Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Type 0 Group Shoot Aftermath

Last Sunday was the biggest cosplay shoot I had ever had! We had the entire Final Fantasy Type-0 class (all 14 of us), our Sensei, 8 assistants and 2 photographers, that makes 25 people all showing up for one shoot. It was so massive, we actually decided to charter a private bus, just to get the worry of having to fight for public transport off our mind and it helped greatly espeically when our shoot locations were pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

Type-0 class trip!!! Making our way to the shoot locations

Quick camwhore on the way there

Considering how much of an urbanised city Singapore is, it is extremely difficult to find empty plots of land without many skyscrapers or apartment buildings ruining the background. We were literally climbing up steep slopes and trudging through tall grass and weeds, in full costume with our props mind you. Not to mention, the weather was terribly unforgiving that day, but we persevered on and despite the extreme discomfort, we still managed to have plenty of fun throughout the shoot.

Selicia (cosing Machina) as always, ruining the images of bishie characters with her random antics. Here she is with her pants rolled up and trying to flap her top to try and cool herself down, and in the process amusing Mini (cosing as Eight) and Tsubaki (as Trey).

Finally remembered to bring my polaroid camera along with extra polaroids to camwhore with my class and sensei. Yay! Wait! I just realised my class isn't complete!! I forgot to take pictures with Nine argh!!!!

We're all waiting with bated breaths for the photographers to send to us the pictures and for our editing experts to touch them up nicely before releasing the pictures to the world, but in the mean time, here are some crack/omake and behind-the-scenes shots:
Class typ-0, the delinquent version. All of us looking gangsta (or in my case, ultra narcisstic), with our Sensei face palming us

One of the assistants took this shot of us as we were lining up for a back view shot with our flag. Yes, we even have the class flag LOL, talk bout dedication

Quick editing that our King (cosplayed by Rescend) did on the very same day. So this isn't the final result yet, but it already looks so awesome!!

I've changed my office wallpaper to this picture now, and I find it really motivating because it reminds me very much of the fun I had that day.

Considering how amazing our team is, we're planning to continue our Type-0 cosplay by potentially expanding it even further. We're currently discussing other possibilites such as doing the cloaks, or summer version of the school uniform or maybe even a reenactment of the video! Everything is still up in the air so we'll see how it goes. In the mean time, just sit back and wait for the resulting pictures of the shoot to be released soon enough.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Final Fantasy Type-0 (Cinque) Shoot

Finally got round to editing the pictures that were taken of me cosplaying Cinque from the game, Final Fantasy Type-0, during the mini shoot I had last year. Publishing these pictures in anticipation of the shoot I'll be having with my full team on Saturday!! I was actually assisting Esther, Selicia and Mini most of the time as they were cosplaying from the series, Gensomaden Saiyuki.

We had the shoot at an empty field with lots of tall grass, mud, ponds of stagnant water and plenty of mosquitoes ready to feast on our blood. However, the beautiful pictures make up for any discomfort we encountered that day.

Once again everything was taken by the amazing Vaxzone with the Bf's assistance.






Esther was so sweet to help me flip my cape for the wind blown effect

My favourite shot of the lot.

It's not east to pose with a large prop especially when the top is as big as my head! However, the amazingly talented Vaxzone managed to guide me along and took these mond-blowing shots.

Now I can't wait to have a shoot with the rest of my Type-0 team! It's going to be a massive operation with nearly 20 of us trudging around trying to perfect our look but it'll be done! I'll definitely upload pictures once I get them. We are planning to release cosplay cards like a deck of cards since the characters' names are based on it, more details about it will be out soon, but who knows, you may just get my team's cards if you can find us all at events hahaha.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Outfits for Work

I've been enjoying myself and actually thriving in my current job. There's alot of deadlines to meet and work gets piled up on a daily basis but my colleagues have been extremely kind and friendly and help me out all the time. They also like to feed me which you can probably see from my Instagram LOL. My manager has been very encouraging and with a new director coming on board and him saying he'll personally coach me with my marketing, I know the pressure is on but at the same time I'm excited to learn from him.To be honest, I loathed marketing when I was studying it and actually swore I'd never enter that field, but fate's a funny thing I guess.

Office life also seems to suit me well, I like the stability and consistency of the pace of work, and it's nice to be able to sit in my own cubicle and do my own stuff. I'm still getting the hang on long meetings, I tend to get really really sleepy or zone out halfway through them so that needs to be worked on as well as time management.

I use to loathe the idea of dressing up in office attire as it seemed stiff and uncomfortable, but I've managed to find a rough style I like that's comfortable but presentable and it helps sync my mind for work once I put my outfit on.
 
Here are my outfits for the past week and half. I prefer wearing skirts and dresses and try to buy them in materials that don't require ironing, so that's one chore down. They don't cost too much with each dress/blouse/skirt roughly costing between $20-$35. I also mostly toggle between black pumps or ballet flats or a nude pair of pumps.

