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name: kaoru miki series: shoujo kakumei utena made for: nan desu kon '01 worn at: nan desu kon '01, anime expo '02 status: retired (for now) |
| why? anyone who's ever watched utena understands what a... mind-blowing show it is. aside from evangelion, it's one of the most insightful shows i've ever watched. it's just... gah! go watch it! you won't regret! ^.^ anyhoo, it was the end of july, and i knew that i just had to make another costume for NDK. at the time, i had just gotten the utena movie and the rest of the series fansubbed, so i decided to pick a character from there. but who? i chose miki mainly because there was so little cosplay of him. that, and i had no clue how to pull off the shoulder thingys on juri's and shiori's outfits. ^^;; |
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| how? this costume, despite its simplistic design was a challenge for me because it was my first real sewing project. (i had sewn lots of little pillows and stuff when i was a kid, but never an entire outfit.) i went with cotton fabric for the pants and jacket (it's so annoying to me when people made seifuku out of satin and other "showy" fabrics. >.<) i used the same pattern (simplicity 9700) for the jacket and pants. i altered the jacket slightly to accomodate for the blue in his sleeve (i had to re-do this part a few times) and the triangular cuts at the bottom of the jacket. my dad discovered that beautiful thing called bias tape, and used that for the trim. for the buttons on the jacket, i got those little "cover with fabric" buttons and used some scrap yellow fabric on them. the cuffs were seperate strips of fabric sewn on to the end of the sleeve. for his little "pendulum"-ish ornament, i couldn't find cord thick enough, so i took the thickest i could find and braided it instead. the yellow part is a spherical bulb thing we took off these silver christmas bushels (it's hard to explain. just look in the christmas section of stores ^^;;) and a cake decorator frosting head hot-glued together then spray painted yellow. (my dad is so creative. ^^;;) for the pants, i had a little issue transfering the markings from the pattern to the fabrics and ended up having two identical fronts and two identical backs, which meant having to sew a back in the front and a front in the back. (confusing, i know.) the wig i got at spencer's boutique and i trimmed it a little to make it look more "boyish". at nan desu kon, i also taped down my bust (what little there is) with duct tape, so i could pass better for a guy |
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| thoughts A LOT OF THANKS goes to my mom and dad on this costume. my dad for taking so much time out of his day to work with me on this, and my mom for her never-ending support. thank you so much! i love you! ^.^ for being my first try at a costume, i'm actually kinda proud of this. there are some things i'd like to fix though, but nonetheless, i'm extremely fond of this costume. it's not the most comfortable thing to wear, since i forgot to pre-shrink the cotton (you can imagine my surprise after it was washed) and the duct tape was... evil. there were a lot of fellow utena cosplayers at NDK which was really neat. ^.^ my only complaint was that, despite my attempts at being original, i discovered another miki there! >.< but hey, i can pride myself on being one of the few female mikis. ^.^ when i wore it to ax '02, i got glomped by a few fangirls and ran into an utena group that was just short of a miki, so i filled in and took some pictures with them. ^^ i also wore this to the kunihiko ikuhara panel, and was a little upset when i didn't get my stopwatch question answered ("yes, very important. but secret." <---ikuhara-san) my day got better when i was stopped afterwards for a picture "my friend totally loves miki! she'll be thrilled to see this!" i also spotted a japanese miki and took a picture with him. yay! however, i've decided to retire this costume for the moment, until i find an utena ring or a better sword. ^^ |
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| pictures aren't i kawaii? (hate how my lip does that curl thing, tho..) gah! my arm! so much for my shot at dueling captain... so happy... so naive... so unaware of the dangers of posing with someone who's got a sharp pointy weapon... me with the fun utena group i found *waves* ^^ this was my first experience in mass blinding photography o_o photos 1, 2, 3 courtesy risingsun.net; photo 4 courtesy usagichan.com; photo 5 courtesy daddy ^^ |
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