As per usual I've never had any problems with LensVillage and I always get my lenses in a very timely manner, which is approximately two weeks! They've always been very kind and helpful and the lenses come securely packaged in some kind of foam, bubblewrap or such to protect the glass bottles from breaking during transit. With these GEO lenses I also received an information sheet with desciptions on how to insert lenses and care for them etc – really handy for beginners! With every LensVillage order you also get a business card and a free lens case. :) Oh and yeah, of course are all their circle lenses authentic and GEO lenses, like mine, come with the anti-fake stickers that you can check up online to prove that your received pair is genuine.

What came with my LensVillage order.

Okay so, the Forest Pink lenses appear to be a very light pink when you look at them in their vials; it's a pretty shade but the irregular black stripes help make the lens look a bit more natural but also gives it an alluring touch! Once worn the pink color darkens a bit but it's still on the lighter side, at least on my light blue-gray eyes.

I noticed as soon as I took the lenses out of their vials that they're really thin. I actually had problems inserting them because of that and it took several tries to get them on, especially the right lens. Once the lenses were in they were really comfortable from the get-go, except that they seem to blur my vision very slightly. These lenses don't sting or anything and I honestly don't feel that I even have lenses on!
I have sensitive eyes and normally I can't wear lenses for many hours before the first signs of dryness kicks in but these I could easily wear for 8 hours with no issues at all – I could have worn them even longer if I wanted or needed to. These lenses have amazing comfort, at least for me. ^^

One lens in.

Actually these lenses are quite big, not crazy big but they do give a notable enlargement boost. If you're looking for cute pink lenses with a moderate dolly effect then these could be for you! I do like the color and the design is really nice even though it's fairly simple; the simplistic design makes the lenses versatile and the black streaks provide a sort of deep and beautiful touch to your look.

Facing window in my apartment. (sun side, cloudy)

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

White corridor light.

Yellow staircase light.

In the staircase, natural light coming from the side/back.

Indoors storage room. Natural light from the side.

Outdoors, facing sun indirectly. (aka sitting under the shadow/roof)

Outdoors, back against light.

Outdoors, facing sun.

Despite being pink (with a lot of black) these don't look freaky. 

Honestly, the driving weather was shit. Perkele.

The drive took roughly one hour and, much to our surprise, the rain actually stopped just before we hit Oulu, waddafuck. As soon as you pass by Simo everything's okay. We instantly found a place to park the car at and headed towards Pohjankartano, the con building. It's actually the same building Chibicon was held in several years back and thus it felt a bit nostalgic to be back there, haha.

Pohjankartano's front entrance.

Honestly, because we arrived around 17:00 I was worried that all the shops had already closed for the day and that we'd basically arrive to a con where everybody had already started to leave – luckily that wasn't the case (although it wasn't far away) and the quick visit turned out not to be a waste of time, gasoline and feeling sorry for leaving my doge dog alone.

Kummacon poster indoors.

My first thought, once we got past the entrance, was that it seemed really quiet but, then again, I had not expected anything else since Kummacon is a small con to begin with. What struck me though was that the main hall area was left completely unused, which felt like a waste of potential because back at Chibicon that was where all the merchandise tables were and it was a really good spot for just that.
I heard afterwards though that Saturday would be the busier day but me and my friends had only planned to attend on Friday so I can't tell about that; Saturday wasn't possible for us anyway.

Main hall.

Main hall seen from above.

It felt weird to see the main hall so empty but oh well, I guess Kummacon just didn't have enough vendors to really make use of all the open space. Nevertheless, I want to say that even though we only spent 2 hours at the con I felt like that was enough to see what there was to offer and what the general atmosphere was like. I don't mean this in any bad way, it's just that once you had checked the Dealer's Hall and Artist's Alley (especially when you arrive as late as we did, aka most of the panels were already over etc) there really wasn't all that much more to do to kill time, except hang with your friends and keep track of your StreetPass hits if you were a Nintendo 3DS owner.

Entrance area, view towards the merchandise sellers.

I was hoping to see some familiar faces but I actually didn't see anyone at the con whom I recognized, which was a bit of a letdown. :( I wanted to meet especially two guys but neither of them were at the con (or maybe they had left for the day, idk) even though they both also live in the north. Oh well.

Second-hand manga table.

Bakeries à la Disney princesses and soda.

When it comes to the merchandise hall it was placed in that little corridor area between the info desk and the cafeteria. There weren't many sellers at all, just the usual well-known ones that you find in like every Finnish con ever, aka Fantasiapelit and Urumi. There were also some sellers I didn't recognize from other cons so they were probably just local ones.

Different anime figurines and a Toothless plush. Notice the Mikazuki nendoroids!

You could preorder Weed plushies, omg! ;A;

Of course you could also buy the usual ramune and pocky in the snacks shop – expensive, of course. This is Finland. What surprised me though was that there were some DragonBall and One Piece ramune! I was curious about them because I had never seen them before but yeah, I didn't buy any because I was too derp to ask the seller if they were of any special flavor or just the normal ramune. It bothers me that the Piccolo ramune is not green though... xD

DragonBall& One Piece ramune!

I didn't buy anything from the vendors but there were a few things that caught my interest – I'm too poor at the moment. *sobs* I would kinda have wanted the Kenshin Himura cup.................

Fantasiapelit's manga booth.

The Artist's Alley was in a separate room next to the cafeteria. I might remember wrong but there were about 7 sellers and a majority were selling prints and stickers. I was hoping to find some cool keychain but no luck this time. :'( Our company had a nice long and funny chat with two of the sellers though and the topics ranged from crazy cat ladies to boobs. Yeaaaaaaah.

Artist's Alley cards...

... and stickers from the same seller.

Once we had checked the Artist's Alley we were pretty much done... or well, that's when you noticed that most of the visitors had left and the sellers started packing up for the day. 2 hours felt about right to see and experience the con, even though it was a one day quick trip. I can't speak about the Saturday so yeah, this short summary is only about Friday, the first day.

