Rayna Cosplay

15/08/2022

We always go on shoots at least 2 hours later than we originally planned to. There's always something going wrong with makeup, or a wig, or a costume, or props, that causes these annoying delays. In this case it was both makeup and a wig. 😫 At first I had a problem with blending my foundation into hairline of my wig (it's a lacefront), and than couldn't style the bangs of said wig. So I eventually just styled the bangs to the side, so on most of the photos it looks like there're no bangs at all.
In case you wonder, who on Earth would use a lacefront wig for a character that has bangs, the short answer is me (hi, I'm Reina). The long answer is below. ⬇️
I wanted to buy an ordinary cosplay wig at first, I even found a cool wig on Taobao, that already had Mikasa's haircut. But it was out of stock. 😬 Then I decided to buy a standard short black wig and ask my friend to cut it. (as you might know, even if it's stated in a description that a wig is for a specific character, you would likely receive a standard wig with no pre-cut bangs, no styling etc.)
Well, I ordered it, waited for like 2 months and... Ughhhh 😬 It's not like it was a bad wig, it was well...standard, but it had a huge flaw. It had this stupid firm mesh cap instead of an open cap (the one with vertical lace strips on which the wefts of hair are sewn). And the open cap always had small pieces of fabric with wefts that would stick out of the cap and cover your whiskers. The mesh cap doesn't have those. 😬 So basically you put on such wig, turn your head, the wig's hair jumps up and your real hair on your whiskers is wide open for the whole world to see 😢
It's all fine if you're gonna just take photos, you can edit it out. But I wanted to film reels with Mikasa cosplay, so using that wig would be a bad idea. And I decided to use a lacefront. It was originally a 22" wig, and my friend was almost crying when she was cutting it. 😂 I was kinda sad too, but at the end of the day I don't regret it. At least I don't have to worry about my real hair showing underneath the wig while I'm filming. Besides, I saved the hair that was cut off that wig so I could use it to style K/DA All out Akali wig
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03/08/2022

The one thing I still struggle with besides wig styling is makeup.💄 Although I've been doing makeup for many years, I just can't put foundation the right way. 😬 The thing is, when everyone was living in 2020, I was still living in like 2010.😅 So I was using foundation, consealer, powder, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lipstick. No primer, no setting powder, no eyelid primer, no setting spray, no nothing (and my makeup didn't hold up at all and I had no idea why 😅) . Let alone highlighter and contour, I didn't even use blush. 😅
But not so long ago I started watching on YouTube, and she inspired me to finally start working on my makeup skills.💄
First of all I bought a bunch of must-have items, like primer, eyelid primer and setting spray, and I also started using a full coverage foundation, Maybelline super stay active wear 30h foundation to be exact. And idk what's wrong with that, but I can't blend it into my skin for some reason, I always end up having spots on my face.😢 Idk maybe I need a different primer, or a different beauty sponge, or different hands👐. I don't think it's the foundation itself, since Nikkie used it in some of her videos and she managed it perfectly.
My best guess is that I'm working too slow⏱️, and it starts setting before I finish, so it turns out uneven, and I have to cover it up with powder.🤔 Then I guess I just have to practice more.💄So you'll be seeing a lot more of my cosplay selfies from now on 👌😘
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28/07/2022

I wanted to take some selfies to test out a few adjustments that I made to my s4 Mikasa cosplay. So I bought a black underbust corset to use it instead of the leather corset that I was wearing on our first Mikasa photoshoot (the photos with the red background). And I also made a belt that's crossed on my waist. The rest of the belts are part of s1 harness, but I managed them a bit differently this time. And I truly planned to take A FEW selfies, just enough to see how these new details would look on a photo.📸 But somehow it got out of control and I took almost 300 selfies 👀
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27/07/2022

The only thing that I'm still struggling with while editing my photos is matching the subject (being myself) with background 🖌️ that's why I don't do it unless I absolutely have to. When we just started having photoshoots at home, we didn't figure out the best way to set up our home photography studio 📸. At first, we used several A1 sheets taped together as a background. It didn't look good on photos so I decided to cut myself out and put on a different background. Back then I didn't match the colors cuz the process of cutting out alone made me so miserable, I couldn't possibly handle color correction at the same time 😵.
When we shot Star Guardian Ahri we didn't have any special background at all, so cutting out myself was even more difficult 😵. And I actually edited just 1 photo of that shoot, and then forgot about it for like a year 😅.
But I got back to this shoot recently. And I've done enough editing by this point, so on all of the SG Ahri photos I've recently edited, I tried to really match myself with background so it would look natural. Well, I tried to... But I can't say that I succeeded 😅
I watched several YouTube tutorials, I followed the instructions, but I never could do it right for some reason 😅.
I would be glad to say that I wouldn't have such problems anymore cuz I know how to set up a background now, but I can't. Because now I have different problems with editing. And I'll describe them in my next post
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19/07/2022

It's crazy to think about it, but I actually made Elsa's blue dress from Frozen I back in 2018. 😳 Yet I've had the photoshoot in full cosplay quite recently, last month to be exact. WHY? 😮 Well, this whole time I've been making a different cape, and it took me a lot, I mean, A LOT of time, cuz I've been sticking tens of thousands of rhinestones to it 💎💎💎 and I feel like I've been doing it forever 😵. BUT I've almost finished. Almost 🥴. I finished the main part and now I'm making snowflakes ❄️❄️❄️
It would be fun to know the actual number of rhinestones 💎 on my cape 🤔. Oh no, God no, I'm not counting them. 😱 But I will probably check out all of my taobao and aliexpress orders to determine how many rhinestones I bought for this cape. Well, I won't get an exact number, but I wanna know if it's possible that I've hit 100.000 rhinestones 💎💎💎
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11/04/2022

Back in the days when I used to make cosplays by myself, I always tried to make every single tiny detail of a costume, and boy was it tough 😵. It was really time consuming⏳ and expensive💸 to say the least. But after I started predominantly buying costumes, I felt relieved. Now I just put on the costume and don't give a damn. Like in case of s4 Mikasa cosplay.
No breastplate? - Who cares?
No shoulder armor? - So what?
No guns? - Looks good anyways so f them.
If you're still trying to create a perfect cosplay every single time, just stop. It won't hurt you if some details are missing or not 100% accurate. Cosplay is a hobby, don't let it become a burden
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13/01/2022

28/12/2021

The first photo of probably the last outdoors photoshoot of this year (unless we get to shoot Anna👑 and Elsa❄️ in December ☃️, but since there are only 3 days left it's highly unlikely 🙃).
We actually planned to have one more shoot in October (before or after the Female titan shoot), but the weather ruined our plans 🌬️. Every single day when we had an opportunity to go on that shoot, it was either raining⛈️ or the wind was so strong that we would be literally blown away with all of our props 🌬️🙃. That's why I love cosplays like female titan ☝️ that is super comfy, doesn't have any props and even the wig is short 🥰. Short wigs are just the best 💖
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Photo by Jinni Kim
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31/10/2021

👻 Happy Halloween 👻
Today I'm a Female Titan from Attack on Titan 😈 It's not exactly some evil spirit 👻🧟‍♀️ But if you've seen Attack on Titan you know that these guys are scarier than most of the creatures you've ever seen in movies or shows 😱 except for the ones in "Foodfight", those scarred me for life ☠️
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna turn off my lights and watch "Are you scared?" on YouTube.
Happy Halloween for all of you introverts like myself 👻
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Photo by Jinni Kim
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