Cons: Sakuracon 2003, Sakuracon 2004
Pictures: Yes! See end of post.
I started watching Full Moon wo Sagashite the spring/summer of 2002 when the anime came out in Japan. My best friend Robin and I would watch it and giggle. Arina Tanemura! This was my first introduction to her as an artist, and I LOVED her costumes--Especially Meroko's. I'm not always the girliest of girls but a bunny girl with red and ruffles and a top hat AND wings?
Sign me UP.
Meroko's anime costume looks like this:
(I chose the anime because I thought it translated better to real life and my body type.)
Adorable, no? I thought it would be fairly easy for my friend who could sew to construct, and I could concentrate on the wings and hat and making THAT work.
I was kind of new at this thing.
The top hat started out black and came from ebay. I bought the bunny ears during easter, sliced off the head-band, and hot glued them to the hat. I actually still have this hat, although the ears are pretty wilted by now. But that hat?
Oooh boy, I'm wearing that hat for the apocalypse.
To turn the hat red--and I don't reccamend this at all--I took acryllic paint and just went to town. Coat after coat, bottle after bottle, I painted and waited and dried and repeated. And now? You can knock on it and have oit make a satisfying noise. Terrifying. But effective.
As for the hair...wigs squicked me out at the time, and my hair WAS long enough, so I opted to just wear it down and go with it. I think it worked for the color combinations, I've always been kind of leery of the combination of red-and-pink in terms of clothes and hair...but now I'm kinda sorry I didn't--because I LOVE pink hair. But that's a topic for an entry down the line.
I got the lace trim from Wal-mart, because I saw it there and it was PERFECT--white and shiny just a little crinkly for texture. It went well with the crepe satin I got for the red parts of the outft.
I know, I know--shiny satin is SOOOO tweenage amatuer bad choice fabric. But for this costume it seemed....fitting. I did make sure not to get just CHEAP satin or plain dress satin, I got something with-again-a bit of texture. I loved the way it turned out.
Now, remember when I talked about the sewing portion being easy? That was a lie, a bad bad lie. I had the idea to make a bra-base and sew the the red satin to it, but apparently trying to get that to work and stretch was hell on earth. (Don't try and sew stretch to not stretch and then expect it to stretch, I've learned...at least, not unless you're very VERY good.)
So at about 10pm the night before the convention my friend who sews comes in and says, 'I'm done. It's not happening.' And hell, she's doing this because I asked real nice, right?
So I say, "Fine, good, get some sleep or something." And I break out the two most important tools in my cosplay arsenal.
Know them, love them: hot glue and hope.
I'm still a skinny girl at this point, right? mostly. So I got glue elastic to satin, lace to satin, anything and everything to something else. This costume really WAS held together by hot glue, to the point where I'm less ashamed than I am ruefully impressed with what I accomplished. Around midnight I pulled the whole thing together--including my extremely stylish elastic-band-and-staple garter belt for the thigh highs--and put it on for the first time.
It worked, it was wonderful. And I swore to never cut it that close time-wise again. And I'm succeeded. How many cosplayers can say that!
At the conventions...Meroko was very well received, although I always got asked why I didn't have Takuto (Meroko's partner and love interest) with me! I hate that question! If he's not there, there's a reason! Way to rub it in. ~_~ But ANYWAYS.....the other thing about the costume was the....well, the amount of skin, really. I never wear strapless things, and I'll wear things for conventions that I'd never wear normally--and a tube top and mini skirt is the least I've ever worn, and probably ever will.
I got ogled.
A lot.
...and it made me kinda nervous.
Which is silly, isn't it? I chose to wear the stupid thing, getting dressed up like a big red lacy dessert and getting weirded out for getting looked at? I dug my own grave. But it still squicked me out, and I took Meroko off by Friday afternoon in 2003 just to get a break from it all.
I entered the costume contest that year too, which was silly in retrospect because there were much, much more complicated costumes out there but I can say I've done it now, which is something. It took almost all of my Saturday but I really enjoyed the people I was in line with, everyone was awesome and it was a positive group experience. But I still won't do it again--I like my saturdays!
Okay, I've rambled on enough about this costume. I loved it, and I felt I owned it more than I had Tohru because of all the work that went into it. I figured that for the following year I should pick something more props-oriented, since that was my area of expertise and I felt bad for making my friend sew all my costumes.
It sounded like a good idea at the time.
Moment of Win:
There's a guy who goes to every Sakuracon. I think his name is Chris. On Friday he was briefly crossplaying as a Ganguro girl and he hunted me down and together we clasped hands and kicked up a leg and giggled for the camera. Priceless. I'd do anything to get that picture.
Pictures:
