Cosplay - Preliminary Yuki Kuran Progress
So to be honest, I've had dozens of progress photos throughout the months of all the work I've done and talked about here, although most of it's on my phone. ^^' I didn't bother to realize I could photobucket a massload of those photos from my phone so here's to hopefully having more recent posts! I'm hoping to make a couple more updates on older cosplays with better pictures.
I want to start out by saying that I've never been a huge fan of vampires outside of reading Dracula and Carmilla. It's mostly because I have a issue with blood and when I was younger, I was scared of vampires in general. In high school, I read through a good amount of Vampire Knight however because I was a fan of Hino Matsuri's work (MeruPuri) and gave this one a shot. I liked it enough that I watched the two seasons of the anime, and occasionally used scans for some of my desktop graphics and a web layout for a site I staffed at. A few months ago before Fanime, I bought the artbook after seeing an extra centerfold about the process Hino-san used to color her illustrations. I love all of the pictures in there, her art is gorgeous and beautifully detailed!
It wasn't until after watching the World Cosplay Summit event and specifically Team Germany's Vampire Knight skit that I was reminded of how beautiful the story was and how lovely the cosplays were. I ended up rereading the entire series the next day and was extremely moved by it. I connected with Yuki so much more now than I did years back, and that meant so much to me.
Personally, I think this is a hard cosplay to make a skit from depending on what the skit is, especially for WCS. However, the idea they had was amazing and was enough to inspire me to revisit my VK artbook. One of the cosplays featured was Yuki's detailed dress when she's a vampire, complete with roses and beads. It has such a rich Gothic feel to it! While I really loved their final version of this dress, I also felt that I had some of my own personal twists and ideas on how to create certain parts of it.
Because the illustration doesn't contain a bottom look for the skirt, Team Germany's CherrySky Cosplay designed it containing a beautiful slit with several rose elements along the bottom for embellishments. I decided that I wanted to have my own spin on it with a romantic style. Given that I really feel that I have yet to tackle a very intricate cosplay, I decided to make this my project and to test my patience on it.
So far, I've ordered the wig along with the school uniform I commissioned from the same place I got my Homura cosplay. I wanted the school uniform to wear one days when I don't want to wear the whole outfit because I still love Yuki as a vampire. Hopefully those will arrive by early October!
And finally, I got the chance to visit the fabric district to find my first batch of supplies to tackle this cosplay!
Ahhh~ the fabric goodness!
I originally had the headband from a sale at Joanns when I obsessively bought a number of headbands to keep around the house for whatever reason. I thankfully had a wide one I could use as a bade for the headband, and not featured in this picture is actually a rose I later that night bought at Joanns for the main headpiece. I also purchased a number of strands of gray beads.
Basically, I purchased a nice black and charcoal fabric, which I have yet to sit down and properly identify. I think it is a polyblend, although I'm not 100% sure. I also bought some lovely gray chiffon for the details. I have yet to buy the pleated white trim, since the store I knew that had them was closed for the day. I bought some lace pieces and a front lace piece that's a mild off white to gray color, which I will likely turn gray. Then, I purchased a strand of white beads initially thinking I'd use white ones till I found the gray ones. Then instead of a Fleur de Lys, the girl at the Michael Levine's suggested a silver cross, which I really liked! I think it pays homage to Yuki "Cross". It's awesome also that the girl was a Vampire Knight fan too!
Finally, the ROSES. X_X Sweet Moholy Nagy. The roses are actuallya bit way more expensive than I wanted to go. They run about four dollars individually and I'm looking for a pretty decent sized order of them. They cost way more than the fabrics themselves, possibly times some more. I've seen this dress done with the roses as embroidered patches, and I interpreted them that way, but I felt that to have more tangible, three-dimensional roses felt more up my alley. I didn't want blatant gray roses on there, so when I went into the Michael Levine's, my mother pointed out these beautiful fabric roses with little bits of lace inside them. They looked so perfect! To counter the heavy price of the roses, I also bought a little stem of velvet flowers as well.
I ended up cutting up the stems and replacing them with the small gray peals I had purchased. I also did the same with the main rose for the headband as well!
