For real. Wow. I swear I didn't die--just been mad busy. I actually do have a couple of drawings to put up at some point (one's getting to be so old at this point that I might just not even bother), but they were all too big for my scanner, needed to be scanned in 4 pieces, and now require stitching back together in Photoshop (bah--I hate doing that because the colors are never the same across the 4 pieces and it takes forever to correct 'em). All of that, however, is not the real reason I'm updating.

The real reason I'm updating is...wait for it....

KAKKOI CON 2008
Yes, it was epic enough to merit both bolding AND caps. I'll be doing a full report on LJ and will link that here, but in the meantime, I bring you the Sparknotes version.

Thursday night: crashlands on my doorstep (read: she was dropped off at my place). I was still scrambling to finish up some costumes because I procrastinate like a beast...oh, and my cat decided to tear the frog closures off my "Myaku" Kaoru (Dir en grey) tunic. -Awesome-. Keito excels at handsewing and put them back on for me while I was fighting a losing battle with some new pink extensions for the back of my "Myaku" and "Osaka Jo Hall" hair style. I gave up on 'em after I tried using a hairdryer to make the product in them dry faster and the caulk wefts (I gave that caulk wefting technique a shot) melted. Great. After much cursing and swearing, I gave up and decided to actually pack...at 1 am. Go me. Packing was a bit of bitch since all of my costumes have a lot of accessories, I need many a hair product for them, between Keito and I a lot makeup is necessary, and I needed my sewing box, machine, and a bag of supplies because I had yet to actually make my feather neckpiece and rose hairpiece for "Tsumi to Batsu" Kaoru (Dir en grey)costume....that I planned to compete in on Saturday. DID I MENTION THAT I PROCRASTINATE YET?! ...moving on...

Friday: Woke up at 8:30 am, finished packing, rinsed my hair to prep it for styling, printed my references for my competition costume, obtained CD-Rs for my music (yeah, I hadn't burned it yet...luckily I brought my laptop along), ate a banana while Keito inhaled the rest of the Rice Crispies cereal that was god-knows-how-old, and loaded up the car (between the two of us we had: a large suitcase, a small suitcase, a guitar, two purses, a backpack, a laptop case, sewing box, sewing machine, large plastic bag-o-fabric and notions, a garment bag with all 4 of my costumes...hopefully that was all. True story: Jrock cosplayers don't travel light). We left my place at a little after 10 am because I'd read that Kakkoi Con didn't want us lining up before 11 am. We got to the con at 11:30 am...and there was already a massive line for pre-reg/normal reg. "Balls!" I thought. We found Keito's friend (the person who would carry my stuff, make sure my hair wasn't squashed in my feathers, and take photos all weekend) already in line and he let us cut in. I tried to go check into our hotel room, but upon doing so was told that the Sheraton had "no rooms until twelve-thrity-ONE pm" even though I reserved back in March. Great.

Keito's friend (Brawner) had checked in the day before, so he decided to be nice and let us at least do out makeup in his hotel room (read: let me do my makeup and put makeup on Keito). Quite some time later, we actual got to pick up our badges, I got our room, and I managed find convention staff that actually knew where I had to go to register for the cosplay competition (not gonna lie: I had no CLUE what I was doing when I filled out that form...I've never competed...and never even SEEN a competition before...GO ME!). Up in our room, Keito put on her "Gauze-era" Shinya costume and I proceeded to spend in an inordinate amount of time spiking/grassblading all my hair after changing into my "Myaku" Kaoru outfit. Credit where credit's due: Keito braids and installs my ponyfall for me. Give her a round of applause because I barely have enough real hair in the back to keep that thing on.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around in our costumes, having our photos taken...oh, and Keito bought cute things, per normal. Went to dinner fairly late, fooled around a bit more in costume, and then retired back up to the room around 9:30 because I had a SHITLOAD of things to get done in preparation for the cosplay competition the next day:
- make my entire feather neckband
- make my rose/feather hairpiece
- turn a pair of tights into a lace shirt (this was the easy bit)
- attach the chains to my skirt
- cut up the song "Tsumi to Batsu" into a short, walk-on-friendly clip
- figure out what I was gonna do on stage
...I did everything but the last 3 things before 6 am (yes, I stayed up until then), at which point I slept until 10 am. I got up, did my makeup, did Keito's makeup, fixed the closures on the neckband, put the chains on, had Keito help me cut up and burn the song...and never figured out what I was going to do on stage because I RAN OUT OF TIME BEFORE 2PM COSPLAY ORIENTATION. Seriously, I was SCRAMBLING to get laced into my costume (I did not notice until later but I DIDN'T LACE THE CORSET TIGHT ENOUGH! ALL DAY IT WAS KIND OF LOOSE, SO IN PICTURES YOU SEE MY TINY LITTLE SHOULDERS, ARMS, AND LEGS...AND THEN SOME WEIRD BULKINESS AROUND THE RIBCAGE...the side eyelets should be right under my arm pits and they weren't in photos, so I guess the front was too loose. Bah. I knew I could breath too well ), had Keito put my feathers on and pin my falls in, and then had Brawner get my hair unsquished by the feathers and help me into the gauze coat that I wore briefly.