Before leaving the con I decided to try some hohot from the outdoor food stand at the entrance. I had never seen nor heard about the dish before so I was curious to try it out! The prices were expensive considering the cup sizes (amount of food you got) but it was an interesting taste experience so I don't regret it. I guess if I had to describe what hohot is like it's similar to ramen – noodles in a cup with broth (you could choose between spicy or normal) and different ingredients of your choice. I ended up picking seaweed, some Asian mushrooms and fish balls but I must admit that I was disappointed when the guy doing the portions only gave me one fuckin' fish ball... I mean, seriously? ._. More than two thirds of the cup were noodles –which are the cheapest ingredients– and so I felt mildly annoyed since the smallest cup cost 2,50 €. Hrrmph, cheapskates...

Advertisement for hohot food.

On the way back home we stopped by at Kärkkäinen along the way and there we munched on some hamburgers, fed the car and bought some candies and toys for le dog. Fun thing is that both me and Frozen Angel bough some candies because the kilo price was cheaper than average and, well, we didn't notice until we were sitting in the car when Frozen Angel suddenly burst out laughing; me and Sacchan wondered what the heck was so funny and then he just exclaimed between the laughs: "we bought dog biscuits!". I was like wut and he told me to check the label on my candy bag and that's what I did...

It says "koiran keksi", literally dog biscuits!

Fun part is that the poster at the store said to press number 1 on the machine for candy weighing and well, turned out that was actually the number for doggy biscuits... oops. It's not like we tried to cheat on purpose; it was an actual error of the store, lololol. Well, I don't complain because the kilo price was cheaper for the dog biscuits by more than 1 € and yeah, now I'm a dog I guess. I'm surprised though that the cashier didn't notice.

My purchases: two cute dog stickers from Artist's Alley!

Okay, so these lenses have a gorgeous flower print with a thick black limbal ring to top it off. The color is a medium light blue and it's a very wonderful blue shade; it shows up well on my light eyes and I am pretty sure these would look look lovely on dark eyes too!

The enlargement effect is noticeable but it's not overwhelming, even though the vials say that the diameter is 15 mm. I can see these being used for many different looks and, despite their size, they don't look weird without eye makeup.

One lens in.

The design is lovely and it's the main reason I bought these lenses. The blue color also fits really well with my natural eye color (light blue-gray) and it blends nicely in the center, without leaving an obvious "line" where the lens' color starts and my own eye color ends.

Oh and yeah, of course because it's GEO lenses be sure to check for the authenticity stickers! All GEO lenses should come with stickers that have a code you can use to check them up online, to prove that they are genuine.

In a way both Friday and Saturday can be considered main days and thus I thought that I would maybe rather wear Lugia on Saturday because it will be quicker to put on and yeah, Ibuki will take a while and on Friday I'll likely have more energy and hype (or 'pepp', as we say in Sweden) to put time and effort into Ibuki's demanding makeup. Dem Hakuouki eyes. I know myself well enough that during a 4-day con I will be the most energetic and hyped on the first two days and on the third day I'll probably have the "still fun but I've seen everything" syndrome and on the last day I will just want a bubbletea and then go home and take a long shower, lol. So yeah, Ibuki first and Lugia second felt like the best way to roll.

I do have some small stuff to try out before all my cosplays are ready (mainly makeup and circle lens tests) and I might also need to make some accessories for Lugia (depending on what my finalized design will be) and restyle the wig for Greece. I'm just hoping that the gloves I ordered for Lugia will arrive on time, otherwise I will just have to deal without and add them for another time...

As you can see these lenses look pale in the bottles and sorta... blue? You know, greenish-blue, kinda ocean-like. I don't know but I hoped these would be one of those "surprise muthafucka!" lenses that look boring in their vials but are in reality super vibrant once worn – but sadly that was not the case. I really really hoped for these to be a highly vibrant bright green but they are in reality a blue-green lens and, while still a pretty color, it's not what I expected out of these.

I spent the afternoon a couple days ago doing some outfit tests to see what the costumes looked like when worn; I had not tried them on before so I wanted to make sure that things didn't look funny. I didn't do any makeup because I was way too tired for that and it's too sweaty in here right now anyway, lol. Damn hot summer weather...

Lugia gijinka test.

Okay, so Lugia will look something like that, assuming that the gloves won't make it in time. I might still add some accessories if I come up with something. I will use a white wig for this. Yes, I pulled everything out of my closet. *Yoda voice* Convenient it is.
I do have some more elaborate makeup ideas for Lugia but I'm afraid that I won't be able to make it look good since I'm still quite clumsy and inexperienced with painting my face. I have a love-hate relationship with makeup right now, hehehe... ~

When it comes to Greece I borrowed the white t-shirt from Frozen Angel and the pants were a lucky find from a local second-hand store. The boots I had bought some time ago, to be used for another costume but they worked for Greece as well so eff yeah!

Hetalia's Greece outfit test.

I blocked out my face for the same reasons stated above – no makeup poop face. :) Another reason is that Greece's wig is still in progress! I decided to use one of my Okita wigs for him and so I washed off all the styling products from it and let it dry. Once the wig was dry and clean (sorta clean, two small spikes didn't wash away completely) me and Sacchan made the 'whale sprout', you know, the hair thingie that most Hetalia characters have.
We started by looking at references to pinpoint where the sprout was to be and then we took some spiking gel in the fingers and twinned the hair into a sturdy stalk. Once the stalk had dried in the right position we split the top into two parts, pinned each end into a roll (for shape-holding) and blasted some got2b freeze spray on it and then used the hair dryer to dry it in place – it worked. No steel wire required!

Wig in progress. The products next to it are what we used to style the 'whale sprout'.

I have yet to style the rest of the wig but I think I'll save that for the con morning because I don't want to overdo it and it's easier to spike a wig when it's on your head anyway. I would also hate for the styling to be ruined (aka crooked) if I pre-style it and then when I take it out at the con it looks like hell went loose on it. Has happened, thank god my friend had a hair straightener back then.

