Wearing kimono in public...

Why is this considered so strange?

In the 1970's my grandmother went to Japan and she brought back a kimono for me, I was about 8 years old, and I literally lived in that thing, and still, 25 years later were it on a daily basis, along with my other ever growing collection of kimono and various Japanese cloths. For me these are just my normal ordinary, every day cloths. I live in them day in and day out. So why do I get stopped by people every where I go, who want to know why I am wearing a kimono?

Ok, so, yes, I live in America, and no I'm not Japanese, but what does that have to do with it? Why do every one automatically assume that this is a costume?

Yesterday it happened again. I was in Target buying dog food and car litter, when a women comes up to me and tells me she loves my kimono, than wants to know why I am wearing it. "Am I on my way to a party? No.

If this happened just once or twice it'd be one thing, but it happens every single time I leave the house. I can't go shopping without people stopping to ask if I'm on the way to a party or a comic con or a ren faire or if I'm an actor from a local theater.... is it really so odd to see someone wearing a kimono in America?



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

InuYasha 558: Sesshomaru x Rin x Kaede

Okay, so if you've followed the books these past 12 years, you know that the final volume came out this week, and if you know me, you know I had all ready read it less than 3 hours after it hit the newstands. If you've read it you know that everyone lived happily ever after, except as usual Sesshomaru, who for the 7th time in this series has had yet another woman he loves, taken away from from him. Sara died, Kagura died, Rin died twice and he just keeps bringing her back, yo get the picture. Sesshy's life has been made complete hell in every volume, and this final volume was no exception. InuYasha married Kagome. Miroku marries Sango. Rin is taken away from Sesshomaru and sent to live with Kaede.

As the days go by and more and more people read the final chapter of InuYasha, and I go through blogs and forums reading people's responses to it (me only being interested in people's responses to the Sesshy x Rin part of course!), I am finding one thing a bit odd. Most people seem to be reading it as Sesshomaru left Rin behind, forcing her to live with Kaede.

I actually read the ending totally differently... weird... but I guess I'm weird so, yea, it figures, but anyways, the way InuYasha said that Kaede said Rin was to learn to live in a human village (note that he said, that Kaede said it, not Sesshomaru) I took that to mean that Keade took Rin away from Sesshomaru, not Sesshomaru left Rin with Keade... that is what it says after all, that "Kaede said it".... not "Sesshomaru said it".

It seems to me that if he had left her, he wouldn't be coming back with the gifts either; it's more logical that Kaede took her, thus now Sesshomaru is sticking around the village and bringing Rin gifts, biding his time, until she's old enough, to take her away from Kaede without Keade or anyone else being there to say she's too young.

Well, that's the way I saw the ending as being.

Did anyone else see it this way, or am I the only one who does not think Sesshomaru left Rin behind?

And another thing... why is this bugging me in the first place? They are fictional characters, it's not like these things really happened anyways, and yet, I'm all riled up over this! I just can't get this out of my head. Weird.

I need to examine this farther. I don't think Sesshomaru would do anything he didn't want to, it's not his nature, that's true, but than all the fuss that went into protecting Rin, over a period of what, 460 chapters?, something like that, would be pointless if he suddenly said to himself, "It's time to leave her somewhere."

It'd have been nice if Rumiko would have shown us what triggered the sudden, send Rin off bit, because it is so out of character for Sesshomaru to do that willingly. And it's out of character for him to not fit to keep Rin.

It seems easier to believe that it was Keade who took Rin away, rather than Sesshomaru who suddenly dumped Rin off on Kaede, and yet, his past actions tell us that if Keade did take Rin from him, he would have reacted but lashing her to pieces with his claws, and than walking over her bloody remains to carry Rin away from the village.

Logic tells us that if Sesshomaru suddenly decided to leave Rin with Kaede, that some event had to have happened to trigger such a dynamic change of character for him. The question is, what could have happened to cause him to do a full 360 degree turn like this?

On the other hand, we do know that Kaede has a soft spot for children, and has been seen on countless occasions to be caring for children from the village. We also know that until the death of Naraku, Kaede had no knowledge of the fact that Rin was living with Sesshomaru. Upon Naraku's death, Sesshomaru and Rin ended up in the village because Sesshomaru was chasing Naraku and Rin was following after Sesshomaru on Ah-Un.

We now that Sesshomaru hates humans, but we know also that of all humans he reviles priestesses the most, esp. Kikyo and her kin. We have heard these words come straight from his lips on more than one occasion. He refers to both Kikyo and Kaede as "that woman", with a deep tone of disgust and hatred that far outweighs the hatred in his voice when talking about half-breeds or regular humans. His hatred of human priestess is unfathomable. And yet, not only does he leave Rin in the care of a human, but also a priestess, and to make it one step worse Kikyo's sister! We have a major mega triple whammy on our hands here, one that glares off the page at us like a hand with 20 sore thumbs on it.

If he had left Rin with anyone else, there would not be so many questions, but the fact that he left her with the human, priestess who was the sister of Kikyo, just goes against everything Rumiko has ever told us about Sesshomaru!

It is completely impossible to believe, knowing what we know about Sesshomaru, that he would ever by himself, come up with the idea of leaving Rin in the care of Kaede.


It would be so much simpler if Rumiko had just added one more page, to tell us why the dessision was made to leave Rin with Kaede. I mean, we all know Sesshomaru would die to protect his beloved Rin. Likewise we all know Rinfights like hell against the idea of either leaving Sesshomaru or worse, living with humans (her worst dreaded fear of all!)

So taking all these facts into consideration, we come to the conclusion that something must have happened in the three year period, something drastic, to change either Sesshomaaru's or Rin's mind.

So whose mind was changed and why? Let's look at what we know and than draw some conclusions:

We see Rin (wearing Kagura's kimono no less!) happily helping Kaede. Giving that Rin now seems to enjoy living among humans, we can assume that she has somehow lost her fear of humans. We can also assume that she is no longer 100% dependent on Sesshomaru's protection, and no loner feels the need to run to him for help. In fact her reaction to his presence suggests a tone of indifference. She does not seem to care that he came to visit her, it seems to be just another thing that happens. She is neither pleased to see him, nor displeased. This is out of character for Rin, who normally is overflowing with bubbling joy at even the slightest glance from Sesshomaru. Rin's outlook towards Sesshomaru has changed, and rather dramaticly.

And why is Rin wearing Kagura's kimono? How did she get it? If it's not Kagura's kimono, than why is she wearing a duplicate of Kagura's kimono? Kagura being the woman Sesshomaru loved and probably would have taken as his mate had she not died, we must question the change in Rin's wardrobe and the motive behind it. We know that Sesshomaru gave Rin her golden Noh robes, and we know that he gave you yet another kimono in 558, so we can safely assume that he also gave her this duplicate one that is like the one Kagura wore as well.

Okay, so that's Rin now, lets look at what Sesshomaru is doing now.

We know how obsessed with Rin, Sesshomaru is, so to see them sepperated, is odd to say the least. Giving that Sesshomaru is still lurking around the village, in spite of his outspoken hatred for humans and his avoidance of setting a foot within a human village, we can assume that he not only still cares about Rin, and still desires to watch over her and protect her, in spite of the fact that she no longer lives with him, but that he is now forcing himself to put aside his hatred for humans, just to be near her. How odd and un-Youkai like of him! To make this whole series of events just a little bit wierder, we now see Sesshomaru flying in to not only visit Rin, but also to bring her gifts as well! Now that is the most, un-Sesshomaru thing to do of all!

Sesshomaru knew that Rin knew he cared for her, and while he knew this, he was not giving her gifts. It seems to indicate now, that Rin is questioning the fact that Sesshomaru cares for her, and he is now overdoing it, by bringing her gifts to prove to her that he does still care for her. If one was to look at the old Rin and Sesshomaru and compare them to the new ones, it would seem that their roles have reversed. Rin is now the cold emotionless one, no longer bringing gift after gift to her lord, while Sesshomaru is now the one bringing gifts to the girl ho no longer seems to care.

Why, is Sesshomaru, bringing her gifts? That part is so odd. Is her afraid that she will forget about him and brings her gifts to keep him on her mind? Is he afraid she will never return to him, and live the rest of her life with the humans, and so is bringing gifts to try to sway her to come back to him? Is she angry with him, and he brings gifts as a way to ask forgiveness? Any one of these things is out of character for Sesshomaru. He's showing emotion. It's like the episode of Star Trek, when Mr. Spock started laughing. It stunned everyone because Spock is devoid of emotion. Sesshomaru shows no emotion. Emotions are a thing humans do that make them weak and pathetic... he has said this in the past. Yet now here he is showing emotion, by giving gifts. What emotion is he showing? Love? Fear? Guilt? Does it matter? Either way it's still an emotion, something that Sesshomaru does not admit to having.

So while most fans are saying that Sesshomaru had a change of heart and left Rin, it seems to me, that the one who changed was not Sesshomaru, but Rin. It looks more like Rin left of her own accord, and while Sesshomaru did not want her to leave, he also does not want to hold her prisoner and so let her leave, but is now regretting that he did so.

Why would Rin leave him? What could Kaede have said that could have gotten Rin to leave? Did Rin leave because Kaede told her to? Or did Rin leave and seek refuge with Kaede? Is it possible that Sesshomaru some hoe scared or hurt Rin, to the extent that she no longer felt safe in his care?

What could have happened, I suppose would be affected by how you view their relationship: Master/servant-pet; father/daughter; or lolicon, being the three most commonly accepted theories.

The whole gift-giving thing, completely throws out the father-daughter theory, because, lets face it, how many dad's go out of their way to buy gifts for their kids for no reason at all? Fathers have a hard time remembering to buy gifts for Christmas and birthdays, and rely on the mother to buy the gifts for them... it's not logical that Sesshomaru would be buying gifts for Rin if he thought of her as his daughter, though it is logical to believe that Rin did look up to Sesshomaru as though he was a father. I think the father-daughter theory, would only hold true in Rin's mind and not Sesshomaru's.

The master-servant or master-pet theories are so similar that I'll call them one and the same. It is this theory that I personally felt held true for this couple, throughout the series. Rin clearly looked up to Sesshomaru as her master, and obied his every command without question. His fierce protection of her, is no different than the protection one gives to a beloved house-pet. He protects her, keeps her safe, kept her feed and healthy, and pretty much did nothing else. When a dog runs away or gets lost, you look for it, and when you find it you are so filled with joy that you shower it with gifts and treats. This seems to hold true for Sesshomaru's actions. He has lost his beloved pet to a new owner and is trying to convince her to return to him, through the bearing of gifts.

