Cosplay and Fashion Compilation 2014

2014 is ending and it is somewhat a 'tradition' to compile every character I cosplayed and fashion coord I created throughout the year.

Surprisingly, I was able to cosplay a number of characters, considering that I mainly get my cosplay funds from Fabric Flowers By Cee, a small accessory shop I own based online.

Photo credits:
Soah by AdZU Fanpage
Junko by Alvin AD Photography
The rest by HaruSuika

2014 Cosplays:
Soah of the Bride of the Water God
Junko Enoshima of Dangan Ronpa
Sakura Kinomoto of Card Captor Sakura
Miku Hatsuna - VOCALOID Lots of Laughs MV
Neo Queen Serenity of Sailor Moon
Anarchy Panty of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt
Lala Satalin Deviluke of To Love Ru
Princess Bubblegum of Adventure Time
Princess Janelle of Princess Hours

2014 Fashion Coords:
Geisha-inspired get-up
Harajuku Decora-inspired get-up "Harajuku Hello Kitty"
Shironuri Oiran-inspired get-up

Anyway, despite the fact that I get lesser money than last year to fund my hobby, I am still very much satisfied with my cosplays this year. I got to do one of my all-time favorite anime character, Usagi as Neo Queen Serenity of Sailor Moon and I was able to complete the most challenging character in my cosplay list yet: Soah of The Bride of the Water God. I was able to cosplay character requests like Panty Anarchy of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt and Junko Enoshima of Dangan Ronpa - sexy characters faved by my friends. Then I was also able to do famous and childish characters like Princess Bubblegum of Adventure Time and Sakura Kinomoto of Card Captor Sakura.

I was invited to guest during cosplay events and judge a couple of cosplay competitions. I also had my share of screen time on a local TV show and a couple of event videos on YouTube taken during a big-time event here in our city. How cool is that?

Anyway, overall I think 2014 is really a good cosplay year for me. Most of the cosplay shoots I participated produced satisfying photo sets. I can project much better on camera now than I did before. I think I got a little more confident this year, thanks to the photographers who helped me loosen up during shoots and loving friends and family who were very supportive in every event I participate.

I am looking forward to a wonderful 2015. I am planning to cosplay fewer new characters to focus on redoing and improving my previous cosplays. I hope I can greatly improve my overall cosplaying skills this coming year.

I still have a few cosplay photo sets to post. My photographers just gave me their finished products a few weeks ago and I am so excited to talk about them here.

Thank you so so much for the undying support on my blog and cosplays~! I will strive hard to get better in cosplaying, taking photos and blogging. See you in 2015!

Happy New Year!

WMSU Palaro 2014 Cosplay Trip

How to make the most out of your WMSU Palaro experience? GO COSPLAY!

Remember my old college club Nihon Fure Ai Kai 日本触れ合い会? Well, last time they invited me to judge their cosplay competition during the Nursing Palaro. This time, they gladly welcomed us (Patsy and yours truly) to cosplay and help promote their Cosplay Cafe.

The Cosplay Cafe was an activity by the Nihon Fure Ai Kai club aimed to generate income to fund other club activities that promote camaraderie among members and promote the club itself to other Nursing students. It's actually quite popular not only in WMSU but in other universities as well. Students from other schools visited the university's sports festival to get a chance to experience eating in a cosplay cafe. :)

They served ramen, confection and drinks to paying customers. Aren't these servings adorable? The ramen surprisingly tasted good, too. I was able to sample them at the end of our promo walk.

Anyway, the promo-walk activity that I did together with fellow ZamboBlogger PatSy was planned in a short time. PatSy was in town and to let her enjoy the ongoing WMSU palaro, I invited her to cosplay with me during the last day of the Cosplay Cafe. Gail and Sheed tagged along too.

I am the Harajuku Hello Kitty! :)
Ka-ka-ka-kawaii!

PatSy is a Zamboanga Blogger and cosplayer based in Metro Manila. It was her first time cosplaying in Zamboanga. :)

PatSy as Tsukasa and yours truly wearing a Harajuku-inspired coord.

