Shidobu-Cloud

Greetings everyone,

So a group of buddies and I are starting up a website and running a business as a Non-Profit Organization. The business is called X-Geek Media Holdings LLC and the website is www.X-Geek.com. This website will be your source for all things geeky including video game, movie, comic book, EDM, cosplay, and a number of other geek related podcasts. We'll also be doing convention updates and reviews and we have already had a presence at conventions. WE NEED YOUR HELP.

We're fundraising to make this website an amazing thing and using IndieGoGo to gather the funds. How can you help? You can either donate to the campaign (even $5 is a huge help for us), share our page on your DA, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or other social media sources, and like our page on Facebook. Please please please help us out. Here's the link to our IndieGoGo Campaign: www.igg.me/at/xgeekmedia

And here's our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/XGeekMedia

Flash news! Today, for 24 Hours, we'll be making donations to the Red Cross for the relief efforts after the bombings in Boston. 10% of all donations made in the next 24 hours will go to this charity! If we hit the $1000 mark by 2:00 pm tomorrow we'll be donating 20% of all donations instead of 10%! That's a $120 donation if we hit that goal which can help to aid the families of the victims in Boston. Share and donate to the cause today!

Thank you thank you and thank you again!

Greetings everyone!

So I've finally decided to resurface back onto the face of Planet DA. I don't even really remember the last time I did anything on here, but the truth is that it's been at least a few months and I think I needed the break. Summer was rather brutal for me financially and a lot of the plans I had for the year got put on hold temporarily if not indefinitely, and that lead to a pile up in my DA inbox which only deterred me from coming back on here even more. I've finally bit the bullet and cleared all that away (sorry for a flood of favorites from me if that was the case), and the good news is that I've been hard at work on many things and have a whole slew of deviations that need submitting so keep your eyes peeled; these include photos of one new costume from ACEN, a summer Bleach shoot we did, swords that I've made, Knives that I've made, and photos from Daisho Con including two new costumes there.

Things that I've got coming up for the next year may include:

Mitsurugi (Alt costume) - Soul Calibur 2 - Will be done for ACEN '13 if not Anime Detour or NoBrand
Scorpion (Alt Costume) - Mortal Kombat 9 - This one is still on hold as a pet project. It'll require a lot of time and money and I seem to be missing one or the other in some sort of weird balancing act that happens over the year.
Catatafish Gijinka - South Park - Will be doing this at CONvergence
Gaston - Beauty and the Beast - CONvergence
Adem Mercenary - Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss - Another pet project depending on time and money, but I'd like to have this done for CON
Kanbei - Samurai 7 - Daisho Con '13
Jiguro - Moribito - Another pet project. Dat spear!

Props that I hope to do in the near future:
Katanas and their scabbards for both Mitsurugi and Kanbei. 'Rugi's will be fun because I can more or less make any design I want for the sword whereas Kanbei's will be fun because his is very specific (AND SO PRETTY!).
Evokers from Persona 3 x 2
Short straight sword for my Adem Merc.
Soul Calibur (Chinese Straightsword Version) for as she will be doing Xianghua's alternate costume from Soul Cal 3 at ACEN with out massive Soul Cal group. Oh, did I mention MASSIVE SOUL CAL GROUP!?!?!?!!!! SO EXCITED!!!
Giant Calligraphy Brush for the same costume as the Soul Calibur.
Jiguro's speeeaaaaaarrrrrrrr!

And someday I still plan on making a functional Punisher for my eventual Wolfwood cosplay, but that's probably not going to happen in 2013 unless I hit the lottery or something.

Cheers all, hope everyone is well. 2013 should be interesting.

So yes it certainly has been a while since I last updated here. A lot has happened since my last update. Three conventions, actually, have come and gone. I'll start with the first of three, Anime Detour.

