The first Tsurugi

Just finished cutting out the foam-parts for the huge sword. It is currently around 170 cm long, which is pretty damn big. The quality of the picture really sucks, will post a new one once I have a proper camera around. More to come! Busy working on it. ^^

My first sword

Cloud maybe most recognized feature is his vast arsenal of "bad-ass swords". I wanted to make the fully developed 6-part "First Tsurugi" but I havn't worked with this kind of materials that you need to use here so I decided to make the core of the sword. Face it, this thing is HUGE! If you don't use the right materials you can't actually carry it around.

I used a light-metal Curtain rod as a core. It can carry a lot, yet it is very light not to mention cheap! I made the swords rough shapes in cardboard but slightly smaller so I could cover it with plastic sheet for a better finish. I cut out all and used a whole lot of hot pistol glue (my best friend). I put on some red leather on the handle, sanded some small plastic-cards that made the parry. Added some details to it, and that is pretty much it. I used a metallic (titanium-looking) spray. Next time: prime it properly, use more layers of it and then use a sealer! Then it's going to look a lot better. But I was having to paint it roughly 12 hours before we had to leave to the con, so I am glad it did look a bit like metal at least!

Result:

Reference:

To complete this sword I'll add the dark metal-plate in the base of the sword, a few details along the blade, round off the top and make the handle and parry a bit thicker. When this is done with I will make the fully assembled 6 part "The First Tsurugi" from the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie. That is one hell of a sword to make, challenge accepted.

The vest of doom

As easy as vests are shirts can be, there can be annoying ones. Knitting your own from scratch never having done any knitting before (not counting a 5x5" piece for school around 8-9 years ago). I had to ask the elders for advice, my grandmother had to teach me from the basics. I can't say a lot except that I will show respect to those who can knit properly (and fast) from now on. I am not going to do it again! Took around two weeks (counting finding the right color). The most annoying part is that there are so many gray colors. I would have liked a little bit darker but there was none available. The color of Cloud's vest changes all the time. From the brightest of gray to almost black and to top it off almost every picture is taken night/evening time or just some gloomy half-darkness. They don't want to make it easy for you.

My vest:

Reference picture:

The shoulder pad

I made the shoulder in a few hours starting in the middle of the night before the con. I looked at some reference pictures and made a rough prototype in tinfoil. I took wonderflex (found at cosplaysupplies.com) and made it. Then I applied a gesso-similar material that is a bit more like plastic and covered it all with. Applied some black color and that was pretty much it. I should have added a lining in the edge of it, but I didn't have time!

After that it was time for some sculpting. I have never made ANYTHING out of clay before and being in the middle of the night with stress didn't help. But I had a blast doing it anyway! I think the ears were the hardest part, making them actually look like ears and well, not something else?! It should have been a bit smaller, stand out a bit more and have a ring in it's mouth. Anyway, here is how it turned out:



















The first picture is taken after a bit too enthusiastic glomp. Note to self: Make sure it can survive attacks!

My first cosplay!

Like I said in my last post, Cloud Strife was my first cosplay. I picked the costume from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children since that was the version I liked the most. Both the clothes and the way he acts. The costume itself isn't really the most advanced. There are tons of exceptionally hard costumes out there, but this costume is quite simple with some nice props and fine details to make!

The shoulder pad with the wolf's head, the sword and the "swordbag" on his back are all small challenges by themselves for me who havn't used the materials I used for them. I actually made these the last day (as well as most of the night before the con!) and didn't even get a chance to try make the swordbag since my planning sucked. Stitching his vest was a nightmare and took a lot longer than expected. It left me with about a day to paint the sword, make the shoulder pad, paint that and sculpting the wolf's head. To my defense it went better than expected, as well as all of this being the first time using these materials. Naturally I would have liked to make it more thorough but there you are. Next post will show some of the things I made, and some pictures on my costume and stuff.

A little bit about me!

First of all, welcome to my blog! This blog will mainly include things relevant to my cosplay projects, as well as some things I encounter in my daily life!

Enough of formalities, let me tell you about myself! I am quite new to cosplay even though I've liked the culture for a long time. This is the story of how it all began...

Roughly a year ago I barely knew what it really was, much later at a real convention I truly understood that there was so much more. I guess it all started with a friend from High school. He showed me some episodes of the anime Naruto and I was caught, I had only watched the English dubbed version of Pokemon before that but this truly triggered it. One thing led to another and I had suddenly read hundreds of mangas, watched hundreds of animes and started researching the Japanese culture.

I don't really know what the thing was that made me so interested. Was it the fascinating new language where so much more can be expressed with mere words? Was it the style that they are made in? Maybe the contrast to the "western-made" movies, or maybe just the feeling that can be felt in them. I have thought a long time about it but can't really reach a conclusion. I'll just say for now that they are somewhat similar to literature during the romantic period. This culture is like a flight away from a gray and dull daily society. It inspires to keep living life the way you want to live it. It can color the society, glorify the human spirit and romanticizing the relationships between us among many other things.

All of this just made me wonder what kind of people actually watched this. A friend of my told me about a convention, where the enthusiasts of the Japanese culture met. Uppcon, a convention in the city Uppsala in Sweden. Then i thought, when I'm going to go, I may as well go all the way and come in a costume of my own! I chose to go as Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. His mindset to protect those close to him, humanity and the very earth itself is what makes me like him. He would gladly give his life to save someone else. This immense willpower is the kind of strength that I wish that I will have if encountered with a situation when people that are important to me are endangered. Because of how I grew up I've been very fond of the friends I've had, they truly saved and I wish to return that favor some day. More of that later.

My brother took a likening to Vincent Valentine, so we went together as a duo from the famous movie and the even more amazing game. I met the most amazing people! I was treated like an equal by all and even as an old friend by almost anyone that I met. I've never seen so many unique people that accepts people for who they really are and are not afraid to be the way they want to be. Normally you'd be frowned upon if you merely spoke to someone randomly, hell they'd even think that you're weird! Here people just walked right up to you, hugged you and cheerfully chatted. I can't even begin to explain how good it felt to be there, I felt like this was all a part of me, like this was where i belonged.

I might add more to this, but I will write a bit about my past projects first, and upcoming projects later on.