Close-up of the 'whale sprout' ahoge.

We drove in GOD, eff yeah!

Okay, so for anyone interested our rental car happened to be a nice blue Volvo se on työkalu, ei auto of a newer V40 model, if I recall right. It was really nice, smooth to drive (and comfy to sit in!) and modern inside and felt quite luxurious... #couldgetusedtothis

The driving down to Linköping went smoothly, there was no issues except that we accidentally drove past Linköping (aka the point where we had to turn to get there) and had to take a slight detour. We ate at Max in Hudiksvall and boy was there a lot of people there!

Obligatory driving picture. Notice the high af bridge.

We got to Närcon late on Wednesday night and instantly went to pick up our tickets in advance so that we wouldn't have to stand in line on Thursday when the con officially opens. Getting the tickets went smoothly but driving to the camping area proved to be confusing and we ended up just walking there and carrying all our luggage with us instead. Karri-power go go!

Närcon's con band 2016 and the green camping ticket.

I was disappointed that the camping tickets were once again simple and ugly paper tickets, just like in 2013. :c I don't know how it was in 2014 but last year the camping tickets were made of fabric, just like the actual con ticket and that was hella neat.
I heard afterwards online from a person working at Närcon that there were fabric camping tickets available, just that Närcon's information crapped (as always) which means that a lot of people were completely unaware of it, including us. I would have wanted to change my paper ticket because it almost broke already on the second day because the quality was not so good and yeah, I collect fabric tickets and those are 100% nicer anyway. This sucks. :(

Vicktor didn't camp with us but he was awesome enough to help us set up the tent. Our familiar green tent was up in no time and me, Sacchan and Karri crawled in there and prepared to sleep.

Entrance to the camping.

Thursday

As per usual, when you camp in a tent, you wake up quite sweaty. That's what we did. We got out of the tent and noticed that, much to our disappointment, we hadn't been unique enough in our tent choice...

Fuck, we weren't original! Guess which one is ours, by the way. :'D

Truth is that there was at least five other tents like ours scattered around the camping, and those five we counted were visible from where our tent was standing; we'd probably have found even more tent clones if we had actually gone out properly to locate them, lol. Attack of the clones. Somehow, it was quite hilarious that so many other people had bought the exact same tent. The best tent was still the funny, really tall and narrow yellow tent that we all quickly nicknamed the "banana tent", for a reason. Too bad it moved later and we didn't see it again. *sniff*

One issue that I noticed pretty instantly, once I had settled into the camping, was that Närcon had done a not-so-clever choice on the shower facilities. Last year there were two shower carts (one full for women and one split for men and non-binary people) with at least five showers per 'side'–aka ten per cart– benches to put your bags in etc and yeah, it was quite decent actually. The thing is that, for some stupid reason, this year Närcon only had one single shower cart split with one half for men and non-binary people and the other half shared with women and non-binary people. Oh, and it gets worse! :D You see, this time each 'side' of the cart had only three showers, no benches, a minimum amount of hooks to hang your stuff from, no shelves in the shower to put your soaps on etc and the actual shower was set so that the water only came in one direction and you had nothing to angle the damn thing where you needed it. I'm sorry if my explanation is clumsy but what I mean is that you didn't have one of those usual shower handles with a hose that you can have in your hand but one of those that you just press a button and water comes out and you can't control it at all.
So yeah, the showers went from a decent but still poor approx. 20 showers in total to fucking 6 showers?!?! I don't even want to imagine how many campers there were but yeah, the camping area was filled with tents and it's a big-ass pasture. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than 1000 people camping, tbh. You can guess if there were horrid neverending shower lines during all reasonable showering times......... and you can also guess who skipped showering every day out of waiting frustrations – me. I showered every second day and even that took a lot of planning.
Another issue is that my fair guess is that many non-binary people aren't comfortable being forced to shower together with either cismen or ciswomen... or with anyone else for that matter. I still wonder why Närcon has not gotten at least a couple private showers for everyone that just can't shower together with strangers, no matter the gender? I mean, Närcon advertises a lot for being "welcoming to everyone" so why is the shower possibilities still so stone age and anxiety-inducing? I would definitely vote for one of those private showers because I am not comfortable showering around others, period.

Oh well, I was supposed to wear my Greece cosplay today but I honestly couldn't be bothered and so I just put on a black yukata and rolled with it. I also want to mention that I decided to leave out my Kazuma Sohma cosplay because he didn't fit in the luggage and the weather was too unstable to risk taking any vintage silk kimonos with me; it would get ruined by water stains.

Of course someone drew the Pokémon Go teams!

I spent the whole Thursday hanging with Sacchan and checking out what the con had to offer. I noticed that a lot of the food courts, vendors etc were placed almost exactly the same way as last year and thus I had a pretty easy time navigating around. I did notice though that, compared to last year, there were more food trucks/courts, which is a good thing because that meant more food options to choose from!

The path leading to C-huset, the main con building.

If you've ever been to a Närcon before you've probably noticed that it has a very different feel from your average Swedish or Finnish con – Närcon is much more like a festival. It has a festival atmosphere to it and feels a bit like you're almost in some other country! Personally I really enjoy the feel that Närcon has because it feels more easygoing, fun and relaxed but with that excitement that festivals have.

A map showing C-huset.

Me and Sacchan got really hungry at some point and so we started scouting for food. We felt like junk food and se we decided on going to the grill at the very end of the "Campus road". It's not owned by Närcon or anything but said grill was kinda cheap and didn't have huge lines so that's where we went. We ended up ordering a pasta kebab dish and sharing it. It was quite interesting.

Pasta kebab! Oh and yeah, that Lemon Fanta was godly.

After eating we continued walking around and checking out the con. I noticed that several sellers were selling the same plushies and items, once again. There were also some vendors outside, although the majority was located in C-huset, aka the main building. I bought a few things but resisted buying anything too expensive because I was pretty low on cash.

