My sketch paper with the measures scribbled on it by le teacher. (psst, I know that the vest is inaccurate)

Cellphone photo of fabric cutting (yellow is the prototype). The colors are raped, lol.

School's serger. Always hella convenient!

I had time to go through all the cut out pieces so far with the serger and OH LORD I'VE FOUND MY NEW NEMESIS WHEN IT COMES TO SERGING – IT'S CALLED DOING CURVES!! ( >д<) It's 99% impossible to do some curves and sharp angles and having the serger actually catching and sealing the edges without the automatic cutter (that moves when you sew, in case someone is not familiar with sergers) taking a big bite from places where you really don't want it to cut. Even my teacher (who's a sewing artesan) said it's impossible to do some curves so yeah, there seemingly is no magic trick that I simply have not been told about...

As some of you might remember I've mentioned cosplaying Rentarou Satomi from Black Bullet for a while ago. The thing is that I actually already have the whole outfit completed and my original plans was to debut him already last summer but yeah, I chose not to debut him back then because I was missing the gun. The gun is such an important part that I didn't feel okay going without it and well, I'm horrible at coming up with poses to do without a prop anyway. xD And besides, the series is not called Black Bullet for no reason – aka going without his trusty weapon felt pretty much the same as going without pants, lol.

Rentarou reference.

Rentarou Satomi uses a Springfield Armory XD as his primary gun and in the series he says that it's just "a normal gun". Well, it might not be completely normal in the series either but I tell you that it's a fucking nightmare to find one for cosplay purposes!! I've spent over half a year, on and off, searching for something suitable and oh lord is it stupidly hard to come by. I've plowed through eBay multiple times with no results, I've checked all airsoft online shops that I know of (within Europe) and I've even checked toy stores for toy guns both online and in real life. 

My original plan was to buy an airsoft replica of a close-enough gun, but the more I thought about it the more I didn't feel like spending 1500 SEK on a prop, for a cosplay that I likely won't use all that much – just not worth it. It would have been different if I had been an airsoft player too but sadly I'm not, although I do have an interest in trying it at least. Oh and for those curious the guns I were eyeing for Rentarou were either this one or this; I know that they are not 100% accurate but they were the closest I could find. (note: Swedish store. Those were the only Springfield Armory guns they carried)

Rentarou's gun reference.

After deciding that even though an airsoft replica would have been the most ideal choice it was by far out of what I was willing to pay for a single prop. My next choice was to check for a similar toy gun online and oh lord I won't even tell how many online stores I went through without finding anything even remotely similar; at some point I thought that it would be okay if I could at least find a damn glock but even that was seemingly too much to ask for. I don't know what's up with the miniscule amount of toy guns (you pretty much only find revolvers, cowboy guns and some smaller-than-real-deal pistols or shot guns, if lucky) currently on the market but I guess it has something to do with the heated debates about if it's morally right for children to play with toy guns. I do have my opinions about that but I won't open up my wordy chest about it here because that's not the purpose of this post and yeah, I could easily do a whole blog post about it. xD 
Feel free to skip until the next block of text but yeah, for those really curious I can say that I support kids playing with toy guns and that's mainly because I see nothing wrong with it – kids don't think about death etc the same way adults do. I remember as a kid I'd play war with my best childhood friend during school breaks and we made pretend guns with our fingers and yeah, when we shot each other we just pretended to fall down, counted to 10 and then we could continue playing again. It was never violent or unfair in any way, just fun and a way to up our reaction speeds and imagination. So yeah, even though I played that kind of games as a kid I grew up to be a normal adult who knows what's wrong and right. Playing with toy guns doesn't make you a murderer or whatever and especially not if you otherwise had a good upbringing; I'm sure parenting and environment plays a bigger role than what toys you had when young. That's all for this quickie opinion. :)

Because I couldn't find any toy guns neither online or in physical toy stores I gave up on finding a gun for a while and just put this costume on ice. I even tried to find some damaged second-hand or otherwise non-functional airsoft guns on auction sites that I could use because yeah, I just needed it for looks and not for use; I found some reparation project guns but none had the general shape I was looking for.
I even tried to look for those brightly colored plastic practice guns but yeah, couldn't find those either on eBay in the right models...

Anime screenshot of Rentarou pointing his gun.

