Relaxing destressing BBQ at the park (Photoheavy)

How's it going everyone, hope you're all doing well :)

Last Friday I toook & hung out with a fellow cosplayer (Mogu) who needed a change in atmosphere since she was really stressed from uni so decided to take her to the park that I had my casual photoshoot with the tiger printed vest to have a BBQ, relax and take some photos for fun.

We met up at around 12.40pm at the shopping centre closeby to the park to go grocery shopping for food for the BBQ. We end up getting a pack of beef sausages, honey soy chicken wings, potato salad, caesar salad, baguette bread stick, sauce and drinks. Mucked around in the store for abit especially with the baguette stick but yeah haha! Was good. After that we zoomzoom'd to the park.

Upon arriving the entrance of the park, it was hella PACKED and CROWDED with families and kids because it was school holidays. Drove around the parking area for abit  but eventually got a spot and then zoomed to check if there was any free bbq-hotplates for us to use. Thankfully there was quite a few hotplates free and we tried choosing the one that was more in the shade so we don't get sunburnt.

Settled down with all the grocery, and started preparing and cooking the food. Was such a nice day, more on the sunny side but was great. Though the weather was slightly a tad too hot for us to be walking around with wigs but yeah, somehow managed the wigs until later we took it off after we ate.

Cooked ALL the food we bought and settled to the bench closeby to our hotplate and started eating! :D Funny thing was that most of the food that I cooked was what we called "cancer sticks" LOL! Because most of it was slightly burnt on the outside since I wanted to be sure the meat was all cooked. STILL EDIBLE! But yeah, as Mogu-san says "CANCER IS HEALTHY" LOL!

Honey Soy Chicken wings and drumsticks

Herb & Rosemary Beef Sausages

Potato and Caesar salad on the plate made by Mogu

After both of us finishing our salad plate and devouring half the sausages and chicken, we were already on the verge of dying because there was just too much food LOL! Splitted it and packed it between us to take home. Cleaned up the BBQ area, put our things back into the car and then it was time to browse the place and take some photo.

By the time we finished eating, it was about 3.30-4pm which was perfect timing since we wanted to stay and wait for golden hour to capture some photos.

Mogu-san being a creeper photographer LOL

It's my second time going to this park and I just absolutely love it as it has such a combinations of scenery that can be used such as old cranes and traintracks, waterview and scenery, small boat dock, water features, park views and scenery, and a playground.

Here are some photos I took at the old tracks and cranes scenery:

Mogu's Camera

"Fantasea" ferry

the small pier/dock

One of the water features close to the restaurant there

Left the old tracks and started heading towards the playground area in hopes to play with the water feature. By this time, it was close to golden hour which would be great to capture around the playground area.

Here's a picture of Mogu's outfit *A*)/

As we got to the children playground area, we were disappointed by the fact that the water features have already been turned off as the water stops at 4pm. Nonetheless we explored the park and played on the playground with us getting our bottoms wet because of the wet grounds and me slipping on the steep hills. 

We even challenged ourselves to go climb this tall hideout-thing that was opened since we are both afraid of heights. 

This hideout thing was really high and involved alot of climbing. The climbing wasn't bad to be honest, the bad thing was that it was crowded with kids running up and down causing the tower to slightly shake which scared us HARD. There was this particular room as you can see in the picture above with the metal framing where three quarters of the ground was netted ropes which looked super scary. We didn't dare to step into the rope floor since it looked really dangerous especially with us holding our valuables that can drop. 

Came across this rope bridge which was netted more closely than the other room so we survived cross thing this. Thought it looked really cool. Going on it was slightly uncool cos the kids were running which caused it to shake >_<;

Finally got out of the tower and sat down near the water features and talked abit hoping that the water features would turned back on and whilst waiting for golden hour to hit. No water. :(

But at least golden hour finally striked and we got up and captured the scenery with the beautiful sunset its' golden rays breaching across the area.

Lay down on the grass to take some selfies and then we went to play on the playground. So many funny encounters with children and especially Mogu-san on this dragon-shaped rope swing which was hilarious. 

The sun went down really fast and it was already getting dark, so we decided to leave the park and head home.