Närcon "Campus road", leading away from C-huset.

We found our way to Key-huset, which is quite far away from C-huset. Luckily it still seemed like people found their way there and like the Artist's Alley, which was located in Key-huset, didn't fall into oblivion because of being so far from where stuff was actually happening. Artist's Alley was located much closer to the sleeping accommodations than the "actual con", so to speak.
Nevertheless, Artist's Alley had some really nice stuff for sale this time around. I actually ended up spending more money on AA stuff than on "normal con merch", haha.

These adorable octopus and squid magnets. ;A;

Cute amigurumi figures. Notice Tingle!

More amigurumi figures from the same artist.

I'm really really sorry I lost the little business card with contact information for this one amigurumi store pictured above. I kinda promised I'd advertise for them a little because they were really nice people and had adorable goods for sale. If I find it I will link their store here later! ♥

Otherwise we didn't do anything special on Thursday, it was the "check out the con" day. A couple hours before midnight me and Sacchan got tired and headed back to the camping but what we weren't expecting was that the night was about to be freezing cold. You see, all previous times we've camped during Närcon the nights have been comfy cool but this one night was so damn cold we were shivering and had to almost hug each other to stay warm under the only blanket we shared. I really regretted not taking wool socks, more than one blanket, a mattress to lay on and more pillows. I went to camping thinking "nah, I won't need that shit because it's fucking Närcon in southern Sweden with its heat waves". Oh boy how wrong I was. :)

Friday

Friday morning. Toasty morning. I smelled sweat and looked like shit. We all kinda did.
Me and Sacchan woke up before Karri and headed to the con to eat breakfast. After checking for cheap options we decided to go with the crêpes because it only cost 15 SEK. I must admit though that I was bothered that the cafeteria menu said "pannkakor" when it's fucking "plättar". Pannkakor is those thick square ones that you prepare in the oven on a baking sheet and plättar are the thin shits that you make with the frying pan, no matter the size! D:< Why can't people get it right? Ei kukaan Suomessa vittu sano että lätyt ovat pannukakkuja...

Mina fucking plättar med sylt och grädde.

With our stomachs at least some sort of filled we strolled around for a while, waiting for the sun to settle a bit so that it would be bearable to put on cosplays. Yes, it was hot outside. I really have started to gradually be more uncomfortable if I'm overly sweating while in cosplay; it's just gross and makes my makeup look like shit in no time. It does look like shit anyway, lol.

Me and Sacchan headed back to the camping to put on our cosplays, or at least most of them. It was impossible for me to do my makeup inside the tent because it was boiling hot in there and just unbearable. I sloppily put on whatever I could, took my makeup bag and headed back to the con to occupy a toilet and fix the rest of the costume there. Sacchan helped me improvise the eye makeup for my Lugia gijinka because I really had no idea what to do.

Lugia selfie!

Some sort of costume pic...

The more I look at my Lugia costume the more unsatisfied I am with how it currently looks. It's a bit too plain, not as recognizable as I had hoped (no one came to talk to me) and I feel like it was a bit too rushed tbh. I wanted to add some details to it but my gloves didn't arrive until after the con and I didn't have time, space nor money to make accessories that would increase the recognizability. Oh well, I'll upgrade this shit later. *shrugs*

There was a cosplay shop, selling props as well as costumes.

There were at least a couple wig sellers.

A lot of plushies and cute mascots where everywhere.

Don't forget the figurines!

And of course the Pokémon Go hype brought with it it's own merchandise. Those shirts are hella cool though.

There was a vendor selling vintage kimono, tabi etc.

Notice those ridiculously cute bird wallets. I was soooo close to buying one. ;_:

Of course there were also pins in loads.

Närcon had a fair amount of activities, games, rooms for specific communities (Touhou, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering etc) and there was a lot to do if you wanted to. But because me and Sacchan are simple congoers lazy fucks we enjoy ourselves the best just casually strolling around and watching the cosplayers and whatever happens to be going on where we are. It might sound boring but I find it really enjoyable to not be in a hurry to any panels or scheduled events ~

Sometimes you find silly shit... ~

Of course I saw some familiar faces at the con and met some new awesome people as well. I warmly remember the Touken Ranbu cosplayers and especially the two German peeps who me and Sacchan ended up chatting quite long with. You guys were lovely! ♥
There were quite a bunch of amazing costumes but also funny costumes! We spotted someone who had dressed up as a can of Sprite, pommes frites and a guy dressed in a carrot costume.

There was a MtG tournament...

... and in the MtG room there was a table filled with a fuckton of cards. :D

Friday I spent pretty much the same as Thursday, just walking around and enjoying myself. The problem with Närcon is that because the con area is so big your feet are sure to die. Thankfully I'm aware of this and I brought with me my most comfy shoes along with my cosplay shoes, just to be sure. I still keep thinking that bringing a skateboard or similar would be a great idea to future cons though...

There was a figurine room with Monster Hunter figures!

OMG Angemon and Takeru!!!! ;A;

At C-huset's entrance there was the Bandai Namco gaming booth and desk. There you could try some not-yet-released games, like Tales of Berseria and Tekken 7. I wanted to try ToB but it was always taken when I passed by and I didn't want to stand and wait and stress out the player before me so yeah, I ended up not playing. What I did though was enter Bandai Namco's competition because why the hell not? You could win a Sorey figure (from another Tales of game) and also got some exclusive promo goods for entering!

The backside of Bandai Namco's booth, showing the upcoming games.

Their gaming booth.

The promo goods that I received for entering the competition!

