So you’re doing your first cosplay… - Rintare

You might be feeling self-conscious or scared about doing your first cosplay… It’s a big step to enter the world of cosplay and it can be a scary step to take! Luckily for you, there is so much out there for you to learn from. There tons and tons of blogs, videos, tutorials, and other cosplay community members out there just waiting to help you out! You are most definitely not going into it alone!

In my opinion, the most important thing about cosplay is exuding confidence!!! Even if you’re feeling uneasy now, when it’s the day of the convention, or photoshoot, or whatever it is, you better be the shining pinnacle of confidence! Confidence is key! I know it’s been said many times over, but if you are feeling self-conscious and down about yourself, it will show! After all, you should have nothing to feel bad about if you’ve done all this hard work slaving away for your cosplay. Even if you didn’t make your own cosplay, have confidence in the effort you put into hair, makeup, and whatever else you spent 3 hours watching YouTube videos for. Be proud!

Another way I think we cosplayers can exude confidence is by becoming the character! Do not let the costume wear YOU! You are that character for the day, so be freed from your concerns. On the day of the event (convention, photoshoot, etc.) make sure you are the best you can be! Your hair and makeup is on POINT! Your costume fits you like a glove and there isn’t a wrinkle in sight! If your cosplay has some flaws…rock it with confidence!!

Here are some more specific tips I think may help!

Costume

• Gather references of your character/outfit. A lot!!
•    Regardless of whether it’s bought or made, make sure it fits you and flatters your body shape!
•  Make alterations where needed! Shorten a skirt, hem some pants, pull in a shirt, do what it takes to get the perfect fit!
•  Remember…we are not cartoon characters with stick thin arms and legs with mile long torsos! 
• As you’re planning out a cosplay expect to run into some proportion issues. Just adjust accordingly.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew! You should have adequate time and resources for the cosplay you want to do.

Hair

•  It can be hard to match colors and styles for your character. Just do the best you can and sometimes that means putting a wig in your cart and praying it’s the right color!
• Wig hair is not real hair and it needs to be treated as such! Learn everything you can about what you’re trying to accomplish. Even if you’re just trimming, make sure your cutting technique is the right one.
•  Hairspray is your friend.

Makeup

• Look at references or look to other cosplayers whose makeup you really like!
• PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!!! There is nothing better to do!
• Watch tons of videos! Technique is very important!
• Don’t think you can get away with cheapy makeup, spend the money where it needs to be spent so your makeup doesn’t melt off of your face!
• If someone else is doing your makeup, ask them to tell you about their process and why they’re doing whatever step they’re doing.

In short, take the time to learn your craft and the time you put into it will be the result you get out of it. You should always be learning and learning and learning and then MORE LEARNING!! Learn how to be the best you can be and then GET BETTER!! Be confident in what you’re doing! Radiate dat confidence and go out there and slaaay!!

Thank you for reading!

Super Easy Kotori Hair Loop Quick Tutorial (Love Live)

Hey everyone! This is Rintare with a reaalllyy quick tutorial on how to do Kotori's (Love Live) hair loop. I know a lot of people have trouble with this, so I just wanted to share my own take on it. I hope you find this helpful!

Here's the finished loop! Read on to see what I did!

So for starters, the Kotori wig I purchased came with a small ponytail clip to attach to the wig. I know not all wigs come like this, so sorry if this tutorial doesn't apply to you! The wig I purchased was from aliexpress: here

First, take out the ponytail clip, brush it out, make sure it's all nice, yadda yadda!

Next, take a small section of hair from the top layer of the ponytail. You want to make sure you're not taking too much hair or else you will begin to see the netting underneath. I took about an inch or so wide of a section.

Third, begin forming your loop by flipping this section of hair forward (so it's in front of the teeth of the clip)! Here's a side view of that:

Fourth, go ahead and clamp that section with the clip! You can clamp so the loop is a little smaller and pull the hair up to your desired length. Spread the hair out at the top so it looks loopy!

