines. I was used to spending 3 to 4 days with headaches, but there had been like only 2 occasions where I had to get a serum and all. This was the second occasion. I couldn't barely move to get out of bed, and since my friend K doesn't have her cellphone up and running, I had to wait until she got connected to MSN to ask her to take me to the hospital. There, I got a shot you don't want to know where, and the migraine serum. I was so sleepy after the serum, I felt like walking on clouds xD And I slept the whole day. Almost the whole day, I got up at 8 pm (that happened at 12) and turned my face around to search for my gauntlets. I know, I'm a dork.

So I almost finished the gauntlets. I just need to add the horns-like thingies that goes under the red part of the glove and the bottom pyramid that goes on the small plate in his hand. I sketched some circles and now I have to see how can I build them circular, but I have a whole day to think about it.
Why a day? Because this Thursday I begin with university once again. It's not that bad considering that this semester I will only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays! But somehow studying and having a part time job takes a bit more time than what I used to have. However, I'm not going to be sitting on my butt after classes, so that's a huge plus. Not that I used to sit on m butt after classes, I always ended up on the street walking around town or doing some laps on the uni's track, but you get the point.

Oh, and that Jin related news I mentioned on the topic?
You see this?
THIS IS SO HAPPENING THIS YEAR!

-J.

OW MAH GAWD!

2010-01-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

THIS HAS TO BE THE BEST DAY EVER!

Hahah!
It has been quite a productive day! I've posted 3 times!! xD No, seriously, this is happening so fast, I'm starting to get worried. Seriously.

I did the red part, just a prototype. It freakin looks freaking made of awesome! I didn't took a picture because my camera is not in the best terms with me right now, so I'll save it for later. But I'm so happy I'm going to squeeee <3

Week one: Hands! ARMS!

2010-01-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

They're happening!!! OMFG *dies*

I thought those knockouts would defeat me, but no! Mighty random the GazettE filled mind of mine just got the greatest of ideas and now! I can say that I have something almost complete!

Almost!

Remember the gloves I bought yesterday? Well I put them together with an extra "arm" done out of cardboard and some masking tape. And they work! Wohoo! I'm so proud of them. Right now they are drying, because by tradition, I paper mache everything.

(I stopped writing for like 5 minutes because there was this explosion sound that made my heart stop, and it was nothing serious U_U)

I'm really excited about this costume. I asked a friend of mine, who is an awesome seamstress! to do the top part of the costume, because I don't know how to sew. Yet. So let's see what she says!
-J.

{A break from cosplay presents} All I'll say is these two things:

2010-01-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

Tekken. Movie. Trailer. the GazettE. Final at Saitama.

Just saw the trailer a couple of minutes ago. And I died. Both for good and bad.
By now you should realize that I'm a Tekken fan, yes. And that my favorite character is Jin Kazama/Devil Jin. Yes. I was waiting for the movie for so long! I even approve of Jon Foo as Jin! (he looks extremely hot as Jin, by the way) I thought they were going to follow up Jin's story as he is! But they put him like some kind of street underdog Cinderella story =( And hooking up with Christie, that made me LOL.

But no matter the differences between game and movie, I'm so watching it. I was waiting for so long and I won't ignore it just because it's not like the game. I mean, they can't make it exactly as the game. If they did, Anna and Nina would be all the movie fighting and trying to kill each other, LOL. Yeah, it's like a friend of mine told me, "they have to Hollywood-ize it to attract non-gamers to it".

Whatever, Jon Foo as Jin is love.

the GazettE is my favorite visual kei band in the whole world. I love those guys. They were the first v-kei band I heard of, and I just became an instant fan. So, they released their Final at Saitama DVD on December...something, I think it was December 2. I am waiting for my copy to arrive, but for now I'm watching it on youtube. Man. MAN!! MAAAAAAAAAAAN! That concert was awesome. AWESOME!!! I wish I could go to one of their concert, and I don't like concerts xD
Those guys give themselves for the fans, and it's just wow...I mean...search it on youtube. There's an user called urumoon09 who uploaded the whole concert. Watch it!!

So that's for the break. Back to Devil Jin.
-J.

Week one: Of wings, and realization

2010-01-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

Finally, a light shine me a path to begin with the wings!