Dropped off Mogu-san at her home and I went home as well. Only to realise that I unfortunately lost my phone whilst at the park, most likely either when I was lying down and taking some selfie photos or when I was on the slide and it fell out. Luckily the phone is sim-locked and it didn't have my sim card. I made a trip to the park early morning arriving the park at 6.45am in hopes to find my phone but no luck. :( Hence the lack of photo posting on instagram. But oh well.

Overall it was an awesome relaxing fun day. Thanks heaps to Mogu-san for joining and making the day happen :) 

Please check out Mogu-san's worldcosplay page at http://en.worldcosplay.net/member/46782/ and her Deviantart page at http://kimusensei.deviantart.com/ 

That wraps up for this blogpost.
Hope you enjoy it!
Until then stay well & take care~

Photoshoot : Kurobasu - Kuroko x Kise x Aomine

Yo! How's it going?
Hope you're all doing well!

On 16th March 2013, I had a Kuroko no Basuke casual photoshoot with cosplayer Rin-san as Kise, cosplayer Cheroppi as Kuroko, and photographer Marupan. We shot in the city towards central station in Sydney at a park. Originally we wanted to use the basketball courts but it was really crowded so while already being at the park, we made use of what we could and yeah the photoshoot was successful. 

The photos have been released onto Marupan's facebook page and can be viewed at : http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.299799263485522.1073741830.177524032379713&type=1

Really like how the photos turned out despite not being able to use the basketball courts but yeah~ really amazing. Big credits to our photographer Marupan for the photography and edits. Also big thanks to cosplayer Cheroppi and Rin-san for their amazing cosplays.

Here are some of the photos :

Rin-san as Kise Ryouta

Cheroppi as Kuroko Testuya. 

me as Aomine Daiki

For more photos please check out the following link : http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.299799263485522.1073741830.177524032379713&type=1

Please do check out Marupan's facebook page and like it for awesome updates at http://www.facebook.com/mtknot

Also please do check out Cheroppi's Facebook page and also like it for amazing cosplays at http://www.facebook.com/CheroppiCOS

And that's it for this quick post. 

Until then, stay well & take care!

Casual Tiger-vest Photoshoot Photos & Pandographi's blog

Hey everyone, it's been a while~ Hope you're all doing well!

Sorry for the lack of posts; been busy catching up, helping parents with their work and all especially when I just graduated recently which I'll blog soon and trying to record some vids to upload and yeah! Also trying to customise the blog abit so it's more convenient to navigate through and not be so busy but yeah, please bare with me >_<;. Hopefully the header and all the tabs are alright.

So Pandori-san has made a blog which he will start sharing his work and contact etc. Pandori-san is a good friend of mine who have really grown so much as a cosplayer and photographer and while mainly focusing on photography, his work has improved so much. And also as you may of known that I do alot of shoot with Pandori-san as my photographer.
He is a great photographer who understands both cosplayer's and photographer's point of view which is super great because it enables him to capture what cosplayers or the model would like.

Please do check his blog out at http://pandographi.wordpress.com/ and also his facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Pandographi

I've mentioned in the previous blogpost(view here) about my long hooded tiger print vest and I had a casual photoshoot with it and now the photos are currently being posted onto Pandori-san's blog. 
Here are some of the photos from the shoot:

For more photos please check out his blogpost at http://pandographi.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/%E3%80%90o4-1o-2o13%E3%80%91-tiger-fashion/ 

The post is still currently being updated, please do check it out once every while for new updates on it.

Both Pandori-san and I are really enjoying this photoset because of how natural the picture is with very minor editting. Super thanks to Pandori-san for it :D

Anyway just a quick short update before I go to sleep. 

Will definitely blog more often real soon!

Until then, stay well & take care!

Casual Photoshoot - Tiger print hooded vest (PICTURE HEAVY)

Yo! Hope you're all doing well!

Yesterday I had a photoshoot with Pandori-san for the tiger printed hooded vest that I made just because I show off what I made :D

We shot at the armory of Olympic Park which was a great find for location because we actually have never been here before and was really surprised with the variety of scenery that was around so it was really great.

