Wai-con 2010

[rallamajoop]

Wai-con was the weekend before last. (Today's post brought to you by the experience of receiving a rent inspection notice three days after the con and realising a) you are not getting anything but cleaning done until next week, and b) you should just thank your lucky stars it didn't happen last week. House looks much neater now though ;)

I'm hitting the point with Wai-cons where the majority of what I have to say about them starts to get a bit repetitive* – we came, we saw, we cosplayed, we sold lots of stuff, we won prizes, we (mostly) failed to melt in the heat**, we took photos, we caught up with friends*** – we basically had an awesome time.

*A few more, and pointing out the repetition is going to be a bit repetitive - oooh, recursion!
**Thank god we brought a standing fan to stick behind the stall this year. I'm all for having the con in January rather than December, but the weather is not on our side this time of year, and Ky has this real neck-to-ankle thing going on that is not well compatible with the heat.
***Sometimes in something of a drive-through fashion as people rushed past in opposite directions. Cons, they keep you busy.

So let's get straight down to the photos.

For Saturday, velithya and I were cosplaying Overture Sol and Ky.





Yeah, that there costume would be the main reason I haven’t posted any new fic since December. >.>;

A few quick construction notes: So I have a new top contender for 'most difficult costume I've ever made'. I have developed a new appreciation for the many uses of iron-on interfacing and vinyl printing, and only slightly less loathing of clay-work. Technically there are a couple of details still incomplete - I didn’t have time to do the design on the back of the cape and had to recycle the boots from my other Ky costume, but I’ll probably try to get them done for photoshoot purposes later in the year. We both opted to stick with the Fuuenken and Fuuraiken rather than the ‘proper’ Overture weapons – partially due to time constraints (the Fuuraiken was mostly finished months ago), partially due to apathy (‘eh, we like the GGX weapons better anyway’), and partially because it was an excuse to finally get a Fuuenken made for velithya - something we achieved, start to finish, in the space of something like 14 hours of work in the weekend before the con. Given that weapons usually take me weeks, if not months, I am inordinately pleased we pulled it off. :3

In the weirdest stroke of luck of all 2009, I actually managed to track down the exact font used for the text on Ky’s costume. It’s called yawnovision - very regal-sounding and all that. Scan from the artbook for comparison.

Thanks are also owed to pinneagig for vectorising the designs for the vinyl printing for me, and to cielrose for wig-styling. <3

Costumes went down well on the day, which is to say WE WON BEST GROUP! :3

pinneagig's (my sister/housemate/general partner-in-crime, though not in cosplay this year) big cosplay project for this year was Lina Inverse:



I need to point at those big shoulder pauldrons and mention that she 1) has never done any serious armour/sheet plastic work before, and 2) thanks to a supplier error, was working with 1mm sheet plastic instead of the usual .5mm kind which is far more cooperative when being asked to bend into difficult shapes. She can actually do a disturbingly good Naga-laugh, but there was no way she was doing that costume, so settled for doing a (in my only-slightly-biased opinion) a very nice rendition of the Slayers first-season opening theme up on stage.

She took out the Craftmanship Award that day, and I would call it very well deserved too.

The final highlight of the day was getting to catch up with ayyu - an A.B.A. cosplayer I met at the Wai-con ball earlier in the year. Around the end of the day (when things had calmed down, and the weather was no longer trying to melt us where we stood), we all nipped outside to take some photos.



The hilarious part about all this is that last year, if you remember, my group consisted of velithya as Sol, me as a blonde with a white and blue outfit, and an A.B.A. cosplayer (then jaseroque, who has since moved to Japan):



This year?




What are the odds, huh? ;)

ayyu's Paracelsus was unfortunately broken earlier during the con, but we figured, well, hey, let's take a couple of shots of a battle going badly wrong for poor A.B.A.





I have this weird fondness for a lot of the random, unposed shots we took that day (also: figuring out how to pose the key, remembering glasses, etc). Trying to keep the post from getting too photo heavy here though.


Because we were a safe distance from the con and its irritatingly rigid PG-13 policy, it was high time for some Sol/Ky shots:



This is my favourite. I still have a bunch left to edit, but will be saving those for a solxky post, hopefully in the very near future.