THE WINGS OF CHAOS!

My friend K. got the brilliant idea of going to Home Depot to "cosplay research" the materials for her costume. I decided to go with her and her boyfriend to buy some glue that I needed, and I also thought of getting a knife. So we went there, and I thought, "hey, I can also go to that costume shop to check on wings and all that stuff", so we went there. I got this pair of wings that I will literally tear apart to make the shape of the wings work.
Then, I had an idea. Well, I remembered an idea one of my friends told me. He said, "you can try to get monster-like gloves and paint them black and they are bigger than your normal hand, and Devil Jin has huge monster-like hands, you know?" It is a wonderful idea, I thought. It's actually a wonderful idea.

I got the pair of gloves. They are massive compared to my hands, haha. I just had to paint them and do the little silver finger thingy, and they're perfect. I already cut the red hand protector thingy the correct size, and I'm waiting for them to dry -oh, that's something funny, I started to paint them and I thought the spray paint I was using was white. But it wasn't. It's purple, haha. It just had a white cover.- to test them. I still have to paper mache it.
For the arms I cut a piece of cardboard and made it round my arm, so it's double in size just like Devil Jin's. I also bought something that's like a texturizer in spray to give it the rough texture the gauntlets have. Wish me luck, guys!! I hope this turns out to be good, because I'm pulling all the stops for the first convention this year!

-J.

Week One: On craftingDevil Jin's gauntlets without losing my head

2010-01-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, the joy of loving difficult cosplays.

I decided that, for the upcoming Central Fan Fest 3 on February 28, I will do a cosplay that is guaranteed to become one of my highlights of the year: Devil Jin, from Tekken 6. I'm not doing the game version, but a version I found in the Tekken 6 official art book. I know, quite a lot of work to do, but someone's gotta do it!

Yesterday I began with building the simple part of the cosplay: the gauntlets. I'm doing a few models to see which one work. You see,

see the red things on his hands? Specially the ones that go after the palm of his hands? They go under a black thing on his arm that is kinda double in size than his average size. I build an over arm and I'm planning to place the red thing over the over arm. The hand will be crafted out of a ski glove I'm getting, because the hand is also double in size. Hehe. Quite a small kind of work compared to THOSE WINGS!!! T_T

Sigh. Why oh why I love complicated cosplays? T_T

But yeah, that is what I'm doing this week. Pictures of the outcome soon.

-J.

2010 Proyect list!

2010-01-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

Hello, blog world! I decided to join you once again and dedicate myself to it! I struggle with trying to keep my thoughts in just one thing, but I promise I'll update this as much as I can.

So, as the blog title says, these are my cosplay adventures. Each time I get involved into something cosplay-related, it will go here. Mostly it will be about props and whatever, but you'll get informed of my shenanigans. So! Let's begin!

This year is going to be quite active, cosplay related for me. Mostly because I have to do wonders and magic, hocus-pocus type, to divide my time between university, my part time job, my resolution to learn how to sew, and social live. How am I going to add cosplaying into the mixture, I'm starting to work it out bit by bit.
Like today. This is my free day, and I'm going to do some errands, like going to get my check and cash it. But later I'll go to a store to buy some fabric dye for my Devil Jin cosplay. And tonight I'll continue with the construction of his gauntlets.

It's about organizing! Something I'm not an expert (specially with the mess I call a bedroom, LOL), but something I'm always up for trying.

This year's cosplay list, that can and will change, goes like this:
-Devil Jin (from Tekken 6, but a version from the official art book)
-Warrior of Light (from Dissidia Final Fantasy, on both his regular and EX Burst mode)
-Dark Mercury (from the Sailor Moon live action)
-Lucrezia Noin (from Gundam Wing)
-Marluxia (from Kingdom Hearts)
-Altair Ibn-La'Ahad (from Assassin's Creed)
-Ezio Auditore da Firenze (from Assassin's Creed 2)
-Jin Kazama (from Tekken 6, on his smexy CLAMP costume)
-Kratos (from God of War, on his new Phantom of Chaos skin from the third game)

There is room for a few more but some of those I keep them secret, for both myself and people I had promised would do those cosplays with them. Anyways, this is the list I'm trying to work on. I started on Devil Jin and Warrior of Light. Let's see how it goes!

-J.