I had chores and errands to do in the morning so getting myself ready once I got home was quite rushed so I didn't end up doing my eye makeup until I was at the location but in the end I thought the outfit turned out well. Luckily I already planned out my outfit the night before so all I had to do really was my base makeup and contouring. Also did my hair at the location.

This is how I looked liked after the shoot but you kinda get the jizz of how I looked for the shoot.

For the eye makeup, I tried to replicate the patterns of the tiger onto my eyes, using the colors similar to the vest. The makeup I thought was alright however would've been heaps better if I had a white cream shadow/liner since the white powdered shadow didn't stand out so much. Also some of the black liquid liner used to draw the tiger stripes smudged so towards 2/3 of the shoot, the makeup was slightly messy.
(Sorry for the colors of the photos)

Sorry about the red eyes, eyes getting exhausted from contact lenses

My outfit for the shoot consisted of a basic black short sleeve dress shirt layered with the hooded vest over it. Wore my usual adjustable brass colored chain to tie the collar of my dress shirt together and to add a little detail to the plain dress shirt. 

I added a big gold chain necklace around the hoodie area of the vest to tie together the whole top for the complete look. The gold chain necklace really does add such character and boldness to the outfit and also makes the vest look like a cape.

Added on a clip earring and a magnetic earring on my left ear to match the detail I had on my top. To be honest I had to ask friends on instagram, twitter and facebook for opinions on the long clip-on earring because it looks abit too much yet it gives this superior feel to it. Eventually I decided to go with it. Though they were only on for the first half of the shoot because I forgot to put them back on after we took a break.

For accesories on arms and hands, I wore a black vinyl cuff bracelet that I made from spare vinyl fabric and a rhinestone brad on my left wrist .

Wore a simple copper ring with a large black oval detail which matched really well with the entire outfit. Never wore this ring because It use to be to tight, but turns out I can just fit it now. Literally JUST because sometimes it gets stuck even haha!

On my right arm, I wore the strange bondage-looking arm thing that I made mentioned in the previous blogpost.

This is the eyelet string/ribbon I mentioned in the previous blogpost.

For the bottoms, I wore skinny black jeans which wrapped around my legs really well paired and tucked in with my Ebay combat boots mentioned alot in my OOTD posts. Simple and classy. :D

BACK ONTO THE PHOTOSHOOT TOPIC. . .

Got to Pandori-san's place at approximately 1.30pm to pick him and then zoomzoom we go to the destination!

So funny upon driving to our destination because we both have never been here but I've drove passed it but upon entering the entrace, we see this prison-looking place which made us go " O_O ". Had no idea where we were but kept driving and eventually reached a super nice looking area which is a large park which we were so amazed of the area and this discovery. Truly awesome! Did my makeup and my hair in the car and fixed anything that needed to be fixed and off we went to shoot! 

We explored the area abit and took some photos where we could but yeah I think we just got carried away with how awesome the place was. 

Here's a picture of me and pandori-san owo)/

After exploring the place and shooting for approximately an hour and a half, we went back to Pandori-san's house to pick up Wanye-san who bought us some sausages and bread to cook over the BBQ at the photoshoot destination since the park had BBQ hot plates to cook on =)

Picked up Wanye-san and got to the destination again and decided that we would eat first then shoot because by the time we finish eating, it would be the perfect time to shoot since it'll be golden hour.

Cooked up some sausages and toasted some bread. This is the life, one of the best photoshoots I've been to. Good weather, good location, good food, great people and even had good music playing because of the other people having BBQ next to us playing some nice jazzy music. Was so great.

Me with my half sausage looking suspicious but hey- SEAGULL!

Ate till we were all nicely full, cleaned up and got back to business with shooting. The lighting by the time we started shooting was just simply amazing because of golden hour. The trick with golden hour photography is to work fast and capture because the sun sets really fast.

Once the sun was down, we decided to go play in the children's playground which is really big. We had great fun and even had some shots with the water feature. I unexpectedly got wet twice by the water feature because I didn't expect the water to come at me. But it was all great fun :D

Here's a picture of Wanye-san, me, and pandori-san owo)/

And that pretty much concludes the casual photoshoot :D
I really do look forward shooting at this location more with amazing people.