For anyone curious those freebies include an official Tales of Berseria poster, some kind of Naruto metallic decoration plate, Tekken promo cards and a Tales of Beseria candy gum pack, "gels" of course. ;)

Once the clock neared midnight me and Sacchan once again headed back to the camping to sleep while Karri stayed at the rave. Neither of us is much of a rave person so sleeping sounded more interesting to us. Luckily at least this night the tent wasn't as goddamn cold as the previous night but it was still kinda chilly.
Oh and yeah, I can't remember which day this was but while in our tent during the night we overheard some nearby campers talking about duct taping a "pipe" to a guy's thigh. Of course it sounded like something dirty was going on but when Sacchan went outside of the tent (to fill the water bottle, mind you) it turned out that the guy had an actual plastic pipe duct taped to his thigh and seemed like he maybe had to do some kind of challenge and walk with it taped on, to the con. It was funny at the time (not knowing the real reason) but I heard afterwards online that the poor guy was a con worker and had actually broken his leg and used the pipe as a support to be able to walk. I must say that I give all my respects to him and I hope he still had a nice con experience and got his job done. Such determination!

Saturday

Same thing again. Me and Sacchan woke up but, much to our surprise, noticed that Karri had not come back to sleep! We wondered where the heck he had been because neither of us had heard him entering the tent at any point and his belongings were scattered exactly the same as yesterday – untouched. Oh well, we didn't really worry because the odds of Karri getting beaten up somewhere doesn't really exist, lol. xD So yeah, we continued with our morning procedure, aka fetching something to eat. By the time we had eaten we were stuck in C-huset for a while because it had started raining. I was worried that our tent might have leaked but once the rain almost ceased we headed there and noticed that everything was alright, except that a bit of water had entered my side of the tent because of some unavoidable derps while rigging up the tent.
Because the rain had made the weather cool we thought that it could finally be an idea to put on our cosplays completely inside the tent (so that we wouldn't have to go back and forth) but yeah, as soon as we started it cleared up completely and I felt burning hell returning, fffuuu fffuuu!

I put on my Ibuki cosplay for this day and yes, I know I completely changed the order which I had originally planned to wear my cosplays at. I just went by mood and weather and Ibuki felt like a good choice for Saturday.

Ibukiiiiii ~

Originally I had hoped for an Ibuki photoshoot but then I couldn't be bothered (and all the good photoshoot locations were taken) and so we skipped it. I just chilled around in this costume and photoshooted a couple friends instead.
Fun thing is that at some point I saw a guy who I really thought was Cidi and I was really confused for a while, until I heard him talk fluent Swedish with another guy. I guess Cidi has a Swedish doppelgänger, or at least someone who looked really similar, lol.

One of the exits to the outdoor area. Notice the funny palm tree decorations hanging.

Comfy hammocks to chill in!

Don't forget the bouncy castle! There's no age limit!

I want to mention that this year Närcon had two Bubbletea sellers, one indoors in C-huset and another one outdoors next to Josbaren – they were both the same company though. What really bummed me out was that a bubbletea cost 50 SEK, which I'm pretty sure is more expensive than both last year and Närcon Vinter this year! What bummed me even more was that there were few flavors to choose from and no matcha milk bubbletea, which is my favorite and the only one I'd be willing to pay 50 SEK for...

People had fun drawing with chalk outdoors!

I also noticed that Närcon had set up signs warning for bootleg and fake merchandise. The problem is that a lot of easily identified as counterfeit goods were still being sold by many vendors. I know that some people don't know the difference but if you've been going to cons for a while and done your research it's not so hard to spot the bootlegs from the real deals. What amused me was that one of the vendor rooms, which only sold fake merch, even tried to put sales on obviously fake Pokémon plushies to get them sold. Clearly most people were knowledgeable enough to stay clear from that shit.

Bootlegs galore! Notice the hilariously bad Umbreon-Espeon... Espreon... plush. :-DDD

Yes, that's a 2 for 1 sale but tell me, who the fuck would pay a whopping 250 SEK for a fake plush (okay, two of them) anyway?? Fun fact is that when Sunday rolled in and some of the stores put on discounts and sales this one particular store had a big sign at the entrance to the room saying everything inside "take 2 pay for 1", lol. I was legit amused that they were so desperate to get their fakeass shit sold to poor and easily fooled unsuspecting young peeps. Disgusting.

I spent a lot of time checking both mine and Sacchan's StreetPasses!

When we got hungry we decided to try the Japanese food truck. It belonged to a local restaurant called ShinNori, which I knew to be of very high quality. There was constantly a long and slow-moving line to their food court but I must say that the food was worth the wait!

Me and Sacchan shared a portion of marinated yakiniku made of entrecote and it was delicious.

After wearing Ibuki for a majority of the Saturday I got sick of those leg things falling down all the time; I had forgotten that they partly ripped at the previous con I wore this cosplay to and yeah, forgot to repair them. I didn't want to be completely without a cosplay so I decided to do a quick and very half-assed change to Greece instead. I didn't redo my makeup or anything, just changed the costume, wig and lenses and rolled. It was late enough that no one would care anyway, just a couple hours from midnight.

The aftermath of wearing waraji.

Fun thing is that even though Greece is an incredibly simple cosplay I got more recognition wearing him for 15 minutes than I got wearing Ibuki for 5 hours, lol. It was discouraging and amusing at the same time. I ended up finding a group of Hetalia cosplayers sitting in a circle on the floor and joined them for a moment, although I felt a bit like a misfit because I'm just a casual fan and a bit too old for the jokes. It was fun though because when they spotted me everyone just lit up and shouted something, almost in unison, like "OMG A GREECE COSPLAYER! NEVER SAW ONE BEFORE! COME HERE AND HANG WITH US!". :'D So yeah, we hung with them for a while and then when the group split up we went to the Pokémon Gaiden room and hung there until we got tired, playing some Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate together with Sacchan.

Shitty bathroom selfie feat. Sacchan.

The Pokémon Gaiden room was where we spent the nights chilling. There was always some peeps there playing battles together but me and Sacchan just went and sat in a corner playing MonHun. Fun thing is that I met those peeps in there who played Monster Hunter with me last year in the cafeteria! Even better is that one of the guys cosplayed Jesus. He's now my MonHun Jesus.

