And Now It's Over

Last night, the very last episode of the Avatar franchise aired. The very last episode of my absolute favorite series... ended. I was so excited and so sad and so not ready for it to be over. But all good things come to an end, I suppose. 

I had always intended to do a post about ATLA and LOK, but I never had the time or motivation. Well, now I do, and it's time to say goodbye. Perfect timing. 

Here's a little history of how I even got involved: back when I was younger I saw a promo for Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was showing for the first time that night. I thought it looked kind of cool, and a little while later I was watching it. I don't remember much, I don't think I even watched the whole thing. The point is, I saw it, and I remembered it enough so that when the movie came out it 2010 I wanted to go see it (also, judging by the preview, 12 year old me thought it would be awesome. I did think it was awesome).

Unfortunately, I liked the movie so much I had my dad buy the DVD. Whoops. Now that's sitting in a box somewhere and I will probably deny that I own it. I am kind of thankful for it though, because if I hadn't seen the movie, I probably wouldn't have watched the show. 

Now, fast-forward a few months. My brother was sick, we were trying to find something to watch, and so we checked out Nick... and there it was: ATLA- The Southern Raiders. Sure, my first episode of it wasn't from the first season, and I didn't even see the first half of the episode! But it became a weekly event where my brother and I would watch ATLA re-runs (which were not shown in any specific order that I know of) on Saturday mornings. 

I didn't watch it in order the first time I saw it. Or the second, or third. I started randomly picking them and eventually was able to piece together the whole show. Eventually Mom decided to watch it since Dante and I loved it so much, so we watched it as a family, in order. 

Never had I seen a show with such amazing characters, plot, depth, animation, emotion, or music.  

The characters felt like old friends once I finished the series. I loved them so, so much. If I was sad, I would watch it. If I was lonely, I would watch it. If I was happy, I would watch it. I would watch it and watch it and watch it, and these characters became real to me. Y'all know how much I love FMA, right? And how much I love the characters? Well, it's like that, but x10, or x20, or x100 (being in the fandom for 5 years probably has something to do with that haha).

The heroes were well rounded, the villains were well rounded, the random side characters got their share of development, too. It's rare to see such excellent characterization in any show, let alone an animated kids show!

My Azula costume... she's probably one of my most favorite characters ever!

There are so many layers in ATLA, and every time I watch it I get something new out of it. I'm not saying that kids shows can't be deep or have good meaning, but a lot of them don't, so it's refreshing to see something so amazing made so that kids can understand it and teens and adults can enjoy it, as well.

The music  THE MUSIC is just beautiful and amazing and sooo perfect. So much effort went into ATLA and it's been a HUGE part of my childhood :')

When I found out that there was going to be another Avatar series, I flipped. I was sooooo happy that we would be having 12 more episodes of Avatar awesomeness! Ha. Ha. Ha. Little did I know that this so called "fun mini-series" would become a 3 year ordeal that would become one of my favorite shows.

remember when this was 

all we had of Korra

You can imagine my excitement when Nick called for 3 more seasons! About half way through season two, I got a little disappointed with the writing and plot direction (which was something I could forgive for season 1, they only had 12 episodes to work with, after all), but I still loved it. Season three's writing proved to be a huge improvement from seasons 1 and 2. The writing was better, the villains were darker, the over-all plot was much more enjoyable and intense, and the characterization was fantastic. We got to see sides of character that we had never seen before, new and well developed characters entered the mix, and friendships developed between old characters. Something that I really enjoyed about seasons 3 and was the lack of romantic sub-plot between the Krew. I think that was a let-down for the fans during season 2.

Fan-made trailer for the finale

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, thank you Avatar, thank you Bryke, and most importantly, thank you Fandom for such an amazing 5 years. ATLA was a real treasure of my childhood, and LOK was a wonderful part of my high school experience. I'm sure our fandom will last for quite a while, it was still going strong between ATLA and LOK, so I don't doubt that there will be plenty of fanworks for the years to come, but it's still sad to see such an awesome series end,

Good bye, Avatar, goodbye.


