Last October, I did a little photography project with myself and my Jacket costume from Hotline Miami. It was mainly because I wanted to try out a lighting idea I had ( and I wanted a new Twitter profile picture cause mine was forever old :B ) but I ended up liking a lot of the photos and wanted to try out some photoshop filters and such that I had been meaning to mess with for a year and then some.

I’ll probably post some more photos from this set at some point because the lighting actually worked the way I wanted it to(!) – huzzah!

We’ll start with a quick paragraph about Katsucon. We went on Saturday to mainly see people we knew – not to do anything con related. We were kind of thankful that’s what we were doing because it was a madhouse zoo full of people everywhere and we pretty much hung out in the fountain area talking to lots of awesome geeks. We also went down to the giant hall that led to the pool because that was the only place where there weren’t a billion people and we wanted to at least get a couple of photos of our costumes. We’ve had these costumes done forever and we FINALLY GOT TO WEAR THEM. Byakuya Togami & Toko Fukawa from Danganronpa!

Thanks to Roger for getting these photos (SERIOUSLY THANKS TO ROGER FOR GETTING LIKE ALL THE PHOTOS IN THIS POST)! And also for hurrying and snagging these other goofy-ass photos from the back of a photo machine that did “example” shots of people standing behind the machine. They were only up for a few seconds after they were taken so he would always rush over with the camera and try to take a picture of the screen. SUCCESS!

That’s really about it for a Katsucon report, haha. Maybe one day we’ll actually go back to the con, but we aren’t sure as of now. We like seeing people we only see once a year though! This year we knew it was a no-go because of how much money it would be for hotel/badges for cons two weekends in a row and MAGFest is our favorite time of year (next to Halloween and Christmas… and MAGFest Classic ;D) so we knew which one we had to stick with in the back-to-back con issue.

SO MAGFEST 2016! We got there mid-afternoon on Thursday and the first thing of note that happened was Nate dropping what was left of a handle of Fireball Whisky (it was leftover from the ADAM drink at the wedding) which shattered on the tile and left the Gaylord National hall smelling like Fireball. I wish I had a dollar for every person who walked by while the staff was cleaning it up (the Katsucon & Gaylord staff who helped out both were amazing <3) and went, “IT SMELLS LIKE FIREBALL.” I could’ve used all those dollars to buy my food for the weekend. A couple hours later we were in the Ninja Sex Party panel, flipping our shit because NINJA SEX PARTY WE WERE IN THE SAME ROOM AS NINJA SEX PARTY OKAY. The panel was hilarious (as expected) and if you wanted to watch it, it is up on YouTube here! Their cover album (Under the Covers, yesssssss) was about to be released shortly after the con so there is some fun talk about that as well as all kinds of other hijinks. Overall, the panel was great and just served to get us super pumped up for the concert that was taking place the next night.

On Friday morning we put on the Saints Row 2 costumes we’ve had done FOREVER, DJ Veteran Child & Shaundi and we were joined by Denis who put together an SR2 Johnny Gat! He didn’t do the frosted tips because FIRST OF ALL, FROSTED TIPS, and second, his hair was already dyed purple even before he was going to join us as Johnny and it looked amazing. His hair fit the Saints perfectly so why not run with it?

Friday was full of playing video games, wandering around the vendor room/artist’s alley, and freaking out over awesome/adorable/perfect art and items and then Friday night was the NINJA SEX PARTY CONCERT AHHHHHHHHHHHH! TWRP joined them (since TWRP played on the cover album and there’s going to be a lot of awesome work between them and NSP in the near future) and we got to see both bands rock the hell out. The concert is up on YouTube too — check it out! It was effing great and as an added bonus, DJ Cutman shared a new remix he did of my favorite NSP song, Samurai Abstinence Patrol after the concert was over. You can listen to the remix here — it is a perfect remix of an already kickass song.

After the concert and more MAGFest madness, our room managed to get more photos of the Five Nights at Freddy’s/Hotline Miami costumes we originally brought to MAGFest Classic last year — we got to use the awesome wifi shutter app for the camera for some of the photos (like the first one below) and it worked out very well. These were taken around 4 in the morning? I’m not sure how that happened but our explanation for stuff like that is always just MAGFEST!