Pokémon Gaiden's poster at the door.

Inside Pokémon Gaiden. It was comfy!

Before going to sleep we quickly checked out the rave party outside C-huset. It seemed like people were on a roll but we two were too tired and didn't feel like dancing in the cold so we went to sleep. I'm just not a dance person anyway.

People were raving wild.

Sunday

The last con day. We woke up late-ish and had to wake up Karri, who was sleeping like a log. It felt a bit bad to wake him up because he stayed up late and raved all night and came to sleep only a few hours before we had to wake up. The thing is that we didn't really have much of a choice because the camping closed 10:00 (local time) and the camping site had to be completely emptied 12:00 at the latest. So yeah, we took down our tent, Vicktor drove to the camping site with the car and we loaded the trunk with our mountain of luggage.
One fun thing though was that on Sunday morning it was quite windy and one of the guys next to us (he cosplayed Misty, Man-Misty) had his tent literally blowing away with the wind and he chased after it like a madman – I really had to keep my pokerface in check because it looked hilarious. xD

Camping sign saying when everybody had to leave.

Before leaving the con me and Sacchan wanted to go and fetch something to eat.. or at least to drink. I really wanted a Donkey Kong drink from Josbaren but, once we had stayed in the line for like 10 minutes, a con worker came and told everyone waiting that there were only Ganondorf drinks left. She also said that because of a lack of ingredients the remaining drinks would be on an experimental run because not all of the ingredients for Ganondorf were available.
So yeah, me and Sacchan gave up our hopes on Donkey Kongs and went inside C-huset instead to get something to drink for free. Närcon kåsa ftw. The con was closing in like 10 minutes so we did some speedruns to a few shops and I bought a face mask and a pin. I also bought some packs of mochi because during the last minutes there was a half price discount on them, meaning that one pack cost 20 SEK instead of 40 SEK and yeah, that was too good of a sale to pass up on!

Along the rush I managed to lose my Närcon kåsa somewhere and panicked – it's not like I would have any use of it anymore but I wanted to keep it as a souvenir memory. I ran around C-huset asking the vendors I had visited if they had seen it and luckily I managed to get it back. After that we hurried back to the car where Karri and Vicktor were waiting for us. I felt really bad for delaying the trip because of losing my kåsa...

The car trip back up to Umeå went all fine and we arrived at Vicktor's apartment quite late. We had time to leave back the rental car but there was some issues with delivering the car keys so that had to be done on Monday morning instead.
On Monday morning we took Sacchan's car from the parking lot and drove back up to our final destination, but before leaving Umeå me and Karri went to eat at a local kebab place with a funny name. Ordered some huge cheeseburger, even though it's a kebab place. The food was rather expensive so yeah, took the second cheapest option, lolol.

Kebabnekajse. :'D For those who don't get the pun Kebnekajse is the name of the highest mountain in Sweden.

There's an Articuno face mask (or Team Mystic, if you may), a Mikazuki Munechika plush mascot, a Yamato no Kami Yasusada gashapon rubber strap, a Lugia pin, a signed print from Yaya Han (one of the Guest of Honors), two octopus magnets and some Pokémon acrylic necklaces from different Artist's Alley sellers. There's also a Monster Hunter rubber keychain with the Quest Clear icon.

Remember those promo Tekken cards from the Bandai Namco booth? This time I got a Super Rare gold foil card!! 8D

So as you can see these lenses are indeed black, really dark but with the color fading towards the center, kinda turning grayish. When these lenses are worn they make your eyes look huge and black – perfect for dolly styles, anime eyes, those deer-inspired makeup looks or maybe even for some creepy but cute monster eyes! The contrast these lenses give on light eyes is really something! I suspect these would look the most natural on really dark brown eyes because the color change to black wouldn't be as drastic but if you want these for more extreme looks then, by all means, get them if you have light eyes!

As with most crazy and animation lenses out there these are really opaque and will cover your natural eye color completely, whatever shade it might be. I have light blue-gray eyes and these turn my peepers into orange wolf-like eyes in a second! The effect they give is really wild and cool!

One lens in.

The design is wild-looking, bold, with a black limbal ring combined with some irregular stripes pointing towards the pupil. The color is a medium to light orange with a more yellowish center. The change between yellow to orange is not too blunt and it gives a really nice two-color effect when worn, which makes the lenses look more lively and realistic. The pupil hole, aka where the color ends, is really abrupt though so these look fake in that regard (they clash where your real eye color meets the lens) but, then again, since when was orange a natural eye color anyway? ;)
These lenses are so vibrant that they show up easily even from a distance – no one will miss that you're wearing colored contact lenses!

These lenses are really easy to insert and I never had problems with them stinging or annoying my eyes, but they do make my sight very slightly fuzzy – imagine being in a field with some beginning mist and gazing away at a distance, that kind of minimal blur is what I see.
The thing with these is that they have a slightly smaller pupil hole than your average circle lenses and thus you will, most likely, constantly have orange corners in your vision – I experience this in most light conditions, except outdoors when the sun is out. It doesn't really bother me all that much but it's something that you do notice because it gives a minor "tunnel vision" effect; if you've worn any of the highly popular EOS Dolly Eye series you'll know what I mean.
I wore these lenses at a con for around 4 or 5 hours before they started to feel dry enough for me to want to take them off.

Facing window in my apartment.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Yellow light in the staircase.

Orange light in the staircase, with natural light (window) coming from the side.

Outdoors, facing the sun but sitting under the shadow.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing sun.

Indoors storage room. Natural light (window) from the side.

What can I say? These have an amazing color and look amazing even from afar. They're perfect for cosplay, wolf-inspired looks, funky styles, monsters, alternative fashion, fantasy creature costuming and whatever else you can imagine would look cooler with orange eyes! ... Oh, and those vampires from the Twilight series too, if you're into that.