Detour was an interesting experience. It was my first time going (and the first time for as well) and so we weren't exactly sure what to expect. Friday was my big cosplay day mostly because I needed to take advantage of having silver hair and a mustache for two different costumes, both of which have pictures posted now, Old Snake and Victor Sullivan. I had the pleasure of getting to cosplay with for the first time, which was quite the blast as she wore her Sweet Snake costume. and matched us with their Raiden and Otocon costumes, respectively, and it was quite a bit of fun. Lucian got a chance to get photos of his Mark II finally, and RS got a chance to cosplay "armless" Raiden for the first time. Overall it was a lot of fun and we got some good photos thanks to . Bluetie got to wear her demon hunter school girl outfit accented by a wig I bought for her for two Christmases ago, and I have to say I did enjoy the result of her pet project. Later that afternoon I switched from Snake to Victor Sullivan from Uncharted, which was a pretty awesome casual costume to wear mostly because I could be an old boozer smoker lecherous old man, of which we got some fun photos. So that was pretty much that for Friday. Lots of fun, two costumes, good times were had. Saturday was a different story. Bluetie got to premier her Princess Celestia costume, on which she spent God knows how many hours working on. It looked fantastic, and she met up with her friend Kim who cosplays Princess Luna. I got to cosplay an OC "Secret Service Pony" which was really just me in a wig with a tail wearing all black with a white tie and an earpiece. I would have had ears, but my ears broke. In any case I got to have fun making sure people didn't step on bluetie's train-tail. It was a very casual, low stress day for me. Too bad I can't really say the same for her. She had a pretty awful time and the costume contest topped it off when she didn't win anything for her costume. Sunday I didn't cosplay and that was just about it for that con. It ended on an odd note for I had a good time but she did not and so it was a sort of bitter sweet con, but that's okay because in three weeks it was time to renew her faith in new to her cons by going to ACEN!

ACEN was and always has been a total blast to attend. This year's was especially interesting for multiple reasons. First off, a lot of my local friends didn't attend the con this year, which was strange because this was the first time a different group of friends came with us so it was an interesting change of pace for ACEN. I did get to see a bit more than usual, which was nice, and was among our party in the hotel which was a pleasure as always, as was and his friends. So Friday I cosplayed Andrew Waltfeld again with bluetie as my Aisha again and, surprisingly enough, we were recognized fairly well by select groups of people. These costumes are rarely done so it was nice to have people see us and know who we were, even if most of the time they would know who I was and then slowly get who she was after making the connection. Aisha's one of those characters that needs to be associated with someone else (mainly Waltfeld) or else only the super Gundam SEED fans will know who the hell she is, of which there were a few. It was a lot of fun, though, because we went into the vendors hall and were looking around at all of the Gundam model kits that you can buy and I half-jokingly commented that they never have the mech that Waltfeld and Aisha piloted before Kira destroyed it. Well, about two minutes after making that comment a random fanboy was like "Hey Waltfeld, they have your LaGOWE up front, behind the counter." Quite the amazing stroke of luck, actually, mostly because I (sadly) forgot what the name of Waltfeld's mech was so I didn't really know how to look for it and not only did he remind me, but pointed me in the direction of the only model in the whole con that was for sale. Needless to say I had to have it, and bluetie bought it for me as a belated 1 year anniversary gift. I spent much of the con trying to find the full series on DVD of Nadesco for her for my gift, but alas, it was not to be as that had been discontinued years ago and I only found about the first two thirds on DVD. Anyway, so Friday was a blast, we wandered, shopped, and eventually got Chinese for dinner. Saturday RS, Lucian, GS-Force and I got into our Resident Evil costumes. I wore Jack Krauser for the first time, Lucien had his Leon Kennedy costume, RS was Wesker from RE5, and GS-Force wore her Ada Wong costume. I enjoyed the hell out of myself! Pictures of that costume will come sometime in the next few days/weeks/whenever I get around to it.

