Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2010 Day 1A: Blush Corp

Finally here on my blog are my Blush Corp characters that lead me to my thesis. Of course since Kumori Con there have been significant changes to who will be playing each of these characters during my actual thesis performance.

This is my character Lady Blush. She is the leader of the Blush Corp crew and is 200 years old. She is the Queen and Father archetypes. Of course the wig came from Lucrezia as a starting point.





Subtlety is Blush's heir her great-great-etc granddaughter. She wears bells on her ankles and still think she is subtle and stealthy. She is played by my sister Tobi and her archetypes are the Innocent Prince and the Magical Child.



Retna Burn (misspelled on purpose) is the scientist of the group despite being easily distracted. She is normally played by my friend Olivia but for my thesis because of job constraints will be played by my little sister Chase. Of course Olivia is still coaching Chase and workshopping the role with her. Her archetypes are the Wizard and the Dummbling.


Corporal Conundrum was originally played by Michaele. This character has changed the most. His archetypes were the Avenger and the Orphan Child. Now my friend Hannah will play him still as a male character. And now Corporal has more of a Napoleon complex and is a little less complicated.

Day-to-Day: Palette Hand

Yes I know I am not left handed but wanted to show the tools I use the most. My hand as a pallette and these Elmer's squeezable Paintastic brushes! Also it was on accident actually making this cute little face. It was simply trying to get my pen to run smooth again.

Day-to-Day: Traffic Games

While heading back to Portland last weekend with my sisters we got stuck in heavy traffic coming into Seattle. We started a game. First me drawing (yes I was the driver but the car was stopped in traffic when I quickly drew), then Tobi would draw next and finally my little sister Chase.


We loved the people in the car behind us. They were such quirky characters I just had to draw them! Soo this is where the game started. At the top is my drawing then Tobi, and finally Chase. I moved the rear view mirror so each one of us could use that to look back at them.













I next did a faaast sketch of the truck in front of us. Tobi is to the left and Chase's to the right...not sure if it's alright to have the license plate number on this but Chase did love the license plate number.








This is the Calgary Christian Assembly I believe...this one was harder cause after I drew traffic got moving more. Tobi and Chase ended up with different angles.















This last one was our attempts to each do the Seattle skyline as it finally came into view. These are most assuredly more impressionistic. Mine is on the top with the skyline, road sign, and roads leading into Seattle. Tobi's is the lighter one in the middle. And Chase got quite stressed as now we were moving too much as she tried to draw what she mostly remembered of the short view she got of the skyline. And yes that is an arrow pointing the Space Needle to it's proper side. She just ran out of space.

All in all this was a great game and made us miss the traffic when it was over!

Day-to-Day: Battle with Goose Hollow Interent!

Yes this has been a constant frustrating battle for me. And sorry Goose Hollow Apartments but your customer service stinks. There were no notes posted to our door about what was really going on with the internet. Sure there was an email sent in December (that I didn't get since they have my email wrong and apparently nooo one in the office can change the database to correct it). It wasn't until the end of January that they had to switch internet providers. I had to deal with a crappy fritzing internet connection for three weeks! Another lovely thing is that we are suppose to put in all of our IP address, router, etc in manually so every time it freaks out I have to re punch in all the numbers.
Apparently the DNS numbers changed which I found out by looking at Jasmine's DNS numbers since her computer picked up on the new ones. I came home a couple days later though and it wiped all my DNS numbers so I had to look them up all over again! What the heck Goose Hollow internet?!
And the most baffling to me though was when the internet wouldn't load my email but if it loaded Hulu's site it would play videos just fine. Of course it didn't load commercials but I didn't mind that. How does it stream movies but not fully load sites?? My brain hurts just trying to understand this!

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 3

This was our original characters day. We got much better at doing it this year.


This is Tobi and Hannah's character Chelsea who can form into a raccoon and is quite the pyro. I had fun making all the grenades out of styrofoam eggs, Jones bottle caps, and of course those rings. They looked surprisingly believable for simplistic supplies!