Next, you might want to secure the loop with a hair tie so it stays! (I didn't do that yet because I plan on fixing up my whole wig later on). Somewhere around where my thumb is should be perfect!

Finally, HAIRSPRAY IT. Use the best hairspray you can find! The kind that freezes the hair in place. I find that Pantene Pro-V 24 Hour Volume Hairspray works well for me. A lot of people are a fan of got2b freeze spray as well.

Tada! All ready to be attached to your wig base.

You are now ready to clip your ponytail clip and loop onto the main wig base. Be careful not to let your loops fall out of the teeth in the process! I clip it onto a section of hair that I gathered previously. On the wig base, it's basically a side-half-ponytail and I just clip right over where I tied that section. Here's a reference that may help:

I also find that many wigs are styled so that Kotori's loop is also what makes her ahoge (the little tuft of hair on top of her head). I don't think this is the case after thoroughly researching it for myself! To style the ahoge I just grabbed a little piece of hair from the top of the wig and teased it. I hope this tutorial was clear, easy, and helpful!! Have fun styling, little birds!

Tare Spotlight: Risa Chan

Risa Chan

Meet Risa Chan! Watch out for this duo danger cutie! Cosplay AND photography! She is one of our friends from way back. Lilitare was the first to meet Risa through a mutual friend at school during her pre-Tare days. They ran into each other at a few cons and their friendship bloomed from there! Kuritare met Risa at Katsucon 2014, and Rintare met her at Otakon 2014. Risa, with all of her cosplay wisdom, showed us the ropes! Senpai ¦D

Here's Risa with Lili and Shifty as Miss Fortune, Caitlyn, and Ezreal at Otakon 2013 

After Otakon 2014, Tare became closer and closer to Risa. We hung out often at cons and always had tons of fun! Our most recent cons were Otakon 2015 and AUSA 2015 where we spent a lot of time free loading in her room...and hanging out with her :))) She is always a ball of fun and we love partying together!! A big shout out to Risa for picking us up from the metro station to go eat KBBQ together...that's REAL LOVE!!

Tare and Risa from AUSA 2015!

We planned on doing a Shokugeki no Soma group with her, but unfortunately, only Kuri could be part of the group :( We also want to cosplay Love Live together in the future! We hope to make more fun memories with her, but we fear for having to stop for people to take pictures of her every 5 seconds! Yes, we know she is beautiful, but can we go eat now???

Risa Chan as Nidalee from League of Legends
Photo by: Kyoplay

Risa Chan as Iron Woman (original costume)
Photo by: vicissijuice

Check out Risa Chan on all of her social media:
Facebook
Photography Facebook

Anime USA 2015 - Lilitare

Hi everyone!

Lilitare here! With my first post (haha oops).

Well we just finished up our one year TareTareTare anniversary with the end of Anime USA!
I wanted to write something about this convention before I forgot everything that happened (since that's kind of what happened to my Otakon post).

First off, it's a bummer some of our cosplay plans fell through due to some shipping errors. But it did give us another chance to revisit our Danmachi cosplays and our once-worn Mogyutto outfits.

Friday was a relaxed and slow starting day, since most of the programming didn't start until mid afternoon. We got ready and took the metro to the convention hotel. Upon arriving, we met up with some friends and then stood in line for our passes. It was nice being in Danmachi, since Kuritare and I had upped our costumes a bit since Otakon! Hopefully the slight improvement shows in our photos haha;;

Anyways, walking around the convention was neat. It was kind of hard taking photos of other cool cosplayers as Hestia though... That was the downside of my Danmachi cosplay. :c Oh well! It was still nice since we got to catch up with a lot of cosfriends who usually live far from us. We also passed out Halloween candy to new people and old friends we met!
Programming wise, we didn't end up going to a lot of panels, but we did visit the burlesque at the end of the day. ; ) We also visited the dealers, artists, and game room at lot. We were very sad that all the rhythm games were gone this year! We were really looking forward to them! ; n ;

For dinner we were recommended to try Medaterra! It had great prices on drinks, burgers, and wings! I ordered a pizza though haha. We had a blast there and ended up going again on Saturday!