This is the part where I spend 1/2 hour epically lost on the way to orientation and acquire an entourage of equally lost orientation-goers. Eventually, we got there safely, I handed off my CD, had my status as a novice called into question (hey--I've never competed before and don't sew for a living, so I'm a novice, yes? ...confused? Me? Possible.), and got to talk with some awesome cosplayers. Afterward, I wandered the con a little with Keito before heading upstairs to make sure my hair was still staying up (I should have noticed my corset then, but somehow didn't). After that I went to rehearsal, which ran quite long, but at least the MC helped me come up with poses that didn't suck for my walk-on. Afterward, I had 10 free minutes to be bombarded by photographers in the hall before it was time to go hangout in the greenroom for workmanship judging. There, I got to talk with many an awesome cosplayer (Alucard, Amaterase, Sora, Fai, some KH2 cosplayers, and many others). Workmanship judging wasn't as scary as I had imagined--in fact, it was rather flattering because I received many compliments from the judges on my work with vinyl, straightness of all th hardware (rivets, eyelets, boning, etc), and feather neckband (especially for handsewing each feather into a channel...I didn't tell 'em I did it just the night before). I had been SO FREAKED OUT about having someone judge my sewing (I'm a perfectionist so I waited to compete until I had something really well done), so I was ready to keel over with relief (or maybe that was hunger or thirst since I hadn't eaten more than two bites of muffin or drank more than half a Coke Zero all day -_____-") when they said they were impressed.

My stage performance went pretty well, I think. I had a lot of fun just acting like Kaoru (the silly badass that he is) up there and people actually cheered (I expected it to be kind of awkward along the lines of "What the fuck is SHE supposed to be?!" since it was a jrock cosplay, not an anime or game one). When I got off stage, I realized just how TIRED I actually was. Honestly, I just wanted a nice nap more than anything, but I tried to be a good sport while I sat and waited for the judging.

The judging:
The cosplay staff read off all the awards back in the greenroom before the announcement on stage so that we could be ready in the hall to go on stage. They started of with a bunch of judge's choice (mainly performance) awards. Lots of people I'd been talking to (such as Amaterase and the KH2 duo) won some of these. After that, they moved on to the major workmanship awards: Sora won best novice, a really nice guy whose character's name I have forgotten won best journeyman, Alucard won best masters--at this point I thought I hadn't made the cut, which actually just made me feel more tired than disappointed --I WON BEST OVERALL WORKMANSHIP!, and the Berserk armor won best in show! I couldn't believe it! Me? Win something?! Never in a million years would have imagined that! I got up on stage, accepted my medal and $50 JoAnn Fabrics giftcard, threw up the rockhorns and a few cheesy poses, exited the stage, gathered up my stuff, and made to FINALLY get out of the greenroom (I was there from 6-8:30 pm...and my friends had dinner for me...back at 5pm. They called me a bunch of times, but couldn't answer my phone because it's touch-sensitive and I had vinyl opera-length gloves on! I had to borrow Sora's finger at one point to retrieve my messages -____-'. On my way out, Out of Time Productions did a video interview of me and then I was once again attacked for photos before and after Brawner and Keito found me. Eventually, I got back upstairs and ate my sandwich (it was mad cold by then, but it was damn satisfying because 100 lbs little 'ol me was about to keel over). OH! And Keito found me a new Vash keychain while I was tied up in competition-related business all day! My old keychain broke off and was lost a couple of years ago, so I was PSYCHED to get a new one (especially since all the dealers seemed to be out of them the last time I looked). THANK YOU, !!!