I've noticed that Rentarou's gun isn't consistent in the anime either so yeah, at some point I just decided "screw perfect accuracy" and decided on just finding whatever fake gun that I could that was as cheap as possible and that I could modify to fit, if necessary. I thought that most people would probably not even pay as much attention to it than I would – as long as I had a damn gun that would be better than none at all, lol. What you mean I got sick of hours upon hours of fruitless searches? :DD

I also checked online for an actual character prop gun for cosplay purposes but the only store that showed up seemed so fishy and the photos looked stolen anyway so yeah, I wasn't too keen on buying from them. Finding cosplay props for that masked guy from Black Bullet was easy but for some reason finding a gun for Rentarou, who's the goddamn main character, is impossible. What the heck?? ლ( `Д’ ლ)

Okay so, it was pretty clear that a toy gun would be the cheapest and still easiest to find. I had plowed through all local toy shops and even checked the multiple second-hand stores several times (that's where I got lucky for my last gun project!). I was annoyed because I found toy guns that would have been suitable if only they had been in the right scale. All good ones were always smaller than their true size!! (I guess so that it would be even more obvious that they were toys)

Official artwork.

I suddenly remembered that those annual outdoor markets in my town used to have toy sellers that carried a nice variety of toy guns! Luckily this came to my mind just a few weeks before one of the markets came to town and so, of course, I headed there with my bro, Frozen Angel. It was on 10th March and the market stands were all closing so only 3 of them were still open when we arrived – but much to my joy two of the still open ones were indeed the toy sellers! I instantly saw that they had an interesting sortiment of toy guns for rather affordable prices. I stood there for probably close to 10 minutes wondering which pistol I should take and when the Finnish guy, who was the seller, came and asked me what I was looking for I even said that I needed a toy gun to finish my costume. He was a really funny guy who joked around and seemed to really like selling toys; he gave me some recommendations and I walked home with a 6 € cheapo police gun set.


I know it's not super accurate or anything but yeah, fuck that. :) The size was good, it was the most square-ish pistol the seller had and it was the cheapest too. I also noticed that the "secret mission" text was thankfully just a sticker so I could easily peel it off and have an anonymous toy gun, lol. The other ones all had the name of the gun type molded into the plastic itself so yeah, no easy way to get rid of it.
I obviously had no use for the police badge nor the rubber ammunitions (although they were hella nostalgic) so when I noticed that the gun didn't actually even work, aka shoot off the ammos, I wasn't even disappointed lol. I planned to modify it unusable anyway, just to be on the safe side because yeah, you never know with con rules.

The first thing I did once the gun was out of the package was that I peeled off the sticker, no problemas! After that I shortened the pipe; there surely would have been easier and neater ways to do it but I went ghetto savage and just cut it off with a motherfucking ordinary food knife, ou yeah!


It works but it takes some patience. xD I proceeded to sand the rough edges with 120 grit sand paper, it worked just fine and the shortened pipe was quickly nice again.
I want to mention though that please don't be rough when cutting off the pipe; I accidentally was and noticed afterwards that the plastic next to the gun's mouth had cracked at the seams. It might not be that much of a big deal since it's easy to just glue in place but yeah, it might still ruin your prop. The plastic is thin and because it's hollow inside it doesn't have much support so yeah, if you hold it down too roughly when cutting then it will crack, sooner or later.

Just showing the crack.

Next up I figured that I'd need to open the whole thing to get rid of that protruding launcher thing in the back – I really didn't want it there because it was ugly and inaccurate as fuck. But much to my annoyment I realized that the only screw driver I had was way too big to even fit into the tiny holes so yeah, off we go to visit mom and stepdad and borrow some of his tools. It's so convenient because he pretty much has all the tools I'll ever need for my cosplay prop projects, lololol.
I got to borrow a set of mini-size screw drivers and on the same go I picked up the hot glue gun too. When I got home I screwed up all the tiny little screws and opened up the whole shebang.

Opened toy gun. All parts still intact.

It's... very empty inside. Then again, that's pretty much what I expected.
I first took out the pipe part and then I noticed that I had to break the launcher's triangular tip to get off the trigger from the rod; it took some violence and a knife but I managed to get it off. I removed the spring and the transparent rubbery presser thingy (not visible above) next which, by the way, had some yucky grease on it. Some of the same grease was on the rod too. I guess that's what you should expect when it's a really cheap China-produced toy...

The parts, which are mentioned above, removed.

Even after removing the triangular tip the rod still protruded from the back of the gun so yeah, I just decided to scrap it all together. Luckily the trigger didn't need the rod to stay in place; there was a hole for it where it was locked in place once both halves of the gun were on. I noticed that, once the rod was gone, the trigger lost all its tension and just rattled around when I shaked the gun (when re-assembled). I thought that I could just as well set it in place so I took the hot glue gun and filled the hole with glue and pressed the trigger's matching hole into the hole on the gun's body and waited for it to dry. So many holes. The trigger stuck nicely and now it won't move anymore, which is for the better because no silly rattling sounds anymore and now even the con security guys will be able to try it, if they are suspicious, and notice that you can't even press down the trigger, hah!

Rod completely removed and the trigger glued in place.

Next up I painted the pipe black. I thought it would be easier to paint it before I screw the whole thing closed again. I used some black gloss spray paint that works on many kinds of surfaces.