On Saturday we decided to wear our Mogyutto outfits from Love Live since the meet up was scheduled for this day. We arrived a bit late and even got a bit lost at first... But we did get to see Yashafluff for a bit! She's a huge sweetie pie and even recognized Rintare and Kuritare from their Danmachi outfits from yesterday (; A ; it was when I was away so I missed this).

Anyways, we ended up finding the meet up and met some cute Love Livers too bad I was a bit too shy! Shout out to Aozora Cosplay though! You hosted a nice meet up, and you're so sweet as always! = w = / I also met this super cute Hanayo cosplayer that was dressed as the Halloween UR card! It's one of my top favorites, so I kind of flipped out haha. Luckily I was able to get some pictures with her and hopefully didn't spook her with my enthusiasm too much! Overall it was fun meet up, but unfortunately we had to speed off again to meet up with some of our other friends. :c

 

After meeting and catching up with some friends, we walked around with Shifty Studios while he took some sick cosplay video shots. We saw so many talented cosplayers! Hopefully Shifty Studios' video will be out sometime soon! ;) Be on the look out! We will post some AUSA pics on our facebook in the meanwhile.

Anyways, we did try to go to the maid cafe to request the lovely Terumi Hanabi! Unfortunately she was resting due to her losing her voice and the maid cafe had to close an hour early. ;___; /
We did meet some really nice maids who were Love Live fans that chatted with us for a bit! Thank you for that. u w u

After the failed maid cafe attempt, we went to grab an early dinner at Medaterra again. I ordered their Veggie Penne Pasta, and it was pretty good. We ate early in hopes of seeing the masquerade (that we found out Terumi would be a judge in!), but by the time we got there (45 minutes late;; ), it was already over... We did get to see the prize winners though, so that was nice. c:

The rest of the night was just chilling with friends and visiting the game room again. It was hard coordinating to play Rock Band with our friends, but it somehow worked out once! And playing Just Dance with friends is always fun. After playing until about 2 am, we decided it was time to head back to the metro.

Sunday was very short for me! I was only at the convention for an hour, and so I decided to just wear normal clothes! Kuritare and our friends were part of a Shokugeki no Soma group. It was also Rintare's photography debut! We met up with a few friends to say good bye, and then the Tare^3 squad sang Kaguya no Shiro de Odoritai like giant goofballs. All in all, it was a pretty good way to end the convention. Hopefully everyone else's Anime USA was good too!

Visit our facebook to see our whole album!

I just want to thank Kuritare and Rintare for sticking with my cosplay shenanigans for a year. Love you guys! ♥

Closet Cosplay and Makeup TimeLapse New Rin UR (#666) - Rintare

Hello again! I am pumpin' out blog posts this week! After Lilitare showed me the new set of SR/UR's in JP School Idol Festival, I was struck by inspiration!

Look at Rin, so cute!! I was just thinking, hey, I have a white dress and a flower crown, let's do a closet cosplay!! As I sat down to do my makeup I thought it might be a good idea to film a little time lapse on my iPhone. So without further adieu, here's the video!

Here is my product list:

Lenses:

EOS New Adult Green

Face:

MAC Prep + Prime Natural Radiance Base Lumiere in Radiant Pink

Etude House Precious Mineral BB Cream in W24

MAC Mineralize Concealer in NW25

BH Cosmetics Contour & Blush Palette (for contour and highlight) - bleh looking back, I didn't blend very well!

Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Classic

Brows:

MAC Mineralize Concealer in NW25

NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk

Coastal Scents 88 Original Palette (I blended a few orange shades!)

Eyes:

NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk (to prime)

Urban Decay Naked 2

Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper

L'oreal Miss Manga Mascara in Black - No lashes for today! Have to save them for cons!!

Lips:

NYX Butter Gloss in Apple Strudel

And here are some pictures!