*and then I sob for about 10,000 years*

Kraken Con 2014

(I made a page with all of my cosplays, and it's going to be updated with each of my costumes... check it out!)


Oooh look what I finally got around to! I guess I've been building up to this for the past... 4 posts or so? Well, here I am, finally posting about the big day :p

Who all went: Dad, my mom's parents (Grand and Big-C), my brother (Dante), and my aunt's exchange student (Peter)
Yeah, so I'm calling peeps by what I call them irl bc that's easier.

Sunday morning we started getting ready, so that we could try to be out of the house by 8:15. I made last-second finishes to my costume (oh, the curse of a cosplayer XD) and did my eye makeup as I waited for the glue to dry. Then I helped my brother get his costume on... lots and lots of safety pins! Once my grandparents arrived we all piled into my dad's car and were on our way!

Dad and Big-C sat in the front and listened to a church service. Grand sat in the back with me (she borrowed one of my Doctor Who shirts for the day), and Dante sat in-between us so I could paint Aangs arrows on him. We got to the restaurant where we were picking up Peter, so Dante and I walked in looking like crazy people in half cosplay! I had on super heavy eye makeup and nothing else, and my hair was back and I had a wig cap around my neck, no armor... just a black dress over my red shirt and pants (I looked like some sort of failed punk band :p)

Omg it's my face AAAAAAA

After the looooong drive up, we got to the con center, and I finished putting on my costume. Finally we were there! We turned in our registration and the fun began! When we got our wrist bands the volunteers were so excited about Dante and my costume, and they asked for pictures and, yeah, it was pretty cool! It would be fun to work at something like that, then you could see everyones costumes! Once we got to the main room, (after stopping for quite a few pictures- there was one girl who even did a selfie with us! Yay cosplay selfies! Haha ok moving on...

Unfortunately, I missed the first panel I wanted to go to- "Cosplaying in Character", which probably would have helped a lot for my Performing Arts final. Oh well, since I missed it, I had the oppurtunity for something else totally awesome to happen!

When we got to the main room, I see someone with a cosplay that looks familiar, and then I realized she was Toph (also from ATLA) and it was amazing! She ran over to us and we went all crazy fangirl, and then we were just like "CAN I HUG YOU OMG" and it was the best thing ever :D Quite a few people walking by got pictures of us, and then we all went to the photo studio together to get our pictures taken.

AAAA I"M SO PROUD OF OUR COSTUMES :D

After taking the picture, we parted ways, promising to meet back up again. My group took off to look around the Dealers Room, and I made a bee-line for my favorite artist, Yuumei. I was so excited to meet her! She's had a big impact on me and my art, and she was such a sweet girl in person, as well. She's used her talent and difficult past to really reach out to so many people, and honestly, it's really brave that she does that. She also has brought awareness to the pollution problems in China, and advocates to fix it. Haha when I found out that she was going to be there, I ran around my house like a crazy fangirl screaming all sorts of crazy stuff :p. I planed to spend only $10 to $20 at her table... obviously that didn't happen. I spent at least $40! Oh, well, it was worth it :) seeing her work on my walls makes me really happy.

Then it was time for my first panel, which was on writing villains. It was very helpful, and the director really made us all participate, it was so much fun! Haha we got a little side tracked and started talking about FMA, and then later on he gave me some tips on my villain. He also talked a bit about world building, so that was cool, too. This summer I'm going to post all of my panel notes from this (school) year, so if y'all are writers, you may be interested in this one.

"Re-Imagine" by Yuumei

After the panel was finished, I went out into the dealers room and looked around, bought more stuff from Yuumei, and went upstairs to have lunch with my group. The food was really good (i got a burger), but a bit expensive (con food always is). I realized that eating with armor and collars and 3 lbs of vinyl is HARD. So I took it off and realized that the con center wasn't 150º, but more like 70º. Yeah... it was quite a relief. It was really funny to see all the characters from different fandoms eating together! Before I headed down to my other panel I ran into Toph again and we took a picture:

Azula and Toph have lunch together... because why not

The next panel I went to was on creating a web comic. It was really helpful, because I'm interested in starting one (I'll have more info for y'all later). Here's their site: Captain Quail. They write a Star Trek inspired comic that has birds instead of people. It's pretty funny! During the panel they wrote/drew a comic that was directed by the participants, so that was pretty fun!