Before I end the blogpost, here is one of the amazing RAW photos taken at the shoot by Pandori-san. So awesome and from a RAW photo too, no edit. I do really look forward to the photo that'll be released :D

Please check out and like Pandori-san's facebook page at http://facebook.com/pandographi
Also, Wanye-san now has a facebook page as well, please check out his page at http://www.facebook.com/Kagami1ye

Until then, stay well & take care!

Making of Tiger print hooded vest

Hey guys, how's it going?

So recently I've been working on this little DIY project ever since I randomly came across this tiger printed fabric. I've always wanted to own something that was animal printed so I thought I'd make something that's versatile and able to wear in almost all weathers and almost with any outfit~ a hooded long vest.

Why a hooded long vest? Why not just a normal vest or a long vest or a normal hooded vest? Well the reason is that I've always been succumbed around long top garments such as long sweaters, long sweaters, long coats etc especially through Japanese and Korean fashion seen online, in movies, dramas etc. 

When I mean long garments, I don't mean oversized- it fits nicely around the body but just longer in length to cover over or half way of the bottom/bum. 

So being inspired by Japanese and Korean fashion, I decided to make a long garment and especially with the animal print since it is quite commonly incorporated into their fashion.

Why a vest? A vest is very versatile and can be incorporated so easily into your style from wearing the piece alone or layering over other pieces. Especially with a busy pattern like animal print, it adds a strong bold character to such versatile piece.

Why a hoodie? A long vest would look very classy, in order to make it look more casual and edgy- it would look better as a normal sized vest. Therefore I added a hoodie to give it that casual edgy feel and toning down the classiness. 

Hopefully that explains why I chose to make a long hooded vest out of the tiger print fabric. The fabric I bought costed $7.00AUS per metre with a width of 2.1metre. It has a feel similar to a blanket, so its nice and fluffy and somewhat furry but not overly furry. It has a stretch, very lightweight, loose and also printed double sided.

Got home with the fabric and started researching on making a hoodies since I've never made a hoodie before, got an idea and then started cutting out my patterns and fabric.

Here is a video of me just cutting out and sewing the fabric. You really can't see much but yeah.

After sewing the base, I thought the hoodie was missing something, especially when I wasn't planning to have a lining. So decided to bring out the black vinyl or pleather that my mom bought me from vietnam and utilise it as a hoodie lining.

After that day of sewing, I ended up with:

FINALLY A PICTURE INSTEAD OF BORING WRITING

OH! HAVE TO TELL YOU MY UPSETTING STORY. For the hoodie, I originally wanted to make a furry trimmed hoodie so decided to go find some fur trims. NONE of which I liked OR afford even.
I first went to Spotlight which had some fur trims but IT WAS $15AUS A METRE which I needed 70cm so therefore it was a no, plus it was in a light beige meerkat-like color which wouldn't match my fabric. 
Drove to Lincraft which literally had no fur trims, but had feather trims which was a no for me. BUT they had a super nice faux fur fabric which was super nice, thick and perfect brown color; however it was a roll of fabric which costed $37AUS per metre in which I'd probably would only need 20cm of that roll which they don't sell -_-;
Running out of hope, I decide to drive to Cabramatta which is local to me and sells cheap fabric. No luck, they guy didn't have any thick puffy faux furr.
At this point I was already really upset and started actually yelling in my car with all my windows up LOLOL! But yeah, end of my depressing story. :D

Anyway I left the project on hold abit just to gather some ideas on how I could improve on it. Didnt' work on and finish it until the day before the photoshoot since I decided to have another casual photoshoot to show off my new creation but yeah eventually got it done :)

Added some black vinyl as an inner placket to hem the raw edges of the front placket which creates a slight collar on the vest. Also added a flap pocket which TOOK FOREVER to work on because I was struggling on how to make the flap pocket with the pocket. Eventually I got it done with great help to my dad who is a tailor which he did a great job and taught me alot.

The black vinyl definitely adds class and edginess to the outfit which is great :D

Did some test styling to prepare for the photoshoot the next day.

