Off to WCS 2012

So, we haven't updated since January! Apologies for our downtime, we have been working on our costumes and going to conventions in Finland. Mostly. Though it feels like we just took part in the preliminaries few months ago, our flight for Japan leaves tomorrow. There is lots of panic going on here but we are also damn excited, and we thought it might be appropriate to let everyone know our costume choices! Not that it's last minute or anything. If you have read our blog and/or followed our Facebook page you probably already know what our costumes are, but here goes:

We wore Utena & Dios in October 2011 in CosplayGaala, and they will be our parade costumes. Heat stroke, welcome!

Luscinia & Soroush were first worn in June 2012 at Desucon, unfortunately we haven't managed to put any photoshoot material here. We'll do that hopefully later.

Aand our stage/finale costumes are Okuninushi & Raidou Kuzunoha from Devil Summoner. Something old, something new!

We'll let you know our whereabouts in Japan via Facebook, follow us there if you're interested! We'll be staying in Japan until August 14th, and I promise to update this blog after we're back in Finland and as soon as the jetlag wears off. :D See you either in a weeks or in Japan! -Maiju

Fabric shopping and performance planning

We met up yesterday for a bit of shopping and a bit of planning. Which sounds awfully lot more prodctive than it actually was.

We did manage to get some gray fabric in the perfect shade for Itch's and Bitch's uniforms and Maiju couldn't stop laughing at how masculine and fashionable my dear Bitch is. I tried very hard to figure out why Itch would be equally lame but you just can't top three shades of pink/purple and a furry epaulette. And a Farrah Fawcett haircut.

Afterwards we were supposed to get some food and plan our performance but we mostly just got food, watched a bit of Last Exile Fam, two episodes of BBC's Sherlock (which just happens to be the best goddamn TV-series ever made and if you've not seen it, you should) and coughed and sneezed a lot. We seem to have a magical talent of being sick at the same time. Or maybe we're just sick all the time, respectively.

In the end we did spend a total of 15 minutes or so actually planning our performance. And I'll probably have more ideas for it after tonight, since I'm starting iaido today and if there's even a slight possibility of doing a bit of fantastically pretty iaido-moves on stage, I'll do it. We also need magical cherry petals. Maiju has no say in this.

So yes, awfully interesting and terribly productive! I have a feeling I'm spending tonight and tomorrow re-doing some of Dios's props and on Friday we'll drive to Lahti (I promise to film all of the "Maiju missed yet another exit and is cursing like a sailor" -moments and share them with the internet) for Desucon Frostbite.

Photos and a con report (probably) next week! Have a nice life until then.

- Elina

Utena-photoshoot pt. 1

Trying to be productive, so have another update! I've been meaning to write this entry for about two months and I finally managed to kick myself up to do this.
..or I might just confess I'm just sick and there's little I can do in this condition, so I'll just post some photos.

Utena and Dios (Adolescence of Utena) are one set of our WCS-costumes (not quite sure if we'll go with press or parade, but we'll see), and we hope to have a photoshoot at Desucon Frostbite in a few weeks so that we finally manage to get some photos of both of us. It's a damn lot harder than you'd think!

These were taken at the beginning of November and there was a lot of teeth rattling and laying frozen on the ground involved due to lovely weather conditions of Finland (more moments when I truly did not love this hobby). Photos were taken by YumiKoyuki.













So there! More photos coming in a few weeks with both of us in them. I hope. :D

-Maiju

We're alive! Really!

Oh hi, do you guys still remember us?

We've no proper excuses for not updating other than being lazy (except I wrote a book and did my thesis while working a full time job and Maiju has been doing something that has to do with her studies).

To be quite honest, we've made very little progress with anything WCS-related. We do have one set of costumes finished (Maiju will be uploading photos of her movie!Utena sometime later this week) but that's about it. We're going shopping for fabrics next week so yay. Progress!

The fabrics we're shopping for will be for Itch and Bitch, the very appropriately and respectfully nicknamed characters from the new season of Last Exile.


Luscinia aka. Itch, Maiju's character


Solush aka. Bitch, Elina's very masculine and not-at-all-colour-blind character

It's less than two weeks until Desucon Frostbite, a presumably awesome con in Lahti (the very gray and boring town I grew up in!). We're going as Utena and Dios, so photos are to be expected!

So yeah. Be nice and wear a seatbelt while driving!

- Elina

Gaala tiems!

Cosplay Gaala is this coming Sunday and we are, of course, attending. Maiju as a masquerade judge and Elina as an investigative reporter (whatever that means).

We'll be gliding around as Utena (Maiju) and Dios (Elina) from the film Adolescence of Utena. We'll hopefully have time for a brief photoshoot at some point, so that we can finally have presentable pics of our team. Fingers crossed and all that.

And, as you probably guessed, we'll (most likely) be taking these costumes with us to Japan.



