The Hime Gyaru Project: Part 2 (Dress + Bag + Customized Shoes)

I started working with the Hime Gyaru project!

(Related link: The Hime Gyaru Project: Part 1)

I'm getting really excited on starting this project. It's been months since my last project and I  miss doing accessories and creating a getup piece by piece. 

Ze shoes!

So anyway, I started working with the shoes that I will be wearing with the getup. I customized my old pair of rubber wedges with laces, tulle, ribbons and pearls, sticking the details using glue gun. 

Here is a couple of photos of how the shoes looked like before and after I customized it:

Before

After

Details of the shoes.

I am still going to embellish it with ribbons. Going pink all the way! 

Ze dress!

I have this cute dress in my closet that needs embellishment and details to make it look more hime gyaru-like. At least it has the elements of a hime gyaru dress: pink, white and flower prints all over. I'm planning on making a big bow belt for it. 

Details of the dress.

Ze Bag

Yes. A Hello Kitty merch MUST be present in this get up. Luckily, I have this flowery pink HK bag to match the entire look. I think princesses love Hello Kitty. Don't you?

So what can you say about the pieces of my Hime Gyaru project? 

The Hime Gyaru Project: Part 1 (Accessories + Shoes)

HI! I've been gone for a few days because I was on the planning stage for my new project this Halloween: another Japanese style, the Hime Gyaru.

Hime Gyaru, translated from Japanese to English, is Princess Girl. These type of girls are seen wearing princess-like clothes, jewelries, accessories and shoes and act in princess-like manner in the streets of Japan.

The Hime Gyaru style is almost all pink and white: clothes, bags, shoes and accessories consist of pearls, flowers (especially roses), laces, crowns and sometimes teddy bears.

I found this slideshow video of Hime Gyaru on youtube. Please do watch! :) Credits to the youtube user Hentriette.
So this is my work-in-progress: Let me show you what are the raw materials I bought yesterday for the Hime Gyaru Accessories.

This are the details of a fedora that I styled a few months back. I never got to wear this with any of my outfits so I have decided to rip off the details to be used in decorating my hime gyaru shoes.

I am going to decorate my old pair of rubber wedges with flowers and ribbons to make it look like those that are worn by a Hime Gyaru. 

I found these babies in my room, they are for the details on the shoes and accessories. I am going to create a headpiece for this style using pink roses, laces and pearls.

For my accessories! I was not able to find a crown bling-bling in a local accessory shop so I resorted to this carriage bling that reminds me of Cinderella's pumpkin carriage. The pearl-like beads will be used for my necklace and bracelet. 

Lastly, I bought fake nails set because I thought I can't possibly stick teddy bears and pearls on my nails without destroying it the second it is done. So I am going to decorate these nails with nail deco flowers to match the entire look.

I hope I can start making the accessories soon! My friend and I planned a shoot for this style this Saturday afternoon. I have so little time to prepare. 

Next post, I am going to show you a couple of clothes I found in my closet that are close to the Hime Gyaru fashion. I hope you guys can help me choose one to wear on the shoot!

What do you guys think of this street fashion popular in Japan?

Where have you been?

A HUGE WAVE OF REQUIREMENTS CAME MY WAY! That's what October brought me. A LOT of requirements. That's why I was not able to write regularly this month. We had to finish our thesis, we had to create and organize a roleplay and had series of seminars. And to end the series of stressful events; we had our yearbook pictorial this day. Phew!

Well anyway, this ain't a rant post. LOL. Actually I wanted to show off a few of my outfits during the seminars and my makeup during the pictorial.

Anyway, let's start with my outfit on the first seminar that I attended.

We were required to wear semi-formal outfits during the four seminars that were organized for our class. I was a little bit worried about this because I didn't have a lot of semi-formal pieces on my closet. I don't even know how to categorize my clothes into casual, semi-formal, formal,  and etc! So I took a few pieces out of the closet, mixed and matched the tops and the bottoms and voila! I created a few decent sets for these events.

I did not have good shots of these outfits. So please forgive the photo quality! >_<

(Thanks to LOOKBOOK.NU for giving me ideas on how to match my pieces plus some ideas on what accessory to wear!)
<WARNING: IMAGE-HEAVY POST, most of it are photos of my face. :DD)

First seminar:

I used my Boho skirt and black boots. I paired it with a long-sleeved shirt and my camera bling bling. My friends commented that I looked fab that day. It was a bit rewarding to hear that from them. :)

Second Seminar:

It was our turn to conduct the seminar! I used pants that time because I was in-charge in the documentation of the entire flow of the event. It was much easier to move around and take shots wearing pants than wearing a skirt.

Fourth Seminar:
Why did I skipped the third? Well, I just wore a shirt that day, not much of an outfit. I acutally planned to be part of Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk that day but the seminar ended later than expected and I was not able to make it on time.

Anyway, here is what I wore during the fourth seminar...