 

Thanks for reading and watching!! xoxo

Ryuu Lyon Cosplay (Danmachi) - Rintare

Horray! It's time for my first full cosplay blog! In these cosplay blogs I plan on talking about each aspect of my cosplay from wig down to shoes! I remember being in a cosplay rut not knowing what I wanted to do for Otakon...so there I was watching Danmachi or Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? with the other tares. At the very end of the episode, here comes Ryuu, not in her maid clothes, but instead in this bad ass dungeon-ready get up. I knew this was it! It was the cosplay I had been searching for all summer! It was nice not being a cute idol for once!

The first thing I looked into was ears! After looking around, I decided on Aradani Small Anime Elf Ears. I DID NOT get them painted because Lilitare is a painter and I knew she would help me make these ears amazing! I saved $5, yay! I really recommend these ears for your next elf cosplay!

The ears out of the box, unpainted. Also, a tiny bottle of spirit gum!

I got stuck looking for a wig for a long time. I went into it thinking her hair was just a short blond bob, but I was very wrong...Her hair is actually this yellow-green color and I could NOT find a matching shade. It even says the hair is green on her wiki page, like, what?? I was even willing to shell out for an arda wig if it would match, but none of their shades matched what I was looking for! So, after scouring the depths of aliexpress, I finally found a wig that was as close as I was going to get to Ryuu's color. Of course, this wig had no reviews and only 1 picture...I bought it anyway...It's actually supposed to be a Hanayo Wig from Love Live!

Here it is out of the package! Kind of a bad Hanayo wig, no?

After curling.

I had never curled a wig before and I thought it would be easy peasy, like straightening! After a solid hour of attempting to curl and it not working, I hunted down some tips and tutorials and learned that SPRAYING WATER on the sections of hair before curling them will make them stay!! Good to know!

For contacts I wanted something really blue. I went with EOS Neon Blue lenses. They were OK. I felt that my eyes were more buggy than I wanted, but I guess the color was there.

Selfie on the way to the con!

My major concern was the cape! I knew the cape was the key component of this cosplay, so it had to be good! I've never made a cape before, so it was kind of a challenge...Focusing in on the hood, my idea was the make a wire frame for the "leaves". I used flower wire I had laying around in my house and bias tape to hold it along the edges of the hood. There was a lot of trial and error involved in shaping these leaves, but in the end it came out alright! I started off using the hood of one of my jackets as a base shape and then drew in the leaves. I kind of messed up with the back of the cape...the actual cape part...I didn't have enough bias for a larger cape, so it ended up kind of small and weird fitting, but I didn't mind it too much. There's a lot of changes I would have made if I had more time!! (Peep the fringe and safety pin closure ; v;)

The shirt I had made with help from a friend, but it turned out to no fit me correctly at all...I asked my seamstress aunt to help me fix it, but she ended up just making a whole new shirt! She also had the idea of sewing on some nude colored diamonds where Ryuu has holes in her shirt for ease of construction.

Making gloves was a pain with all the little curves! This fabric also wasn't very stretchy. Some fingers may have been strangled during the fitting process! I went for the easy method of just tracing your hand out on paper and then cutting it out.

For pants I just ordered some spandex shorts in dark green. They were very comfy and cute! For the boots, I made boot covers and covered up some $4 heels. This was my first time making full covers and my friend and I used the saran wrap and tape method to make a pattern. What I don't really get still is how you're supposed to sew the two side you make together, they're two different curvy shapes that somehow fit together??? I just used a hot glue gun to press the fabric onto the cheap heels.

Weapons were all made by Kuritare, what a precious angel he is. Definitely check out his tutorial posts for Ryuu's weapon!!

Photo by Shifty Studios

Photo by Shifty Studios

And this is the completed cosplay! A lot of people helped me with this cosplay, so a big thank you to everyone! I really couldn't have done this without your support! I got a lot of meaningful positive feedback from this cosplay and that just made me realize how great my friends and family are!

Thanks for reading my first full cosplay blog! I will do full reviews or tutorials of anything if anyone asks, don't be shy!!