We really didn't talked much about what we were going to wear that day but we ended up wearing similar costumes:

Both of us wore purple wigs, pink seifukus and had a bow on our head. How cute is that?

Tsukasa and Kagami? LOL kidding!

We walked around the campus holding our Cosplay Cafe sign, inviting potential patrons to visit and eat there. People asked for a photo op with us. Kids got excited just by seeing us in our costumes and one approached us, wondering if the wigs we wore that day were our real hair color and style. How adorable. 

It felt like we were those girls in costumes in the streets of Akihabara. :D

It was nice to hear pleasant comments from people who saw us that day. One common description of our activity was "cute". Hihi :D

With the members of Nihon Fure Ai Kai

We celebrated the success of the cosplay cafe and end of the palaro by munching ramen with the club members. 

PatSy, Kend and yours truly.

Congratulations to the members of the Nihon Fure Ai Kai and to the staff of the cosplay cafe for the huge success~ It was the last day of the cafe yet customers were still visiting for a bite. Job well done!

PatSy so shy :D

Thank you so much to the club president and my dear Kouhai Ivy for inviting us to your club activity~! Hope to see you guys cosplay again next year.

Get-together after the closing of the cafe. :)

B&W Photowalk with ZCCI Members

I was recently invited to join a local photography group namely ‎Zamboanga Camera Club International by one of the top photographers of the city. The group conducts weekly activities to get together and improve each member's shooting skills. I was happy to join one session with the theme/assignment Black and White Photography.

We convened at the Cawa-Cawa Boulevard and started shooting there. I brought my prime lens for the activity and took photos of kids mostly. They had fun posing in front of the camera. :)

I talked to these kids while taking photos and they actually asked if they had to pay for me to take the shots. How amusing.

Taking photos of genuine smiles was one of my goals upon taking photography as a hobby. It's nice to just take photos of people laughing or smiling for a good reason. 

I'm looking forward to other ZCCI activities. I truly enjoyed this one. :)

Geisha in Zamboanga: Harusuika Shironuri Shoot

L-R: Gin, Xxiba, Cee & Gairu

We call ourselves HaruSuika and we organize Japanese Fashion shoots for fun.

Because of our love of traditional Japanese fashion and makeup, we were able to come up with  another photo shoot concept with a modern twist:

HaruSuika

presents

Shironuri

~~

Shironuri literally means 'painted in white'. It is so called because people who dress in the shironuri style wear white makeup. This is the only rule of shironuri, although traditional Japanese fashion elements (kimonos, hakama, etc.) are common, as well as elements of gothic lolita style. Minori is a well-known shironuri artist who has been interviewed by Tokyofashion.com.

(en.wikipedia.org)

We got the concept when we stumbled upon the photos of the popular Shironuri artist Minori online. Unlike the common Sweet Lolita, Gothic Lolita, etc... only a few people try shironuri because of it's complicated makeup style. To wear shironuri, one must paint his or her face white like the Geiko and Maiko.

Acquiring the proper face paint was a challenge. We can't use common face paint because we planned on applying regular makeup on top of it. We were afraid that the makeup won't work well with regular face paint so we browsed some options available locally and luckily Xxiba was able to find and acquire a tub of Snazaroo white face paint, the recommended brand for cosplayers.

Gin

During the preparation time, Xxiba was the one who applied the white base and I helped in applying the rest of the makeup.

Gin & Gairu

We didn't really had four complete sets of kimono but we made-do of what we had that time. :)

It turned out pretty okay and we were satisfied with the results.

Xxiba

Problem was, we had too much fun during the shoot! After reviewing most of the photos after the session, we only have these to present to you guys. LOL This is our weakness when we organize a photo shoot: we tend to have too much fun! :D

Must improve next time!

Yours truly, Cee

I used several Oiran elements on my coord. The oiran are elegant courtesans during ancient Japan and I love their style more than the Geiko. Of course I can't really replicate the complicated Oiran style but I did my best with what I had during the shoot.