Makeup for work, just foundation, blush, eyebrow, sweep of a bone eyeshadow, lengthening & thickening mascara, blush, lipstick and gloss. My lipstick has been wiped off here but it tends to be a deeper pink/red as I use my Chanel Legende shade with a pink gloss. Nothing much done to my hair except alittle brushing and running through with a straightening iron. My HR manager likes to stare at me and comment on my blush everytime she comes around my cubicle because she finds my blush cute hahahah.

Jewellry is kept to a minimum, mostly simple necklaces, my Osewaya rings and sometimes a watch (must-have for long meetings to keep track of time). It's not that my ffice frowns upon them, I just don't feel the need to be over-dressed up and too much bulky stuff will get in the way of my typing. I use perfume everyday but stick to 4 scents, Chloe Eau de Parfum, Paul Smith Rose, Kate Spade Twirl and Hugo Boss Femme. Scents that aren't too strong or too sweet.

This week, I was also able to see my article being published in an online magazine. It's promoting one of the courses my company runs. I'm very happy to see it being released, though the layout and clip art weren't done my me, I only contributed the words.

Of course with working life, I come home mentally exhausted most of the time as my brain is working on writing stuff, designing publicity materials and coming up with new ideas to push our courses out to the public. I haven't been able to do much regarding cosplay though I do have a upcoming shoot next week. The weekends fly by too fast and when I've finally recuperated, the week starts all over again. It sucks in a way but at least I am getting decently paid and learning alot with encouraging people. I'm hoping to stay in this job for awhile so good luck to me on the career front.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Chanel Nail Polish Review

Chanel nail polishes are my recent obsession and I've been in love from the very first stroke of the brush.

May was my very first Chanel polish and I actually bought it at the spur of the moment whilst looking for my perfect nude polish (I've yet to find it). It's a very sweet pink that's not too glaring, it reminds me of the sweet colours that Rinka likes to wear.

Jo helped me to get this Peche Nacree shade during her last visit to Singapore. True to it's name, it's a subtle peach shade that goes with anything.

Rose Cache was another shade that Jo helped me get, I was alittle apprehensive abotu the colour as it appeared darker then what I thought, but after application I changed my mind. It's an elegant understated darker nude, almost tan shade.

The three current shades that I have in my collection.

Colour: true to the bottle, it require only one coat for the colour to cover the nails but I apply two coats for a stronger colour

Ease of Use: The brush was large enough to cover most of my nails, the mixture wasn't too thick and streaking was minimal, I could even apply without paying close attention and there wouldn't be much streaking

Drying time: Dries insanely fast!! From starting with my base coat to the final top coat, it takes only roughly a half hour to dry. This is perhaps one of the greatest perks for me especially now that I'm quite strapped for time.

Packaging: Elegant and instantly recognisable with the Chanel logo on top of the cap and splashed across the front in large bold lettering, the top cap pops open to reveal the smaller brush that is also embossed with the Chanel logo.

Lasting Ability: The shortest time before chipping was about 4-5 days and that was after opening mutiple drink cans, the longest was slightly over a week though I could see cracks forming but it wasn't visible from far.

This is perhaps the only polish I'm using currently, the colours are suited for my office within a corporate environment. Now that I'm constantly meeting clients, I doubt it's appropriate to show up with bright, flashy colours or with chunks of glitter, these colours make me feel professional and pretty at the same time. 

I plan to add more colours into my collection and am currently eyeing a colour, specifically, Majesty. I also managed to get another colour Fracs, which I just managed to paint on, hence no picture, but you can see it on my Instagram. I'm also still looking out for my perfect nude nail polish, I plan to try out Estee Lauder's new nude collection but does anyone have any reccomendation? 
                          

Monday, April 1, 2013

Personal Outfit (Trip to Tailor)

Quick post before I'm off to bed and before I disappear again thanks to my work. Made a trip to the tailor's today to get some costumes sorted out, I won't reveal which characters I'll be doing till later, it'll be more fun that way I guess haha. Wore a comfy outfit as I needed to take measurements and stuff:

Pullover: Forever21
Black Jeans: Uniqlo
Necklace: Vintage Lanvin
Pretty happy that I got a chance to doll up and curl my hair abit, though I made it more relaxed and only applied a small smountof hairspray.

 
Added more blush so that the camera can finally pick it up, but I think for the true Cult Party and Dolly kei looks, I might just use my more intense pink and red eyeshadows instead

Been feeling rather inspired lately, so I managed to churn out a few posts that have been queued up. Perhaps it's because I'm in quite a happy place right now, I fell like I have something to do in life besides aimlessly wandering around, work has been tough due to the steep learning curve and learning to balance work and personal life but I am actually enjoying myself.

Though sadly, due to the good food at work and my colleagues constantly showering eveyrone with lots of treats, I've gained quite abit of weight. Even mya tailor was telling me how my measurements were different and not because they got smaller sobs! It also doesn't help that the coffee at work sucks, I get barely any caffeine kick so I wind up drinking more and more cups of "coffee" loaded with sugar and creamer, bleaugh such a torture on my waistline. So now I'm back to intensively exercising, haven't seen much effect yet but I guess miracles don't happen overnight haha.