And the verdict is...

Finished!

I fnished Juliet, cutting it super close, but it was very much worth it! The day feels like a bit of a continuous blur to me at the moment, but I wanted to take the moment to post about the Cosplay Exhibition today, which went wonderfully regardless of some challenges!

So since that previous post, yes, the cosplay was finished! It was a bit of a painful challenge at the last minute, mostly because the cosplay is still quite oddly constructed. I do plan in the future to challenge myself and remake Juliet following a bit more rules when sewing, but nonetheless, the dress actually looked remarkably clean and well draped, especially with the new white skirt additions I made. In all honesty, I didn't get to fix up the collar and the sleeves the way I had wanted them to be, but they were optional at this point. A lot of my time had been devoted to making sure the peplum and the skirts looks all right. Surprisingly enough, it looked pretty decently draped.

Shii and Yukito arrived while I was finishing up and had gone to the store to buy soe last minute white flowers for a costume prop. I ended up buying several small bouquets of fake white lilies and irises, and then a light sparkling cream organza. We made a "scroll" out of wooden dowels, the organza, and the white lilies covering the edges of the wood. I came up with the prop idea the night before after trying to figure out what to use for my dance.

 The traffic was absolutely terrible on the way there, and it was already a two hour drive, but Shii made it as smoothly as possible. We hadn't gotten a chance to eat and rest up, and I had been very tired from not sleeping. I only had about an hour of sleep that I took from 9-10am because by that time, I was referring to my sewing machine as Claire Daines, and figured that that was the sign to take a break.

We were so massively delayed but Mikarin was absolutely sweet and understanding about the situation. When arriving, she and Hagi were so kind and supportive towards all of the cosplayers there, despite that there was clearly a lot of delays coming from the festival itself that they had to deal with. The festival was in a cool area with some nice food stalls, vendors, and a performance area.

Some of the cosplays were absolutely amazing! They all had a wide range of selections, from very cute characters, to fighter characters, video game characters, and really elaborate ones too! It was so awesome to be part of the group. Mikarin was also absolutely wonderful and allowed Shii to participate during my skit as Romeo to my Juliet since she had worn Romeo to accompany me during the trip there. We ended up reworking the dance last minute to feature the two of us holding the scroll together!

The event ended and Mikari and I made plans for some future cosplays we have planned together, and she was happy to have met Shii as well. I'm so glad! We'll be doing a fun cosplay coming soon in November for Pacific Media Expo!

So on the side, I wanted to really just use this as a great landmark on how awesome things worked out for my cosplay, for having Shii be a part of it since we've cosplayed for so long together now, and just how much dedication and timewe've shared together throughout the years.

She mentioned something to me that I had totally forgotten all these years. Originally as I mentioned in a previous entry, Juliet was meant to be worn for Anime LA 2012. I didn't finish it even though I brought parts of it to the hotel room, and Romeo was never even worked on at all. But Juliet had several components done, most of them that are still purposely intact because of how oddly yet decently put together they are. Nonetheless, I actually didn't get to spend much of the convention's Day 2 morning because of some unforseen circumstances, so by the mid-afternoon, I had pretty much given up even wearing a cosplay and we had dropped out of the masquerade. So my friends and I watched the event and during the halftime show, we actually heard the theme to Romeo x Juliet, to which I started to cry because of how overwhelming it was to not finish Juliet due to so many reasons, and how overwhelming everything had been at the time.

I told people that the cosplay was hard to finish because it as a painful memory, not from leaving it unfinished, but because it was created during such a hectic time in my life. However, seeng it now, I realized that the cosplay represents something that helped me change throughout the years. It does surely contain all of those tough memories, but it'sc reated new ones too. I wore Juliet as my first masquerde experience, even if unpracticed and derpy. The red fabric was actually a great deal of extra fabric I had from my old Furudo Erika cosplay from AX 2011 that I finished in the hotel room. The original shapes were freehanded patterns that I made in literally 24 hours and rival some of my better pattern drafting pieces. The new elements also included white satin from Belldandy's remnants, which represents the original cosplay cocie I wanted for this even as well as it being one of my favorite cosplays. The wig is Asuka's wig, because Mari's was too deep and straight. The flower hairclip was from my Yuno cosplay from Anime LA 2011.

This cosplay is special to me for these reasons. They remind me of how much practice I've had in learning how to make costumes for myself to enjoy them to their fullest. I felt happy to be wearing Juliet not only because I love her character so much, but because the cosplay represents the ideal cosplay character I've strived to work ahrd to achieve towards. There's still so much to improve, but it's like a checkpoint towards a greater goal and greater results. 

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