We picked the perfect place for our Shironuri shoot. The Woodland Resort located in Zambowood, Zamboanga City reminded us of the Hanamachi where Chiyo, the lead of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, lived. The resort had nice trees and a bridge, just like in the movie

I wished the resort had cherry blossoms too. It would have been perfect ^_^

Gairu

Xxiba

Gin

Gairu

Cee

I would love to remake this concept because I still have a lot of ideas to throw in. I hope we can get together again and make a better output in the future~


Photography by Sheedow Photography
Post Processing by Cee
Kimono and Kimono accessories provided by Xxiba, Cee and Miru
White face makeup by Xxiba
Location: Woodland Resort Zambowood, Zamboanga City

AtFest 2014 - Ateneo Cosplay Teaser

Oh yes! I was part of the recent AtFest 2014 cosplay event!

December 2, 2014 was Anime Fiesta AdZU and yours truly went as Soah of the Bride of the Water God.

Soah was one of my long-time cosplay plan and I finally portrayed her during the cosplay catwalk. It was a fun experience acting as the pretty Soah, the young sacrifice to the Water God,

Soah was a young girl who was sacrificed by her villagers to the Water God in exchange for rain. Her adventures started as soon as she was transported to the realm of the gods. There she discovered that the Water God was different than what she expected.

My cosplay was well received and I was even featured in the AdZU website and YouTube channel! What an honor.

www.adzu.edu.ph/newadzu
L-R: Cee, Kiszel, Marjorie and Reji

Thank you so much to the Ateneo Staff for organizing the event. It was nice to cosplay as Soah during the Ateneo Fiesta. The crowd participated actively and they cheered while we cosplayers acted out our characters.

Cee as Soah @ 1:09

I hope there will be another cosplay event next year.. and the next until this will be a yearly thing for the Ateneo Fiesta. It is a nice addition to the list of events to watch out for during the annual Alumni Homecoming Week.

Thank you again and more power, Ateneo de Zamboanga University!

(watch out for my full report soon! thank you for reading,)

WMSU Palaro 2014 - Cosplay Trip TEASER

Cee and Patsy in purple wigs and pink seifukus :)

WMSU PALARO 2014

When we helped out the Cosplay Cafe of the College of Nursing by promoting it to the WMSU students. :) Incidentally, we both dressed up in pink sailor uniforms and violet wigs.

I will be uploading the entire set as soon as I am done with a couple of orders from my shop. I don't want to keep my clients waiting.

Anyway, I am also done with our Shironuri set. All I need to do is to write the story.

Watch out for these sets soon~

Shironuri Teaser

Hey guys!! So after almost a month of hiatus, I get to blog again.

Time flies so fast! November started with a lot of Kanzashi orders for me. I had to finish them first before doing anything. Well, during break times, I chill out by playing a new addictive game (for me!), DotA 2!

So November went by with Kanzashi orders and playing DotA2. And reading a novel in between. LOL. It's kind of a new routine for me (before, I was an eat-net-sleep girl).
I do hope I get the chance to balance work and pleasure anytime soon. I don't want to leave this blog behind!

Anyway, I got the chance to finally start editing our Shironuri Shoot photos from July. We got together and painted our faces white for a photo session and we had a lot of fun! (We had a lot of outtakes and very few serious photos. OH NO!)

Luckily, the serious ones are pretty decent and required minimal post processing. This shironuri makeup was a bit tricky because it was our first time to use face paint and makeup together.

Here's a teaser photo taken by yours truly.

White face by Alyssa | Finishing Makeup and photo by Cee | Model: Gin

This shoot truly brought out our artistic and resourcefulness traits: we got to create our own Geisha makeup based on the personality we wanted to portray and make-do with the kimono and accessories that we had at that time (We didn't have 4 complete sets of Kimono for each of us that day, but still we were able to dress up fine!).

You guys have to watch out for the set soon. This is the craziest HaruSuika shoot yet. I hope we get to work on a different type of Japanese fashion in the future! ^_^

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Shopping out of town + Hatah Hatah Shop Feature

When I go on vacation out of town, I really make sure that I get to shop in one of the malls of that particular city. Here in my place, Zamboanga City, we don't have big malls with several famous shops. Heck, we only have one Otaku store that sells a limited variety of anime goodies. That's the reason why I go gaga over mall shopping and I really can't miss visiting even a small mall to buy the things I usually can't find locally.