Than there is the lolicon relationship, which I have already read posts from fans who are pointing the dreaded lolicon finger at Sesshomaru. Actually, as much as I hate to admit it, this does seem to be the most logical and highly likely reason for this unexpected turn of events. Weird, I find myself agree on this point, because until now, I had never actually believed that the lolicon theory was even possible. It just seemed to unlikely and out of character for Sesshomaru. The Sesshomaru gone lolicon was a theory that I pointed at and laughed. However, after reading 558, I can see this being a distinctive possibility, and one that could have gone one of three ways:

One, Sesshomaru, did as most fans suggest, and sent Rin away against her will to live with Kaede. For this to be true in the lolicon theory, we would have to assume that Sesshomaru no longer trusted himself and sent Rin away to protect her from himself.

Second would be that, Rin left of her own accord after a lolicon confrontation between herself and Sesshomasru left her scared to live with him anymore.

Third would be that Kaede, accused Sesshomaru of being a lolicon and took Rin away from him. This one could go one of two ways:


One Sesshomaru is in fact lolicon and Kaede somehow found out and took Rin away.

Two, Sesshomaru is not lolicon, but Kaede just assumed that he was, and took Rin away.

Reading 558, I actually got the impression that the later was true. Kaede, saw Rin and Sesshomaru together for the first time, after Naraku's death, and was not aware Rin lived with Sesshomaru, before that point (chapter 552). InuYasha said that it was Kaede who said Rin should prepare to return to a human village. (558). So we know that Shortly after Kaede discovered that 7 year old Rin was living with 700+ year old Sesshomaru, she told them that Rin should live in a human village. The question is, how did Kaede convince Rin to come with her, and why did Sesshomaru let Rin go?

We do know that more than once Sesshomaru has told Rin, she could leave if she so desired, so we can assume that it was Rin who decided to leave Sesshomaru, otherwise, I can see no way he would have let her go. He would not have sent her away. He would not have allowed anyone to take her away. The only way he would let Rin go, is if, Rin, left of her own accord. But why would Rin leave?

Have I gotten anywhere with all of this? No. But at least I got it off my chest and now I'll let someone else unravel this mess and figure it out. I'd love to hear how other fans are taking this. Me? It's safe to say that I am very upset over this and not taking it very well at all, otherwise I would not have spent the last 3 and 1/2 hours sitting here typing up this rant about it.


What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Progress Update: Mokomoko Started; Pink Kosode, Still Being Embroidered.

Well, I went ahead and built a inner skeleton structure for the Mokomoko just too see what it would look like and to see if it was possible to use inside a costume tail, and has decided go ahead and use it. I also came to the conclusion that an 8 foot Mokomoko is not big enough, and am now making it 12 feet long instead.

Here's how I did it in case any one else wants to try it:

I took a 12 foot phone/internet cable, and ran it through 8 feet of galvanized electrical conduit cable (which is quite heavy and made of metal, but is very springy and moves like a real tail.). I taped the cable in place to the conduit so that the ends meet at the base, but the cable is 4 feet longer at the end.

My next step was to wrap the entire thing in polyester quilt batting: first a 1/4" x 8" x 12' stripe tied down with DMC crochet cotton. I tied it into a knobby look, by tying at 3" intervals.

Next I put in on, in order to measure where the shoulder line would be, than marked off a 3 foot section, and wrapped that with a another layer of quilt batting: 1/4" x 2' x 3', stiffing it with teddy bear stuffing, which is a supper soft, very squishy type of polyester stuffing. Again tying at 3" intervals.

Overlapping that section by 4" I added another layer of quilt batting, and stuffed it with only half as much stuffing as before. Again tying at 3" intervals.

From that point down I wrapped again, this time with no stuffing added.

The end result it a 12' long conical taper shape, with the first 2 1/2' left wrapped only once, so as to be able to wrap the tail, and some how attach it which I have not yet figured out how to do.


Well, that's where I am at right now. It took me just under 2 hours from start to finish.

My next step with the Mokomoko is to buy some eyelash fringe fabric, to make a cloth cover for it. That will be the base to which I will hand sew (latch hook-stitch) real fur to, to create a real fur tail. I have yet to decide on the type of fur I'll use, but at this point I'm leaning towards Beige Alpaca Fleece.




The Mokomoko aside, I still have quite a ways to go on the Court Robes. The cloth was cut out and the pieces pinned together, so that I could hand draw (in pink tailor's chalk) the giant lotus blossoms, and butterflies (in blue chalk). The butterflies are being done tone on tone, the same color as the silk, so can only be seen up close. I ran out of floss today, so had to go the Micheal's to buy more.

Right now I am working on the collar of the kosode, which has butterflies along the edge, and the partial piece of one of the pink flowers at the shoulder. Starting at the lower left side and working up to the top and down to the right, I am right now, 3/4 to the top of the left side. Each butterfly is approx. 2" x 4" and takes 3 hours to fill in using the satin stitch and the long & short stitch. I have been sewing approximately 1 1/2 butterflies per day (that's me hand sewing 4 1/2 hours per day!), so I'm guessing that my original estimate that it'll take me 3 to 4 months to embroider the entire kimono, was pretty darned close! I just started my 7th butterfly today.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

ATTENTION MEMBERS OF FANFICTION.NET: Stories wanted for new C2: Sesshy x Rin after chapter 557

ATTENTION MEMBERS OF FANFICTION.NET!

Story challenge! Stories wanted for new C2: Sesshy x Rin after chapter 557
New c2 looking for new stories, dealing with the new light shed on the Sesshy-Rin relationship!




http://www.fanfiction.net/community/Beware_Flying_Demons_Bearing_Gifts/59495/


This C2 is devoted to all stories that answer the question: After reading the final chapter (558): Why do you think Kaede took Rin away from Sesshomaru? And will Sesshomaru take Rin back?

I got to agree with the fans who call Sesshy a lolicon, at least to the point that I think Kaede thinks he is, cause I can see no other reason for her to take Rin away from him like that.

I'm miffed over Kaede taking Rin away from Sesshomaru X( but, seeing how 3 years have gone by, and Sesshy is still visiting Rin, we can hope they get together once she's grown up. Looks like Rumiko is not going to be telling us either way :( , so I'm going to assume they will and be happy with that. :)

I now have a new motto: Beware of flying demons bearing gifts!

YAY! Kaede can't stop him from bringing gifts to Rin and regardless of what he says about hating humans, and in spite of Kaede, he certainly isn't going to let Rin forget about him. I want Rumiko to write the rest of this and tell us what happened to cause Kaede to take Rin away, what happened to Rin (and Sesshomaru) during those three years, how do they handle being away from each other now, and what will happen to them after chapter 558?

Well, since Rumiko isn't going to tell us, that means it's up to the fans to write their own versions of what happened/will happen. That's where you come in! If you have a story that deals with the Sesshy-Rin relationship and how it was affected by the events of InuYasha chapter 558, submit it here, cause we want them all!









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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

InuYasha 558: After 11 Years It Has Ended! :(

WHAAAAAAA!!!! :(

My fave series has ended!

I want more, Inu stories.... I'll have to settle for fanfic now.

*crys* no more new stories about my Sesshy :(

Oh... love the ending though! Jumped into the future... weddings, babies and all! YAY!

Mad at Keade, GRRRRR, I do not agree with her. *fumes and throws poison venom at her*...

...seems Sesshy don't agree with her either.... cool! *rushes off to write fanfic about Fluffy visiting Rin* We all know he doesn't want her going back to a human village, or he wouldn't be there, willingly being surrounded by all those pathetic humans! :) Sesshie's glare at Kagome's new title for him = Priceless! LOL! LOL! LOL!

I'm miffed over Kaede taking Rin away from Sesshomaru X( but, seeing how Sesshy is visiting Rin, we can hope they get together once she's grown up. Looks like Rumiko is not going to be telling us either way :( , so I'm going to assume they will and be happy with that. :)

here's the English online edition:

http://adinuyasha.thebrokenconsole.com/TOC.html

The end spread out over quite a few chapters, so it depends on how far back it's been since you last read it, how far back you want to start reading.

In the 460's we meet Sesshomaru's mom, and by 516 he got his left arm back...which I thought was weird, but than Inu and Sesshy joined forces and set out together to battle Naraku.

Which took another 40 chapters! LOL! So tech. the ending starts at 549 and ends at 557, and than 558 is a final wrap-up that tells us what happened to the gang after they went their separate ways, which was this:

They killed Naraku, than Miroku and Sango got married and had a bunch of kids, Kagome wused her wish to destroy the jewel and got set back home and the well dissapeared, but than 3 years later, the well came back so she and InuYasha get married, kohaku goes off with Totosai and Mioga to train to become a demon slayer, ... over all I liked the whole ending, except for what happened to my fave pair, and Rumiko didn't tell us why it happened, but Kaede suddenly decided that Rin shouldn't be with Sesshomaru anymore and took her away from him. :( But now he stays near by the village to keep an eye on Rin while she lives with Kaede.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Mokomoko: Tail or No?

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail... namely for Lord Sesshomaru's Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh.... I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko's manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days... weird.

Hey, it's a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I'll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don't say I didn't warn, you... I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go... let's see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!



The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman "in love". Over this altered picture was the words: "Fear me, damn it!" followed by: "But you're so cute and fluffy!".

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it's fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion's mane.

If you've never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you'll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the "edited" tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

Chibi Art and The Mokomoko:

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko "tail thing" attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it's usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog's tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ's manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn't wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy's Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn't bleed!




Now, if you've read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here. (If you haven't read it yet, than here is the link to it: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruHistory , it is "Part II" of my series of websites on how to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume, parts 1, 2, and 4 can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume2 , http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCrossDresser ). Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it's trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn't know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you'll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru's mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony.... notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)...also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him "dog food", (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn't know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru's mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I've never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it's not some shawl or cape thing he's wearing, in fact he's not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he's got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I'd like to see you animate a shawl into doing that... deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn't bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I'll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I'll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don't know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me. :P

oh my... I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it'll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!








What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment on my blog and share your views! http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Hair vs Sakura Wigs (The Company not The Character)

Well, I searched for info on Sakura Wigs, but all that came back was wigs for a character named Sakura and nothing about the wig company called: Sakura Wigs, so I'm starting this post to ask about them.

I was thinking of buying a Sakura Wigs unstyled wig and styling it myself. I was wondering, though, before I do this, has anyone here ever bought an unstyled wig from this company? If so, what could you tell me about them?

How does the fiber quality compare to other wig companies? Are they any easier or harder to style than other companies?

I'm planning to buy two or possibly three of their wigs (each a different color: B05, B06, W01) and using one as a "base wig", and the second and third wig I'll be cutting the fibers out of, and using to blend with the fibers of the first wig. In other words I'm essentially taking the two wigs apart and making one wig out of them, more or less making my own wig from scratch, so to speak. Has anyone ever tried using one of these wigs do do anything like this before? If so, how did that work out?

