Suikoden Tierkreis: Asad

Finally got some photos of me in full costume with my new armor! These were taken at Anime Expo 2012.

During post-processing, I somehow settled into this sandy gritty look so I kept that as a running theme for this set of photos.

BAM. The light just made this one for me. Love the racking focus and the clarity of my face. Man, the armor looks so great here! Makes me happy to know that my hard work really paid off.

My second cosplay portrait. I really don't like close-ups of my face but I really liked this one. Some say I look deep in thought. Others say that I just look like I'm about to pop a cap in somebody's ass.

Made this one a bit brighter. My friend Lee and I both agreed that this would make a good coscard if we crop it right. I don't think I'll ever make one though!

Ohhhh, yeah! The staging is so simple but it's still dynamic! You can see my entire costume here.

This is my second photoshoot to date. I'm hoping to get some more photos at a better location and in better weather. My wig and make-up were getting ready to slide off my face because of the heat in LA!

Honestly, I wasn't expecting the photos to turn out well at all, mainly because I'm a terrible model... Luckily, Julia was my photographer and managed to order me around well enough to get some decent photos out of me. She was even using my nitpicky camera.

Granted, all of these were post-processed by me but if the original photo isn't good to begin with, you're not getting great photos by the end! I certainly don't have a true photographer's eye but things don't look too shabby right now!

I don't have any really good shots of the front, mainly because my stomach looks absolutely horrible in most of them! Working on it D: Which is why you only to see these few photos.

Also, see what a little tweeking to your photos can do. This is the same photo as last one but just processed differently. I might use it as a banner in the future! But I dunno if I want to see my face every time I come here to update my blog. Anyway, see you next time!

Rurouni Kenshin

My first serious photoshoot. By serious, I mean that I wasn't making derp faces the entire time. I've never really modeled before this point... Not with much savvy anyway. I've cosplayed for a number of years and only began modeling now. Similarly, my photographer, Julia had never really taken pictures for cosplay until this shoot. To be honest, she never takes many pictures at all! We're both animators so we dedicate most of our time to that profession. Cosplay and cosplay photography are just hobbies for the both of us.

So we're both pretty amateur. You're not looking at any professionals here. But I think we did a pretty good job considering we had limited knowledge of what real photography is. The shoot took place at Fanime 2012. It was pretty spontaneous since we had both gotten bored walking around the con. Julia spotted some bamboo in the planters we just happened to pass. We thought, 'There's bamboo in Japan, right?!' and started taking photos. xD

I tried to do something different for each photo in terms of lighting, atmosphere, color, etc. It was a very fun experiment.

Made this one brighter and warm. I really liked my red wig contrasting with the green bamboo. Soft glowy edges. The colors make this one for me!

Definitely went for something darker. This photo was a candid take. Unfortunately it was very blurry so there is a lot of noise. I tried to go for something like an old desaturated photograph. Not quite sepia but the feeling is similar. I think this one captures the feeling of the Samurai X OVAs really well. My personal favorite.

The only real portrait I've ever taken in cosplay! It turned out so nice. This is pretty much the original take. I didn't see a need to retouch this one much. Taken near a big window while we were indoors just when the sun started setting. 

I didn't care much for this one until I started messing with the cooling filters and hard edges. Even though my face is obscured, I still like the relaxed yet alert pose I seemed to have settled into. This is another candid shot! It reminded me a lot of a cinematic thumbnail so I threw in the logo just for fun. 

Thanks for looking! Hopefully, I'll get better at modeling in future OTL 

Asad: Armor Finished

So it's been a while... I've been busy with Artist Alley but I've been working on and off on a few cosplays. The main one I've been working on is Asad from Suikoden Tierkreis. 

Gay as Christmas, isn't he? Love it. I did this costume about two years ago for Fanime but since then, it's taken enough damage to warrant a revamp. So I did!

Much of the original build was integrated into the revamp. Basically, I stripped all of the details off and just used the original base as a foundation since it was already fit and measured to my shoulders. This time, however, I made it a lot stronger with my new best friend, styrene. And this is the result!

Front:

Back: 

Naturally, I took some creative liberties when it came to the back shot. I've only ever seen a very very blurry DS screencap of the back so I was just like WHATEVER. It reminds me of the type of armor in Twilight Princess. I've never done real weathering on armor before. I think I need more practice but its not a bad start.

Chestguard and Belt... thing:

Finally with correct shaped gems. First time doing resin casting too. Thank you, Stacy, for helping this n00b. (The gems on the belt only look bigger because the chest guard is further back.) Also, thank you to Lee for teaching me how to make perfect little dots with hot glue! It's way harder than it looks...

The rest of the costume is still a work in progress but the biggest hurdle has been conquered. I'll have more to post later so please stay tuned.

Build time: ~30 hours on and off for 10 days

Questions? Comments? Leave one!
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Cosplay 2012:

Persona 3- Minato: 90%
Catherine: 80%
Asad: 90%
Korra: 5% (lol fail)
Kurama: 1% (Wig only D:)
Grace Bernelli: 5%

UGH

This is a horrible first post. Just doing some make-up tests for Miku. I don't think I'm girly enough to be her. Bunch of freaking balls.

Tutorial for Gumi make-up will be up next!