The big highlight that was new and different this year was the Eminence concert on Saturday night – and I really didn't realise just how much I was going to love the performance until we were were there. The evening started with the My Neighbour Totoro theme and ended with Super Mario - just to give you an idea of the range, and honestly, everything they played in between was gorgeous. But there's an extra layer of fannish squee to hearing songs you know – and an extra double-layer on top of that when it's connected to a movie or a game you love, so the high point of the night for me was The Dream That Time Dreams from Chrono Cross. I'm not much of a CC fan, but Chrono Trigger was the first real RPG I ever played and will probably always be one of my all time favourites, and what I'd forgotten about that particular piece is that it's actually a remix of the Chrono Trigger theme, extended with some beautiful orchestral segments. *_* It's a crying shame none of the CDs for sale after the event (and we bought *two*) had their rendition of that particular song. We have the in-game mp3 of it, but it doesn't begin to measure up.


For Sunday I was recyling my other Ky costume from Smash:



Photo by amenokitarou (<3) who was cosplaying Sora that day – and given that I still had this crack idea for a GG/KH crossover that never went anywhere, I could not resist dragging him outside to snap a few shots of Ky and Sora together.





Various bad jokes were made about what their hypothetical combo move would have been called.

It isn't until I saw these pics afterwards that it dawned on me just how ridiculously not-to-scale we are there. XD; I am sadly a little short to make a really good Ky. Maybe we can claim there was some kind of Wonderland incident?

A couple semi-posed shots I couldn't resist: reminding amenokitarou he'd forgotten he still had a '!!1!' speech-bubble-on-a-stick in his hair (bought at the con from a neat little stall that was also doing great sales in the fake moustache business). Maybe he was just surprised to see me?

Meanwhile, velithya was cosplaying my first ever anime crush Trunks from Dragonball – and as I discovered to general amusement a couple of years ago, Ky and Trunks just happen to have the same voice actor. So I had to get a couple of pics of them together too.




Polite pretty boys with swords and a weird habit of scrawling 'HOPE' on things (like, say, belt buckles and time machines) and saving the world in their teen years. Possibly Takeshi Kusao has been slightly typecast?

Didn't take any prizes that day, but considering that I was recyling the previous day's prop (and boots), I cannot really complain. ^^;

pinneagig's Sunday costume was Dissidia!Tifa. The informed among you will spot the problem with this – there is no Tifa in Dissidia, but pinneagig didn't have any particular plans for that day, and she enjoyed the hell out of the game and had heard there'd be a Dissidia group around on Sunday. So she pulled out her old FFVII Tifa costume, had a look at her original Amano art, added some random strips of torn fabric and a lot of extra beads and dangly things and came up with this:



Managed to get a couple of snaps of her with the Squall (cielrose) and Terra (clamwings) from the group too.



One last photo: I am not quite sure how I got into the situation below, but it was about that time of the con.



(also featuring drayke_ as Link)

So that was about it for Waicon 2010. As always, we owe a lot of gratitude to everyone who helped mind our table during the day, especially Ken and velithya.

We have lots of bit photoshoot plans for these costumes. Going to wait until the weather's cooled down a bit though, 35+ degree heat is not good cosplay weather.

Comments

[velithya]

FIRST COMMENT?!

edit: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I LOVE ALL OF THESE PHOTOS POSSIBLY IN INAPPROPRIATE WAYS BUT I LOVE THE DIP IN PARTICULAR SO VERY MUCH

also I need one billion new Trunks cosplay icons Y/Y

also: solxky post YAY YAY YAY

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

AMAZING HOW YOU PULLED THAT OFF ON MY LOW-TRAFFIC JOURNAL AFTER BEING TOLD VIA CHAT EXACTLY WHEN THE POST WENT UP.

(<3)

also I need one billion new Trunks cosplay icons Y/Y

Just how many icon slots do you have? Going to use the powering-up shot, or will that not shrink down very well?

also: solxky post YAY YAY YAY

I THINK IT MAY BE PAST YOUR BEDTIME. (Will get to it as soon as I get the chance, promise. ^^;)

[velithya]

WELL YOU KNOW, YOU ARE KIND OF POPULAR (are you crosslinking this to guiltygear or just gonna do the solxky one?)

Well, really that should have said "also I need one billion new Trunks and Order Sol cosplay icons Y/Y" I guess! Because I like cosplay icons :3

Just how many icon slots do you have?

<.< uhhhhhhhhh lots? ^^;; I currently have uploaded 127/200. Plenty of room left!