Or, I may just totally disassemble all three of them and make my own wefts and build the whole wig from scratch, not using any of these as a base at all.

If anyone has bought any wigs from this company, could you share any experiences you had with the company? (Good or bad.) Fast shipping? Slow shipping? Customer service? Communication? Can you think of anything else to tell me about this company and their wigs, that I didn't think to ask?

I want a super pale nearly white, icy blue wig, and I think I can make the look I want by using the three wig color blend they sell. I have looked and looked, but I just can't find 50" long wafts in the shades of blue I want, except for in these wigs here, which is why I plan to buy the wigs and disassemble them, unless of course anyone knows where I can find wefts in those colors that are long enough. (This wig is for my Lord Sesshomaru costume and his hair is 50" - 60" long... so far the longest wefts I've seen are 48", so I'll have to settle for making his hair shorter.)

Here is what I am making, and thus the color mix I'm trying to achieve:


This one shows how long it needs to be, or as close to as possible:



Also has anyone ever made a super long wig? If anyone has any advice on making long wigs like this, or on making Sesshomaru's big pouffy bangs, I'd love to hear that too.


What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Plagerism...My artcle and drawings stolen off my blog and posted on anothers blog!!!

Articles from this website are being plagiarized and posted on this blog!

While I'm pleased that they have chosen to feature one of my costume making articles on their blog, I am a bit disturbed by the fact that they copied the entire article, without a single link back to my original blog or website from which they took this article, nor did they credit me with haven written it.

I corrected that matter by including the link to my website from which this article was taken here: http://www.squidoo.com/LordSesshomaruCostume and the blog from which the article originally appeared is here: http://ekcosplay.blogspot.com/ on their comment box.

As you can see from the article, CospyScape caught their plagiarisms and notified me that my article was being posted on another blog without my permission. I'm assuming that all of the other posts on this blog are stolen as well?



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

The Mokomoko: Some Thoughts on Making a Vertebrae for a Costume Tail

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original post about Sesshy's tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I'm trying to go very realistic here, which is why I'm looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it's got to have some really long fur on it.

I'm thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type... a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils... not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made...I make cloth dolls when I'm not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That'll work. I think I'm going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a "top layer" of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6" to 9" long and I don't think I can find a fake like that.


If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I'll probably use something that looks like these:




Most likely I'll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I'd really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.

It's just an idea I'm throwing around at the moment, no idea if it'll work or look the way I think it'll look or not.





What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Need Help With Making Lord Sesshomaru's Mokomoko... Any One Know What To Do?

I've been making costumes for years, but this is my first time doing anything with fur fabric or a tail, so I'm a bit new to fur sewing. I'm making a Lord Sesshomaru costume, which is not a fur-suit per say, but does have some fur on it, namely he's got an 8 foot long tail, called a mokomoko, which I have to make.

Well, I had a few questions about how to go about making the mokomoko, and I figured, I'd ask you guys in case someone reading this knows anything about working with fur and tails and such.

First off, I'm making the manga version of Sesshomaru. The anime version has him wearing a 4 foot fur boa, but in the manga it was a 8 foot furry tail, and it looks quite a bit different in the manga from the amine. Here's a photo reference, of the version I'm making:





As you can see, it's HUGE. Because the tail is so long, he's got it pulled up through his kimono and than slung over his shoulder, and it still drags on the ground quite a ways. I need a lot of fabric.


I was wondering, if anyone could recommend where I can get the fur to use for this? I'm looking for something that looks like real fur, possibly an arctic fox tail look or a mongolian sheepskin look or alpaca wool or possibly yak hair . The pile is quite long and very fluffy and the color is a ecru or cream color.

I would prefer real fur, but only if it's sheared and not skinned. I tried Googeling for this, but all I could find was either skins (ICK!) or bags of sheared wool. I had heard that yak hair, mongolain sheep wool, and alpaca wool are sometimes sold knitted or woven into a fur fabric, used for making fur costumes in movies (the Grinch was said to be made like this, using yak hair dyed green). I would really like to find a place that sells this type of fur fabric, but so far none of my searches have turned up anything. Does anyone here know where this type of fur can be bought?


(P.S. I have a coat trimmed with Mongolian sheepskin [real fur] and it's a super soft, super fluffy 6" pile, with a "twisted" kinky "dreadlock" texture to it. This is what I am looking for...either the real thing, or a faux one that looks and feels like the real thing.)

If I can't find it, I'll settle for fake, but I want it to look real, and so far all the fake fur I've looked at, looks too "shinny" and well, fake. Do you know of a good source for fur that looks real?

Here is an anime shot, for color reference:



To get the look I amm seeking, I have been told to:

Use wool. It's the only way you'll get that 'cotton candy' fluffy texture. Buy it in bags and then weft it and sew it to a backing. It will be a great deal of work (and a lot of wool) but it can be done.If you can buy it in ropes, it might be easier since wefting would be much easier and quicker. You could even just cut it and dip one end in glue. Let it dry and glue it to a frame. Quicker than separating and sewing. And wool puffs up a lot when brushed (because it's crinkled) so it's pretty forgiving about covering up mistakes.

I actually went to a local alpaca farm a few weeks ago, and that's what they told me too... they sell the wool in bags... it's oodles soft and wonderful, but, wow, that's a whole lot of work! I don't know if I could really do that... my patience might were thin before I got barely started!

Here's where I went, and this is a picture of the wool/color/texture they sell that I was looking at: http://www.trippinggnomefarm.com/herd_royal.html

I wonder, if I did do this, how durable cloth made like this would be? Have you ever tried doing this?

If I do make an attempt at wefting raw wool, and sewing it to a backing, than I'll probably use something that looks like these:





Most likely I'll end up getting the wool from a local alpaca farm, cause I'd really like to see it in person before buying it. No idea how many pounds I should buy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on wefting your own wool? If I go this road, I think the Mokomoko will end up costing about $500 just for the cost of the wool though.


Okay, moving on. I have a question about actually making the tail, once I finally find the fabric. I've heard people say that Sesshomaru's tail should be stuffed, to make it stand out more, like it does in the pictures. Looking at the two pictures above (these being the ones I'm using as my guide to make this tail), would you say I should do that or not? If so, what would I use to stuff it, and how would I keep the stuffing from shifting and bunching all into one end?


Secondly, I've been told that I should put a wire in the tail. On the other hand I've been told not to use a wire in it. I'm not sure wither I should use a wire or not. What would you recommend? Also, why would one want to put a wire in a tail? I'm not sure what the reason for doing this is. And if I should use a wire in it, what type of wire do I use? How do I put it in the tail? And how do I stop it from poking through the fabric?


Thanks!



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Glomping Ruins Costumes.... but Do People Get Hurt Too?

I was just searching the forums for "Sesshomaru" info, and came back with lots of various posts and comments that made me cringe. I am seeing the same comments being said over and over again, by every single CosPlayer who has done Sesshomaru, which basically boils down to this:

They walk through the door, get mobbed (or rather tackled the way some of them are putting it!) by fangirls, who with in seconds ruin the entire costume.

YIKES!

At first I started worrying about my costume getting damaged, because, this thing is setting me back a couple of thousand dollars, and I'd really hate for it to get ruined. It took me 3 months just to locate the antique silk I'm using to make the kosode.

Than I started to thinking, the one I'm making, is not only very expensive, but it's more or less historically accurate: real silk, real embroidery, real fur, and.... real armor, with real metal spikes, which, I'm not to concerned that a fan girl could damage my armor, but it occurred to me, that if what these posters are saying is true, than if a crazed fangirl made a mad dash to hug me, she really could end up with a punctured lung... literally.

That sudden thought worries me, and got me to wondering, has anyone here ever gotten hurt, from glomping someone or being glomped by someone? or ever seen someone else get hurt?

Is there some way to keep people from glomping you?



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

What Is The Best Thing About CosPlay?

When it comes to picking, creating a persona, creating a costume, wearing a costume, and acting out your character, what is it about costuming and CosPlay that you like the most?


For me it's all about making the costume. I love the thrill of the challenge of doing a harder costume than the last one, and drawing up the patterns, and hunting down the supplies. I esp love it if I have to hunt down some rare hard to find item, even more so if it sends me to antique shops to look for it... it's like a scavenger hunt, trying to find just the right item!!!!.

I love hand embroidery work and bead-work, so I always look for projects that need a lot of both.

As a general rule the harder the project is, the better, and if it's not too hard to do, than I'll find ways to change it and make it more advanced and harder to make, just for the sake of giving myself a bigger challenge.

Historical accuracy is my thing I get all hung up on. I can not make a costume, until I have first done a massive study into the character... their fictional cannon history, and than the history of what they SHOULD have been like had the been real and not fictional.

Than I write up an essay detailing the life history of the fictional character vs how they should have been in real life, and lastly I start designing the costume by combining elements of the fictional character, with elements of real historical figures. When I get done I have a costume for a fictional character that is also historically accurate, though for some characters it's a bit more difficult to pull this off... but just because people tell me it can't be done, doesn't mean I'm not going to go ahead and make a darned good attempt at it. In fact... the more people tell me that what I am doing can not be done, the more I'm going to fight to prove them wrong! LOL!

After all the work that goes into my costumes, I do not always end up wearing them. Some of them, I have put so much work into that I end up treating them like museum pieces and never wear them, at all!

It's not so much important for me to have an item to wear so much as it is for me to be able to say: "OMG! I can't believe I actually made that myself!!!"

I guess you could say, that for me it's all about the journey and not the destination.
_________________



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Have You Ever Worn a Costume, That No Body Recognized, and Every One Thought Was Someone Else?

A few years ago, I made a humanized version of Scrooge McDuck (I just couldn't get into the whole feather and duck bill thing), which at first, everyone mistook as me just being a Victorian gentleman, and giving my having already done all the women from Sense & Sensibility, every one thought I was now making the men, but than after the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie came out, everyone thought I was Willy Wonka. As it turns out the only time anyone ever gets this costume right is when I'm shopping at the Disney Store... the workers recognize it as Uncle Scrooge instantly.

My Uncle Scrooge costume is my most worn outfit, and the one which most locals recognize as my "signature look", as I've been wearing it as part of my daily street wear for some 5 years now.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

How Long Does It Take To Make a Costume?

It depends on what I'm doing. Most average at 1 to 3 months. Simple things can take as little as a week or 2.

For my current project, I'm planning on 9 months to 3 years, because besides sewing the basic parts of the outfit, it involves hand embroidering 4 different kimono, each of which I'm also hand sewing, plus making leather armor, and casting the metal spike plates that go over the armor, and than since I can't find the wig I need, I'm going to have to make one myself.