LOOSE PANTS! I love this pair of pants. It's so comfortable to wear and it looked like pajamas! I wore a shiny tank with the pants with cardigan, red belt and a pair of brown boots.

AND THE PICTORIAL!
I actually did a makeup trial last Sunday on what to put on on the day of the yearbook pictorial. This is the result of my hard work.

 I nailed the eye makeup part but I think I still need more practice on how to do the rest of my face.

Other photos:

IT'S THE DAY!
(It's today) 
Finally, the day has come! A few of my friends asked me to do their makeup so I had to go to school extra early to start doing their faces! They all looked fab after the makeup session and I looked horrible and sweaty after I finished all of them. OTL
Good thing I still had a few minutes left to do my own makeup and rushed to the studio for my pictorial moment.

Well, it turned out fine, despite the fact that I was super tired and hungry and sleepy at the end of the day.

I looked a bit different but at least eyerything turned out fine. I don't have other decent photos of my face that day so I am still going to wait for my friends' uploads and tags soon. Til then, let's settle for this photo, m'kay? :D

So tell me what you think of these outfits and the makeup!

My Very Own CosCard!

I was browsing the web for cosplay blogs when I stumbled upon this interesting practice in most conventions, the exchange of COSCARDS.

COSCARDS are cosplayers' "business cards" with their CURE Number, e-mail address, website, facebook account and so on that are given to other cosplayers and photographers in a cosplay event. It is customary in Japan to exchange business cards after meeting a person for the first time. So these coscards are the business card's equivalent in the cosplay world. Read all about the Japanese business card etiquette here.

I got so interested with these lovely things that I actually made a couple of designs for my coscards. Take a look at them:

The making of my coscards.

I included in my coscard my name. blog URL, facebook page, e-mail address and my cure number.

I followed SG Cafe's tutorial on making the cards. It was very helpful in a way that it also included a template to help you in printing out the coscards when you are done making it.

I used specialty board size 8.5 by 13 in 220 GSM for the print outs. It turned out pretty nicely.

The color is cream but it looks almost white.

My printed-out coscards with the album. 

I bought a business cards album to keep the coscards. Thank goodies it fitted perfectly.

My coscards with the photo of my visual kei style. 

Coscards with the photo of my Gakupo Matryoshka cosplay. 

I can't wait for the next cosplay event in my town! I want to exchange coscards with other cosplayers to get to know them better. I think this is a very convenient way to exchange information about you during an event. You don't always carry a pen and paper always, do you? :)

Do you have coscards of your own? Why don't we exchange next time when I see you? :)

Zamboanga Bloggers Giveaway Winners

The time to announce the winners of my first collab giveaway with other Zamboanga Bloggers has finally come! It was nice to get to know more about these lovely bloggers and collaborate a giveaway with them. It was also a nice experience to giveaway wonderful hats sponsored by Hatah Hatah.

Anyway, here are the lucky winners of the giveaway:

   All winners should e-mail Patty Tan at [ lalalapatricia@yahoo.com] their details. Congratulations and watch out for more otaku giveaways from this blog!

I'm nothing special...

So I went to my aunt's feast celebration out-of-town. My cousins commented that I looked too fab to go to the mountains (Yep. Their house is located far from the town proper - in the mountainous part of the city). I did not care that much, you know. As long as I wore flats and a long-sleeved shirt, I think I'll survive in any high-altitude place. And I do not look TOO fab that day, right? :)

My cousin took all these photos. She's not a real photographer. I instructed her what to shoot and she followed the it well. :)

Do you think she has a potential to be a photographer? :)

Figure Photos - Ryuk of Death Note

I almost forgot about these photos that I took a months weeks ago. What I love about Ryuk is his joy when receiving apples from Light. I also love his no-care character sometimes. It makes me smile every time he pulls it off.

See my old watermark? Yeah, these photos are that old. :)

More photos of Ryuk  as soon as I have time creating a real figure studio. Can't wait for that to happen!

Crimsolympics Cosplay Competition Day Two Portrait Shots

Maybe I'm getting good at it... Maybe not. Whatever! I love taking portrait shots on cosplayers. In my opinion, portrait shots capture a closer look of the cosplayer and the costume. Cosplayers make accurate costumes, taking note to every little detail even the eye color (we wore contact lens to copy the character's eye color) so to capture everything in the photo, a good portrait shot is needed. 

LOL

Anyway, without further ado, here are the photos of the impromptu shoot that we had during the second day of the Crimsolympics Cosplay Competition. Enjoy!

These photos were taken during the Crimsolympics Cosplay Competition Day Two.

Character: Elsie 

Series: The World God Only Knows

Cosplayer: Cristina

Photo by: Cee

Character: Haruhi Suzumiya

Series: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Cosplayer: Jenaly

Photo by: Cee

Character: Utau

Series: Shugo Chara

Cosplayer: Nouf

Photo by: Cee