When the panel was over, girls dressed as Anna and Elsa (who I had pegged as "MUST GET PIC WITH THEM) came up to me and asked for a picture, so we all posed and someone took our picture for us ^.^

My group was almost ready to leave, but we all decided to walk through the dealers room one more time. I went to a table that was selling posters and figurines, and got into a conversation about anime with one of the people selling posters as I bought a FMA wall scroll. I went by two steampunk booths- I bought a pin that reminded me of Winry (for my pin collection), and a rose hairpin (which I wear almost every day now lol). Of corse I stopped by Yuumi's table one last time and got one of her smaller prints. 

Some Cosplayers I ran into :)

Not the best pic but oh well :p

We ended up talking to a guy dressed as Buzz Lightyear and his daughter was dressed as Neytiri (I think... well, she was the blue chick from "Avatar" (the movie)).They were really fun to talk to! Father/daughter cosplayers, he got her into it. He made his Buzz costume back in 2001 or so, and it's really cool! Each button will actually play a different sound clip, just like Buzz's in the movie! It's also made almost completely out of cardboard- true cosplay dedication! 

The girl was really excited to be at the convention, and it was really fun to talk to someone so young who had already been immersed in con culture for almost their whole life :)

Thor! He's friends with Buzz, and his costume was just as amazing! he was telling us about how he made it... really impressive! haha this is one of my favorite pics (I feel like I perfected my Azula stance/face by then)

I wandered around some more, and ran into Princess Bubblegum and Jack Frost cosplayers. We all fangirled over each others costumes for a good five minutes before we calmed down enough to take pictures. Cosplay selfie! It was the perfect ending to such a fun day :D

Con Review
I had soooo much fun at Kraken Con! The panels were easy to find, the venders room was well organized, and not overly crowded, there wasn't too much of a bleed-through with noise from the video games and anime screening. There was a cafe' on the upper level (though it was a bit over priced :/ ), and instead of badges they had wrist bands, which I really liked, because then I wasn't having to deal with an extra thing around my neck.

For such a cheap convention, I would say that it was extremely well done. My only complaint would be the heat. There was air conditioning in the building, but it wasn't turned on until about three. Hopefully next time they'll turn it on earlier.


PS: I lost my camera charger, so art is still on hold :/ I might be able to find my old camera... idk we'll see what happens. Wish me luck on finals!

Azula and Aang Cosplay Pt. 4 COMPLETE!!

Ok, so last part: the dress and Aang.

I stayed up until 10 the night before the convention modifying the dress, which I cut to look like this:

and added trim with fabric similar to this.

And that's it, really. On the day of the con I did smokey eyeshadow with red in the crease, and did general cosplay makeup... yep. I did most of it in the car lol.

For Aang we got a yard and a half of orange fabric, a yard of yellow fabric, and some red woven material. We basically safety pinned it like a toga. He wore brown pants, black tennis shoes, and a wig cap that I painted the arrow over.

So, yep, that's it! I'll have a post about the convention (and pics) up soon!

Oh! And I found this on tumblr... if you scroll down, the second picture is of my brother and I! http://humanitys-cutest-soldier.tumblr.com/post/81948871086/kraken-con-spring-2014-was-an-absolute-blast

~Shaak Ti

Azula (and Aang) Cosplay Pt. 3- Armor

Armor armor armor armor

Gahhhhh this was so stressful and fun and amazing!

I really learned a lot through this part of the process. I hadn't worked much with vinyl before, and never on this large a scale. Oh well, here's some pictures of the progress...