Yesterday I hand drew the embroidery designs onto the silk for one of the kimono... that took 8 hours to do, and I'm still not finished with it. (I'm copying the designs off a real Noh kosode from the 16th cen., so it's an over all embroidery pattern, covering nearly every inch of the kimono)



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Historical Accuracy VS Lord Sesshomaru

For those interested in making Lord Sesshomaru's outfit historically accurate, it should be noted that, if you attempt to do so, you will be taking and already difficult and advanced costume, and turning it in an extremely advanced, and very difficult project. You must also keep in mind that as it is, Sesshomaru's outfits are NOT historically accurate and an attempt to make them so, means a complete redesign of the costume, and an end result that will look a bit different from what is seen in the books and on he show.

One of the problems with making Lord Sesshomaru's wardrobe historically accurate is his age, his history, and his lifestyle.

First off his exact age is unknown. To determine his age we have to look at the information we are told and make an educated guess. Early in the series, Rumiko indicates the Sesshomaru is 250 years old. Than a few years later, we are told that he fought in a war 700 years in the past, making him at least that old. Even later in the series we are told that Sesshomaru is not a normal demon, but is some sort of immortal being and has been around for a very long time, with the mention of "thousands of years" being thrown into the conversation.

Samurai armies that attack Sesshomaru, come at him with rifles. We know that rifles were invented in 1557, and that the series tells us they were just recently invented. The series follows a time span of approximately 3 years. This dates the InuYasha series at being from 1557 - 1559, most of which taking place in 1558.

So, if we use that information in order to find a date, we come to the conclusion that Lord Sesshomaru was born at some point prior to 800 A.D. How far prior is unknown, because we do not know for certain how old he is.

Why is this important? Well, if you want to go the historically accurate road, than you are going to need to research, who was wearing what, and when they wore it, and than change Sesshomaru's outfit to match.

In researching the history of various elements of Lord Sesshomaru's outfits, we find that each item comes from a different time period in history, and from a wide range of cultures. Items that in real life history would not have been worn together. This posses problems for someone bent on historical accuracy, and gives you one of two choices:



1) One you can instead study what a fuel lord of 1558 would have worn and make that outfit.

2) You can go with #1, but assume you are dealing with a well traveled and quite eccentric fuel lord, and make each item historically accurate to their time period and culture, and than wear them all at once. This would be more accurate to staying in keeping with Lord Sesshomaru, but less historically accurate.


When we look at what Sesshomaru wears, and consider each item and when and where it should have been worn, we are reminded, that Sesshomaru is very, very, very old. At some point in history the item was in fashion and he started wearing it, but with humans fashions die quickly and new fashions replace them. Sesshomaru, though a fashionable creature in his own right, does not stay current with human fashions and apparently once he starts wearing something he likes to wear, well continue to wear it for centuries, even after the rest of the world had stopped wearing them centuries ago.

In other words, what we see Sesshomaru wearing by the time we see him in 1558, is a mish-mash of items he collected up over a period of many centuries and during his travels across Asia, and the result is a very out-moded, old fashioned, and eccentric outfit, that screams bohemian.

While age posses a problem with Sesshomaru's costume being historically accurate, his lifestyle posses an even bigger problem. In looking at his wardrobe, we can come to only one conclusion: Sesshomaru is an anachronist. He wears cloths out of time and out of culture.

The biggest problem for the costumer, is that they head into this project assuming that because Sesshomaru comes from a Japanese series, that he must therefore be wearing Japanese cloths. This is the farthest things from the truth, however. Sesshomaru wears a Japanese kimono or kosode, and pretty much nothing else of his wardrobe is Japanese. To find the reason for this we must look into his life.

Rumiko tells us that Lord Sesshomaru took over his father's empire when his father died. She tells us that his father was the Ruler of the Western Lands, the title now belonging to Sesshomaru, and the reason we call him "Lord".

At first we assume that The Western Lands are someplace in the Western side of Japan, but a closer study of the series, suggests otherwise.

Throughout the series, InuYasha battles a wide variety of demons. Every once in a while a demon will show up, wearing an outfit, oddly familiar to Sesshomaru's. Each time a demon of this sort shows up they are greeted with discontent, and the question "You're from the continent, aren't you?". Through out the series, we see that the Japanese demons do not take a liking to any demon that came to the island from the continent. To clarify this, we must remember that in the series, Japan is always referred to as "The Island" while China is always referred to as "The Continent". Oddly such Chinese demons, are mentioned as coming from the Western Lands.

Ah-Huh! Now we are getting somewhere. Most of Sesshomaru's outfit is Chinese not Japanese. He looks quite out of place among the other Japanese characters, however, taking into account that The Western Lands are in China and NOT Japan, makes his Chinese mode of dress, quite natural for him.
Another thing to consider is this: InuYasha a half breed, is outcast for being a half breed, which is unusual in the series as many other half breed demons are fairly well accepted. Most half breed demons are, half Japanese Demon and half Japanese Human. But looking at the general contempt for Chinese demons in the series, (who are always portrayed as being very evil, btw) we must ask the question: Is InuYasha not only half demon, but also half Japanese?

The Dog Demons Tribe, as we have already determined, are from China. We know that there was such a hatred for InuYasha, that the day of his birth, the empire revolted against their Dog Demon leader, stormed the palace, burnt it to the ground, and slaughtered everyone inside. Sesshomaru survived because he was not home when this happened, and InuYasha and his mother survived, because his father protected them so she could escape, but he died doing so. She took her only minutes old baby InuYasha and fled back to her homeland of Japan.

We must ask why she fled back to her homeland, and why, the empire rose up against their leader for taken a Japanese Human as his second wife. It seems therefore more accurate to assume that The revolt was caused not by a demon marrying a human, but by a Chinese Demon marrying a Japanese Human.

Another thing to note, is that in real mythology, the tales of dog demons come from Chinese mythology, not Japanese mythology, thus making it even more logical (and historically accurate) to assume that Sesshomaru is Chinese rather than Japanese.

We now have an answer as to why Lord Sesshhomaru's outfits look so very Chinese. Now we must ask, how did he come to live in Japan, by the time of the InuYasha series?








What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Pattern Making Software and Selling Patterns?

I do a lot of sewing of things for which their are no patterns, and so I usually end up drawing up my own patterns (all hand drawn on paper, of drawn directly onto the fabric, just using my own measurements.) I do a lot of what would classify as costumes or fantasy or period type stuff, and got to thinking that I can't be the only one frustrated by the lack of patterns for these items, I should sell these patterns. Problem is, I have no idea how to get my patterns printed up.

I've been thinking of starting a pattern making business for a few years now, but was never sure how to go about it. Today I was looking up some stuff and I cam across this software program for folks who want to make patterns to sell. And so, I was wondering has anybody here ever tried the Pattern Maker Software program? ( http://www.patternmakerusa.com/PatternMaker%20Store/gradever.html ) If you've ever used it, could you tell me, how does it work, and what exactly does it do? Would you recommend it? Or if you have tried a similar software by a different company, could you tell me about that one and why you like it?

If anyone has any type of advice they could offer as to how to go about making patterns for selling, or printing them up I'd love to hear it.

Also if there is anyone here who already sells their own patterns, could you tell me how you got started? Do you have any advice for someone just starting out?

Thanks!





What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

More Info On My Business Plans

I was just posting a comment on some one else's blog and it got so long that I'm copying it to here:

I have been mulling a similar idea of my own... I even had a blog I started just for randomly posting my "start my business" ideas on, so I could see them on screen and sort out what I did and did not want to do. I think I made like 5 posts on that blog and than never went back! LOL! I need to go back and throw some more ideas around.

Well, I got my own "business" to the point where I had written up a basic business plan, not very detailed though, I need to rewrite it. And I have a portfolio of my designs that I want to do. Plus I have the business name all set up and a logo. But that's as far as I got.

What stopped me? Well, money for one. I had originally planned on opening a shop and selling direct to the public, of both custom made costumes and the patterns for said costumes to those who wanted to make their own instead of buying ready made, but after doing research into the cost of a shop rental in Portland's theater district, that was going to require a minimum of $200,000 (more if I wanted a shop on Main street instead of a side alley) because rent for a store is so high and they required a 3 year payment up front! So I temp. changed my idea from a store selling costumes and patterns to just selling patterns online, at least until I had enough money to do the store thing.

My next problem, was I had no idea how to get my patterns printed up so I could sell them! I checked with local print shops, but none of them did this sort of thing, and I couldn't find any online either. So I was sunk for a while and have not yet found a way to do this. :( I'm still researching my options though.

While I am stuck on the pattern making part, I've still been working towards my goal in other ways. Firstly I've been researching "my target audience", trying to figure out, who they are (age group, lifestyle, income, etc. etc. etc). For me, my target audience falls into the 18 - 40 age group, and are in the Goth, CosPlay, or Historical Reenactment lifestyles.

Secondly, I've been doing marketing research... where do my target audience types hang out in real life and online? How do I get word of my product out to them? How much are they gonna be willing to pay for my product? Who are my competitors? How are my patterns/designs different from theirs? How are they the same? What can offer my customers that no other patterns comp offers? etc. etc. etc.

I've got a big binder filled with my notes and ideas, and research, and stuff... about 300 pages filled so far. I'm trying to plan out every aspect I can think out, so that I can be prepared once I get started.

(I would love to hear what others, who have started their own pattern comp did to get their patterns printed and envelops made and stuff, like that, if anyone has any tips or links they could share, it'd be a big help. Cause I'm really stuck on that and Google has NOT been helpful at all. Thanks!)

I'm not planning to go big and compete with the likes of Simplicity or those guys. Though I would like to get, say about as big as Folkwear Patterns. I plan to start out with 12 or 15 patterns, and than slowly expand over time, until I have a collection of say 200 designs.

Another aspect of my goal is, I would like to do a line of books with patterns, (aimed at CosPlayers, mostly), plus a couple on embroidery.

Well, lets see what I can answer of your questions:

My proposal:
- Patterns would be in english and french.

great!

- They could be printed as booklets, because the papers never want to go back in the envelopes anyway.


ugh! fighting with paper vs envelope is such a nightmare! I like the booklet idea

- The steps would have to be clearly explained and illustrated.

always good... I often find illustrations easier to understand than the instructions, so the more illustrations the better, I say

What I still don't know:
- Should they be basic designs to be modified by the user, or artsy personal designs?


maybe you could have a line for each? one line of simple "create your own style" patterns, and a second line with the designer originals created by you?

when I'm using a pattern I never stick with the pattern no matter how simple or hoe fancy it may be, cause I like to add my own personal touches to everything.