Shawna was my character Jade who is quite the serene sweetie. I love the little hat and broach and embellishments she made.

This trio of characters are Hannah and Tobi's. They are a little influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas with each character having a variant on one of Lock, Shock, and Barrel's masks. They all also share shredded components of one tux on top of having mime face paint!

This was a funny joke we discovered that Hannah's eye makeup would make circle and square shapes when she made these different faces. By the end of the day we had to document them. These umbrellas they have took hours of work! We also got them all peace-bonded because they had little spikes on them and also the characters use them as weapons. Even if the con didn't consider them weapons we wanted the tags that declared them such!

Chase I think was the most creepy. She also could look like an emo kid! What was funny is the girls would forget that they had these mime faces on so when they smiled people would still keep their distance! Hehe it was so entertaining.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 2

This day we did video game characets from Final Fantasy and the Mario games.


One thing I love at the con is the guy that plays saxophone music and will play your theme when you walk by. So I got chocobo music and got to dance to it in my costume. Tobi got this too the times she was the chocobo. I did love this random balloon I got from someone because they loved my cosplay! Hehe!

This year we had trouble with everyone taking the train down and packing up all the costumes to bring all the way to Portland. A lot of Chase's costume items got left behind. Still we got nice pics of her fighting the guy from Assassin's Creed.

This was the first time I got to ride the new MAX and I don't really like their odd interior except for this photo! I always think the yellow railings look a little more like pipes. Definitely fits the Mario motif.

We didn't know this guy but he played along well. His expression is priceless. Tobi always manages to show her tummy in one of her costumes. Though the shroom did make a great pillow to take naps in. She was a favorite of the Slightly Anime Dating Game being a "prize" both as a chocobo and Toad this year where her zombie accidentally was picked again. She didn't choose him accusing him of never calling! Hehe it was a wonderful in joke for those that went last year.

I love Shawna's Toadette she was soo cute in it. It was funny cause people would call Tobi's female variant on Toad Toadette unless Shawna was there. Hehe.

Cosplay Cards: Kumori Con 2009 Day 1

Tobi and I both went to Kumori Con in 2008 but it was only a repeat of our chocobo and moogle.

This first day was all Girl Genius Cosplay. A wonderful webcomic by Phil and Kaja Foglio that you can check out here...


I played around making a more flamboyant costume. This also was a beginning point for my thesis character Blush. You'll see this wig growing and changing when her card comes up later. It was fun flirting with her creator Phil hehe!

This is the man character but has a hilarious story behind it! Our Girl Genius OR cosplayers (we declare ourselves the WA group) did a dating skit afterward there was a major photo op. They put all the Agathas together with the girl cosplaying the love interest Gil. I have to give my sister props for coming up with doing that face! The little girl that thinks the boys icky.

Tobi was the first (that we know of) Jenka cosplay. One reason this character isn't done as much is because Phil kept changing her clothes from panel to panel not stuck on what she wears yet! It was quite the trial deciding what to do for this one and everyone loved having at Jenka there!
She even had a Fust.. the bear on her head that in the comic is big and she rides. Soo we said our Agatha accidentally shrunk Fust down with her shrink ray.

Hannah was part of Da Boyz that Jenka is in charge of. Oh and those teeth were an interesting thing. Hannah and Shawna got really good at speaking with them in. They tasted awful though so I've heard.

This was also the year that thankfully we got Final Seal for our body paint and it worked really well! I think my favorite part of Shawna's Oggie was the two toed feet.

Memories: Kumori Con 2008

I felt the need to add in the con I won't put up because we only used repeat costumes. If you want the cards they're in Sakura Con 2008 Day 2.

We have fallen in love with Kumori Con's Slightly Anime Dating Game. First I love that it is all ages, second it's run by guys in kilts! Haawt!