We went to most of Vaidos' (the Jrock band that played at Kakkoi Con) set, but it was in the garden court, which has a glass ceiling, so the acoustics were terrible to the point of being painful. Personally, I think the band is pretty good, but the acoustics really wrecked it and we ended up leaving. Brawner went to the band's signing and Keito and I went back to the room. I FINALLY got out of my damn costume (true story: I have no peripheral vision when wearing that thing and CANNOT turn my head. Looking to my side involves turning my whole body...needless to say, my neck was sore) and started to clean up the EPIC mess that was out hotel room thanks to my all-nighter sewing adventure, throwing stuff all over in my frantic hurry to get dressed, and just the fact that we had a lot of stuff. Keito and Brawner watched MORE Trigun (they watched that and over 10 episodes of Trinity Blade the night before) on Keito's laptop while I cleaned, packed, put Keito's hair in curlers, and nearly fell asleep sitting up constantly. I crashed for the night at 2 am and slept soundly until my alarm rudely awakened my at 9 am.

Sunday:
Got up at 9 am, did my own make up, got all but my tunic on, and then woke Keito up at 10 am. I did her hair and makeup, got the rest of my "Osaka Jo Hall Live" Kaoru costume on (she wore "Cage Shinya...I never got around to wearing "Cage" Kaoru at K Con T___T). While I grassbladed/spiked out my hair, she and Brawner loaded all of our junk in my car so that we could check out by 12 pm, which we did. After that, we did some final con wanderings, had more photos taken of us, bought a few more things, took some more photos of our own...and then we FINALLY went to Dairy Queen (Keito had been wanting to since Saturday at 6 am when she half woke up and asked if we could eat breakfast there XD). It was after 2 pm when we got done eating, so we decided to head out since I had to drive Keito partway home.

ANYHOO...
Photos shall be uploaded soon. I will put them ALL on cosplay.com and will only put up the ones to represent the costumes as textiles deviations on DA. I'll link y'all to cosplay.com when I get 'em up (haven't really started editing them yet...seriously, I'M STILL TIRED). Also, I think once I get a couple of new laces for the corset, I'm going to put on "Tsumi to Batsu" again so that I can take a few photos of the corset laced properly (you can actually see it laced nicely in my "Gauze Cosplay" deviation...but that was skirt version 1.0, so ignore my bottom half--haha!).


...that was actually REALLY long. Probably TL;DR caliber and hardly the Sparknotes version. Bah--I don't even like Sparknotes anyway (that shit had never helped me at all).

ME

First things first: I AM using DA's new gallery organization. And no, I didn't delete most of my gallery--I just deselected it from my "featured" items. If you want to see some of my old or otherwise artistic disasters, click "browse." I even sorted everything into categories! Oh, but I didn't touch the effin' scraps!

Second, YES, I've been absent for a while. Life. It tends to happen. Fall Term was really busy: between the honors program for my general ed. credits, International Relations (my major) Theory, and upper-level Japanese, I did very little sleeping in my surprisingly comfortable bed at USC (in Los Angeles--I'm visiting my parents in MN, but for all extents and purposes, I moved to LA).

Third, I have no idea if I'll be creating much new art or in what form. Right now I'm scanning/cleaning up old art either from back in my AP days or from the summer. I also just threw up in my gallery my costumes from last year. I have some partially finished vector stuff, which won't be too hard to work on in spare bits of time because all I need is my laptop and my tablet. Oh, and when I'm back home I work on my costumes/other sewing-related projects.

And while we're on the subject of costume: Two things, really.
1) I'm working on getting my "Gauze" Kaoru outfit finished up accurately. I'm currently redoing the skirt, but I hope to tackle the accessories before break is over. I have a new (and accurate!) version of "Myaku" Kaoru done except for the fact that I need new vinyl pants (I'm far skinnier now) and need to transfer the bones and Chinese frog closures from the old dress to the new one. I may tackle either "Akuro no Oka" (GIANT HAAAAAAAAT) or "Raison detre" (um...no reason needed, obviously!) this summer. I plan to do a new "Myaku"/"Osaka Jo Hall live" wig before that though.