- Should I focus on styles that are not usually represented by major pattern brands (gothic, lolita, punk, etc.)?


If that is the style design you have a passion for, than: YES! YES! YES! OMG! It is sooooo hard to find patterns for these styles. It's the lack of patterns for these style that resulted in me making my own patterns in the first place! With the "business" I was planning my goal was to design patterns for Gothic, Lolita, and CosPlay because those are the patterns I end up designing because no one sells them.

My advice is, do styles that you would find yourself wearing, sewing, buying, because if you would use it yourself, you'll be more likely to "get behind" your product and really go all out with the sale pitch.

- Should I include a few costumes as well? Historical or fantasy (or else)?

It can't hurt. The more the merrier I say. For me, my focus would be largely costume and fantasy, because I planned the patterns I wanted to sell to be aimed mostly for CosPlayers and LARPers and SCAdians, all of whom are into the whom fantasy costume thing, so those were the target audience I was aiming for.

Again, however, only add these types of things, if it is something you really believe in and feel good about having in your collection. It's no good selling a product that you added just because you thought it would help business, but you didn't really believe in the product yourself.

And most important: do I have any chance of selling any? I'm aware that I do not have any example of my apparel work on the net, but do you think the concept could work?

I don't have any of my apparel work on the net either.

I think it would work (otherwise I wouldn't be planning to do the same thing! LOL!) I think there are enough folks out there who can't find goth type patterns who would love to buy them once you had them listed for sale.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Q & A Time Again: 10 Costuming Questions

1. What is your dirty little secret when it comes to costume construction?
A. I rarely do hand sewing for the seams... my sewing machine is much faster, so if the stitching can't be seen from the outside, my sewing machine did it!

2. What are you the most proud of when it comes to your costume construction?
A. My embroidery, pleats, and beading details. I can embroider, pleat, or hand bead for hours on end, and I don't mind taking weeks and weeks to do it if it means getting the look I want to achieve.

3. Which of your costumes do you think you look the best in?
A. My green cotton calico "Sense and Sensibility" empire dress worn with a blue velvet Burnoose. I looked so good in it and it was so comfortable to wear, that I went back and made 3 more of the same dress in different colors.

4. What style of costume would you never be caught dead in?
A. Wasp waist. AGH! I couldn't even imagine corseting my waist a few inches smaller, let alone to the tiny 18 to 20 inches of a wasp waist dress!

5. What was your all-time favorite Halloween costume?
A. Miss Piggy from the Muppet Show... my mom was a seamstress and she did the whole thing extremely accurate, from the purple silk gown to the sculpted felt full head mask, that looked exactly like the puppet on the show!

6. If time/money/skill was no object, what would you be for Halloween this year?
A. A historically accurate version of Lord Sesshomaru... which btw, I am making. Skill is no object, I can hand sew and embroider, and plan to teach myself armor work so I can make the battle armor... it's time and money that are holding me up... I need more of both.

7. Which is more important to you in a costume - style, or comfort?
A. It has to have a style I like and will wear, before I will make it, however, if it is not comfortable I won't make it no matter how much I like the style.

8. What comfort do you refuse to give up when wearing a costume?
A. None. I'm a life actor and for me lack of comfort is not an option because I have to wear these things 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

9. Where is the strangest place you've ever worn a costume?
A. uhm... see last answer. Every where, I suppose. Only I don't find it to be strange, everyone who sees me does though. I get hounded with questions up one side and down the other about my cloths and why I'm dressed the way I am... they expect me to tell them I'm on my way to a costume party or something, and when I tell them otherwise they don't know how to respond... it's crazy, because people assume I'm wearing a costume and once I tell them these are my normal cloths they do a double take and than millions of questions as to how I got started and why I do this.

10. If you see a non-costuming friend or coworker while you are in costume, would you go say "Hi!" or run and hide?
A. I usually say hi and THEY run and hide.




What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

BedSheets, Historical Accuracy, and Tent Covers

On an SCA forum, someone asked a question about if it was alright to use bedsheets to make their garb, even if bedsheets were not historically accurate.

For me, it depends largely on what I am making. A few years back I did a velvet gown that required 7 yards for the skirt alone, and than it had these huge triple puffed sleeves and those needed another 3 yards each. Well, than I made it really hard for myself, because I wanted to do it in an old style shade of rose, and no other color would do. I had already plotted and planned and drawn out my sketches, and it HAD to be rose colored velvet. Have you ever tried looking for a dusty rose colored velvet! ACK!

Well, finding velvet in an odd color was one trouble I was having, but the fact that I needed so much of it was the major problem, because I rarely put very much money into the fabric I buy. I tend to root through Jo-Anns, red tag $2 a yd clearance section to find most of my fabrics. It did not take me long to realize that if I wanted rose colored velvet, the only way to get it was to have it special ordered at some $45 a yd! That was a great big: NO WAY! So, I changed my outlook on my dress, and put off sewing it, for about 7 months, because I still could not imagine it in anything but rose colored velvet.

Than, nearly a year later, and nearing in on Easter time, I was in WalMart, and they had just gotten in a whole batch of new Easter fabric... among them, were some pretty pastel colored polyester panne velvets, and a whole uncut bolt of a dusty rose that just screamed "BUY ME!". Okay, so technically it was stretch velvet or velveteen and made out a fabric that had only been around the last 40 years or so, but the color was perfect for what I wanted, and it LOOKED like real velvet even if it wasn't real velvet and it only cost $3.95 a yd!

In the end I got my rose colored "velvet" dress, not accurately, but I didn't care, because it looked the way I had invisioned it.

Of course, as I said for me, it depends largely on what I am making, and so I have yet another story on me vs accuracy, this one currently ongoing. As you may or may not have heard me say before, I am doing what I am told is utterly unheard of and completely impossible to do, (by about 40 different people so far, and I expect that list to grow as my project continues). Hey, keep telling me I can't do this too, because thats what keeps going... the desire to prove I can! LOL!

Anyways, I am taking a character out of a modern day fantasy comic book and *horrors* recreating his entire wardrobe (6 different outfits) in as much historical accuracy as possible. He's a prince from 1558 Japan, who grew up in China, than went on a personal spiritual quest all across Asia and picked up various elements of each place he went along the way. And thus wears cloths that are mixed up with Japan, China, Mongolian, and Portuguese elements, plus a few VERY imaginary fantasy elements thrown in to boot.

Oh such fun it is torturing myself like this. I now have to figure out which parts of his outfits came from which periods of which countries, so that I can make each part historically correct, even if wearing them all at once isn't historically correct. If you think it's hard tracing down one item from one country and one time period... try 45 different items from countries of unknow origin which you have to study each coutries history to find out where each one came from! eeek!

Well, I finally traced most of the items and their origins and what they should be made out of, and FINALLY, I started my search for the fabric: silk, from Asia, in historically accurate widths. I found silk from Italy 45" wide, silk from France 45" wide, silk from India 45" to 68" wide. I needed silk from Japan 15" wide.

I went to my local JoAnnes told them what I was doing, what I needed, the woman looked at me like she thought I was a nut, and than asked "But why don't you just buy the 45" wide fabric and cut it down to 15" wide strips?" Well, because the whole point of making this outfit is to be historically accurate, and my studied showed me that his cloths would have been made of 15" wide silk, that was sewn on selvage, and part of the design element is the fact that it HAS to be sewn on selvage, so I MUST use 15" wide silk.


It took me three months to track it down, but I finally found a guy (who lives in Japan) who does nothing but collect and sell 13" - 16" wide Japanese silks! YAY! I emailed him, told him what I wanted and he was able to find me five bolts of *OMG* antique handwoven 15" wide silk. For the first time in my life, I bought a fabric that had a major price tag on it.

I am so happy with my silk. It arrived last week and I've been driving my family nuts talking about it steady! LOL! This is the first time in over 20 years, that I have ever allowed myself to buy a fabric for the sake of historical accuracy. The price of historically accurate fabrics, usually sends me off looking at my curtains and thinking: "Hey, I'll bet I could cut that up to make my garb out of! LOL! Usually I settle for: "Oh that LOOKS accurate enough and only costs $15 dollars". Yeah... like you said, bed sheets can make great garb, and often I go that road myself, as long as it LOOKS accurate... hey, try looking at the curtains in WalMart... I do that often, the big prints on curtains often have a nice period look to them.

oh yes! I agree with the bedsheets for camp curtains. They are great for that because of their size.

Blankets make the best tent covers! I've never used anything else to make a tent cover with! For the tent I made, I needed a thick fur look. I'm an animal rights activist so using real fur was out of the question, and buying fur fabric didn't set well with me because all I could find was really cheep looking stuff that either had too thick a pile, or too fake looking a color.

I wanted it to look like cheetah or leopard skins, and than I found these throw blankets to go on your couch. They had a nice short "realistic" nap to them, and and the print looked like real leopard. So those blankets ended up becoming my tent cover. (The tent was a 6Wx8Lx5H one person sit in the shade-lay down take a nap type tent, so it didn't take much fabric to make it.)

I did worry because they were so thick, that they might hold in the heat and make the tent unbearable hot. However the opposite was true. They were so thick that they blocked the sunlight was getting in and kept my tent the coolest bit of shade there was to be found!

I'm planning to make another, more portable one later this year. The one I made is on a frame of 2x4's and a permanent fixture that has stood in my yard for 3 years now. I still use it, though the fabric is starting the wear thin now, after surviving 2 blizzards and 4 hurricanes.




What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

A Meme For Brainstorming Persona Names... Funny!

Here's my answers, what are yours?



1. Your rock star name (first pet, current car): Buttons 330

2. Your gangsta name (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): French Vanilla Combat Boot

3. Your Native American name (favorite color, favorite animal) Orange Moray Eel

4. Your soap opera name (middle name, city where you were born): Christine Biddeford

5. Your Star Wars name (the first 3 letters of your last name, the first two letters of your first name): AllWe

6. Superhero name (2nd favorite color, favorite drink): Blue Moxie

7. NASCAR name (the first names of your grandfathers): Charles David

8. Stripper name (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy): Topaz Jawbreaker (LOL!)

10. TV weather anchor name (your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Allen Austen

11. Spy name (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Halloween Blue Girl Rose

12. Cartoon name: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Grape Kimono

13. Hippie name (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Tortellini Pine





What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Kimono: Alternate Kimono #3 (Movie Only)

Alternate Kimono #3:

Sesshomaru's Alternate Kimono #3, is of a less formal style than the other three. This is the kimono we see him wearing before he became a Lord, seen only once during a flash back. This kimono is the one he wore when he was still quite young, aged at about 14 or 15 years old in "human years". Once again, it is of solid white, with full swinging sleeves that sweep in lengths just above his ankles. The lower quarter of each sleeve is dyed a deep-bright reddish-rose pink, more accurately called a shade of magenta.