Kuritare Review: Vassen Hyper Red Circle Lenses

The video above covers most you need to know about these lenses, but here we can get a little more in depth opinions on these lenses. I will also discuss details of each lighting type.

Indoor direct light was not as noticeable. So night time it won't be so prevalent but your eyes do seem bigger and have a darker look to them.

For pictures, I would avoid having your hair (or in maou's case, his visor) cast a shadow over your eyes. Makes it much deeper and hard to see, but same as above, creates a dark devilish look to them.

Outside/strong sunlight is your best bet for having these really pop. They even get a nice shimmer on them if your tearing as hard as I was trying to keep my eyes open in that sun.

My personal opinion, male characters don't need extremely brilliant eyes. Therefore, I tend to go for more subtle and serious designs and colors. If I were to cosplay a girl with iconic red eyes (Like Nico Yazawa) I would go for a flashier design and maybe even more color variance to really get that vibrant look. When it comes to characters like Bell Cranel (Danmachi) who is iconically known in and out of anime for having white hair and red eyes, I would go for a brighter lens color than this, but careful not to go too light because if you have dark eyes they will not show as nicely. This is why my general rule of thumb is go for the darker colors because they will show up better in appropriate light. A color that is too light will give your eyes better shine, but the color just won't show as well. (None of these are facts I know, but in my experience this is how it's been).

I store these contacts away for months at a time, and I always forget to rinse them before popping them in, creating a burning sensation which reddens my eyes initially. Be careful for this!

Final Verdict:

As red contacts: 8.5/10. More comfortable than usual contacts I've tried, however doesn't get put on as easily, and slides around when you initially put them on.

For Bell/Maou Cosplay: 7/10. They did the job in keeping eye color accurate, but many pictures won't capture this color. I'd go for something just generally stronger and brilliant. The design is a nice and subtle and definitely maintains a level of masculinity.

Review - StoreDogDog

I recently just made a big purchase from storedogdog with my birthday money! I've been wanting to grab a few things from shopinuinu, but after the creation of storedogdog everything became cheaper, making it that much easier to shop! (You can read more about the difference between the two stores on your own). I figured I could write up a quick review for these goodies!

As you can see from my little cruddy quality phone picture, I got quite a few things! 

Grid Shirt

I like the shirt a lot! I can wear it to work or dress it down to wear out. The material itself is soft and comfy, but the quality was a little questionable. There's a lot of uncut threads hanging around and they even forgot to cut open one of the button holes! Whoops! Nevertheless, still a cute shirt.

Sailor Dress

This dress was a one size fit all dress. I figured it would baggy, but that's fine if you're going for the babydoll look?? The white stripes are satin-y ribbons and were really wrinkly and kind of sloppy. Hopefully I can iron it nicely!

Cactus Top

Adorable shirt! It also is one size only so don't expect it to be form fitting. It's the pop of color that my closet needed!

Black Tennis Skirt

I got this skirt in MEDIUM!! I am a Small in basically all US clothes. This skirt fits perfectly on my waist, thank goodness! My waist measurement is about 70cm (and so it this skirt). Super cute and the perfect length for me.

Reversible Grid Skirt

I am really excited about this skirt for so many reasons. It's one size fits all because it's all stretchy, so I don't have to worry about eating a lot and popping out of my skirt! It's reversible?!? Awesome 2 skirts in 1! Yes, sign me up.

Banana Shorts

So...unfortunately I got these shorts in size Small so they are way too small for me...I kind of just looked at the inches and thought I was a 26 (like I am in Forever 21 pants??) I don't know, I am just sad because these shorts are so cute and surprisingly nice quality!?! :(((

Accessories

I got a little egg coin purse for myself because I needed one! I grabbed a pair of egg socks and bandaid socks too. So cute and meshy = w= The socks barely fit me, so do watch out! I'm a size 7.5 (US Womens). They also gave me chokers maybe because I bought so much stuff?? 

Here I am ready to take on the internet! Overall I'm happy with my purchase and I spent just over $100 so I got free DHL shipping. My order arrived super fast. For now I should probably block myself from visiting this store! Thanks for reading!