I can try and see how the powering-up shot looks, it might not shrink that well. WE SHALL SEEE :D

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN PAST MY BEDTIME <.< Let me know when that one is going up as well so I can pin it to get comments sent to me as well <.<

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

<.< I think you're confusing me with someone else. Possibly from a bigger fandom. ^^; (I don't know, I still have to do a proper post there of all our pics from the photoshoot last year. Will get around to it eventually, I guess?)

Because I like cosplay icons :3

Orly? I had not even noticed! :P

Let me know when that one is going up as well so I can pin it to get comments sent to me as well <.<

Heh, will do. Probably not going to be for a few days at least though - last minute cleaning to be done tonight. (Though I'm fairly sure the estate agents still don't have a key for this place, so how they think they're going to get in is anyone's guess.)

[velithya]

WELL I THINK SO ANYWAY <.< Yeah the solxky post is more important IMO ;)

:3 I feel that having more than a quarter of your total icon space as cosplay icons means that you also share in the liking of cosplay icons :D

SO LAST NIGHT

WHEN WE WERE MEANT TO BE CLEANING

SOME IDIOT WORKMEN CUT THROUGH A CABLE DOWN THE ROAD

AND WE HAD NO POWER FROM SOMETHING LIKE 2PM UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT

AFTER MIDNIGHT

LSDBGHSDG so tired today -_-

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

XD So at least I'm popular with *you*?

:3 I feel that having more than a quarter of your total icon space as cosplay icons means that you also share in the liking of cosplay icons :D

Well, to be fair, a lot of them are Joshua icons, and so many of them getting uploaded at once was entirely cielrose's fault for just happening to be around to talk me into it at the time.

...holy shit. And I'm guessing there was still some vacuuming/power requiring-type-stuff to do, huh? At least we were mostly done by the evening, but doing the final tidy up without light would not have really worked. -_-

[velithya]

IN MY PANTSHEART

Yeah vacuuming was done after power came back on hurrr

and/or first thing this morning, idek

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

The inspection went okay at least, I hope? (We got a 'satisfactory', and a reminder to take better care of the garden, which we really can't argue with.)

[velithya]

Chas didn't mention there was anything of note, so I am assuming there was no major problems

[wendylizana.livejournal.com]

sorry for the spam. ;_; here my gift
http://community.livejournal.com/wtfproject/330.html

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused by this comment. I realise English isn't your first language, but I can't figure out the purpose of the community you linked me to, and I'm not clear on what you're apologising for or what you mean by 'gift'. It's also generally considered polite to ask before reposting other people's photos - especially if you're hotlinking their pictures.

[gonsai.livejournal.com]

I don't see a post in awhile and suddenly PHOTOS

Love the Overture costumes. And fuck their in-game swords, man, those things are the impracticalest.

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

Also photos that should do a decent job of demonstrating why I haven't posted in a while. ^^; No matter how organised I try to be, I never manage to finish more than a couple of days before the con.

Thanks! Lot of trouble getting them done, but we were really pleased with how they came out in the end.

And fuck their in-game swords, man, those things are the impracticalest.

Eh, what would GG be if the weapons were practical? Certainly more trouble than we could be bothered with, though amenokitarou has actually made both at various points - don't have any photos, unfortunately.

[janegray.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you had fun :)

Your costumes look amazing :D Ky's Overure outfit looks slightly less Pretty Princessy when the skirt is pulled down by RL gravity ;P

And your sister makes a really cool Lina :)

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

Wai-con's always good value. ^_^ Stressful in the lead-up, but always worth it once you're there.

Thank you! In the strictest sense of accuracy, I should probably have made the skirt a bit fluffier actually.

*g* I shall pass that on.

[velithya]

Just wear a tulle petticoat underneath

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

I could try it on with the one I bought for the ball sometime. ;)

[velithya]

I demand photos of this

[chisathechi.livejournal.com]

Wahhhh so many cool photos! Damn you guys did a good job, you look incredible!

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

Only a small fraction of how many we actually took though! It can be really hard to pick which ones to post sometimes naturally the ones that don't make us look incredible don't get posted =P. We were really pleased with the reactions they got though. :3 Wish you could've been there to see them in person.

[chisathechi.livejournal.com]

Argh I wish I was there too, but from next year I will be!

[(Anonymous)]

Very good post..