Saturday was playing more video games (because MAGFest) with Fallout 4 costumes in the morning and Until Dawn costumes with an amazing group in the evening. Fallout 4 is magical and we knew we wanted to make costumes from it but didn’t have the time or budget for anything crazy. We ended up going with Nate and Nora pre-Vault 111 — aka the two characters at the beginning that you can rename and change looks-wise and all that jazz. We also had a little baby Shaun which was a baby doll from the thrift store. It was the least creepy looking baby doll we could find there and it was dressed all in pink so we ended up calling the baby Shaunita all day. We even made the baby a theme song.

We met up with an awesome group of costumed people later who all loved Until Dawn as much as we do and we goofed off with them at a photoshoot and then thanks to Denis we got a couple more shots of us, also goofing off with the danger totem I made. Nate is always on his cell phone so him as Chris and me as Ashley worked out really well.

Roger helped us get photos for a Jacen Solo/Tenel Ka Djo (Star Wars: EU) photo thing we’re working on later that night. We had to time it just right so that there weren’t a bunch of people around the Gaylord National’s main fountain in the atrium, but the lights and water features were still going. We caught it about five minutes before they turned off. Woo! Here is a shot from that evening. The whole photo project should hopefully be online THIS YEAR AT SOME POINT HAHAHAHA. Look, see, I’m being realistic here.

Sunday was more video games. We need to stop writing con posts months later because we forget everything that happens, but HOW DO WE NOT PROCRASTINATE?

We were finally able to finish up the last details on our Hotline Miami 2 costumes and bring them to MAGFest Classic! We got some awesome photos– in the heat! And humidity! Really, it was so effing hot but we adore all of the photos that came out of this shoot so it was worth it. I also got a leg workout while holding an ~almost action pose~ (it was done both with and without the mask and she could feel sweat dripping down her face SERIOUSLY IT WAS HOT ALSO LONG PANTS AND JACKET WHY COREY HOW– YOU ARE A GODDESS). You can see those and more shots from this set on our Hotline Miami costume page!

Thanks to Denis for getting the photos above and Roger of Monki Makr for getting the one below!

For more photos of these costumes, check out our Hotline Miami costume page!

Last month at InterventionCon we finally got the chance to wear the Hotline Miami costumes we’ve been 95% finished with for the longest time. We put the finishing touches on the costumes the week before the con (bloodied up the Jacket mask and other fun bits like that) and on the Saturday night of the con, went outside in the heat and humidity to get some shots! Many thanks to Roger of Monki Makr & Denis for playing photographer and photographer’s assistant (also the DJ, which we’ll get to in a moment) for us that night.

We wanted to make sure we got photos masked (errr, helmeted in Nate’s case ;D) and unmasked so we did the unmasked shots first. The wig I was wearing was the first wig I used for Carol Peletier. I knew it had to be more of a blonde color but the cut was exactly what I needed. Since I had a new wig for Carol, I figured I could experiment with this one and if I messed it up then I wouldn’t be too disappointed since I wasn’t really using it for anything. I knew Rit had recently come out with a new line of dyes that worked on synthetic fabrics and that’s exactly what I wanted to try for this wig! The line is called DyeMore and I ordered some in the color Sandstone. It worked out perfectly and colored the wig easily, making it the exact color I was hoping it would!

After getting the unmasked shots, we swapped the wigs out and started wandering around in those. Did we mention how hot it was holy cow. I could feel sweat dripping down my face but looking at the photos later I realized it was worth it. This “Supreme Chicken” mask I found on Amazon (for much cheaper than the original rooster one I was looking at and couldn’t afford to drop $50 on) – after being covered in makeup and fake blood – was perfect. I am short and made sure my jacket was a size that would look somewhat fitted so I was worried the mask would look really big on me but together it all ended up looking better than I thought it would!

While we were taking pictures in an empty parking garage, Denis decided it would be a good idea to play a song our friend Erin had introduced us all to. It was the 1987 Crystal Light National Aerobics Championship theme. He pulled the video up on his phone and through our mask & helmet we could hear the wonderful keyboard riff. What did Roger and Denis say to do after that? Dance, of course. And naturally, we did.

We’re hoping to bring these back to a con in the future. Preferably one in the winter so that we don’t sweat ourselves silly. But we had a lot of fun in them at Intervention regardless. It also made us get off our asses to finish our Hotline Miami 2 costumes (which will have their own post in the near future!) and even spawned a crossover costume group this past weekend. More on all that jazz coming soon! Also, I had way too much fun editing these photos – especially the 80’s-VHS-inspired ones.