On the front and back of each sleeve, floating just above the boarder of the dye, is painted three very large and bold lotus flowers (twelve in all). The flower pattern is repeated with yet another large lotus flower on the neck and shoulder of the left side extending down to the sleeve.

Beneath his Kimono Sesshomaru wears a white (or sometimes lavender flower print) Nagajuban.

With this version we see Sesshy wearing his purple armor, and dark blue velvet Heko-obi.

(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)


If you've been reading my blog, you know by now that my silk has arrived from Japan (was lost by our local post office) and after much debate over how to handle said silk, work is now underway on the construction of this pink furisode kimono.

This being Lord Sesshomaru's Court Outfit, which he wears at home in his palace, I am taking a more dramatic road with this one, and embroidering it in the 16th century Noh Theater style.

The white sections are going to be completely embroidered in an overall pattern of chrysanthemums and butterflies, embroidered all in white.

Because Lord Sesshomaru's palace is in China and not Japan, and because Sesshomaru is a Prince, I am taken a huge leap of liberty and turning the blocks of rose color on the sleeves and hem, into the traditional "ocean wave" pattern seen on the Dragon Robes worn by Chinese Emperors. These will be done in multiple shades of rose and mauve.

I have found a picture of a real medalion of a lotus flower, which looks an awful lot like the one on Sesshy's kosode, and have traced the design, and am going to use that for the giant lotus blossoms, changing the colors from the original medalion, to deep magentas and rose for Sesshy's fuisode.

All in all this is a majorly advanced embroidery project and will take me at least 3 or 4 month to complete before I well be able to begin constructing the kimono. (Historically, the cloth is embroidered, before being cut and sewn, so that is how I am making this one.)

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

On Making Samurai Armor

I had to come back and add another post here. Okay, for the past couple of weeks I've been mulling over what to do for the armor I'm going to make this summer, and yesterday I got out this book from the library:

Arms and Armor of the Samurai by I Bottomley


It doesn't really tell you how to make armor per say, but it goes into great detail about the armor of ancient Japan, and there are loads of close ups and details about how is was made.

Anyways... the armor I wanted to make was scale armor, but when I looked on the internet for scale armor how to's all I found was sites on hand forged metal scale armor, and I really don't want to make metal armor. But than I found this Samurai book and it has a whole chapter on scale armor! OMG!

He shows all sorts of close up pictures of scale armor in Japan, and than shows drawings of what the scales looked like before they were assembled, and than shows how they laced the scales together. And get this, the whole thing was made out of 2" pieces of suede leather laced together with silk! OMG! I can actually make that! All I have to do is cut out a bunch of suede leather squares, punch holes in them, and than lace them together with silk ribbon. I can have it finished in about 3 days.

Well, I don't know if that of any help to you or not, but I thought I'd let you know what I found in case it might help you out anyone making armor.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Is Buying a Costume Instead of Sewing It Considered Cheating?

[QUOTE=Meiria;2446201]I'm just getting into the cosplay scene and was wondering how some veteran cosplayers feel about it.

I'm not talking about those $50 nylon naruto Costumes that you can find on eBay (obviously, they are in bad taste!) - but is buying an expensive ($150-$500) premade costume "tacky"?

I have intermediate sewing skills, and have worked with simple pattern modifications before. But making a custom kimono, for example, with several layers and embroidery, would be beyond me. I know how to sew, and want to learn more, but with the constraints on my time, and my advanced beginner level abilities, is making a fancy costume from scratch through pattern modification a stretch?

Is someone only a "good" cosplayer if they made it themselves or commissioned it?[/QUOTE]

Ahh... making AND embroidering a custom kimono.... now you are talking my language! I'm an embroiderer, and for me, making my costumes is not so that I can say I made the costume so much as it is so I can say:[I] "OMG! I can't believe I actually embroidered every inch of this thing myself!"[/I]. I am currently in the process of hand embroidering antique silk to make Lord Sesshomaru's Pink flower furisode kimono (from the movie), and I'm doing it in 16th century Noh Theater style covering every inch of the cloth with embroidery... it's going to take me at least 4 months to embroider, and could take 8 or 9 months.

If you are going for a historically accurate embroidered and layered kimono... OMG! Those things can take up to 4 years to make! Some of the detail work that goes into them are amazing, but hand embroidery is just the slowest thing you could ever try to do. Embroidered kimonos are usually done by 5 or 6 people all sitting around it and embroidering sections of it, and even than it takes 4 or 5 months to finish. If you are talking 16th century embroidery in the Noh style, you are talking a majorly advanced project that you'll really have a hard time finding a seamstress willing to do. Those things are a real pain to make... I know, because, I'm doing one right now.

Weird thing about this is, I'm not doing it to enter any Cons or contests, and I'll probably never go to a Con (haven't been to one yet, but that never stopped me from CosPlaying). I will however wear this as part of my street cloths, as I do with all of my CosPlay stuff.

I do this because I just love to sew and embroider things. For me, personally, CosPlay is all about the actual construction of the costume... the designing, the planning, the hours spent in fabric stores looking for just the right fabric, than the months spent sewing.

However, as I said, that me. Everyone is different. And you know what? You do not have to make it yourself to CosPlay!

In fact the best most detailed costume I ever wore, was one of the ones I did not make myself. It was way to advanced, and I knew my sewing skills would not cut it, so I had a seamstress make it up instead and she did an amazing job on it. It was Miss Piggy from the Muppet Show, and it had a full head mask, that looked EXACTLY like the Miss Piggy puppet on the show, the whole thing was made out of sculpted felt and was utterly amazing. I could have done the dress, but I just let her do the whole thing. It was the mask that really stumped me, because I just can't sculpt fabric and make it look like anything.

A agree with this statement here:

[QUOTE=Danzikumaru;1807749]*

It isn't cheating to buy a costume. It IS cheating to enter a costume contest with a bought costume and claim you made it.

*[/QUOTE]

For me personally, I'd feel like I was cheating if I wore a bought costume, because I'm so damn good at sewing that I'd run myself through a guilt trip over it (unless it was so advanced that I couldn't make it myself). But that would be me judging me, not me judging someone else. I started sewing at age 6, because my mom was a seamstress. I grew up sewing costumes, it's just second nature to me, so for me to buy a costume would just [I]feel [/I]wrong.

On the other hand though, I would never accuse any one of cheating for buying a costume. I know first hand just how much time and money and long hard work goes into sewing a costume, and I also know it's not something every can or wants to do. It takes a lot of work to make a costume, and even people who have the skill, may not have the time, what with school-jobs-family, for a lot of folks, sewing a costume, just really is not an option, even if they did want to sew it themselves.

To me, I feel it's really snobby, for anyone to tell you that yo are cheating it you didn't sew it yourself.

CosPlay = Costume Play, nothing more and nothing less. CosPlay does not mean Sewed Costume Myself Play, it doesn't dictate that you MUST sew the costume yourself. All it dictates is that you wear a costume, not how you came by said costume.

So, my feelings are that you are only cheating if you bought the costume and than said you sewed it.



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Members of The SCA are Not Anachronists or What Is a Creative Anachronist?

First off, by now you have heard me talking about the SCA, and are probably wondering if I belong to their group. The answer? No, I am not a member of the SCA. The reason? Well, the SCA is a historical reenactment group, (historical reenactment being a rabid hobby of mine) however, they focus on a time period that STOP at the year 1599. There in lays the problem: I do all eras. I've done pre-Columbian Native American, 14th century Gothic, I've been wearing various Japanese garb since I was 8 years old (no idea what era any of it comes from), I live 24/7 in Napoleon era empire gowns and Edwardian frock coats, I wear roaring 20's flapper dresses, 1950's poodle skirts, and on top of that I've done fantasy stuff varying from cartoon characters to book characters to comic book characters to characters of my own to circus clowns to faeries to futuristic sci-fi stuff fit for Theirry Mugler's Monster Collection, and of course my latest project comes from manga. To make this a bit more strange for most people is the fact that these cloths I wear are NOT costumes. They are in fact the cloths I wear every day. Every time I set a foot outside, people gawk at me and start asking the silliest stupid dang questions. Like:

Are you promoting a play for the local theater?
Are you on the way to a costume party?
Is there a Renaissance Fair nearby?
Are you a circus clown?
OMG! It's a Harry Potter fan!
Are you a witch? . . .

and my personal favorite:

What the hell planet did you drop off of?!?

yea . . .okay . . . whatever. So what prompts these non-ending string of questions everywhere I go? My cloths.

Historical Reenactment & CosPlay is my life. I have never been to a Con or a Ren Faire, but that hasn't stopped me from wearing "costumes", though technically these are not costumes as they are my actual street cloths or garb and therefor I do not call them costumes because I do not think of them as costumes. I do not own any "normal" non-costume "street cloths". What you see me wearing as CosPlay type things IS the way I dress when I'm not CosPlaying, because for me, this is not about "playing". My CosPlay can more correctly be termed as "historical reenactment of fantasy costumes".

My clothen style includes velvet, capes, empire gowns, gowns with trains, burnoose, shawls, runas, fishnet hose, striped stockings, combat boots, velvet, top-hats, long dresses, ruffled frilly skirts, cosplay, Gothic, Lolita, Victorian, Edwardian, velvet, frock coats, Alice in Wonderland, vampire fashions, Medieval fashions, crinolines & petticoats, kimono, ethnic costumes, eyelash-fringe fabric, sequins, beads, glitter, lace, cloaks, ruffles, broomstick skirts, stripes, plaid, poet blouses, peasant dresses, fairy tale princess gowns, faerie outfits, wizard-look stuff, big hats, bright colored hats, ballet flats, platforms, anything that Dracula would love to wear, and also stuff like worn by Jem*, The Holograms, and The Misfits. I the 1980's I wore min-skirts, but as the years have gone by, my dresses and skirts got longer; today my hems sweep the floor and they often have trains. I have one dress that has 7 yards of fabric on the skirt alone, it can be worn with or without hoops.

Whenever I go out in public, my conversations with strangers sounds something like this:

I was dressing like Jem, before Jem was invented.

I love anything made of velvet!

I don't like pants: won't wear them, won't own them.

No, what I'm wearing is not a costume.

Yes, I dress like this every day, all day long, even around the house, when working in the garden, and when shoveling manure out of the barn. Yes I am a farmer. Yes I do dress like this while doing farm work.

No, I don't own any "normal" clothes.

No, I can't tell you where I bought them, because I didn't buy them, I sewed them.