Painted pipe. I used the rod as a holder, yay usefulness!

After the pipe had dried I put it back in place and then I re-assembled and closed the gun. After that I took my hot glue gun and filled in the screw holes – they bothered me. With the holes filled I just painted the whole thing with the same black glossy spray paint and left it to dry. Once it was dry I finished it off on the next day with a coating of gloss varnish. I left it to dry one last time.

I hung it to dry in the shower by some rope.

Finished modified toy gun. (ignore my hand, it looks retarded)

Now my gun is done! It's not all that accurate (wrong model and all) but oh well, it's not the end of the world; as long as I have a damn prop it's fine and hey, it was cheap! :'D I could of course have built on top of it –to change the shape– but honestly, I'm lazy and don't want to waste my worbla on this lol. I'd rather save it for some cosplays I'm more likely to wear a lot and for a long time. *coughmonsterhunterarmorscough* 

But yeah, maybe one day I'll improve it into a more accurate one, if I ever happen to come by an inexpensive Springfield Armory airsoft gun, that is. One can always dream...

Primer in a spray can!

I can admit though that I'm not completely 100% satisfied with this sword. I did some early parts of it a bit too hastily (sanding and spray painting, mainly) and because of that it's not as neat as most of my other props – it's things that doesn't really show from a distance but I can easily spot them with my naked eye but, then again, I know where to look. *shrugs* Also, because of being impatient or non-observant I several times had to backtrack and add filler or sand something smoother etc; it was really annoying to have to go back and patch up stuff you either lazied out on (because you thought it was ready but it actually wasn't) or somehow missed. It sucks to have to sand down imperfections after you've already primed and started doing the final painting on something because you didn't notice them during the original sanding process... ughrrr. >_>

As you can see my lenses came in different I.Fairy vials – but that's really nothing to worry about. It just means that the lenses are from different production batches; it happens every now and then and, especially, if you order lenses with different prescriptions. :) As long as you have the I.Fairy authenticity stickers on the vials you can be sure that you've received genuine and safe-to-wear lenses!

I put the lenses to soak the evening before I had planned on wearing them; you should take them out of the bottles at least 8 hours before wearing because the solution used to store them in the bottles is not the same you use.

One lens in. Shows enlargement effect.

Upon insertion the lenses felt very slightly irritating for the first minute, but that went away rather quickly. They are comfortable and don't block my vision in any way but, most of the time, I could tell that I was wearing contacts. They seem to dry out fast for me though; the first punches of dryness came already within the 1,5-2 hour range and after 3 hours had passed I really wanted to take them out. Please note though that I've had especially tired and sensitive eyes lately, which might be part of the reason why I couldn't stand these for very long. 
Another thing is that after taking off the lenses my left eye was really sensitive and stingy for about 30 minutes – it basically felt like there was an eyelash hair in my eye that I couldn't get out. My eye hurt if I put pressure on it, rubbed it or anything like that. Luckily it went away by itself but it was weird since I never experienced anything like it before. I think it might be because the left lens would have expired on June 2016 if I had not opened it. The right lens expired first on 2019 so yeah, might explain why it was only the left one that gave the "afterburn".

Regarding the con itself I need to say that at first I was unsure if I would even attend Cosvision. I was on the very first one in 2014 and now that the second one is coming up I felt very conflicted about attending; one part of me remembered how much I enjoyed the first Cosvision and the other part reminded me of how uncomfortable I've felt at bigger conventions lately. In one way I had been waiting for the return of Cosvision very eagerly and, on the other hand, my anxieties were telling me that it's gonna be a waste of money because I might not even feel okay there. I felt so torn and it was horrible to try to decide on what to do.
One thing was sure though – I refused to go without a group of friends. And thus I quickly learned that my brother, Frozen Angel, really really really wanted to go. I didn't really want to let him down because he's been hyped about the con ever since I went to the first one and told him what a blast it was; I guess he regretted not going back then and now he wanted to make up for it. I also managed to get Sacchan interested and that made me feel safe and understood because now I had someone else who knew what I was feeling; we both were really uncertain about attending because we've both been feeling bad at cons lately, for various reasons, but then we just decided to gamble and went all "I'll go if you go and if we feel shit at the con then we'll just withdraw to a corner and play Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate together."– yaassss!
Originally Ronya was supposed to come with us too but she had to jump out a few weeks before the con would roll in because of health reasons. I still hope we'll get to go to a con together soon. :'(

Sorry about all the gloom but yeah, I'm really just hoping that Cosvision will be fun and that I won't feel shit there because, honestly, who wants to feel bad somewhere where you're supposed to feel safe and happy? I'm hoping it will have the same relaxed atmosphere as it had back when it was in Turku – I really want this to be a successful trip and not another Desucon Frostbite 2015.

