Anime Review: GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class

GA is a started off as a 4 panel comic strip about students in an Art school.  They've translated it into an anime of just mini stories of their simple adventures of learning about art.  The style is much like Lucky Star in which you can jump in and out at any moment and it gives you a little smile on the cuteness.

Besides the cuteness, what I like about the show is that you can actually learn a lot about art.  They throw in tons of little art tidbits as you watch the students learn and practice art in their courses.  They learn -> Audience learns.

On the first episode alone I learned about

- Pictogram vs an Monogram

- Paints that Blend rather than Layer

- How to make Eraser Puddy

2012 Aki Con

Quick Posting about my observations of Cosplay and Con of AkiCon 2012

Welcome to AkiCon, Anime convention in Bellevue WA, this year on Halloween weekend.

Final Fantasy, look at the details

Panty and Stocking. I can't imagine wearing that much body paint.  

Ok this was disturbing.  Artist Alley was in the garage.  A leaky garage.  I just wanted to cry at the thought that an artist at any time could get their merchandise ruined.

Shiro Lolita, oddly I really like the parking lot background to this photo, it provides such a contrast.

Pocky Stacking Competition, fun!

K, I don't know who they are, but their colour pallet really stands out and their outfits are really fascinating.  Although based on what they are holding, I'm wondering if they are Pokemon trainers

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Lorax, LOL

Sailor Moon Cut out.  Instant Cosplay pictures?

Nyan Cat

Kingdom Hearts - Christmas Theme?

Dr. Slump, such a cutie

One thing I do like about Aki Con is the backdrop room in which you can take pictures with lots of themed backdrops.  They say due to crowd controls, these are really hard to put on in larger cons.

Such elegant outfits.  with those elegant snacks of hot dogs and Nacho Cheese.

Trophies for the competitions.  I love the pumpkins for Halloween.

Brave, Dea Star booth in Artist Alley

Crossplay is always fun.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica, her pose and expression are precise.  I just want rifles to fall out of her skirt now.

Some cosplay props made available to anyone to play with

Halloween Creepiness can be found

Xmen, I love her outfit

Batman, very well done

Pumpkin patch of different animes. 

Vocaloid, first time I've seen a plush version of the headphones

Hobbits!

Cosplay Prop - Vanilla's Spoon

I absolutely love the anime series Yumeiro Patissiere. It's about Baking desserts, what's not to love about that? (I'm a total foodie).

So this is Vanilla, the main fairy the helps the student out as she learned.  I made the outfit, wings, and spoon prop. 

I found this foam piping  (super flexable) material in the hardware store.  Honesty I dont know what it's suppose to be used for, but that's the magic of aim lessly wandering and finding wonderful material.

I made the M logo of the spoon with sparkle craft foam and coloring the foam pipping with a black marker.

I created a harder back surface for the spoon handle end using the thicker presentation form boards.

Remember using the Iron for the Chi ears?  Well using that technique again.  I'm ironing this foam to help form it into the spoon base.

Need to hold it in it's shape as it cools

Now for the gold coloUring, via spray paint.

I love using old shower curtains.  It can be bunched up so you can get to areas like the underside.

Attach everything to a wooden dowel for a handle and vola.  Now I just need to know how to fly away.

Fleece Cosplay Dragon Ball Z Gohan

I've talked about this before, but I wanted to bring you another example of why using fleece for cosplays are so great.

Fleeze is stretchy and smooshable so making a ball is much easier than traditional fabrics, because if you make a mistake, enough tugging out or smooshing inwards will help get you to the desired shape.

Because fleece is light, you can def add full supture pieces to the top of the hat without worrying about it being too heavy. 

This kid is a child of an old classmate, I didn't have him around to try test the outfits while I was making, so his parents sent me a ton of measurements.  But just in case, using fleece means it can strech a bit if the outfit is too small.  ~cough~ ok i made the shirt too short, I asked them to pull to stretch it out, dont oonw how much you can stretch before it gets a little crazy.

Anyways with the fleece I didn't need to worry about cutting the edges and it fraying, so I was able to cut out the chinese symboles and use a zigzag stitch on it to sew the pattern on.  If you go over the sewn lines a few times with the zig zag it creates this very smooth pipping look. 

The tail would look a lot more awesome if it could be shaped.  ok that's easy, let's put some wire in it.  But But But how do you wash the outfit if there's bendable wire in it?  Put the tail on with a button!  LOL ok so maybe it distracts the person and shows that this is indeed a costume instead of a real tail, but I thought it was a really cute idea.  And besides isn't it any mother's dream to be able to wash a child's outfit simply without having to destroy it?

Cosplay Rozen Maiden Suigintou - Tips and Tricks

There are two approaches to making cosplay.
1) Real clothing.  It is worn like all the clothes in your closet.  It's lined, it breaths, it's comfortable and fits correctly.
2) Fake it.  For those who have less skills/time/budget the outer shell of the outfit just needs to look right.  The inside could be duct taped together, sewing lines are painted on, etc.

Today I'm here to show you some shortcuts I used in creating my Suigitou cosplay. 

Instead of wearing a shirt under my skirt I simply made a mock front piece which stays in place by using stetch elastic on the top to told it above my chest, and another stretch elastic to go around my waist. 

Instead of creating a choker necklace with the same fabric and trim as the coat, why not sew it right onto the jacket similar to a collar.  This helps prevent it from twisting and turning, which happens a lot when you move around.  This keeps the front bow centered always, and you never lose the small jewelry piece.

Back to the shirt worn under the jacket.  Like the front piece, let's fake the sleeves.  I created sleeves that stick out from the opening of the jacket arm sleeves.  What's great about this is instead of creating a full shirt sleeve, you have none of the bulkiness that comes with the extra fabric, and my arm continues to look smooth and slender.

Here's an example of the top as you can see, without knowing you would never have known that my inside shirt wasnt a shirt at all.

There are black roses on her boots, and I tried to hot glue the flowers on, but the vinyl surface just wouldn't stay place.  I was hesitatant to even do any gluing as it would end up ruining a perfectly good boot.  I found that I use stretch elastic for the roses and wearing much as one wears a stretch elastic bracelet.  Because all the colours are black, no one really notices the stretch elastic on the outside of the boot.  And even if they did, they dont know it's not actually part of the design.

Yay, photos in the snow.