The 3 types of shop that I always visit are:

1. Otaku/Anime/Cosplay shop
2. Makeup store   
3. Bookstore

Usually, while visiting these shops, I splurge a lot on things that I want and need. And well, spending a lot does not make me feel guilty as I rarely do this. I usually save up enough money before going on vacation so that I can buy those things I've been looking for.

One example is my vacation last week. I accompanied my mom to her business trip to Cagayan de Oro City and I lived with my cousins there. I really love visiting the city because of it's simplicity, it's wide variety of shopping malls and it's cheap public transportation fees.

So after hanging out with my aunt and cousin, they took me to the mall to do some quick shopping. And I bought a few things with my hard-earned money from selling floral accessories over at Fabric Flowers By Cee.

Makeup Haul

I think i bought too many lippies. Don't you think? :)

What I love about visiting Watsons is the helpful staff that mans almost every makeup stand in the store. They are really friendly and helpful when I visit the shop and they almost always interact to their customers about the makeup products that are available. They aren't one of those annoying kind of sales staff - the ones that watch you like a hawk when you browse each product.

(I rarely encounter friendly staff in the local stores here in Zamboanga City and when I sometimes browse products from department stores, the staff almost always watch you like a vulture... ready to attack once you pick an item. I don't like that at all!)

I got amused by the black lipstick available. I think this would be a perfect product for a Halloween Party makeup! :) I bought a couple of lip balms for my girlfriends. And I found a matte pink lipstick for everyday use. I will definitely make an in-depth video blog on these products!

Plus - I found this leg makeup from Nichido. Perfect for your imperfect legs! (I tend to cosplay characters in sailor fuku and I admit I have imperfect legs. I hope this will cover those leg scars and uneven skin tone.)

Otaku Goodies!

Whoopsie~! I wasn't able to notice that my feet got into the frame. Ignore them! LOL

I can't really miss visiting an otaku shop whenever I am shopping at Centrio Ayala. So I visited Comic Alley!

After being recently addicted to FREE!, I bought my very own Iwatobi High School Swim Club jacket! This will make me feel like I belong to the swim team. LOL

Then even tho I don't really need one, I wasn't able to resist buying the Arabian FREE! mouse pad.

I got a bit disappointed when I discovered that they only have about three merchs of Dangan Ronpa The Animation. *sob* One was a Monokuma bear (I have that already). The other was a Monokuma cosplay hoodie (I am planning to cosplay Junko, not Monokuma! LOL). So I ended up buying the Principal's Office key for that I decided to give to a friend. I hope this friend likes it! :)

Iwatobi High School Swim Club Member Jacket

Because of the time constraints, I wasn't able to visit National Bookstore for a book or two. Sigh. Maybe that's the reason why I had a dream of shopping for books last night! LOL. The books are haunting me!

Extra! Extra! Extra!

Before I got out of town last week, I ordered a couple of shirts from my favorite hat shop 

Hatah Hatah!

What I ordered? No surprise here: Iwatobi Swim Club's Secret Shirt!

Forgive the crumpled shirt. I just took it out from the courier's receptacle. ^_^

Why is it called the 'secret shirt'? Well, you have to watch the first season to know the answer! LOL

Anyway, I contacted Jayne of Hatah Hatah to order shirts for me and for a friend and she replied immediately and the transaction went smoothly. She even gave me a big discount! Such a wonderful person! The shirts I got are really good in quality and it fits nicely. I am so happy of my purchase and for sure I will be ordering again from them in the future! 5/5 shopping experience!

Iwatobi HSSC's secret shirt :)

I admit that I don't really shop frequently... but when I do, I tend to spend a lot! LOL. I always shop when I go on out of town vacations and I usually buy stuff that aren't found in the local stores. The other thing that I love about shopping out of town is the fact that the customer service is better than most of the shops here in the city. The sales staff are very nice when it comes to helping customers and they are attentive to the needs of those people who visit their establishments. It may not be always perfect but it's much better. I hope customer service of the malls here in Zambo will slowly improve in the future.

What do you love to buy when you go out of town? Comment down your answers!

PS:
I never thought this post will be this long! LOL Thank you for reading!



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