I'm sorry about the overexposed white wig but there was no saving it.

Just a close-up selfie.

Just a Darkrai reference for those that don't know what it looks like.

Wig before cutting. Front and side.

Hatori actually changed his hairstyle slightly in both the anime and in the manga; I couldn't find any manga references on a quick search so I decided to go with anime images since there is no difference, as far as I can remember – I'm pretty sure the only notable difference on the manga and anime portrayals is his eye color.
I decided on doing the long-haired (the first version) instead of the short one, mainly because I like it a bit more. The short-haired version somehow looks so generic; I always thought long-haired Hatori was more recognizable in some way.

Hatori with long bangs...

... and with short bangs.

The reason he's covering his left eye is because he's almost blind on said eye. Fuck you, Akito. Hatori is a tragic character and I guess that's why I like him; I tend to prefer the more calm, quiet and kinda cold characters anyway and Hatori totally fits the bill.

Regarding styling the wig I didn't have to do all that much. I mainly shortened the bangs, straightened the sides –since they were wavy– and cut them shorter as well. I'm aware that the wig is not super accurate but I decided on leaving the sides a bit longer than what he has, mainly because I need something to frame my face because otherwise I look like shit... and then I feel uncomfortable.

Wig after cutting.

Hatori in the anime. Just to show what color reference I'm going with.

This one looks dark brown though...

Note: Obviously (dirty) mirror photo. Hence why the covered eye is reversed.

I crappily blurred out the whole background, since it was really distracting because of the mess and yeah, blended in too much with all the black too. Oh and yeah, ignore the blank stare please – I guess I did the 'memory suppression' on myself, lolololo.
I haven't decided yet if I'll keep the jacket open or closed; Hatori does both though so it doesn't really matter in terms of character accuracy. Oh well, whatever I do Hatori does not really have any signature traits that makes him stand out from all the other "handsome and properly dressed men" in anime so yeah, I might not be recognized anyway. x) I guess the only thing really making him a bit less generic-looking is the blocked left eye but yeah, that's about it. I hope having Firith running around as Ayame Sohma with me will help people know that I'm supposed to be a Sohma family member too and not just a random guy in a suit, lol.

So, for those not in the know, Cosvision was held on 23-24 April and I went there with our kakkaravut trio of me, Frozen Angel and Sacchan. Awesome company always makes things better!
We had decided quite early on that we'd carpool southwards with Sacchan's car and that's also what happened. The road trip down went well and although it was long and occasionally tiring we didn't run out of shit to talk about – we're seriously such a close-knit bunch that we always have loads of fun together, no matter what!
I think the traveling took around 8 hours. I don't feel such long car trips anywhere because I'm so damn used to sitting in a car for hours and hours upon end; once when I was a little kid dad even drove all the way from southern Sweden to goddamn Italy. Beat that. That was, by the way, one of my most memorable childhood experiences.

Start of our journey. Nice weather graced us!

We were blessed with good weather when we started and it stayed good all the way down. We had all kinds of hilarious discussions to kill time and there was never a boring moment – our topics included everything from shit that only dads say to cosplay group plans and literal shit stories. There was also something really bizarre about waving baguettes around...
We also laughed hard at a car with a roof box that read "qualit box"– much qualit, such wow. :'D Another one was a Hesburger logo with only the Hesbur part lit up and the ger was occasionally blinking; it stayed as a joke for all Hesburger restaurants we saw afterwards. "Look, there's a Hesbur-ger-ger-ger-ger!" *insert Taking the Hobbits to Isengard here*

Oh and yeah, of course whenever we passed some town or whatnot with a possibly-funny-name-if-we-change-a-few-letters we of course pulled crappy jokes about it. You know, Mikkeli naturally turned into Kikkeli (lit. dick), Kinkomaa turned into Kinkymaa (lit. kinky land) and so on. No ragrets, hihi. We also bust a gut when we saw a resting place called Haarakangas (lit. crotch cloth) above Oulu – people who have watched Hetalia will understand.
Oh and also, a road called "Makkarajoentie" (lit. sausage river road) had us all howling with laughter. When I first saw it (we passed it by fast) I had a realization of "WAIT A SECOND. DID I JUST READ RIGHT?" and then Frozen Angel confirmed that he also read it. Oh lord the laughs that ensued.

Sunset! (and the obligatory river, because we're in Finland)

We stopped for a snack break at a Hesburger somewhere past Oulu and, although I didn't buy anything, I need to say that the service was so painfully slow I was cringing all along. There was like max two or three customers in front of our trio and it felt like it took way more than 15 minutes before that damn young woman working there got to us. She did everything so goshdarn leisurely I wondered how the heck she even got the job in the first place because it felt like watching a fucking sloth preparing french fries. Seriously horrible. I normally don't complain but it was just plain bad and frustrating – I even felt the need to leave one of those feedback papers to complain when we left because oh god, seriously? ._. Oh and yeah, Sacchan and Frozen Angel ordered smoothies and it was just too good when, after placing the order she said, all politely, that "it's just gonna take a short moment" and I couldn't help but roll my eyes as soon as we sat down waiting – a "short moment" was, of course, not short at all. :)) Geez.