And my early progress so far has been mostly figuring out the patterns and working through to develop strategies for each step of the way. While I have a tentative dream to finish this by November, it really depends on how quickly I work while not compensating the details.
Currently, my main focus has been practicing some better techniques for the puffs on her sleeve and headband. I followed a small tutorial I have and cut up a stand of chiffon, sewed it and I machine basted the puffs first. Then I went back and individually sewed them by hand, which made a huge difference. I played with the length of puffs and distance, and so far it was reat to test my patience and to develop a rhythm. I usually dislike handsewing, but this was absolutely fun!
So, off to a great start! I have some time off from work to be able to get more done!
I want to start out by saying that I've never been a huge fan of vampires outside of reading Dracula and Carmilla. It's mostly because I have a issue with blood and when I was younger, I was scared of vampires in general. In high school, I read through a good amount of Vampire Knight however because I was a fan of Hino Matsuri's work (MeruPuri) and gave this one a shot. I liked it enough that I watched the two seasons of the anime, and occasionally used scans for some of my desktop graphics and a web layout for a site I staffed at. A few months ago before Fanime, I bought the artbook after seeing an extra centerfold about the process Hino-san used to color her illustrations. I love all of the pictures in there, her art is gorgeous and beautifully detailed!
It wasn't until after watching the World Cosplay Summit event and specifically Team Germany's Vampire Knight skit that I was reminded of how beautiful the story was and how lovely the cosplays were. I ended up rereading the entire series the next day and was extremely moved by it. I connected with Yuki so much more now than I did years back, and that meant so much to me.
Personally, I think this is a hard cosplay to make a skit from depending on what the skit is, especially for WCS. However, the idea they had was amazing and was enough to inspire me to revisit my VK artbook. One of the cosplays featured was Yuki's detailed dress when she's a vampire, complete with roses and beads. It has such a rich Gothic feel to it! While I really loved their final version of this dress, I also felt that I had some of my own personal twists and ideas on how to create certain parts of it.
So far, I've ordered the wig along with the school uniform I commissioned from the same place I got my Homura cosplay. I wanted the school uniform to wear one days when I don't want to wear the whole outfit because I still love Yuki as a vampire. Hopefully those will arrive by early October!
And finally, I got the chance to visit the fabric district to find my first batch of supplies to tackle this cosplay!
Ahhh~ the fabric goodness!
I originally had the headband from a sale at Joanns when I obsessively bought a number of headbands to keep around the house for whatever reason. I thankfully had a wide one I could use as a bade for the headband, and not featured in this picture is actually a rose I later that night bought at Joanns for the main headpiece. I also purchased a number of strands of gray beads.
Basically, I purchased a nice black and charcoal fabric, which I have yet to sit down and properly identify. I think it is a polyblend, although I'm not 100% sure. I also bought some lovely gray chiffon for the details. I have yet to buy the pleated white trim, since the store I knew that had them was closed for the day. I bought some lace pieces and a front lace piece that's a mild off white to gray color, which I will likely turn gray. Then, I purchased a strand of white beads initially thinking I'd use white ones till I found the gray ones. Then instead of a Fleur de Lys, the girl at the Michael Levine's suggested a silver cross, which I really liked! I think it pays homage to Yuki "Cross". It's awesome also that the girl was a Vampire Knight fan too!
Finally, the ROSES. X_X Sweet Moholy Nagy. The roses are actually
I ended up cutting up the stems and replacing them with the small gray peals I had purchased. I also did the same with the main rose for the headband as well!
And my early progress so far has been mostly figuring out the patterns and working through to develop strategies for each step of the way. While I have a tentative dream to finish this by November, it really depends on how quickly I work while not compensating the details.
Currently, my main focus has been practicing some better techniques for the puffs on her sleeve and headband. I followed a small tutorial I have and cut up a stand of chiffon, sewed it and I machine basted the puffs first. Then I went back and individually sewed them by hand, which made a huge difference. I played with the length of puffs and distance, and so far it was reat to test my patience and to develop a rhythm. I usually dislike handsewing, but this was absolutely fun!
So, off to a great start! I have some time off from work to be able to get more done!
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