We entered the Masquerade as usual with plans to do a dating game styled skit with Ada as the Bachelorette, Wesker as the host, and Leon, Krauser, and mind-controlled Jill from RE5 as the Bachelors. Bluetie and our other three friends wore their Revolutionary Girl Utena costumes and planned to do a skit as well. We went about our business on Saturday then ended up at the Masq green room, and just about 60 seconds before the show was about to start (literally 60 seconds, I shit you not) the fire alarm went off due to some dumbass hitting a fire extinguisher or something. Needless to say there were thousands of people in the street as everyone in the hotel had to be evacuated out of the building. It was pretty chaotic, but we overcame and went back in side when the all clear was given. As we moved to get back into the green room an amazing thing happened. The mass of people quieted down as IRT spoke, they asked to let people with special needs through first and the crowd of people literally parted to let someone with a wheelchair through. Next they asked Masq participants to go through next and we got to move through the parted sea of people. It felt pretty awesome, actually. We made it back to the green room and waited ultimately to be told that we would not be able to go on due to lack of time before the Soap Bubble was to start. They made it up to us for our effort to put on a good show by comping our badges for next year and giving us instant access to the soap bubble no matter what the line was like outside. Pretty awesome! That was about it for Saturday. Sunday was low key, I chose not to cosplay again and said my goodbyes to everyone and got on the road. Overall, ACEN this year was pretty damn fun despite the hiccups here and there.

One week later was NoBrand Con! I only went on Saturday and wore Krauser again. I didn't do much and I have to say that NBC is getting stale. They need a new venue because it just felt terribly cramped in that hotel and there wasn't enough parking for everyone. I got to have fun regardless by hanging out with my friend Max all day. Bluetie and the other girls were cosplay judges again this year so it was just me and Max for most of the day. That was about it for that con. Super relaxed.

So that's it for the con updates. I'll be going to WausaubiCon this July, probably badge surf CONvergance again in August, and I'll be cosplay judging at Daisho Con this November.

Upcoming cosplay work:

I completed two swords for the Utena group. I'll be posting pictures of those up eventually.
I made a knife for my Krauser costume, but I was unsatisfied with it and it was a bit too fragile so I've remade it out of wood. Pics will come soon after I make the finishing touches.
I still want to do Scorpion from MK9, but he's turned out to be very expensive and I just don't have the money to have a specific deadline for getting him done. If I'm going to do him I'm going to do him right, damnit!
Akihiko will happen this year, just not sure when.
We'll see what else I can manage for this year, but no promises. I have some plans, but nothing to etch in stone. Life is making cosplay difficult. Next year we've decided to do a Soul Calibur group, I'll be doing Mitsurugi from 4 in his Vagrant costume. This will be a HUGE group. If you want in, you can pick any character from any of the games in any outfit. We already have an Alpha Patroklos, Pyrrah Omega, Xiba in his tiger skin, Raphael from 5 in his hat, Ivy in her furry gold costume from 5 (x2), Xianghua from 3 in her panda dress, Viola, Dampierre, Leixia in her alt, Z.W.E.I., and I'm sure I'm missing someone else, but we have a lot. Oh, GS-Force said she'd do Amy from 3. Woo! So yeah, it's going to be epic. Plan for ACEN 2013.

Cheers! Will close for now.

So it's been a long time since I updated this thing, and thanks to a bit of prodding from I've decided to finally get on it.

A lot has changed since I last wrote. I've moved to Minnesota (though I still visit Wisconsin fairly often and will not stop going to WI cons), I got a job as a biology teacher at a technical college, and things are going fairly well all together. I have several projects in the works that will hopefully be making their appearances on DA in the coming future. Here's a list of what's to come:

Cosplays that are going to happen:

Jack Krauser - Resident Evil 4
Akihiko Sanada - Persona 3
Scorpion, Alternate Costume - Mortal Kombat 9
Shao Khan - Mortal Kombat 9

Cosplays that I'd like to happen if not this year than perhaps next:

Solid Snake - MGS1
Naked Snake/Big Boss, either Animals Camo or Desert Tiger Camo - MGS3
Kano - Mortal Kombat 9
Someone from Moribito, not entirely sure because I'm still early in the series, but I'm considering doing a male version of Balsa. I have seen glimpses of someone from her past who also fights with a spear and he has a beard, so there's a chance I'll do him instead.

Projects that are prop related:
I need to make Scorpion's swords, and I've made a knife for that I need to get a picture of so that I can post it up here for everyone to see.
Also I am working on the Sword of Dios for a friend who will be cosplaying Utena. So far it's a beautiful piece of work but I am far from being done and it could end up not looking so great, so here's hoping I'll do it right!
On top of that I'm working on a fairly standard katana for 's Touga cosplay for the same Utena group. Woo.
There is one more secret thing that I'm making, but who knows when I'll get it done...