Night-time driving.

Night fell and somewhere past Jyväskylä but before Hämeenlinna, in the middle of nowhere, the car in front of us suddenly came to an abrupt halt. We were really weirded out and wondered what was going on! Of course we had to stop completely as well when closing in and that's when we saw it – there was something on middle of the road that wasn't moving.
From a distance I first thought that it was some kind of light colored rock but as soon as we got a bit closer it became obvious that it was an animal. And it was.
...
But it was not the kind of animal you'd expect.

Hoot hoot, motherfucker.

This cute little owl was just sitting there, completely blocking the road and it didn't budge an inch (it was like a statue, seriously) nor open its eyes. It was weird and I really worried what was wrong with it; I've always loved birds and even after we passed the owl I could not stop thinking about it. Why was it there? Was it hurt? Did someone come to save it?
I saw that the woman in the car before us called someone; I really hope she called the animal protection peeps. I hope it survived. Poor thing. ;_;
Luckily it was close to midnight and on a calm road so maybe everyone else saw it on time too.

The clock was around midnight when we finally reached Hämeenlinna, our destination. We had been keeping in touch with Firith all along the journey because he was the fourth member of our group and the one who had booked the hotel for all of us. We found the right place, parked the car in the hotel's parking lot, checked in and pretty much immediately went to sleep because we all were so tired. I shaved my poor beard before going to bed because yeah, gotta be smooth for the sake of cosplay ~

Third floor hotel corridor showing the two rooms we had.

Me and Sacchan shared one room (number 330) and Frozen Angel and Firith shared another room just next to ours (332). The hotel was Original Sokos Hotel Vaakuna. Pretty nice hotel, nothing to complain about. The huge amount of pillows was appreciated and, especially, the mega-sized one lol.

Our hotel room on the morning.

Saturday morning came. Holy crud it felt horrible to wake up after such a long journey and with only like 6 hours of sleep. I'm just really not a morning person, at all. Ugh.
I kicked up Sacchan, we put on our travel/casual clothes and went to knock on our double trouble's door and then we headed down to eat breakfast buffet together. The hotel breakfast was better than I expected; there was actually a lot of really tasty stuff and the variation was good! I even managed to eat a lot without feeling overly stuffed and getting the whole "feel nauseous in the morning" crap. Thing is that on con mornings I tend to be unable to eat much at all (especially hotel breakfasts, which is frustrating) because I'll just start feeling sick and, well, it sucks.

After breakfast we started putting on our cosplays for the day; I was to do a Darkrai gijinka from Pokémon and Sacchan did shiny Umbreon. I had some trouble with the eye makeup so Sacchan did the Jack Sparrow eyes for me, haha. ( ; 3;)
When we were done all four of us started walking towards Verkatehdas, which ended up being really close to the hotel. We took the slightly longer shore way to check for photoshoot locations and just outside the hotel there were this really cool stone ruin things and I, of course, wanted a quick shooting there.

Cosplayer:Shiro Samurai (Darkrai)
Photographer:Sacchan& Frozen Angel
Photo editor:Shiro Samurai



When we got to the con area my first impression when I saw the outside was "uhmm, looks a bit dead"; I was somehow expecting there to be a bit more life outside. Then again, it's not really alarming because you just kinda assume most people stay indoors anyway.

A view of Verkatehdas' entrance. The building Cosvision was held in.

As soon as we stepped inside we went to get our con tickets from the table in the entrance – it went very quick and without issues. What surprised me though was that the con bands were not fabric and not paper either. They were plastic and looked like those wrist bands you get in hospital when you're stuck there with some serious disease. What the fuck. I was honestly kinda disappointed. The ticket made me look like I had just escaped from some asylum, lol. It didn't feel like a con ticket.

Cosvision con ticket.