What I used:

• Exacto Knife
• 1 yd. black vinyl
• 1/3 yd. red vinyl
• 1/3 yd. cream vinyl
• 1 yd. red rope
• 1 yd. black rope
• 1 yd. cream rope
• Leather hole puncher
• plastic board
• art board
• patterns from drafting paper
• comic book (straight edge)

Belt Buckle- the Fire Nation Phoenix 

Ready to begin on the details!

Crown

Shoulder Pad

Shoulder Pad Detail

Other Shoulder Pad thing

Glove ties

Gloves

Oh, doesn't my room look lovely ;p

And finally, the wig (took me an hour and a half to style... oh, well, it's done now, yay!)

Well, the convention's tomorrow! I'm so excited! Tonight I'll be doing the final run-through with the costume, to make sure it all works, and I'll have some better pictures of it when I'm back. Haha I'll have lots of pictures and notes and all sorts of stuff when I come back! I'm SO  EXCITED I JUST :LSDKJFLSDKFJSDL:FKJ

*cough* yep

Azula (and Aang) Cosplay Pt. 2- Drafting Armor Patterns

Alright, part 2! Yay! On Wednesday Dad brought me home some old blueprints (he's in construction) so that I could start drafting my costume,

Ok, first I want to say that for lunch on Thursday i had only round foods, and I'm super proud of myself. Yep. ok, moving on...

So, I spent the past few days making the patterns for the armor. I feel very lucky that I got most of the measurements right on the first try!

My materials- I also ended up using an Exacto Knife to cut the pattern, instead of scissors.

Here's the pattern I found online. Most of my measurements were pretty similar.

I didn't like how it turned out at first, so I trimmed it up...

Next I made the collar

Pedicure break! I've been doing the same color since CVI...

Back/Front pannels

The whole thing!

Close up of the belt buckle- the fire nation phoenix!
I used a cup to outline it and cut it.

So, yeah! The costume's coming along great, and I have the measurements for Aang.

Azula and Aang Cosplays Pt. 1

Alright, here we go on my next big cosplay endeavor! I'm planning on going to Kraken Con on April 6, so I don't have a lot of time to pull this together. Fortunately, I have a two week break, so I should be able to get it done.

I also have to convince my brother to be Aang.

AZULA

Costume plans/notes

Materials (already have):

• Amour
• One yard of vinyl 
• Iron on interfacing
• yellow and orange ribbon or some similar lining
• velcro/clips (I haven't totally figured out how I'm going to keep it all on)
• Mom got me this lovely wig in black for Christmas. It's perfect!
• Black boots (supposedly... I have yet to ask Mom if I can use hers :p)
• Jumper Skirt
• Fabric choice 1,  choice 2 (idk which one I like better... what do y'all think?)
• Plastic boning
• iron-on interfacing
• yellow ribbon 
• Red shirt/pants (LIGHT FABRIC)
• I'm planning on just buying and modifying this, since I don't have time to make it all by scratch
• Gloves
• I honestly have no idea what to do here. Funny, I hate having to deal with gloves in cosplay, but all of my major projects have gloves :p
• Belt
• I'll either make it out of leather or up-cycle an old belt.
• Props
• I'm thinking about making some sort of flame prop... maybe like this

My uncle is going to help with all of the leather work, and I'll keep y'all updated on that. As with any cosplayer, I want to add my own creative spin on the costume. I feel like, if ATLA were real, the fabrics of the Fire Nation royals would be very ornate- that's why I really want to use Jacquard fabric. I've also been inspired by this cosplay to maybe add some design to the armor:

AANG

Ok, in all honesty, I haven't even asked my brother about this. But he loves ATLA, so he may agree to do it. I honestly think his season 3 outfit would be easiest (and I also really want to paint the scar on his back)

Obviously he would need a bald cap, and the pants would just be grey/black sweats. The top would be more difficult, because it would need to be held in place... I want to go with a simple fabric, sticking with Airbender tradition. I have no clue what we're going to do about the boots.

So, yeah, tell me what you think, and any suggestions would be much appreciated! And feel free to ask any questions!

(and i have no idea why the link colors are so inconsistent...)