Cheers all,

Let's look forward to a good year of cosplay and fun together!

And that just barely scratches the surface! This weekend was pretty incredible and a lot happened. I'm still processing how amazing it was so this is part of that. I'll walk you through it all.  Warning: This is long. TL - DR possible.

Thursday night I showed up at my friend Jay's house where we were to meet up with and Nick Izumi. We hung out, then packed the car and were on the road for Chicago by 3:30 am. That's right. We didn't go to bed on Thursday night and just left that early in the morning for two reasons: First was to beat traffic outside of Chicago (it wasn't terrible but not great either), and second was because getting to ACEN early is never a bad idea. So we arrived at our hotel, the Hilton, at about 7:00 (maybe earlier, I can't remember) and tried to check in early just because. Well I should have known better because (long story short) we tried five total times to check in and the only one that worked was the 3:00 check in time which was what they told us in the first place. Duh. But we weren't about to let that stop us from having a good time. After our first try we decided to show Nick and Jay around because this was their very first ACEN and it's always good to have someone who knows what they're doing to show you where everything happens before things get too crazy. During our random exploits of exploration we discovered the BattleTech area where we were able to play in a test run of their Mech Warrior game for free. Usually it's $5 per game but because we were there EARLY and I mentioned that we'd been waiting to play that game for a year they were like "come help us test it, we need to make sure the bugs are worked out! We played for a good 10 minutes or so until the test round was over. There were some level 9 evil AI bots that utterly crushed us, but here's the good news: I got 20 kills and died 22 times, which makes me happy because this is the second time I've actually played this game and considering I was against nasty AI mechs that the people running the game said "literally never miss and can see through walls" I felt pretty good. On the other hand I was playing against two people who had never played so maybe I got more kills than I should have. Meh. I call it a victory. After that we tried again an hour later at our hotel and they told us to come back at noon. So what did we do? We went back to the car and napped for about two hours. Terrible sleep. I couldn't really count it as sleep as the car was WAY too hot and cramped and uncomfortable, but it helped. There were some quite obnoxious girls outside our car YELLING in excitement and that was the end of our nap. showed up and we hooked up with him and Carolyn H. We wandered about in street clothes and met up with our friend Dani, and also and her friends Diana and... Lady Rock Lee. I can't remember her name but that's who she was dressed as. Gillian was in her awesome Sexy-no-Jutsu costume, Diana was female Gaara, so they made quite the trio of gender crossed Naruto characters. All were great. With this larger group of friends we went to eat at the Expoteria and discovered the amazing shortcut through that restaurant to connect between the Hyatt and the Vender's Hall. The more you know! =* (<--star thing) I got to eat what I referred to as the "breakfast of champions". It consisted of a plate of Mac-n-Cheese, a banana, and a bottle of Miller Lite. Cheap and effective. Perfect. Later we ran into in his AMAZING Mitsuhide costume (Sengoku Basara). His scythes were FUCKING EPIC but ridiculously heavy when held properly. He was suffering pretty bad and lost his badge to boot, so we helped him out and carried his scythes for a while while helping him to try and resolve the badge issue. We never did so he just went badgeless for the rest of the weekend. Bummer.