Oh right forgot to mention about what I end up doing with the trims of the hoodie. I ended up using the left over fabric that I used for the vest and rolled it up to make it slightly puffy and sew it in. In the end, I thought it really went well and even better than the fur trims I originally had in mind. :D

Also experimented and made this arm piece thing that looks like some bondage thing but yeah, was inspired after seeing something similar on television about a fashion show and they were wrapping the model's legs with this but in gold if I remember correctly. It was super easy to make as it just uses eyelets, cords and strings. What I used here is a string that contains eyelets already so I just threaded elastic cords around my arm through the eyelets. I thought It looked really cool and adds a little something to the whole outfit.

Last style testing and pretty much decided for the photoshoot. :D

I will make another post on the photoshoot since this entry is just getting too long.
Until then, stay well & take care!

Review & First Impression : Etude House Precious Mineral BB Cream Bright Fit.

Hello everyone, hope you're all doing well :)

This post will be a review based on my first impression of the "Precious Minerall BB cream Bright Fit" by Etude House.

I received a small free sample sachet of the BB cream from one of my previous orders of korean cosmetics from http://cosmetic-love.com/

According to http://cosmetic-love.com , the retail package contains 2.11 oz (approximately 60g) and retails for $16.19US coming in 4 different shades.

This BB cream claims to be inflused with pearl extracts to leave the skin moist and radiant with a silky complexion. The coverage is sheer and has an SPF 30/PA++.

Main ingredients are pearl extracts, water, titanium dioxide, dipropylene gylcol, cyclopentasiloxane .

Claims to also have adenosine and arbutin for anti-wrinkle treatment and whitening skin.

So i wasn't sure which shade I received in but judging from the looks of it, it seems to be in shade W13 Natural Beige.

Before applying onto my face, I tested the cream on my hands for the consistency and color check.

The consistency of this BB cream is very nice and runny, almost a liquid form hence giving a sheer coverage however blending and spreading the product about the face would be more easy and even. 

There is a slight scent of similar to a Frangipani flower which is very common in korean cosmetics.

At first through looking at the cream, the color seemed just a tad darker than my skin however upon spreading it and blending it into skin, it definitely is not the color you see.

As you can see in the image above, the side with the BB cream applied has a nice dewy finish and a sheer coverage that evens out the skin tone. 
In terms of texture and feel, the BB cream did not feel sticky or greasy; it was more smooth with a powder finish.  From this finish, my skin didn't feel very hydrated but more on the dry side. This is rare since my skin is normal combination being oily at my T-zone area.
For the color, once applied the color did seem just a tad darker than my normal skin tone just like the color seen of the BB cream. 

Here is an image of my face with the BB cream applied on both sides of the face.

The BB cream definitely does promise to give a dewy finish and the "BRIGHT FIT" definitely did show through this product. It made my skin look like a porcelain doll where light was reflected upon high point features such as my cheek bones. 

After 5-10 minutes to let the BB cream oxidise and settle into my skin, for some reason I was really pale with a white cast.

Now you're probably thinking just from looking at the picture that it's just the lighting BUT REALLY, I was really pale to the point even my dad noticed (usually he doesn't even know I wear stuff on my face). I also noticed that the BB cream seemed to settle into my lines and cracked, giving a flaky look. My skin did feel powdery which is the same as once I applied it earlier but it has lost some of that dewy finish so my features aren't highlighted as much.

I continued to have the BB cream and catch up with my day with some errands and chores. 

After 2-3 hours, this was the result:

The BB cream has pretty much faded and left some residues in my fine lines and even my eyebrows. At this point my face felt super dry and also felt sticky as if I sprayed hairspray onto my face. 

I decided to leave the BB cream on again till the night however 30minutes after that photo was taken, my skin felt really itchy and dry so I really had to remove this BB cream off my face ASAP.

Verdict? I absolutely do not recommend this BB cream. Even though it had a nice finish once applied, totally not worth it if it doesn't last long, doesn't provide moisture to the skin as promised, longevity of the "bright look" was poor. And to be honest, the BB cream did feel like hair spray on the face and even in the hair as I had some on my hair which felt like as if I had hairspray. 

That concludes this review. Hopefully it is somewhat helpful.
Until then, stay well & take care!