No, I can't tell you where to buy the pattern, I didn't buy a pattern I made the pattern. I've been sewing since I was 6 years old when I made my first doll. I made my first ball-gown at age 12. At age 16 I graduated from a 2 year course in fashion design & merchandising. I've spent most of my life studying fashion history and the art of recreating historical clothen from the Gothic periods (1300 - 1500 & 1850 - 1930), and those are the clothes I thus wear.

No I already told you this is not a costume, these are my regular cloths, I don't care if you think this is a costume, it is not, please stop asking me if it is.

I don't like people who think I'm wearing a costume even after been told that I am not.

Yes, I know this looks like a Willy Wonka costume, yes, Johnny Depp inspired it. Yes, I do wear a top hat everywhere I go. No, I repeat this is not a costume.

Yes, I REALLY am making a historical reproduction of Lord Sesshomaru's costume, and yes, I do intend to wear it daily as part of my street cloths, fluffy tail, battle armor, and all.

No, I'm not crazy, I just hate that Halloween only comes once a year so now I live every day like it was Halloween.

No, THIS . . . IS . . . NOT . . . A . . . COSTUME . . . I already told you, I always dress like this. I've been dressing like this for the last 20 years. Please stop making me repeat myself.

I have had that conversation so many times now it's burned in my brain.

I think the funniest thing is that I am constantly asked for my ID...."You got to be over 18 . . ." yadda, yadda, yadda

Than I whip out my ID... "Is this real? Wait, you're really THAT old? . . .but . . .but . . your cloths.... I thought you were a teenager! I'm so sorry, I didn't realize... it's just that your cloths... I thought..."

Honey, I haven't been a teenager for 20 years! But thank you for thinking I was one, it's not every day some one my age gets mistaken for a teenager... will, with me it is, but for other folks my age . . .

I am an Anachronist. An anachronist is someone who does not wear "normal" street cloth, but rather wears ethnic or period cloths instead of street cloths. The Amish are also anachroists, because they shun modern society and have "stopped" history at the year 1860 and will do, own, or wear nothing that was invented after 1860.

The problem with The SCA is that though they call themselves anachronists, they are only anachronist wanna-bes, because they only "pretend" to dress old fashioned when they go to meetings and ren faires and than once the faire is over they quickly change out of their garb and into their jeans and T's with a sigh of relief that they can finally get out of their garb now that the faire is over.

As you can see, though I do create and wear cloths that come from the SCA's pre-1600 era, I usually wear stuff from the late 1700's - 1930's instead, and thus I don't really fit in with the SCA's criteria. Though I am not a member, I do love their group, and the members are absolutely wonderful, thus I actively promote their group.

Here's the thing: I'll mention the SCA to someone and they go "Huh? What's that?". The first thing they want to know is not "What do they do?", no, the first question asked is, "What does SCA stand for?"

So, what does it stand for? It stands for The Society for Creative Anachronism.
Well, the first part of it's easy to figure out: it's a group of people and they do something creatively. The problem is that word *Anachronism*, because nobody knows what an Anachronist is or what an Anachronist does or why any one would choose to become an Anachronist in the first place. And that is why I am writing this post: to explain what an Anachronist is and what they do.

The dictionary tells us that an Anachronist is one who practices Anachronism. Well, I must say THAT was REALLY helpful. Okay, so what is Anachronism? According to Wikipedia Anachronism is this:

An anachronism (from the Greek "ανά", "against", and "χρόνος", "time") is anything that is temporally incongruous in the time period it has been placed in—that is, it appears in a temporal context in which it seems sufficiently out of place as to be peculiar, incomprehensible or impossible. The item is often an object, but may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a custom, or anything else closely enough bound to a particular period as to seem odd outside it.

An anachronist prefers older, often obsolete cultural artifacts over newer ones. For example, a modern-day anachronist might choose to wear a top-hat, use quill pens, or use a type-writer. This choice may reflect an eccentricity, aesthetic preference, or an ethical acceptance or rejection of the societal role of that artifact.

An anachronism can be an artifact which appears out of place archaeologically, geologically or temporally. It is sometimes called OOPArt, for "out of place artifact". Anachronisms usually appear more technologically advanced than is expected for their place and period.

Anachronism is used especially in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis. Anachronisms may be introduced in many ways, originating, for instance, in disregard of the different modes of life and thought that characterize different periods, or in ignorance of the progress of the arts and sciences and other facts of history. They vary from glaring inconsistencies to scarcely perceptible misrepresentation. It is only since the close of the 18th century that this kind of deviation from historical reality has jarred on a general audience. Anachronisms abound in the works of Raphael and Shakespeare, as well as in those of less celebrated painters and playwrights of earlier times.

In particular, the artists, on the stage and on the canvas, in story and in song, assimilated their characters to their own nationality and their own time. Roman soldiers appear in Renaissance military garb. The Virgin Mary was represented in Italian works with Italian characteristics, and in Flemish works with Flemish ones. Alexander the Great appeared on the French stage in the full costume of Louis XIV of France down to the time of Voltaire; and in England the contemporaries of Joseph Addison found unremarkable (in Pope's words)

"Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd chair."

Shakespeare's audience similarly did not ask whether the University of Wittenberg had existed in Hamlet's day, or whether clocks that struck time were available in Julius Caesar's ancient Rome.

However, in many works, such anachronisms are not simply the result of ignorance, which would have been corrected had the artist simply had more historical knowledge. Renaissance painters, for example, were well aware of the differences in costume between ancient times and their own, given the renewed attention to ancient art in their time, but they often chose to depict ancient scenes in contemporary garb. Rather, these anachronisms reflect a difference of emphasis from the 19th and 20th century attention to depicting details of former times as they "actually" were. Artists and writers of earlier times were usually more concerned with other aspects of the composition, and the fact that the events depicted took place long in the past was secondary. Such a large number of differences of detail required by historic realism would have been a distraction. (see Accidental and intentional anachronism below)

Authors sometimes telescope chronology for the sake of making a point. Bolesław Prus does this at several junctures in his 1895 historical novel, Pharaoh, set in the Egypt of 1087–1085 B.C.E. The ancient "Suez Canal," proposed by Prince Hiram (chapter 55),[1] had existed in ancient Egypt's Middle Kingdom, centuries before the period of the novel. Conversely, the remarkably accurate calculation of the earth's circumference by Eratosthenes, and the invention of a steam engine by Heron, both ascribed in chapter 60 to the priest Menes,[2] had historically occurred in Alexandrian Egypt, centuries after the period of the novel.

In recent times, the progress of archaeological research and the more scientific spirit of history have encouraged audiences and artists to view anachronism as an offense or mistake.

Yet modern dramatic productions often rely on anachronism for effect. In particular, directors of Shakespeare's plays may use costumes and props not only of Shakespeare's day or their own, but of any era in between or even those of an imagined future. For instance, the musical Return to the Forbidden Planet crosses The Tempest with popular music to create a science fiction musical.

A celebrated 1960 stage production of Hamlet, starring Richard Burton, was set on a bare New York stage in contemporary rehearsal clothes: the audience could have been watching the rehearsal before the dress rehearsal. The point of the staging was apparently that the story of Hamlet is a universal one that was equally credible in the 20th century as in the 17th.

Well, the Wiki article goes on and on and has a whole lot more to say, but that there sums it up pretty good, and you know what? It doesn't say anything about being limited to a pre-1600 era! It's that limiting to the pre-1600's era that prevent me from becoming a member of the SCA, because I can not in good conscious call myself a true Anachronist if I was to limit myself to recreating historically accurate history from a single time period, not when the meaning of the word Anachronist means to take one thing from history and deliberately throw it into another time period.

You see to be an Anachronist, is to throw historical accuracy to the wind and NOT be historically accurate, for the sake of mixing old with new, and be yourself and doing what you want to do, regardless of the norm, the rules, or what others think you should do. You wear cloths from periods not today, not to faires as costumes, but EVERY DAY, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, because for an anachronist those as the clothes you feel comfortable in. You may drive a horse and buggy instead of a car. Maybe you use a wringer washing machine instead of an automatic one, like I do.

It confuses me that the SCA and it's members promote the historical accuracy to such extremes when doing so goes completely against the meaning of the name of their group. It farther confuses me that they claim to be anachronists and yet less than 1% of them wear the cloths they wear to the fairs as part of their daily wear. A true anachronist would wear them every day, not just one or two weeks a year.

Anyways now you know what an Anachronist is and how they are different from SCAians.


What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Kimono: Anime & Manga

Sessho-Maru-Sama's Kimono

Besides being the world's most powerful demon, Lord Sesshomaru is both a warrior and nobleman, a wealthy and powerful Feudal overlord,The Ruler of The Western Lands (believed to be somewhere in China or Mongolia) and a much feared (a murderously violent) aristocrat and as such wears a style of ceremonial Kimono which is only worn by the elite few of his social standing. This can be seen by the fact that he wears white, a color reserved only for royalty, brides, and the dead, and by the fact that there are so many imperial crests embroidered onto his Kimono.

Sesshomaru's Kimono is a very ceremonial style, of solid white, with full swinging sleeves that sweep in lengths just above his ankles. The lower quarter of each sleeve is dyed red, and the left shoulder is also dyed red.

On the front and back of each sleeve, near the boarder of the dye are embroidered three family crests (twelve in all). The crest is repeated on the neck and shoulder of the left side.

Each crest consists of a triple hexagon with a six petaled white plum/cherry blossom in the center of each red hexagon, surrounded by a white boarder.

There is some debate among fans as to the lower edge of the kimono and what it should look like, since the hem of Sesshomaru's kimono is never seen in either the books or the show. There is also question as to just how long the kimono he wears is; again, he wears a hakama over his kimono, so we never see the hem edge of it.

In the areas of Lord Sesshomaru's costume where we do not have a visual reference to go by, we must instead look to the history books and find out what a real warring lord of Endo Japan would have done, and in doing that, this is what my research told me:

When worn by common folk, soldiers, and laborers, the length of a kimono worn under a hakama would have been knee length. However, the kimonos worn by noblemen, lords, and aristocrats would have been long full length kimonos.

The length of Lord Sesshomaru's kimono should be long: very, very, very long. My study of Japanese fashion history tells me that a war lord of Sesshomaru's status, would have worn a kimono of overblown proportions, not only are the sleeves abnormally long, but so to would have been the length of the kimono, which in some cases would have a train several feet long in the back! All of this extra fabric however would not be seen, because it would be girdled with a braided cord, and stuffed into the legs of the overlaying hakama, thus helping to give the hakama it's huge ballooning pant-legs-effect.

