ladyofthethread | Cosplay Planning

Slowly getting back to planning costume stuff. Last Tuesday, I went into the city for a bit to pick up some embroidery floss for the cross stitch piece I’m working on and browse for potential costume things. Went to visit

neoangelwink afterwards and we discussed cosplay plans for NYCC/NYAF. We settled on doing Curse of Monkey Island versions of Guybrush and Elaine. That one is my favorite of the older games. The costumes should be simple and I’ve already got a huge plastic diamond (we sell them at my family’s store!) for Elaine’s ring. XD

And I’ve watched all of the Saiunkoku anime over the past few weeks. I’d gotten the first disc long ago since it had a setting similar to Twelve Kingdoms and thought it was okay but not interesting enough to get the rest. But a while back,

athena_chan told me that it got better later on and I found the first season on sale at Amazon so I decided to give it another try and found it entertaining. It turned out to be a lot more humorous than I would have expected for something with a lot of scheming and political intrigue. Although I thought Shuurei was a bit too naïve for someone wanting to be a government official, I did like that she had a very strong will and seldom got distracted by all the handsome guys getting thrown at her. :-P

I still like the Twelve Kingdoms better though; even with all the political intrigue, I just can’t take Saiunkoku that seriously with all the silly moments and how so many characters are hiding unlikely secret identities. Like Shuurei’s father, who works in the archives and is hopeless around the house, secretly being a legendary assassin. o_O; The scruffy guy that collapses outside Shuurei’s house is actually a provincial governor, the most popular courtesan in the city is also a mob boss, etc, etc. I actually find Twelve Kingdoms to be more of a believable story overall despite having lots of fantasy creatures, which Saiunkoku lacks. ^_^;

I would say that Saiunkoku beats Twelve Kingdoms in the costume department though; there are a lot more elaborate designs than there were in Twelve Kingdoms. There were relatively few more detailed costumes in Twelve Kingdoms and most of those seemed to be for minor characters that only appeared for an episode or two.

And speaking of costumes… I want to cosplay Ryuuren, the eccentric genius who is always wandering around and driving people nuts with his awful flute playing. XD; It’s so bad it can make birds fall out of the sky, unconscious! He’s usually wearing flashy clothes and it’s amusing to see what strange things he’ll stick on his head next. For once, the default outfit is my favorite instead of something that just appeared for an episode! ^_^; Definitely want to make this one. It’s so colorful and looks like it would be lots of fun to wear. Would like to do a photoshoot of this somewhere woodsy if I finish it by Halloween. If not, I guess it’ll be for cons next year.

I found his New Year’s costume to be hilarious and slightly tempting but it would be highly unpractical to walk around a con in. Because he has this giant bird on his head!

It’s so big that it wasn’t possible to get a screencap with all of the bird plus the rest of the costume! If I wanted to do this, I think the bird would have to be over a foot tall with at least a two feet wingspan to be accurately proportioned. After making the phoenix last year, I could probably build a bird like this but getting something that big to stay on my head and being able to walk around a con with it (plus even getting it to a con) would be another story. ^_^;;