My first two impressions as soon as we got to the main area of the con were "confusing" and "comme ci comme ça". It felt like there was something missing. I was honestly kinda weirded out when the first thing I saw was groups and groups of con attendants just filling out the stairs doing nothing; it instantly gives an impression that people are bored and have nothing else to do than engage in idle chitchat with their friends. It was disappointing because there was not much to do and you could tell on the people that pretty much everyone seemed to be thinking the same things you were, aka that the con felt half-assed and overhyped. I mean, the location/building is great and very fitting for a con but some placements were poor *coughartistalleycough* and it felt a bit confusing. The main issue though was that there simply was nothing to do unless you liked to play board games or stuff like Twister or something. There was no video game room, no anime karaoke, no crafts room, no activities, nothing. Time went by so slowly because you just spent time staring at the clock and walking through the merchandise hall over and over again, although you had nothing to buy.
I can sorta understand that because it's a cosplay focused con they maybe didn't prioritize activities for whatever reasons (hard to sit in elaborate costumes etc) but seriously, if there's nothing to do people just end up sitting on the floors and stairs and the whole con atmosphere disappears or feels like a "hang out with friends con", no matter how big and pompous the con's original idea was. Honestly, Cosvision ended up feeling like a Kitacon in the south with some top-class cosplays. Really disappointing and especially so because the last Cosvision was a success.

I spent almost all of my con time just sitting around whenever wherever and just chatting with my friends and photoshooting outside. It was so dull and if I had gone alone I would have been bored out of my mind in, like, 10 minutes. Once again it was my company that saved the con experience and my Nintendo 3DS. I also really enjoyed that I got to see some con friends I hadn't seen in a couple years, like Ri-kun.

Random photo of the main area.

Entrance view.

Oh and yeah, the merchandise hall was kinda... lackluster. There was like below 10 shops and they were all those basic ones that you see at every Finnish convention and which products you've already plowed through more than enough times. Only Bard & Jester was refreshing to see and their stuff is always inspiring to look at anyway. Oh and yeah, there was this one little shop there where you could buy slush and cotton candy – that was a cool surprise that I wasn't expecting.

A big selection of Ramune flavors. Too overpriced for my taste though.

Merchandise hall.

Merchandise hall. The shop to the left (Bard & Jester) was the best/coolest one!

I need to say that the placement of Artist's Alley was meh. I honestly completely missed it on the first day because it was placed in a spot where it was hidden by the entrance area's wall, no matter which direction you came from. There was no signs either telling people that it was there; the only sign pointing to that direction said "ticket information spot" or something like that and it didn't even cross my mind to check it out because I didn't have any issues with my con ticket, lol. I think the cinema was there too but yeah, never saw a sign for the Artist's Alley.
It felt like Artist's Alley probably suffered from the bad placing; they were kinda separated from the rest of the building where stuff happened, you know, the "dark corner" effect. Why wasn't it put in the same place as the merchandise hall? It would have been better because then the merch hall wouldn't have felt so empty.
Artist's Alley was small (approximately 6 sellers) and I didn't really find the items for sale that interesting – almost everyone sold necklaces/jewelry, for some reason. I did find a nice Megaman necklace that I bought as a present for my big sister but I didn't buy anything for myself.

One of the Artist's Alley tables. OMG SILLIS MERCH.

The photo above was by far the best thing with Artist's Alley – I honestly mentally died of laughter when I saw it. xD Non-Finnish people won't get it but those weird Donald Duck things are a huge meme in Finland (Finland is a Donald Duck country, fyi) that was made by SilliS. Pretty much everyone knows them –at least if they've spent time on Youtube's weird side– and they are absolutely hilarious, if you have that kind of humor of course. The guy selling those presumably had some contact with SilliS himself (probably friends) and they had teamed up to create those merchandises. Yes, I asked him and he told me that it was a collaboration project with SilliS so yeah, they were as official as they could be! I was sad that the Donald ones had sold out because I would instantly have bought a necklace with "AQ-sedä" on it, hihi.

Around 16:00 or something all four of us headed back to the hotel to eat some provisions and some of us changed out of cosplay. Me and Sacchan then got hungry and we headed out with the car to go find a Hesburger. It turned out Hämeenlinna, aka Hämärälinna, is a confusing place to drive in – we got lost and just went around in circles and then we ended up accidentally exiting Hämeenlinna and going into the main road. Oops. Luckily there came an ABC shop/restaurant/gasoline station (it's all three of them, lol) where we could turn our car around and then, much to our luck in misfortune, said ABC had a Hesburger! It didn't quite go as planned but we got our burgers so we were happy, lol.

Obligatory con diet. #heseläski

After stuffing our faces with cheeseburgers we headed back to the hotel to leave the car and then we decided to go back to the con. Much to our surprise we quickly learned at the con's outdoor area that it had already closed for the day. Excuse me but... what the actual fuck?
The con closed its doors 18:00 on the goshdarn main day and I had a hard time believing it. Seriously, I paid 25,70 € for a two-day weekend ticket and it closes at fucking six in the evening?? Urrrrgh. >_> What a waste of money! I'm an evening person and that's about the time I get started and into the con mood but lolnope, you pay a high ticket price for a con that closes in time for the kiddies to have supper and go to sleep. The disappointments just kept coming, I swear.
I'm used to even small cons in Sweden being, first off, three days long and, secondly, both cheaper and open 24/7. Finnish cons are such a joke in comparison and everything's overpriced and adghsadsjhafjh – it's just not worth it. I guess I'll keep to going to cons in Sweden in the future because every time I give a Finnish con in the south a chance lately I've just ended up with a huge hole in my wallet and nothing to make it worth all the travel expenses etc all the way from the north. Bah.