Moving on, we wandered a bit more and eventually got into our room, which meant that we could (finally) get into costume. We made it just in time to catch the last half of the Bleach Shoot and I have to say, our arrival was well received. Pictures WILL be posted of my Arrogante costume, but basically as soon as we showed up on the scene everyone cheered and I couldn't help but remember that it's things like that that make all this stuff worth it. That response made my day and pretty much dissolved all of the frustration of not having a room until 3:00. The shoot was short but sweet for us and I got to hang out with my friend Jessica who was a pretty damn good Soifon (manga shunko outfit, too). We met up with also who was Ichigo as usual (damn good, too), as well as Ansem 86 who had changed into his Il Forte costume.   It looked craaazy with his purple lipstick on from Mitsuhide. After that we ran into in his "Fan-service Renji: costume. Epic as usual. Most of all, though, was the fact that we met up with and Gillian after the shoot and headed back to our room because we needed to practice the blocking (body movement) for our skit. YC was not sure if she wanted to join us so we let her sit in on the process of how it would work without her and then with her and ultimately she decided that she wanted to do it with us on stage. SO AWESOME! Why? Because our skit just wasn't complete without a Yoko! We practiced for a while in front of a group of our friends and ultimately got it all down in time for skit reviews at 6. We went in, only had to wait a short while, then finally got our skit approved and submitted our audio for it. A few tweaks here and there and we were good to go. After that we got dinner (Chinese),  which took some time to arrive and we chilled out (suuuper tired) until it did. We ate, Ryan passed out, and finally we decided to start drinking after a bit of convincing on my part. Ansem showed up to partake of the new and improved Gurren Flagann, Mark II! The burning spirit of 80 proof was given a proper birth with a new rule that I created right away: every face card adds to the Flagann. Lucian added to that rule shortly thereafter stating that every time someone adds to the Flagann I had to drink from it. I accepted whole heartedly. We got drunk quite fast with that one and by about 12 or so (not sure) Ansem, Jay, and our bud DJ and I went out to browse the con as it's a totally different place at night. Needless to say it was a blast. DJ was worried that we'd get into trouble, but we stayed (mostly) safe and things went well. Got back to the room by about 3 am and slept until 11 or so.

Saturday was a fun beast of a day. Ryan had a shoot that he had to go to at 8 am, I had a quest to find more booze for the night as we drank most of what we originally bought, and by the end of all that we reconvened by 12:15. Ryan napped for an hour and then we started the LOOOONG process of getting prepared for our Gurren Lagann costumes. Lucian got painted up first and his wig fixed while I prepared my head for the necessary Spiral King changes. I hit my beard and eyebrows with blackest black mascara (thanks to for that tip) which did two things: it made it match the fake beard fiber that would be used later AND it kept my beard held to a nice point. Excellent. Slicked my hair back and made sure that the places where spirit gum would be used were mostly hair free. Not an easy task; thanks to Lucian for helping with some of that. Once Lucian's stuff was done Ryan started me off with my bald cap. This process took way longer than he anticipated and because of it we missed out on a few things that we had planned. We, unfortunately, did not get a chance to get our photos taken at the Enthusiast's booth as they were booked solid until Sunday (we wouldn't have made it in time anyway even if they weren't). After Ryan got my cap looking awesome he did the same for my beard and suddenly I was the Spiral King! Epic does not describe how I felt well enough. I rushed out to join Lucian and the others at the GL shoot and showed up for the last 10 or so minutes for that one, too. My reception was, to say the least, fantastic. People were in awe from what I could tell (I couldn't see anything very well because I had no glasses and my contacts were not perscription), and several people exclaimed that they had never seen someone do the SK before, and others said that I pulled him off quite well. I felt great. The last bit of the shoot more or less revolved around me, which was so damn cool. I feel strange saying that because I'm trying to be humble, but it's true... Ryan unfortunately couldn't make it to the shoot as he was doing some finishing touches on Lazengan and didn't even make it to the Masquerade waiting room until well after 3:45. Luckily we had no issues with this and he looked incredible, so it was all worth it. We waited in line, hung out, chatted it up with other cosplayers, and had a pretty good time. It did not feel like a 4+ our ordeal at all, it actually wen't quite fast which was great! We were judged on craftsmanship, which was interesting and surprisingly simple. If you want to know more about the judging process, ask me.