Short summary:

Color: 10/10  
The color does what it should, looks badass and delivers pure orange vibrancy. Excellent.
Design: 10/10
Really nicely detailed crazy lens, one of the best orange lens designs in the market!
Opacity: 10/10
Completely covers whatever natural eye color you have and turns it undeniably orange.
Enlargement: 5/10
Decent. Not big but not super small either. A nice mid-ground.
Comfort: 7/10
Pretty decent. They are really comfy at first but the first signs of dryness come around the 2,5 hour mark for me. Around 4,5 hours they start to feel dryish but I could wear them longer if I wanted or needed to.
Naturalness: 0/10
Unless you're a fekkin'Twilight vampire then these won't cut it. Sorry, lol.

Valve entrance.

The cafeteria area, seen from above.

View of the Dealer's Hall.

Fantasiapelit selling manga and art books.

Collectible figurines, rubber straps etc.

Eeveelution rubber straps! ♥

Ginga Densetsu Weed plushies for pre-ordering!

I even found some Monster Hunter merch! :D

I was happy to see that Touken Ranbu merch is finally getting more common, even up here. C:

Pokémon stuff. Those Wailmer mascot plushies were too damn cute!

Of course there was a Pocky and Ramune candy booth.

In the second floor there was a water drinking spot. That's new!

Yes, that's the Magikarp scarf that I purchased soon after.

Magic wands and woodwork items!

Random stuff, including Pokémon Go team pins.

Super adorable legendary bird trio stickers. ;A; I wish these had been magnets instead, would totally have bought a set!

In the third floor was a board game room.

They had some stuff for sale. That tower was a game on which you picked your favorite dice from the cup, put it in the tower and if it came out with the highest number you got to keep the dice!

Hotaru reference.

Hotaru's hair ranges from a lighter gold to an orange-ish yellow, depending on the art. I decided to not be too picky about the color since it's inconsistent anyway. I do want to have the wig flare upwards a bit in the back though, like his hair does. I always thought that his hair was a reference to that he's a fire user and that's why I always pictured his hair as fairly poofy and wild-looking, but not in an overkill way – that's how I imagined it would translate in real life.

I didn't use any makeup because I did this quick test as soon as I got home from school and I was all tired and sweaty from the biking. My face looks like shit and I apologize if anyone gets cancer. :-D I'll do a makeup test separately later on, so stay tuned for that... I don't want to open my yellow lenses just yet.

This wig stands up on its own.

Side view.

Just to show the back.

I remember I didn't really like this wig when I first got it, but the more I look at it the more it starts to win me over. It doesn't look very natural but instead it looks very... shounen. This is the wig I'm currently leaning a bit more towards but I'm not sure. The main issue I have with this wig is that it frames my face poorly – mainly because some of the fibers (especially the bangs and the sides) kinda go "outwards" instead of just falling down nice and flat, which leaves that small but oh-so-ugly gap between the wig and your face where one can see your wig cap (or a "dark spot") etc... if you know what I mean. It's hard to describe but I'm sure most cosplayers have experienced it at least once. Then again, I'm not sure if this wig is heat resistant but, if it is, then I might be able to lessen this problem by straightening the problematic areas...

Tried to show the wig a bit from above...

... and from the side.

As you can see this wig looks more natural and toned down. I bought it from eBay and it has a very typical anime style and cut. What I'm worried about is that the cap size on this one is smaller (Asian brand) so it might give me a headache for prolonged wear; I have a large head. Another thing that might turn out to be a problem is that this wig doesn't have nearly as much fibers as the other one, so this one might not do as well if I want to style it to liven it up – especially the back part, which I should style anyway. If I go with this wig I would definitely need to style it because it somehow appears flat in comparison to the other wig, like the top doesn't really fluff much at all (unless you tease it).

Pros:
• Frames my face
• Color is a safe card
• Looks more natural

Cons:
• Cap size runs a bit small
• Isn't as full as the other wig
• The back is maybe too thin to be able to style well
• Appears flat in comparison
• Front bangs are a bit too short

This is the closest I could get but my camera still pales down and washes out the colors. The wigs are warmer and a bit more vibrant in person.

Character reference.

Obligatory cosplay selfie.

I originally had another wig for Rentarou but it was wayyyyyyy too small for my head and so I had to buy another. The previous wig was a bit nicer when it came to the colors but it was basically child-size for me so I couldn't even get it to stay on my head, ugh. ._. So yeah, this new wig I bought from a random Chinese eBay seller and, much to my surprise, it's actually wearable! It's still a bit tight (I can't use the hooks at all) but it shouldn't give me any major headaches. I sometimes quite often wish I had a smaller head because buying from eBay is pretty 50/50 for me if I get a wig that fits me or not...

As I said, I had no photographer available so to get any kind of full body shots I had to use the mirror, which also means that everything's reversed so yeah, it appears like the jacket's stripe is on the wrong side etc – it's not in reality. I apologize for the shitty yellow light, the mirror is placed on the bathroom door and there's only a crappy yellow light there (the window is too far away to really help bring in any natural light).


I'm not happy with the shoes because the blue colors are much more gray-based than the jacket so yeah, they don't match. :/ I'm thinking about repainting the shoes but I'm not sure what would work since the shoes are made of some kind of faux leather; need to research into that...

Regarding the debut of this cosplay I don't have a set con in mind, but I've been considering to get Rentarou debuted before this year is over – I still have a couple cons left to attend that would require a warm cosplay and Rentarou would fit the bill; the jacket is warmer than it looks so this cosplay would be a good choice unless I suddenly get inspiration to do something else, which happens way too often...

These were one of the first circle lenses that attracted me – I'm a fan of swirly designs and these lenses really make me think about whirlwinds! Needless to say I'm really fond of the design because yeah, when worn it looks like one has cute mini tornadoes in the eyes. c: I also like how the black limbal ring becomes a part of the design of the lens and spins towards the center – it's really pretty and mesmerizing somehow.

One lens in. Notice enlargement.

