4 Months Worth of Ketchup

So you all know the drill, I’m bad at writing up blog posts to you go months without an update on here. I hope those of you interested in my projects all follow me on Instagram at this point (@mikeydoescosplay) cause that seems to be the only place I’m actually consistent…

But I’m here now and I want to share what I’ve been doing with all of you… for the past 4 months lol

First off, I’ve been to Matsuricon since last I checked in, which was awesome! I had 2 (and 1/2) new cosplays, which it’s been a very long time since I’ve done more than 1 new thing at a con, but I had the time and motivation so I made it happen!

First up is Shigure Rangetsu from Tales of Berseria! I promised my friend Trickssi I’d cosplay this for/with her… at least a few years ago at this point so I finally made it happen! I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out, the costume itself was super obnoxious to put together between the silly pleated & paneled pants with the V-crothch that the Tales of series love so much (which consequently means they don’t stay up without the belt part cause that’ not how pants work in real life) , the weird sandal things, and the wig with its random braided rat tail and giant swoopy lock in the front. Despite having a bunch of weird bits it’s actually pretty comfortable, and of course my giant Morgrim more than makes up for all the agrivation. I did discover I have no easy way of carrying anything while I’m wearing it, so my plan for next time is to build a pocket into Morgrim to stash my stuff.

I don’t have a ton of photos in this as of yet, I’d like to do an actual photoshoot with Trickssi at some point with her as Rokurou, so you can expect some… eventually. But in the meantime here’s a couple.

Here’s the group from the Tales of gathering, which is the only one I’ve seen thus far. Thanks bridgey_cos for posting it!

And of course the only photo that matters.

Second up is the other totally new cosplay I did for Matsuri, and I did primarily for my con fam because we all share a deep love for NieR Gestalt/Replicant. While this wasn’t the cosplay I was initially planning on, I’m super pumped about it cause I don’t do a whole lot of designing and I got to play with it a bit since it’s a genderbend. I wasn’t sure I liked it as I was making it, but when all of the pieces came together I fell in love.

I absolutely adore Kaine and so cosplaying her was amazing. It’s actually pretty comfy too, besides the shoes (I changed into boots after we got these shots), and the leg wrappings do tend to fall down but otherwise it’s actually pretty nice to wear. And of course as Kaine I get to run around doing stupid shit lilke this…

And the best part was having my good friend Salem there as our precious cinnamon bun, Emil.

We even found another Kaine there (not that I have any photos of us, oops)! I’m really looking forward to having the whole Wolf Pack doing NieR cosplays together <3

Last up is a not-entirely-new-but-mostly-revamped cosplay. It’s one that I made a long while ago and very much wanted to update and redesign a bit. I’m referring to Nanaki/Red XIII from FF7. With the new hype over the fact that we have an actual release date for the remake (I’ll believe it when I’m actively playing it), I figured now was the time!

This is the only full-body photo I have from Matsuri, with this amazing Aerith cosplayer, but I do have some shots so you can see all of the details. First, here’s the old look:

Great big thanks to my dear Rion for this photo.

The hoodie, shorts, and wrist-warmers are the same, though I re-dyed the shorts because I’ve worn them enough at this point that the orange was fading. The shoes are new, but I didn’t do any work there lol. The biggest differnce is the hat with the spikes, which does a better job for hearkening to Nanaki’s design, and fits the overall punk aesthetic I was going for. The tail being a belt is another new detail, different from the actual stuffed tail I had before. Lastly we have the feathers and earring, the earring mirroring his beaded locks of hair that hang to either side of his face. I wanted it to be asymmetrical, which is why the feathers are together on the one side, and there’s only one earring. I thought that would fit better with the overall aesthetic than making those details symmetrical like his original design.

That’s all the new stuff I’ve done for myself lately but I have had a number of commissions I’ve been working on recently. If you’re on instagram you’ve seen them come together, but I’ll put together another new blog post (I promise it won’t be 4 month this time…) with all of that stuff.