2) AD08 is far later than any previous AD and therefore does not coincide with my spring break at USC. It would be pretty much impossible for me to fly to Mpls from LA just for a weekend, so AD08 just isn't in the cards for me. Hopefully someone else will step up and represent Jrock cosplay this year! ^^ I may go to Kakkoi Con in August instead depending on whether or not Keito will join me (Keito--you better) and what my job situation will be like. I'll try to go to PMX in CA next year too.

Anything else?

Uh, I'm pretty psyched that D'espairsRay and Mucc are playing the TOC tour! Does that count? Probably going to the Long Beach date unless someone convinces me to go to San Diego instead (and will drive me--my car's in MN XD).

Oh, and 12012's new album rocks me hard. The end.

...seriously! When I popped in the disc for Dance Dance Revolution: Supernova and realized there was freakin' Fall Out Boy on it, I fell on my face...well, actually my ass and directly on the back arrow of the dance pad so the menus scrolled continuously, but no matter! Up until this release, I owned 3 out of the 4 DDR games for PS2 and the songs were all techno, techno-pop, so-up-beat-it-just-might-kill-you-Japanese-techno pop, Hip Hop, disco, and a few J-pop songs...oh and anything else with the manditory DANCEABLE beat. So how have we are we now reduced to smashing arrows into oblivion with our feet to emo music?! Someone please answer me that! Oh, and then answer as to whether or not emo kids even dance...or play DDR. Because seriously, I don't know the answer having never been to an emo concert as well as never having played video games w/ an emo kid (or done much other than confuse and annoy one for that matter). It just seems to me that dancing around like a maniac on a piece of plastic is so very much against the "OH WOE IS MEEEEEE! MUMMY AND DADDY WON'T BUY ME A NEW iPOD!!!! NO ONE UNDERSTANDS MEEEEE SO IMMA GONNA GO CUT MYSELF!" emo mentality.

Why yes, do bring on the hate if you disagree--there hasn't been a good war in this journal about how I'm not entitled to my opinion in ages. XD

Anyway, the game just goes too far out of its way to please everyone from including emo to changing the names of the difficulty setting from "beginner, light, standard, heavy, challenge" to "beginner, basic, difficult, extreme, challenge" so that no one feels bad that they're "sub-standard." XD So I guess while I used to get to say "Oh, I play standard and some of heavy mode," I can now proclaim "I PLAY DIFFICULT AND EXTEEEEEEEEEEME MODE, RAWR! FALL AT MY FEET AND WORSHIP ME, BITCHES!"...sounds needlessly impressive.

But away from my ego and back to the music issue. People need to grow up and realize that just because they like a certain type doesn't mean it should be in a dancing game (I'm not just talking about emo here: there's at least 20 songs I can't even fathom why were included). I mean truly, I wouldn't sit and listen to DDR songs for my own enjoyment, but i also know that most of the stuff I normally listen to is conducive to wild headbanging and vicious air-guitar and certainly not dancing. XD

So, yes, that was so offensive to me that I felt it merited a journal. Oh, and x-posted this pretty much everywhere that I have journal space...

OH AND WATCH OUT! A real update be a comin' once I drag my heavier-than-should-be-legal portfolio home and start scanning. That may not be until after AD07 since I couldn't just be content w/ 2 new cosplays--oh no, I felt this strange need to make Kaoru's Tsumi to Batsu costume too. I think I'll have it done minus some detail-y stuff like some of the belts on the skirt unless of course I find a way to obtain rivets and spikes cheaply in less than 2 weeks.

Oh, right. And before anyone shoots of his/her mouth about what kind of loser I must be to play DDR in first place, first consider that it is a type of workout that my asthma does not seem repulsed to the point of wheezing fits over, I can burn 500 calories or more an hour doing it, and I more than likely weigh less than you do (unless of course you are by some miracle reading this from an eating disorder unit--which is pretty much impossible anyway. In that case, you're probably the only one justified in giving me a hard time about it...lucky you and you -predicament-.)

YO!
Yes, I'm back! Did you miss me? Well, that doesn't particularly matter since I missed me! XD I stayed gone for so long for various reasons, but mainly because my life was, quite frankly, a complete mess. I can't say it's fully back to normal, but I can say that my mood is back up to it's goofy/energetic norm. XD Furthermore, I have so much energy these days, so I figured I might as well put a bit of it into here.