I got up as a contestant that had to answer the questions and ended up having to do a catwalk. I was worried my moogle ball would fall off but I totally went for it! I left the other girls in the dust!


Also thank you to whoever took the pictures that year for the contest! They are amazing!!











Tobi got to be the ones asking the questions and ended up with the zombie that only answered "braains." or "braains?" to every question driving the host nuts and leaving the crowd roaring in laughter! It is kinda odd to think of a zombie end up with the "prettiest yellow chicken!"

Day-to-Day: Thesis Research and Writing class

I had fun drawing everyone from last Monday's Thesis Research and Writing class. I tried with most to draw them when they were reading aloud the three to five pages of their thesis roughs to the class. I have to say it was fun to draw the different quirks people had when reading aloud.

Day-to-Day: Thesis Stress

I know I have not mentioned my thesis yet in this blog but it really is going on. Two Wednesdays ago I think it was I was hitting a wall with my thesis. Over thinking Blush Corp...I ended up cutting the wig I'd used for Blush. Don't worry I wasn't going to use it for my final since it already was quite disheveled. I felt a little rebellious empowered by the process but towards the end felt sad about what I had done. I think to me the characters of Blush Corp are precious but they are not what my thesis is about. The point I am trying to make with my play is play as discovery not escapism. The characters of Blush Corp are my medium with which I am going about it.

My Art: Walnut Butterballs

This is my submission for the . Hopefully it will get posted someday. If it does you'll hear here first. Soo here it is the recipe for my favorite seasonal treat...Walnut Butterballs! Sketches and final at the bottom!

It was harder to do than I thought arranging all the supplies and instructions. Apparently making Walnut Butterballs is not as simple as I thought.

Cosplay Cards: Sakura Con 2008: Tucker

This is the cosplay I am the most proud of! My brother wanted to cosplay when he went to Sakura Con with us and a few other of his friends but he demands being 100% accurate. Soo I decided this was the perfect cosplay.
He didn't know the series I simply told him if girls ask for a hug say, "No! Stay away from me!" You don't have to be nice to girls at all and you'll act completely in character!
Of course at some point a girl asked him all fangirl eager, "Kyo!!! Can I hug yooou?!!" And he responded correctly to which the girl let out an ear piercing squeal of delight for him being so in character. Hehe....

I think my brother has the best costume stories. This one won me a radio contest yeears back for telling. I think I won a cd that I didn't care for or something lame like that.
Anyways, my family use to go to the Rootin Tootin Roundup which was our church's Halloween alternative harvest party. It was the same western theme every year. As kids we got sick of dressing in the same thing.
My cousin ended up handing down a skeleton costume to my brother so he wanted to wear that. My mom told Tucker, "No you are not wearing that go back and change."
He comes down a few minutes later, still wearing the skeleton costume but this time had a cowboy hat and boots on.
Mom looks at him saying, "Tucker what did I tell you?!"
He looks at her with that mischievous but shy grin of his saying, "But mom I died with my boots on."
After that explanation mom decided Tucker won and got to wear that to which my mother told everyone what he told her saying he came up with it himself! I always loved that story and had to make a card dedicated to ingenuity of children everywhere.

Cosplay Cards: Sakura Con 2008 Day 3

I found this beautiful dress at Value Village and decided that I just had to wear it for the last day of the con! It was so pretty. I also took a shirt that was pretty, took off the sleeves and wore them upside down to add some nice draping sleeves to the sleeveless dress. I liked the simple accessories I added to this one.

Shawna got the cute idea of doing two characters in one costume. She decided to be these odd characters from the CLAMP universe and just split the costume down the middle. We also loved this picture where it looked as if she might have swallowed the chocobo Tobi was the day before.

Sadly for these two cards we only had this picture that I could go off of. They are original characters of Tobi and Hannah that I am sure people still wonder where they must be from. These characters each have such detail that people kept trying to figure out what they were from. Also this was the last year we didn't know about Final Seal for body painting. Tobi was shedding white all over! It was on her reeally thick too!