P.S. we hope to get some more convention pictures back soon!!

XOXO

Otakon 2015 - Kuritare

Starting on Thursday, I was in panic on how to finish my armor for Bell (Danmachi). My original ideas were not working as I was measuring things from a two dimensional standpoint. Even Risa Chan Cosplay's help didn't work for me considering my glue was just too weak. I ended up making all the armor out of one piece each and molding them the best I could. The paint turned out very well though, and Lilitare's detail really brought out the accents in the armor.

I worked very hard on the props for this con. I am especially proud of Ryuu's staff (Danmachi). It turned out very smooth and beautiful, a great improvement from Amon's sword (Magi) from last year. The small swords also came out okay,  as well as the knife collection for Shokugeki no Soma.

My works in progress

I really only got about 7 hours of sleep in 3 nights...I don't know what was taking me so long but I realized I missed a lot of pieces on the bottom half of my Bell armor. I had to make a make shift sash to cover up my manly parts.

Enough about the work, lets talk about the con! It was tons of fun. We got the most attention we've ever received at any con. Being stopped so often and by so many people was surreal.

Photo by MEL Photography

Friday:
I was Takumi Aldini from Shokugeki No Soma. The assumption was that the ladies of Tare³ were going to participate in the Love Live Mermaid group, but seems there were complications so they wore Natsuiro instead. I did feel left out when they got their pictures taken and at the love live
photoshoot which I have always been a part of. However that didn't take away from the attention I got when Shifty Studios showed up. Him being Soma really got a lot of people's attention and he used my props in the pictures I was alongside him. We even got our photos taken by Risa Chan Cosplay. The only unfortunate part was that my wig was super late and didn't arrive on time. I had to turn my Alibaba wig into a Takumi wig which was extremely difficult because it was absolutely tiny on my massive head. In a lot of the pictures you can see my hair in the back :(. Lilitare also forgot a wig cap so I gave mine to her. Later that night we went to a party on the terrace which honestly not that much fun. We ended up leaving early to head back and work on cosplay.

Saturday:
I wore my Bell from Danmachi and it actually was a lot better than expected. I actually prefer this armor color compared to the very common white armor. I saw maybe 2 other Bells with the armor cosplay (Looked very similar, perhaps bought? I haven't been able to find it). We got stopped for pictures pretty often and the photographers would pile on one after another. We seperated from Lilitare and her boyfriend for a couple hours in the dealers room, but Rintare and I still got a great amount of pictures. The majority of the day was spent in the dealers room and getting our photos taken. The most exciting part about this cosplay was being filmed by Shifty Studios for the cosplay video! We also managed to get a cute photoshoot going with Shifty. At night we went to the bars. This was the first time that Rintare and I have entered a bar and needless to say it was pretty fun.

Sunday:
This day Tare³ wore The Devil Is a Part Timer again. Since last time we didn't get many good photos. The costume itself is very comfortable so it was a good one to end on. I say this each time but we got way more photos than we anticipated. When we stood behind a registration booth we were suddenly swarmed. Such an amazing feeling!

Shifty was gathering last minute footage for his video when one of his favorite cosplayers was in the vicinity, Yashafluff! She was being photographed and some people were talking to her but, she didn't seem all too busy. Shifty isn't normally shy but he turns extremely beta when around Yasha. He had met her previously this con and he was afraid she had already forgotten him. I thought he sounded absurd so I went up to her and essentially told her this story. He was pretty embarrassed especially when she called him out for wearing the same shirt twice. He got his shot, and quickly left before checking if it was exactly what he wanted, as to not waste her time. Hopefully I get more opportunities to beat the little baby out of Shifty.

Overall, this con was amazing. I'm glad I went, as I was considering not going due to funds. Much more enjoyable than last year. I'm excited to see all the pictures people took of us!

In the meantime, please enjoy this amazing video Shifty Studios put together!

Shifty Studio's Cosplay Showcase of Otakon 2015