Design for Utena


Design for Dios


If you are in Finland (and you probably are), coming to Gaala (you totally should) and you see two incredibly attractive people who look something like, come say hi!

Who is who: Elina

Hey guys!

Introductory posts are always super awkward so let's just get this over and done with.

We're the people representing Finland (Which is a European country, right in between Sweden and Russia but not belonging to either for almost a hundred years! We're independent, dammit!) in the 2012 Cosplay World Championships also known as The World Cosplay Summit also known as WCS. The abbreviation shall henceforth be used when referring to the event.


Cu Chulainn & Okuninushi (Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner) after the WCS selection, photo by JamFoot

The geek typing this right now is me. Hi. I'm the shorter one (on the left) who, according to the official WCS blog, is looking forward to going to Japan just to eat. This is not true. I was just hungry and stunned when answering the questions. Although I do like sushi.

My name is Elina, by the way. Apparently my nick is Rimppu, which it is, but if you're not Finnish, you shouldn't even try pronouncing that. It's a name my elementary school teacher came up with and has something to do with my last name. It is also, apparently, a very common name for a horse.

On the interwebs I have been known as fokushii since 2002, which is a name my best friend came up with (it's a teenaged otaku version of my even lamer then-nick Foxie).
So I'm either a horse or a weeaboo fox. Awesome.


Rainbow Ranger in 2006, photo by *skatanic

I've been cosplaying since 2004 and my character choices can usually be described as "flamboyant", "tacky", "cheesy", "wtf" or "gay". Sometimes all of the above. Well, pretty often, actually.

I usually end up falling in love with series no one has ever even heard of and then whining loudly when no one recognizes my costumes. My life is hard, I know.

My craftmanship skills are in no way magically amazing but I love making costumes, regardless. I'm especially good with shoes. Shoes are awesome.


Willy (from Romeo x Juliet) in 2010, photo by Tomi Väisänen

For some reason I ended up hosting a masquerade in 2007 and have since been the MC at ten (or so) different events/masquerades. Nowadays I'm semi-retired and only do one gig a year. See how I made it sound like people are bombarding me with requests to come and host their masquerades? They're not. Really.

I study journalism, am currently working at a broadcasting company making online videos, spend eleven days each year watching movies at the Helsinki Film Festival, love my flesh eating cichlids (they're not really flesh eating but they try) and slightly retarded budgies (they're not retarded, they're just budgies, which is, initially, the same thing) and want a dog (a yellow lab, her name shall be Hildegård Marygold aka. Hilde).

I vlog about cosplay @ RECosplay (only in Finnish atm) and hang out @ dA & Cosplay.com

If there is something I forgot, please ask. I probably won't answer, but you can ask anyway.

Who is who: Maiju

Hello!

I'm the other half of the team representing Finland at World Cosplay Summit 2012. Self introductions might come in handy now that the preliminaries have began, so here goes! My character in our performance was Okuninushi from Shin Megami Tensei games.

Photo (C) YumiKoyuki

My name is Maiju. It's pronounced the same way you say the words "my" and "you" and put them together. Kind of. Online I mostly use my nick Majo, which is supposed to be pronounced like the Japanese name Mayo. Welcome to the world of illogical language & pronounciation of Finnish!

I've been cosplaying since 2003, and I've always loved taking part in cosplay contests. Nowadays I'm more prone to sitting behind the judges' table or being a panelist/hosting panels, but I still love competing, so I always somehow find myself signing up for cosplay contests every now and then.

Balthier (Final Fantasy XII), EuroCosplay final 2010. Photo (C) David Cooper


In 2010 I took part in EuroCosplay -finals at London MCM Expo with my Balthier from Final Fantasy XII. It was my first cosplay-centered trip aboard (and an awesome one), the next one being obviously WCS next summer of which I'm insanely thrilled.

Berserker!Paine @ Desucon, Finland 2011. Photo (C) YumiKoyuki

I love making armor/weapons/etc., props are almost always my favourite part of the costume. My sewing skills could use some work since my main focus always seems to go to sanding the armor pieces and other relevant stuff. Though I admit that I do fear for my poor lungs being exposed to massive amounts of Paperclay dust. One healthy hobby this is.

Most of the characters I cosplay tend to be from video games, but this year I hope to finish at least 2 costumes which are actually from anime. We'll see how long my resolve lasts.

I'm a 5th year student in art education and I have also qualification in crafts education, or will have one day when I finally graduate. Hopefully soon. Aside from cosplay my hobbies are videogames, going to hiphop dance classes and fooling around with my dog Halla, who is a Finnish Lapphund. I'm a huge Star Wars-nerd and I love pretty much everything Range Murata has laid his hands on.

I have more or less active cosplay blog called Serious Business (do notice the sarcasm) which, unfortunately, is only in Finnish at the time. Lots of nifty photos there though! Most of my photoshoot material goes either to my deviantArt or Cosplay.com, of which the former is the more active one.

And that's about that. Hopefully lots of active WCS-related blogging ahead!