Okay I take credit for this the worst costume ever! I thought it would be easy to make this creature but instead Chase looked like a deadhead with the red glasses that were emulating the red eyes of this cute character. Eeh you can't win them all. I learned quite a bit with this one.


BONUS: Tomorrow I will post the other person that cosplayed with us this year and some other costumes they've worn!

Cosplay Cards: Sakura Con 2008 Day 2

On the main day of the con we like to pull out our best outfits:

This is version two of the moogles. I was the sexy moogle and Shawna the fluffy moogle. Great thing was when people would ask me for a hug I would point at Shawna saying, "Hug the fluffy one." It worked great! But by the end of the day Shawna was a little annoyed with me.

The bootay was made by Hannah. She is very proud of that piece of construction. One of the best stories was a woman with her daughter who knew nothing about anime or video games comes up to Tobi saying, "I don't know what you are but you are the prettiest yellow chicken I have ever seen!"

I was so happy in Kingdom Hearts when Mickey got a revamp! This costume was awesome. And yes I sacrificed the scarf I made my Puck ears with to make Mickey's ears bigger. That wasn't working quite right from the simple ears she had at first. Also that keyblade! Ooh gosh was it fragile always trying to fall apart!

If you know this anime then you'll love this costume. We got some of the best pictures with it because in the anime everyone freaks out at this characters cuteness and she gets pushed over only to be found more adorable caught like a turtle on its back. Those that knew said they wanted to push her over but wouldn't so we had them take pictures where it looked like they were going to and they loved it! This was when we really started going for pictures that had a funny staged flair to them and silly crossovers!

Cosplay Cards: Sakura Con 2008 Day 1

This year we got everything together more! We made sure to get pictures and my littlest sister Chase got to join us this year.


This is my own creation. That will be a haircut I'll look back on and regret. For now I still love it! She is a jackal but designed after Anubis. I think this costume I thought would work better than I thought. I kinda put together scraps to make it and tried to drape but still needed some sewing...

Shawna got much better at dressing sweet. I dressed as this character for Halloween so she added her own details to it. It is her character originally. I did her face paint. She is the cute guardian of our angelic race.



Yes we have a running gag of all characters based after my sister Chase end up getting named Chase. She now has...three characters named after her? As for this costume she is the sweet character who is the guardian of the demon race in Shawna's and my stories and is one of my characters.


Okay I love this combo! Tobi was Radical Ed again so Hannah decided to join in and be her dog Ein! I really do love the photos we got of them. Though now looking at these photos I think we got better with finding a location that fit the characters for the next con we went to.

Day-to-Day: Morning Routine

Yeep I have gotten into a nice routine for waking up in the morning:
1. Phone alarm goes of veery loud
2. Get up and turn on the heater
3. Heater roars to life
4. My clothes for the day already in a pile near the heater the night before
5. Bible on the nightstand and put on chapstick
6. My morning reading with feet heating by my heater
7. Get dressed in front of heater
8. Keys ready to be grabbed hanging near bedroom door
9. Head out the door groggy sometimes wobbly but up none the less
I'm not a morning person but I love my heater!

Day-to-Day: Typography II Anxiety

We have to work with the program FontLab and Illustrator for my Typography II class. I am not very good with technology so it was more than a bit scary. Doing better now though...hopefully...have to attack it again this weekend.

My Art: Landscapes

Here is my process on my latest Illustration work. For the art directing assignment I decided to make sure I was challenged attacking the thing I fear most....
LANDSCAPES!!! (also meaning anything other than people)

I was thrilled when my teacher used my image for the header on the class blog! A zoom in on the trees! I did quite the double take!

My project was getting my vibe of Portland. It is not what is famous about Portland simply what I love about this city. I had to do fifteen sketches before going on to picking what to take to final. The sketches were pen and sharpie. The finals the fantastic Paintastic Elmer's brushes and india ink. These aren't every single sketch but quite a lot of them.

And here are the finals: