New Blog!

I'm sure no one checks this after all this time. But if you happen to spot this post, I've moved over to this new blog! So please check it out if you have the time, and I'll try to make some more wig reviews and not.... drop off the face of the earth haha.

Katsucon 2011!

Back in 2005 my first convention ever was Katsucon, I asked my mom to take me and my friends for my 13th birthday and had a horrible time. My mom helped me put together a Sasuke costume out of a walmart shirt, shorts and black hairspray (I am naturally beach blonde), and the other cosplayers weren't quiet about how bad I looked. I cried to my parents that night about how mean everyone was and what a terrible way to kick off my 'teenage' years. I rejected cons and confined my nerdiness to internet and living vicariously through Gaia Barton Town.

Years later I attended again as Lenalee from D. Gray Man with my natural hair (tooooo short) and an eBay costume and had a pretty good time. The following year I met my friends Aiden, Frog, and Zippy where I was inspired to be a ~sugoi~ cosplayer like them. I took some sewing classes (I still suck) and here I am today in 2011! Whoooooa. So anyways, Katsucon the past few years has always been terrible for me, it always ends in drama yet I can't seem to stay away.

This year was HawkwardCon more than anything, between an ex-boyfriend (who clearly did not want anything to do with me) and some people who have issues with my roommate I was pretty scarce. Despite all that I really had a fantastic time, I won't be home for spring break so it was nice to spend a lot of time with my family and some friends I haven't seen since 2009!
Now onto pictures~

Attended the Vocaloid shoot for about 10 seconds until scrambling to change and go shopping with mom ;;

My friends all cosplayed Homestuck (the group was even bigger than this) My favorite is the one in the polka-dot pants, he ran into another of his pola dot brethren and they honked at eachother and jumped around.

Slightly closer-up shot of my Matryoshka Miku without the gloves (too tired by this point...) I took a few pictures with my roomie and her brother but I don't think we'll get them back for a bit!

First time in lolita! AP skirt, Secret Shop shoes, Chocomint bow and everything else is off-brand. Cake purse is horribly clashing but I'm still new and it was 10 at night ;;; Accurate description of myself: Tweeting about trolls engaged in heated debates.

More soon, I have some con stories but not a whole lot pictures and the fact that its past midnight makes me really not want to drag this post out! ;;;

Oh, January 29 was my birthday! I meant to write a post about it but... didn't. Oops! Maybe I'll just have a time machine post at some point. ;;

Cosplay Karma

My least favorite part of working really really hard on a costume is that when you do, there will never be good pictures of it.

Exhibit A

We recently had a small convention for all the nerd clubs at our college, considering it's art school we have quite the community. Though for an art school there was very little art, the artists alley was barely ten tables with another fifteen vacant, and most of it was Pokemon or porn.

There were a few attendees that were not from our school but for the most part it was people I run into occasionally on campus. The con was split between three buildings when it could have easily been held in one, blah blah blah.

Writing this to write my creeper encounter, and because I haven't updated in forever. Sorry guys :'( I read all your blogs, I really do even if I don't comment!

So my tale begins at the 'cosplay meetup' at the large club building where I didn't know anybody. A girl from back home blatantly ignored me (though she was at my Christmas party and everything this year :/) so I was stuck talking to this cute shy Ranka for a while. Ran out of convo and proceeded to the free food table to eat my feelings while people milled about screaming memes at each other.

This guy walks up, tall with black hair and proceeds to lose his shit over my Haine costume, and I was like 'cool, people know my obscure shoujo cosplay'. We talked for a bit before he began yelling spoilers at me, fantastic. I was a little low on cash during break but had the fabric and wig to pump it out, I'm pretty close to the end of the series but not to the end yet.

Head back to the food table, I have a lot of feelings.

Enter the cosplay contest because the club president was also a fan of the series and she was... adorable so I signed up. A rather gender neutral Lulu wins and as she/he/what bows to the crowd I catch a glimpse of a carpet of back hair. Like- there was no skin.

Later I catch up with friends (as seen in picture above) as they enter a figure painting contest. Losinghisshit-bro comes over and starts telling his friends about me, which is flattering but the way he was talking I felt like an animal in a zoo. Laugh it off, guy leaves. The contest is long so I sit back to enjoy some Batman when suddenly I hear 'Excuse me miss?' and I turn around. CLICK, picture.

I'm not very photogenic so I absolutely hate it when con goers take pictures without permission. I'm happy to pose in cosplay for as long as someone wants, just... ask me first, I feel it's just good etiquette. I look pretty pissed and he apologizes for 'being creepy' and I just sort of nod and say yeah. He snaps another picture (B[) and runs back to the cosplayers upstairs.

Not the worst thing ever, I know of worse con creeper stories but I will be mucho upset if those pictures show up on facebook. So blogger, tell me your creepiest/craziest/most entertaining con story ever.

This blog is Suteki

I'm rather new to lolita, so rather than kind of 'eh' my outfit together and go wander around DC alone I just stayed in for ILD... and installed a new closet. Woo, power drill in frills would have been a sight.

After I had installed a closet to put all my new lolita things in, I celebrated by making a Poupeegirl!

Like all my social networks (and I imagine many of yours), this will grow dust and become inactive like my Gaia and Neopets. However we keep signing up for these sites anyways, where we forget the passwords and wonder why we wasted so many hours on it in the first place.

I really just wanted an excuse to title this entry SUTEKI. Hello followers, you are all SUTEKI and every time you comment it makes me feel SUGOI. So ARIGATOU GOZAIMASU, I appreciate it and read them all and feel URESHII.

Since we're on the subject of social networks, I also have a tumblr, twitter and youtube. All of which I tend to neglect, tumblr was my most recent victim where I had stopped updating for a good month and a half. I got back into the swing of things but after a month I couldn't remember what I had posted, so clicked my profile and-


Sometimes I wish I was a ~deep, poetry writing 15 year old~ instead of an 18 year old manchild.

The most wonderful time of retail

I've returned to good old Washington DC and I didn't miss the politics and suits one bit.

To things that might be relevant to you, it's been a week since one of my favorite days, Black Friday! Somehow in all my years of high school jobs I never once got stuck working Black Friday, and boy did all my co-workers hate me. This year I took my best friend and mom out to our local mall, Best Buy, the normal places you hit for Black Friday. I clip coupons days before and am wary to check up on the rip offs and the actual good deals to get as much free stuff for as little as possible. If you have to spend $50 at XX store to get XX free item, I will always find a way to spend $50.01

As a brand lover and penny pincher I'm on the hunt year round so Black Friday is just a play date for me out of the other 365. As a cosplayer I'm not afraid to shop online and feel I'm a pro at it by now, so if you're fearless as well then keep reading.

My favorite online store for discount brand is Hautelook.com
, while the selection is a bit weak right now I've been able to purchase Urban Decay, Juicy Couture, Alterna, Voom, and Betsey Johnson from this site for ridiculously cheap.

For cosplay wigs I've recently discovered that TaoBao has 99% of the same wigs on eBay except MUCH cheaper. Fantasy Sheep has a shop my roommate recently purchase a Stocking wig from, $19 WHY DIDN'T I KNOW SOONER.

Last thing I recommend, for real. I adore makeup but I shop almost exclusively from Ulta, which is essentially Sephora with haircare and a salon built it. They have the same products but a kick ass rewards card/program, if you're on drag-queen level makeup you can earn enough points to even have hair treatments done. For free, no shit. For the rest of us, just a few small purchases will bump you up to $4 off every purchase even if it's a clearance item (I shop their haircare clearance obsessively). And from there the points build up till you get better rewards every visit, love it!

Sorry I'm a little long winded, still rolling in fresh new free things and I can't quite contain myself. Hope everyone is having a happy holiday so far! <3

How I met Andrew Jenks

Ohmygod it's been awhile, I go to an art school and Finals means absolutely no time. Between Pokemon League and homework I'm just swamped (and losing followers! No come back I can change!)

Despite being ridiculously busy I did make time to hit up a panel run by an alumni who works on the show World of Jenks, one of my favorites. As a college freshman I sometimes feel incredibly lonely sometimes and the first few weeks I spent a lot of time in my dorm. One night when my roommate was out I just felt a big cry come on, and as soon as I did this show came on. It was the Chad episode, which I've seen at least a dozen times but it really cheered me up and reminded me how many good and interesting people there are out there.

Aside from that mush, so alumni (I'm hesitant to post his name, sorry :( watch the credits!) comes and gives a presentation on how he went from being a Film student to working for MTV. We got to see a lot of production stills and posters from the show and he told us some great stories about working on the show and behind-the-scenes things that just made me giggle. My roommates spilled the beans about halfway through that I was a h-u-g-e fan and after the panel he turned to me and said "Well do you want to talk to him?"

I'm delighted and horrified my roommate Jenn (Everyday Acrophony) recorded a video of this. My IQ took a sudden drop in points as he handed the phone to me, and in between babbling and excitment I asked him to come speak at our school and that I loved his show, etc. etc. Of course all these people around me just had to start screaming so I had a harder time hearing what he said back to me :( However Jenks sounds exactly like he does on TV as he does on the phone, after a minute or so I said by and handed it back to our presenter, totally embarrassed. It's one of those really exciting moments where I wish I could have said something cool, but it was really sweet of him to take the time to talk to some giggling fan.

And that is my celebrity encounter, they're unsure right now if World of Jenks will have a second season since it all depends on ratings. It's no Jersey Shore but it'd mean a lot to me if everyone just checked it out, it really makes my week every Monday and I hope if a second season does happen Jenks will speak at my school.

In closing, World of Jenks is on Mondays @ 10 EST and usually the re-runs air on non prime-time hours (since it isn't the Jersey Shore). The Monday I talked to Jenks we ran back to our dorm to catch the V.V. Brown episode and I've been listening to this song nonstop:



In news other than my obsession with reality TV, trying to score Star Night Theater since it seems everyone's unloading it right about now...

Wig Dying: FW Ink and Nia formula

As a huge Gurren Lagann fan I can say without a doubt that Nia is probably one of the prettiest characters I've ever seen, period. Even next to Yoko, my wifey, her design just jumps out of the screen at me whether it be just her ~PRETTY CLOUD HAIR~ or ~FLOWER EYES~. I just really like the way she looks even if I'm not her biggest fan.

I've been cosplaying Yoko since 2008 and I've seen tons of people struggling to get her wig right. Ultimately I feel as if it comes down to "Do you want to be accurate or look good?" A lot of sharpie dyes on blonde wigs will turn the fibers a more green-teal tone rather than light blue. My group of friends has cosplayed Nia multiple times and here's our method:

First off, we use white wigs- not blonde. Oh goodness no! But Nia herself has very pale blonde and if you've ordered uber-platinum wigs before you'd know that they can be unforgivably shiny and gross. So already we are going down the path of 'Look more like the character than look accurate.', so if you want to be the most accurate Nia like no one ever was, then maybe you should stop reading.

Our white wigs always come from cog_marc, a quick search under 'white' may bring up a number of curly/wavy wigs. The exact one we've purchased over and over doesn't seem to be in stock but this may be where you experiment with other shops.

While their wigs appear more wavy than curly this is about what you can expect!

cog_marc's wigs are very well priced and if you can afford it, I might suggest buy two white ones and wefting them together. From here we essentially just throw the wig onto a wig head and get to painting. Painting? Yes, painting.

Things you need:

1. Sponge brushes, preferably 4-5. These are about $0.50 at Joann fabrics.
2. FW Ink, Get one in white and one in blue, go for Process Cyan. A little pricey but if you're cosplaying Nia you're probably already spending a good chunk on this costume anyways.
3. 70% Isoproyl alcohol, $3 drug store. Grab a 90% incase it becomes too blue, soaking the wig in it will take out some of the pigment.
4. Also some paper bowls to pour the mix into, this stains plastic ware.




Our formula for Nia is usually 3 parts white, 2 parts blue but that's for making a very subdued blue. If you'd like to go a tad brighter throw in a few more drops of blue. You can deposit this straight into the alcohol, when you've added the ink, shake it up and go at it.

Outdoors, no flash, shade/low sunlight. Point-and-shoot camera.

Indoors, no flash. Terribad lighting.

Outdoors, sunshine, no flash.

Outdoors, harsh sunlight, point and shoot.

Sorry having trouble finding indoor flash photos! But you get the idea. This is a very light, subdued blue that really comes across well in person and certain lighting situation but not always on camera.

I used the same FW Ink method on my Mieu wig except with 5 parts blue, 3 parts white:

Outdoors, no flash, point and shoot.

Indoors, flash, point and shoot. Demon face.

Indoors, no flash, point and shoot.

Outdoors, no flash. D-SLR. See the difference a nice camera can make?

For those looking for a bright blue pop to their wig might was to opt for 3 parts white and 4 parts cyan but make sure to test on a lock of the wig's hair first! Pour the mix into a bowl, dip with your sponge brush and just paint it on.

TL;DR, mix your own damn formula however you damn well please. Snip off a lock and do test strands if you're super paranoid about ruining a wig. Or just come up with your method for a Nia wig, this just happens to be ours!

Hope it was helpful, if you have any questions I can answer in the comments!