I'M IN UR INBOX RAPING UR DEVWATCH!
And I sort of apologize for it--meaning the recent torrent of new (or at least new to DA because some of that stuff is quite old) works. I have had a lot of digital images taken for competition and application portfolios so I figured I might as well put up some of it since most of it is far to huge to scan.

So what now? Well, I'm working on my concentration, obviously, so you can expect more of that up here. I'm also finishing stuff from last summer I never finished--a pastel drawing of テロ　from ヴィドール I started on the train one day in Japan and a marker/watercolor piece of Uruha (my computer seems to not be able to find the kanji for his name...odd) from the GazettE that I def. started on the 11+ hr flight back from Japan because I couldn't sleep, was freakishly bored, and just plain felt like drawing Uruha bearing his thighs to the whole world (eh, actually one thigh in my picture b/c he's got a skirt thing over the other...)

One more thing, expect a vector upload on January 20th...DO YOU KNOW WHAT JANUARY 20th IS? Prob. not if you're at all normal. XD

Cosplay
Except for a few details, my Osaka Jo Hall 薫 (Dir en grey) cosplay is done. Also, I made (minus the effin' fur trim) 's Tsumi to Batsu Shinya dress from hell because she's totally incompetent...KIDDING! More like b/c I'm too fucking nice for my own good and offered to do it (and much masochistic sewing fun was had!). Now all I have to do is finish the collar and get the wire frame in my "Cage" 薫 cosplay and I will have successfully pulled three costumes out of my ass this year! SUCK THAT! YARG!

That "alluring" animated gif webcam image
XD! If you can't admit (to yourself at least) that 葵 (the GazettE) doing his little hip swivel is the pretty much the greatest thing ever, then you, my friend, are quite ill. XD Or maybe just normal. Yes, so while I made that bloody gif myself at 4 am one night, the captures are taken from Gazette's "Nameless Liberty Six Guns Final" DVD and thus are copyrighted to them.

And how about that new avatar...?

Well it's just DAMN!

LMAO!

And to anyone who looked at my username and then at my avatar and was thinking of saying something to the effect of "DON'T YOU KNOW THAT'S NOT KAORU!?!?!!!111!!!??1111one!!!!11eleven" please do refrain or it's SMACK A BITCH TIME--I know it's not Kaoru . XD

Yeah, I can't take myself seriously.

Plastic wrap is for winners...
mmmhmmm....


OVER AND OUT!!

Yours hardcore-ly (sort of),

The crazy fxxking rockstar

Currently listening to: Imitation PoPs Uchuu Sentai NOIZ--Hero
Mood:rockin' out while being buried under work at the same time!
...or at least for our purposes I did. But now I'm back--no, you just can't get rid of me. Tough, eh?

So basically (in case you haven't noticed), I frequently go on hiatus unannounced and usually come back just to disappear again. I figure I should be considerate and let you know that one of these days, I probably won't come back--meaning I lost interest FINALLY and left DA. I'll never go and delete all my pieces, but I may just quit updating. Just thought you should know.

So, I guess I haven't updates since Beppu...that's really sad actually. Well, after Beppu I went to Hiroshima, Hakone, and finally Tokyo (which is possibly the best experience of my life basically...and i miss it...hardcore) and prior to Beppu I lived with a host family in Fukuoka (and attended a Japanese high school, which in itself was an interesting experience) and before that stayed in a ryokan (Japanese-style inn) in Kyoto. I've been back in the US since August. At some point I'll finish my giant write-up of my Japan adventures complete w/ photos and post it to that god-awful LJ I never update (I only really change my layout for fun and get music from communities...). The link shall be posted here so you too can enjoy/be scarred for life by my crazy trip during which I discovered that at 5'7.5" I am too tall to wear any size but a Men's large in pants at Black Peace Now, but can comfortably wear a medium at Yellow House. I guess I shoudl be happy I was able to get my Japanese fashion fix at all.

I'm back in class now and it's been quite difficult this year. Especially art. I may end up posting a lot of my art assignments just because I doubt I'll have much time to work on anything else (although I do very much wanna vector more--I'm addicted).

What else? Both of my sewing machines are rebelling so cosplay shall be difficult this year. Why yes, I got hit with the bad luck stick! XD

And is just me or does the opening to "Hero" *points above* sound like "I won't leave you alone my fetus"? I wish I could find the lyrics online b/c I really wanna confirm...t'would kick a lot of ass if those really were the lyrics.

Over and out, kiddos~!


RAWR!