So finally we moved on to the back stage area. I couldn't see the TV, and could barely hear things, so I didn't really get to experience the other skits or walkons very well. Sad. But that sadness was killed dead when we went on stage and rocked our skit to the bones. There were a few issues involving costume malfunctions. Ryan's tail kept falling off but we found a way to work that into the skit at the last moment - it worked out quite well actually. We moved on and took our seat and when judging was done the unthinkable happened. They called us up and told us to get ready to go on stage! I couldn't hear what we were winning and was a bit confused, but sure enough we won an ACEN award! We went on stage, hammed it up a bit, and accepted our award: Judges Choice for Performance! We did not win First Place for our performance, but the Judges liked it so much that we received an award that we've been seeking for 4 years now. Words can't really describe how this feels. We won a prestigious award from one of the biggest conventions in the country. My mind is still blown and will be for a long time. Here's my theory on why we won. Normally it's just me, Ryan, and Lucian, but this time we had Nick, YokoCoco, and Gillian. We had our goofy Simon, and two of the most accurate Nia and Yoko cosplayers I've ever seen on our side. We were a force to be reckoned with and had a skit that was funny, edgy, and revealing enough to earn us that award. HOLY SHIT.  Celebration was certainly in order, but we needed good photos of our costumes first. We descended to the basement where there was room and decent light and had a photofest that lasted... well I don't even know how long. Thanks to Missy for taking the photos, hopefully we'll have them soon so that we can post our stuff on here! It was great, but my bald cap was starting to tear in the back and so it took a little extra care on our part to stop that from showing up in the photos. Still amazing. Finally we returned to the hotel, ordered pizza, and chilled out for a while. Once the pizza was eaten we departed on a pilgrimage to hop from room to room with a backpack full of booze and visited a few groups of friends at the Hyatt. Ryan was exhausted and took a nap, but never really recovered and didn't join us despite the fact that he wanted to. Oh well. What followed was an incredible night with good friends, old and new. I won't go into detail here.

We returned to the room by about 3 or 4 I think... We continued for a short while there then finally slept and got up by about 10 to start gathering our stuff for checkout. Ryan dressed as Adel, but Lucian and I went in street clothes. What followed after checkout was a whirlwind of wandering to meet up with and say goodbye to all of the people we'd met up with during the weekend except for a couple of friends who had to leave early for various reasons. I finally ran into whom I regret not calling earlier in the weekend because she's a BLAST to hang out with, but we enjoyed hanging out for most of the afternoon. Sunday was overall pretty awesome. I dropped by the Ramencon booth and told them about how we're calling it "FUCKYEAH CON" and explained our reasoning behind it. The woman was really happy to hear about our excitement and gave me a Ramencon shotglass as well as a green cloth bag to carry my stuff in. Free stuff is awesome, and they seemed really nice and told me that there was a GOOD chance of getting to be able to party with Troy and Travis. I think FUCKYEAH CON is going to be an incredible event this summer. God I hope I can go.

Eventually we all said our goodbyes to everyone. I forgot to mention Kate, Bruner, Nick Caza, and everyone else who grooves with Ryan's Eva group were there on and off during the con and it was awesome seeing them all. Good times. We took off by about 2:30 or so and enjoyed the drive home with good conversation on many various topics. So much fun. ACEN has once again proven to be an incredible adventure that all con-goers should eventually take. YokoCoco and Nick Izumi had never been to ACEN before, and sure enough their first time going they not only had an incredible time but they got to take part in an award winning skit. I think that they will be making a second appearance next year if the cards play right.

Good times everyone.



Be one of the first 18 people commenting on my journal entries, and I will add you to the Featured List!

For each of the 18 first people answering this journal I will put his/her avatar and the three deviations I like most from his/her gallery on the list.

If you answer, you'll have to do the same in your journal, putting me on the first place, completing the list with 17 other people. The idea of this is not to get a free feature, it is to spread art around for everyone. Note that these are in no particular order with regards to what three I like best.

1.
fav.me/d29nom2
fav.me/d2q0cdt
fav.me/d2qhbec
2.
fav.me/d2sray2
fav.me/d2pal5y
fav.me/d2uxaoa
3.
fav.me/d270sx5
fav.me/d29jtdk
fav.me/d2myq20
4.
fav.me/d2ow3er
fav.me/d16lakv
fav.me/d32lbal
5.
fav.me/d349i8m
fav.me/d349ijw
fav.me/d33uaok
6.
fav.me/d34auuz
fav.me/d2jdikl
fav.me/d2bgqkj
7.
fav.me/d2q0it8
fav.me/d20qvfn
fav.me/d20quyw
8.
fav.me/d2ow1id
fav.me/d2qhp06
fav.me/d32s1k1
9.
fav.me/d2gwd94
fav.me/d2r9qlq
fav.me/d2srm9c - This one is my favorite of his cosplay photos, but I have a feeling he'll be submitting one that I like even more sometime soon.