The Pure-Hearted One

Hey guys, it's time for another Throwbacck Thursday and I wanted to show off one of the few costumes I've made for the most important man in my life. Gosh I'm no that vain, come on; I'm talking about my husband!

Jordan is just as big a nerd as I am, he's just not much of a cosplayer. He doesn't like making stuff the way I do but he does enjoy wearing the things I make for him! We've only done a couple of pairs together, but we're planning more for the future. The very first set of cosplays we did together were from one of our shared loves, Ni No Kuni (it seemed particularly relevant given that Ni No Kuni 2 is coming out in a couple of months). I am of course referring to Oliver and Shadar. It's funny that we cosplayed Soul Mates... although that has a very different meaning in the context of this game.

TBH, I had way more fun making Oliver for Jordan than I did making Shadar for myself. I'm guessing most of that is because of all the fun details I got to make. The costume itself is pretty simple. White shorts, blue tunic, red cape, and some belts doesn't exactly make for a particularly impressive costume.

So that's where all of the props came in. The two most important, in my opinion, are the wand and the Wizard's Companion (Oliver's spellbook). I decided to go with Mornstar for his wand, because it is the most story-relevant wand in the game, and it's design is a lot more interesting than Oliver's first few wands.
The gems at the top are actually translucent so they look really cool when the light catches them the right way. And the handle is actually half of a karate staff because I wanted it to taper the way it's supposed to!

Looks like Oliver got a gold glim!

One of the coolest aspects of the game was your ability to leaf through the wizard's companion in-game. The illustrations are beautifully designed and the book is full of awesome mythology, info about the different regions and familiars, and other helpful things to use throughout the game. For those who pre-ordered the game, it actually came with a copy of the Wizard's Companion. Sadly we didn't get that edition and after looking for a copy online (which would have cost around $300 at the time, you can't even find them now!) I decided to try making one myself! Fortunately for me, I'm not the first person to do it, PrimeJunt on Reddit apparently didn't get the copy with the game and made one for themselves! You can see the methodology here, which I followed to create my own. 

With the two major endeavors done, my thirst for as much detail as possible was not yet quenched, so I decided Jordan needed a creature cage and a locket to complete the costume. Of course the cage needed a familiar in it so I made a little Mite out of sculpey. Sadly his sword broke but otherwise he's intact.... and adorable!

The coolest part about the locket is that it's more than just the locket. I actually made tiny sculpey versions of all the different Pieces of Heart and attached them with a chain to the cork so when you pull the top off of the locket you can see all of them.

Like I said, I had a ton of fun making all of the props for this costume and it remains one of my favorites, even though I didn't even make it for myself! I mean, that doesn't stop me from wearing it every once in a while since it fits me just fine and Jordan usually only goes to one con a year.

Selfie!Con

Hey everyone!
Just got back from an awesome weekend at Matsuricon! As usual I'm not great at remembering to have people get photos of me in cosplay, but I did happen to constantly get selfies with people so yay for that!
 

Friday

I went down in Sothe, since I haven't worn him in a long time, and a friend of mine who does every version of Sothe ever was coming! So we decided to do PoR & RD Sothes together and it was glorious!

We went to the FE photoshoot and the person running the shoot didn't know who we were so we almost didn't get a Tellius series shot. Oops. But we did have a third, and made a Green-Haired Trifecta with Stefan!

After the shoot it was time to put my dance shoes and my fancy pants on because the wonderful Trickssi was running the formal ball and doing lessons beforehand, and I was not about to miss out on any of that.

So my fellow Sothe and I stopped being the same person and transformed into these winners!

God bless her for taking selfies with me otherwise I'd have no photos of my own cosplays from this weekend XD

Despite the lack of useful equipment prvided by the con for the lessons, we still had a lot of fun and learned to waltz, rumba, tango, swing, and salsa! I got some practice as a follow, which is always nice, and got to dance with some awesome folks. There was even a guy who asked for extra swing lessons afterwards when he learned that I was semi-competent at that one, so when we were at the actual ball he would come over every time a swing number came up and learn some new moves! Sadly I am not nearly as good a teacher as Trickssi so it was an interesting challenge, but we had a lot of fun! Also, my feet wanted to die.

After the formal I managed to meet up with my Wolf Pack at last since everyone was finally there by that point. We hung out for a while but everyone was tired so we we're up as late as we could have been.

Saturday

My only actual plans on Saturday were to go to the Destiny shoot in the afternoon, but I knew I didn't want to be in the Speaker all day so I went over in the morning in Oliver.