So yeah, we stayed outside to photoshoot Firith's cosplay and then he and Frozen Angel wanted to do some Hetalia pairing photos. We had a lot of laughs because things escalated quickly but it got cold past sunset and I ended up freezing so bad I had trouble pressing the buttons on my camera. On the way back to the hotel I also somehow twisted my left knee (I have weird joints) and it hurt like living hell. I'm not normally the person to complain about pain but it was seriously so bad I could not bend my knee at all and thus had to walk with my left leg completely straight.
We made our way back to the hotel, most of us disappointed and annoyed with the overly early closing time. Me and Sacchan stayed outside to photoshoot my Darkrai costume more properly now that I got to borrow FankiFox's long black gloves. The photoshoot pictures will be posted separately.

The remainder of the night I spent chitchatting with Sacchan and we came to the conclusion that Cosvision really was a bummer or, as we said in Finnish, "mitäänsanomaton ja juostenpaskattu". Seeing how early it closed it's not worth it because we seriously spent more time in the car driving to the con than at the con itself, lol. It's just so weird because they had two years to make it good and still it feels like the arrangers just pooped and the execution fell short. The whole con just felt so lackluster and indifferent and it didn't make things better that panels and lectures were cancelled left and right, including the one by Panther's Tear Forge about cosplay against bullying, which I had looked forward to the most on Saturday. There were few panels to begin with and that also made for the feeling that there was nothing to do and it only got worse because stuff got cancelled and nothing replaced the gaping holes in the schedule. Then again, it's not really the con's fault if a lecturer informs super late that they can't come, but still. The amount of bore was too much, especially considering the ticket price – take off 10 € from the price and it would have been acceptable.

Sunday morning eventually came and we woke up at seven. I noticed early on that my eyes were living their own life and because of it I decided to skip cosplaying Hatori on this day. My eyes were seriously watering so much I could not even keep them open; I was squinting and rubbing and my eyes just cried non-stop for hours and it was horrible. I've never experienced anything like it. The corners of my eyes were super sensitive too and wearing any kind of makeup was out of the question.
Normally going without a cosplay would have felt like going naked but now I didn't even feel bad about it, mainly because of the disappointment – it felt like it didn't even matter. Sure that I would have loved to take pair photos with Firith as Ayame but oh well, no can do when my eyes took the early checkout ticket.

Me and Sacchan headed directly for the hotel's breakfast buffet as soon as we put on our clothes and I'm not gonna lie – the hotel breakfast was more interesting than the con itself; I looked forward to it more. The food was surprisingly good and varied (I've eaten at a lot of restaurant breakfasts) and it was the highlight of the day, lol. Going to the con wasn't exciting at all and we didn't even care about being there early because there wasn't anything to do anyway.

Hotel breakfast, showing the options of "what to put on your bread".

Cookies, nuts and muesli etc.

My first plate. The Karelian pastries were awesome.

14:00 I headed for Cidi's and Hitsuwa's lecture – at least it wasn't cancelled. I liked it, it was fun and nice to listen to what they had to say. The bad thing is that the person keeping track of time (a con worker) fucked up and so their panel ended at least 15 minutes ahead of time because she was stressing them up, even though they would have had plenty of time. ._. Seriously...

Panel start.

We left the con around 16:30 because my mom called me while I was in the food market with Ri-kun (buying something to eat) and asked if we had left Hämeenlinna already. I told her that we were about to leave and she told us to hurry up because absolutely horrible weather –and thus driving conditions– was coming our way; seemingly it had even been announced in the news that anyone going out with summer tires should stay home or take public transports like train or bus. It was supposed to be that bad but, honestly, we drove all the way home and not a shit happened. Then again, maybe we were just master ninjas and magically avoided the bad weather somehow, who knows?

One of the best things of the con was that I got Elffi's signature!

Cosplayer:Shiro Samurai (Darkrai)
Photographer:Sacchan
Photo editor:Shiro Samurai












The eye makeup is done by Sacchan and the gloves are borrowed from FankiFox, just for this shoot. Thank you guys, you're awesome. ♥

The photoshoot was fun, although the sun was occasionally too bright and thus my white wig got overexposed on a lot of photos. :/ #whitewigproblems
Also, some people (presumably other hotel guests) passed us by but no one said anything, save for that some totally stopped dead in their tracks just to stare at us for some minutes. It was really awkward, lol.