The color is a lovely soft light green that, surprisingly, despite its shade, doesn't disappear into my blue-gray eyes. I was honestly expecting these to just blend in too much and vanish but, luckily, that's not the case! The color is not super bold, vibrant or anything but it's definitely there and it sorta gives a kind and warm look to my eyes – makes me look like a cinnamon roll, hihi. I also really like how the black lines make the lenses appear dreamy when viewed from a distance. ♥ There is still a slight risk though that in some poorer lights the lenses disappear into my light eyes and turn into a muddy greenish gray...

Comfort is not the best, at least not for me. :/ These lenses are easy to insert but for me this particular pair started to feel dry and itchy after about 40 minutes and yeah, as soon as 1 hour had passed I kept thinking about taking them off because I could feel that they dried out and irritated my eyes, not in a painful way but in a "I can't pretend I'm not bothered by it" kind of way, lol. I also found myself blinking slowly, in hopes of getting those sudden stingy feelings to go away. Sometimes my vision would blur slightly too but it's not bad at all. After 2 hours had passed I took them off because they felt dry; actually, already during 1,5 hours I really wanted to take them out, but I persisted until 2 hours. Please note though that I seem to have sensitive and dry eyes so yeah, take my experiences with a grain of salt since everyone's eyes are different.
Then again, my lenses would have expired on March 2017 had I not opened them so yeah, that might play a part with the rocky comfort.

Regarding enlargement these circle lenses are not tiny but they definitely won't eat up your eyes either. I'd say that they're rather average in size and, much to my enjoyment, these lenses work really well even without any makeup on! Most circle lenses I've had requires at least some basic eyeliner to not look off but these could rock the whole everyday lens route, haha. I think they're really versatile!

Apartment roomlight, lamps on.

Apartment roomlight, only natural light.

Flash photo.

White light in the corridor.

Really shitty yellow light in the corridor.

Yellow light in the staircase.

Facing a weak orange-ish light in the staircase, back against a window (natural light).

Indoors storage room, with natural light coming from the side.

Outdoors, facing the sun while being under the roof's shadow.

Outdoors, facing sun while it's partly covered by clouds.

Outdoors, facing sun directly.

Outdoors, standing in the shadow of the building.

Okay so, I totally think these cute lenses work for many different purposes; you could use them for cosplay, j-fashion and even as a daily or casual lens! The BarbieDoll 400 is a fun lens with a fresh color that you can just put on and go! These lenses forgive you on those days you want to wear circle lenses but can't be bothered to slather your face in products, hehe.
The design is attractive, magical and eye-catching but without being too obvious or cartoony – the softness actually makes me think about nymphs, forest fairies or some other supernatural forest dwellers. I'd recommend these for anyone who likes whirly cute lenses that are versatile ~



Despite the design and soft green color these don't come off as too unnatural. Actually works really well as a casual lens!

Back in the days, when I started cosplaying, these were the lenses that everyone seemed to recommend to you online if you needed really ice blue or light blue cosplay lenses. The Princess Pinky Twilight Blue were one of the few, if only, actually good super light blue lenses in the market that weren't crazy animation lenses. Needless to say these lenses used to be rather popular from what I've gathered but yeah, now that they've got competition I'm not sure if they've lost their rave position in, at least, the cosplay community. They used to be the go-to ice blue colored contact lens for cosplayers, despite being infamous for their poor comfort – I'll tell you more about that soon!

But yeah, the design is surprisingly natural-looking, except for the obviously light color. It seems to try to mimic a real iris and the effect is really flattering and pleasant. Closest to the pupil hole there's some yellow and I think that's great because it makes the lenses blend more seamlessly into my real eye color, which is a light blue-gray. I think that it would have "clashed" more if the lenses didn't have the yellow inner part, if you know what I mean. They are quite realistic in terms of design – the color, not so.

One lens in.

The thing that these lenses have going for them is their color and their small size, which makes them ideal for cosplaying male characters and whatever other characters that simply doesn't work with big dolly eyes. So even though there are now other vibrant light blue lenses out there, like the I.Fairy Moonlite Blue, the Twilight Blues still appear to be the only choice for those who really don't want big lenses, for whatever reason. At least I haven't found any ice blue lens that is just as small as these.
I should also note that despite having a stated diameter of 14.5 mm these certainly don't look that big and that's because, upon closer inspection, you'll notice that the design is actually printed quite far away from the edges – which makes the lenses appear notably smaller. The "true diameter" would be more like a 14.2 mm or something like that; note though that I didn't measure them or anything, this is just me spontaneously comparing them in my mind to other small lenses I've had.

I decided on doing Shin Kazama as he appears in the OVA.

Front. With visor partly down.

Back.

As far as I've gathered this model is not in use anymore and thus fairly rare to source. I sadly don't know too much about it just yet (I'm waiting to ask at a military forum for more information) but I'll hopefully mention any new knowledge that I gather in the next helmet post! This post will just be to show you guys a bunch of detail photos of the pilot helmet, before I do any modifications. I thought why not share some photos of it, in case someone out there, one day, is doing this same cosplay (although rare/unlikely) and stumbles upon this post. :) Aviation fans might also be interested, hehe.

The thing is that I'm not even sure if Shin's helmet is taken directly from the real world or if there's some artistic liberties taken on its design. I do know though that the series is surprisingly realistic (portrays existing fighter jets etc) and based on the 1970's and 1980's – it's definitely worth a watch if you're into war/aviation series, especially the OVA. It's one of my personal favorites and yes, I'm biased because of my childhood but sssshh. Seriously, check it out if war drama and realistic portrayals about how war affects the human mind is in your interest.

Side view.

The other side.

Seen from above.

Visor knob closeup.

Inside.

Closer look on the inside.

Ear cup closeup.

What appears to be a Gentex sticker on the inside.

Chin strap.

Chin strap, other side.

Closeup on the chin strap's adjuster.

What I assume is the holders for the oxygen mask.

Label on the backside.