He's simple and comfy so it was a nice choice for the morning. I'm pretty sure only one person recognized me outside of my group of friends, but I'm totally fine with that since I know it's not a super widely-known game.

Once it hit early afternoon it was time to change into the Speaker and head to the Destiny shoot. The shoot was awesome, and sadly I don't have any photos to share at the moment because I didn't take any.... and let's be honest they all would have been terrible because I can't see anything directly in front of me when I'm in the Speaker. I do, however have another selfie with Genki that is the only documentation I possess that I actually wore him at all.

The shoot was great though, even though there were only a few of us. I got to make friends with Foundry 13 and Otherworld Cosplay, who were there as a titan and off-duty warlock, respectively. All three of us are planning on doing more Destiny cosplay, particularly with D2 coming out in a little over a week, and I'm hoping I get a chance to play with them at some point because they were both super chill and fun to hang out with. I know I definitely want to make my own warlock at some point, and if I have as much fun playing D2 as I did the original, I know I'm going to maintain that interest. And besides, the designs are so awesome it definitely tickles my creative juices too.
Another bonus was that we had one of the staff photographers running the shoot, so we should have some really nice photos and they should be up on Matsuri's website! I'll be sure to clue you guys in when I see those.

I bummed around the convention for a while longer in the Speaker, hoping there would be a few other people who wanted photos, which there were... along with a lot of questions about what the heck I was doing when the Cabal took over XD

Finally I had enough of being blind and having to walk like a princess, and changed into Penny. Unfortunately the Destiny & RWBY shoots were back to back so I didn't make it, but I did run into an adorable Velvet on my way back over to the con floor.

I spent the rest of the night hanging out and laughing my ass off with my wolf pack, AROOOO!

Sunday

Sunday was my usual waking up way too early because my body doesn't understand what it means to sleep pat 6am, so I loaded up my car, ate some free breakfast, put on some yellow shorts, and wandered over to the con center as Banjo & Kazooie.

The con center was a ghost town at that point so I just chilled and played pokemon for a while, but I ran into a few folks I knew before long and everyone seemed to be back together a lot earlier than I was expecting. We wandered around for a while, I found an artist with a full set of Team CFVY buttons (ok, my friend found them first but whatever) and bought some gorgeous Persona 5 prints from an artist I already have some prints from. Then, it was time for Mikey to go home to his boys. After the not-too-long-but-plenty-long-enough drive, there was much rejoicing, and many snuggles.

And that was that! I didn't really take many photos, although there were plenty of great cosplayers about.

And as most of you know at this point, my next big event is my Harry Potter weekend at the beginning of October, so I'll be making a ton of stuff for that. I may or may not be posting super regularly here this month, but I will definitely be taking photos of all the stuff I'm creating and will be sure to share.
Until next time <3

Arooooooooo

Well Matsuricon was this weekend, along with a Steampunk Soiree up at the Massillon Museum so needless to say I've been running/driving around Ohio like a madman for the past two days. It was totally worth it though, because I won't be able to satisfy my con fix again until Ohayo next year D-:

The definitely highlight of the weekend was spending most of Friday with my pack from Wolf's Rain. We even had one more that we were anticipating with was amazing! I wish that happened more often cause now we have new con friend! 

Obligatory pack selfie

Thanks to me being the tallest/having the longest arms in the group, I have the selfie we took, but sadly don't have too many other photos on my phone as Kiba has the better camera and consequently has most of the photos. Thankfully a few are already on facebook so I'll share those ones, and I'm sure you'll be seeing more in the next few days.

Those last 3 photos were all courtesy of WOLF Cosplay. We also have some goofy ones that I can't wait to see, and possibly a video that caused a passerby to do a double take as we were filming it so I'm excited to see some more of her stuff from this photoshoot!

Saturday I took Oliver from Ni No Kuni, since he's a pretty easy cosplay to get into & out of and I love all of the props I made for it and so of course I wanted to show them off! Which of course the only photos I have are of the props, cause of courseI didn't get any of myself when I was wearing Oliver since I'm a goofball who forgot to ask anyone to get a picture of me with my phone... *facepalm* But anyway, you can check out the cool props at least XD

I will admit, I did some of my best personal prop work on my Ni No Kuni stuff.

And that's pretty much it for my cosplay this weekend. My phone was constantly dying so I didn't take a ton of photos in an attempt to conserve battery life, but here are the few that I did.

This awesome Borderlands cosplayer is the beautiful and talented Drop Dead Meg