As you can see these lenses have a rather simple yet appealing design; it reminds me slightly of flower petals and thus of summer. The black limbal ring is fairly thin and has black streaks that reach towards the pupil hole, which makes the lenses look a bit more natural in a way. I like the design surprisingly much even though it's not anything super unique or so – it's a really versatile lens that will work with many different looks!

One lens in. Notice enlargement.

My natural eye color, for anyone curious, is a light blue-gray with an occasional greenish tint (depending on light) and with a golden ring next to the pupil. My eyes more often appear as blue than gray though.

These lenses are quite big but they are not over the top and I don't find that they look overwhelming or "off"; I was actually surprised by how natural they looked once I had both lenses in, despite their size and unnatural color. The violet shade is lovely in all ways and it shows up really well – it's opaque and leaves nothing to be desired in terms of color coverage.

Facing window in my apartment.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

White light in the corridor.

Yellow light in the corridor.

Yellow light in the staircase.

Facing an orange-ish light in the staircase, with natural light from a window coming from the side.

Standing in the staircase with my back against the window. (only natural light)

Indoors storage room. (natural light coming in from the side)

Outdoors, back against the sun. (aka facing wall)

Outdoors facing the sun directly. it hurt

Outdoors, indirect sunlight. I'm facing the sun but sitting under the roof, aka in the shadow.

Lens to the right shows wrong side out.

If you wonder why my lenses have different labels it's nothing to worry about – they just happen to be from different production batches. It happens. The authenticity stickers are more important to pay attention to.

One lens in.

As per usual I.Fairy lenses are quite big although, for some reason, these somehow feel smaller to me than many other I.Fairy lenses I've had...? Might just be an illusion though.
The Trinity series sport a really artistic design that makes me think about some kind of fantasy or gothic castle or something like that – it's really different and thus refreshing and intriguing! I can admit that I bought these mainly for the rad design, huehuehue. Another reason I was drawn to this pair was the teal color; you don't find lenses with said color that often and I love teal anyway.

Regarding comfort my first impression of these lenses wasn't all that good; I felt them clearly in my eyes and it bothered me. Luckily my eyes got used to them and so I can safely say that these lenses fall into the "uncomfortable at first but comfy after eyes get used to them" box. Comfort is otherwise kinda average, meaning that I get bouts of dryness with these and after about 3,5 hours I find myself thinking that I might want to take them off. Bear in mind though that I have rather sensitive eyes, seemingly.

Facing window in my apartment.

Apartment roomlight. (lamp on)

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

White corridor light.

Yellow corridor light.

Dim yellow staircase light.

Indoors storage room. (natural light)

Outdoors with indirect sunlight, aka sitting under the roof/shadows.

Outdoors, back against sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing sun.

Because it's 4th May today I decided to throw together a Star Wars inspired outfit for this lens review, hehehe ~

Short summary:

Color: 8/10
Beautiful teal color but I somehow wish it was even more bright and intense.

Cosplayer:Shiro Samurai (Tsurumaru Kuninaga)
Photographer:Frozen Angel
Photo editor:Shiro Samurai

#thuglife #sorrynotsorry

Facing window in my apartment.

Apartment room light. (standing next to lamp)

Flash photo.

Bathroom light.

Yellow corridor light.

Dim yellow light in staircase.

Orange-ish light in the staircase. (with natural light behind me)

Indoors storage room. (natural light from the side)

Outdoors, back against light.

Outdoors, indirectly facing light. (aka sitting under the shadows/roof)

Outdoors, facing light. (cloudy)

Bonus! Facing bright sunset outdoors with no makeup.

The color definitely shows up as yellow/gold but it's not as vibrant as I might have hoped; it's still pretty but when viewed from a distance it makes my light blue-gray lenses appear honey or perhaps light tea colored? I don't know how to describe the color. ^^" I guess the amount of black streaks also adds to the impression that the lenses appear darker when viewed from a distance. In brighter lights they do stand out more but yeah, on cloudy days they don't show their best side. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful lens.



The blending effect makes them natural-ish but yeah, yellow/golden color combined with that fancy pattern is obviously contact lenses...

Lens to the watcher's right shows wrong side out.

One lens in.

Comfort is kinda average but please, don't take this for granted since my lenses were to expire this summer (had I not opened them) and I have sensitive eyes anyway. For me they actually started to give the first hints of dryness already around 1 hour of wear and after 2-3 hours I considered taking them off a couple of times. These lenses keep alternating between waves of dryness and then suddenly feeling comfy again!

Facing window in my apartment, cloudy.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

White corridor light.

Yellow corridor light.

Dim yellow light in the staircase.

Facing an orange-ish lamp in the staircase, with natural light (from a window) coming from the side.

Indoors storage room, natural light.

Outdoors, back against light. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing light (cloudy) but being under the roof/shadow.

Outdoors facing sun, cloudy.

Outdoors facing sun, clear sky.