Additionally, my research tells me that the hem edge of the kimono would be patterned and decorated to match the pattern of decoration on the sleeves and left shoulder. Note that the fact that the pattern is ONLY on the left shoulder, is an indication that this is not only a lord, but a lord of near Shogun status. Lord Sesshomaru is a very high ranking lord.

So my advice? I would say to make his kimono at least 4 inches longer than floor length for the wearer, and dye the lower 8 to 12 inches red to match the sleeves, and add imperial crests staggered at the same intervals as on the sleeves..

Beneath his Kimono Sesshomaru wears a white (or sometimes red flower print) Nagajuban.

This is the ONLY version ever to be drawn by Sesshomaru's creator Rumiko Takahashi. All other versions of his costume were created by the tv anime artists and manga inkers.


(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)

On occasion, Sesshomaru is seen wearing a slightly different kimono. This can be considered either a mistake on the pat of the anime artists, or an indication that he has not one, but four different kimonos.

Alternate Kimonos #1 and 2 are essentially the same as his regularly worn kimono, the only difference being the color of the dye and patches.

Alternate Kimono #3 is completely different and is much less formal as is has no crests on it at all.

If you want to make one of the alternate kimonos, they are described as follows:

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Kimono: Alternate Kimono #1 (Manga - Japan Only)

Alternate Kimono #1:

Sesshomaru's Alternate Kimono #1, is a very ceremonial style, of solid white, with full swinging sleeves that sweep in lengths just above his ankles. The lower quarter of each sleeve is dyed purple, and the left shoulder is also dyed purple.

On the front and back of each sleeve, near the boarder of the dye are embroidered three family crests (twelve in all). The crest is repeated on the neck and shoulder of the left side.

Each crest consists of a triple hexagon with a six petaled white plum/cherry blossom in the center of each purple hexagon, surrounded by a white boarder.

Beneath his Kimono Sesshomaru wears a white (or sometimes purple flower print) Nagajuban.

The Hakama worn with this is usually pale lilac colored, while the battle armor may be black, purple, or sky blue in color. When wearing black or purple armor, the yellow Heko-obi is worn with this, however, when wearing the sky blue armor, the blue Heko-obi is worn, as are a pair of sky blue shoes.

This is a rarely seen alternate version of Lord Sesshomaru's kimono. This is the second most commonly drawn version featured in non-cannon daijoshi manga.

(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)


(an antique kimono, which looks a lot like Sesshy's)


What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Kimono: Alternate Kimono #2 (Manga Only)

Alternate Kimono #2:

Sesshomaru's Alternate Kimono #2, is a very ceremonial style, of solid white, with full swinging sleeves that sweep in lengths just above his ankles. The lower quarter of each sleeve is dyed blue, and the left shoulder is also dyed blue.

On the front and back of each sleeve, near the boarder of the dye are embroidered three family crests (twelve in all). The crest is repeated on the neck and shoulder of the left side.

Each crest consists of a triple hexagon with a six petaled white plum/cherry blossom in the center of each blue hexagon, surrounded by a white boarder.

Beneath his Kimono Sesshomaru wears a white (or sometimes blue flower print) Nagajuban.

With this version we see Sesshy wearing either his black armor or his purple armor.

This is a rarely seen alternate version of Lord Sesshomaru's kimono, however, once it surfaced, it quickly became the most beloved one used by fans, as when wearing blue, Sesshomaru seems less fierce than when wearing red. This is the most commonly drawn version featured in non-cannon daijishi manga.

(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Lord Sesshomaru's Kimono: Alternate Kimono #3 (Movie Only)

Alternate Kimono #3:

Sesshomaru's Alternate Kimono #3, is of a less formal style than the other three. This is the kimono we see him wearing before he became a Lord, seen only once during a flash back. This kimono is the one he wore when he was still quite young, aged at about 14 or 15 years old in "human years". Once again, it is of solid white, with full swinging sleeves that sweep in lengths just above his ankles. The lower quarter of each sleeve is dyed a deep-bright reddish-rose pink, more accurately called a shade of magenta.

On the front and back of each sleeve, floating just above the boarder of the dye, is painted three very large and bold lotus flowers (twelve in all). The flower pattern is repeated with yet another large lotus flower on the neck and shoulder of the left side extending down to the sleeve.

Beneath his Kimono Sesshomaru wears a white (or sometimes lavender flower print) Nagajuban.

With this version we see Sesshy wearing his purple armor, and dark blue velvet Heko-obi.

(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

Alternate Kimono #4: Chibi Version

Alternate Kimono #4:

I have only seen this one in VIZ's promotional "Chibi-art" These pictures show Sesshomaru as a Chibi, or a small child. This kimono is the one he wore when he was very young, aged at about 7 or 8 years old in "human years". This one is of Kosode style, with smaller sleeves than we normally see him wearing. The fabric is a pale mint green.

On the front and back of each sleeve, near the boarder are embroidered three family crests (twelve in all). The crest is repeated on the neck and shoulder of the left side.

Each crest consists of a triple hexagon with a six petaled white plum blossom in the center of each green hexagon, surrounded by a white boarder.

With this one we see Sesshy wearing a hakama made of the same mint green cloth. He wears neither armor, nor shoes, with this, but is shown wearing a yellow unpatternd Heko-obi.

Interestingly in these Chibi pictures we see VIZ portraying him both as a demon with a tail, and as a demon wearing a fur stole.

(my art from my fashion design costume portfolio)



What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

SCA Judging Critera: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Advanced

I was looking up embroidery competitions, cause I'm thinking of entering my kimono's in one after I get them finished, which is maybe a year or so down the road, but if I want to enter I need to know the rules before I start! Well, I'm copying the rules here to my blog, from their web site so that I'll be able to reference them. Here is the Advanced Rules:

SCA Judging Criteria: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Advanced

DOCUMENTATION 0-8 pts. Judging and scoring for Documentation is based on a graduated level of knowledge and discussion of the components of the item. Advanced level documentation should have a thorough discussion of the components of the item, explains the rationale behind methods, materials, skills and tools, provides illustrations (if available), references and notes, as well as any original research or experimentation. Any conscious compromises should be explained. A summary page is helpful if the documentation is exceptionally in-depth, and more detailed work can also be put in appendices. Verbal feedback during the judging, how well the entrant understands the period practice and process of the creation of their item beyond what is written, can enhance the Documentation score. Give score based on the following:

*Description and discussion of entry including the following: country of origin, period of origin, characteristics of style for that period.

*Thorough knowledge or discussion of materials and skills used to complete the project

*Thorough knowledge or discussion of methods and tools used to complete the project

*Research and reference: very complete sources and visual or descriptive references, includes a bibliography and cites sources in a standard format (endnotes, footnotes, parenthetical, MLA, etc.).

AUTHENTICITY 0-8 pts. Judge this at the Advanced level, keeping in mind any deviations or substitutions from authentic period equivalents (reasonable substitutions for elements that are too toxic, too expensive or too rare) must be plausible and explained. Efforts to achieve a completely authentic item (except those items that are unsafe) will score best.
* Form/function—is it a period item and does it work in a period way (apparent knowledge or application of period practice)
* Methods of creation— handwork vs. machine work, any charting, transfer, pattern, etc.

* Materials used—stitches, pattern, backing and thread material (linen, silk, wool, vs. DMC floss, etc.)

*Design, style--period design or style or gives a period effect

COMPLEXITY 1-5 pts Rank the ambition of the entry, not the workmanship, based on the following. Judge the entrant at the Advanced level, keeping in mind that not all period items are complex.

*Scope of endeavor (# of pieces, size of work in relation to amount of detail, etc.)

*Difficulty/variety of design elements used—variety of motifis/ how they are combined

*Difficulty/variety of techniques attempted—elements/motifs/stitches

*Difficulty/variety of media, materials, tools used—e.g. velvet, metallics, handspun, etc., are harder)

*Extent of original work or ideas

WORKMANSHIP 1-5 pts. Rank the quality of execution and success of the entry. Judge the entrant at the Advanced level, based on the following:

*Effective use of tools, methods, and techniques

*Techniques, handling of materials, etc.—tension, starts, ends, neatness, evenness, finishing

*Design: period aesthetics, motifs, design (note: period sense of balance and proportion is not necessarily the same as modern) etc

*Form/Function: does it do what it should do and look as it should look?

*Period styling or personalization or special embellishment

OVERALL QUALITY 1-4 pts. Evaluate the work as a whole, rating the aesthetic effect and appeal beyond the mere technical proficiency. Consider how you react to the entry (intuitive response) and other items not previously addressed. This is the 'wow' factor; following are some examples to consider, but the category is not limited to these.

*Completely authentic from the ground up

-OR-

*Unique or outstanding display or attempt at period presentation

-OR-

*Logical creative endeavor within a period methodology (creativity/individuality)

-OR-

*You want to take it home because it is really outstanding

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

SCA Judging Critera: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Intermediate

I was looking up embroidery competitions, cause I'm thinking of entering my kimono's in one after I get them finished, which is maybe a year or so down the road, but if I want to enter I need to know the rules before I start! Well, I'm copying the rules here to my blog, from their web site so that I'll be able to reference them. Here is the Intermediate Rules:

SCA Judging Criteria: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Intermediate

DOCUMENTATION 0-8 pts. Judging and scoring for Documentation is based on a graduated level of knowledge and discussion of the components of the item. Intermediate level documentation should have at least minimal discussion of the components involved. More in-depth discussion or period practices or conscious compromises is encouraged and should receive higher points. Verbal feedback during the judging, how well the entrant understands the period practice and process of the creation of their item beyond what is written, can enhance the Documentation score. Give score based on the following:

*Description and some discussion of entry including the following: country of origin, period of origin, characteristics of style for that period.

*Some discussion of materials and skills used to complete the project

*Some discussion of methods and tools used to complete the project

*Research and reference: cites more than one source and one visual or descriptive reference, includes a reference sheet (bibliography) or cites sources in a standard format (endnotes, footnotes, parenthetical, MLA, etc.).

AUTHENTICITY 0-8 pts. Judge this at the Intermediate level, keeping in mind any plausible/explained deviations or substitutions from authentic period equivalents (reasonable substitutions for elements that are too toxic, too expensive or too rare). Efforts to achieve a completely authentic item (except those items that are unsafe) will score best.
* Form/function—is it a period item and does it work in a period way (apparent knowledge or application of period practice)
* Methods of creation— handwork vs. machine work, any charting, transfer, pattern, etc.

* Materials used—stitches, pattern, backing and thread material (linen, silk, wool, vs. DMC floss, etc.)

*Design, style--period design or style or gives a period effect

COMPLEXITY 1-5 pts Rank the ambition of the entry, not the workmanship, based on the following. Judge the entrant at the Intermediate level, keeping in mind that not all period items are complex.

*Scope of endeavor (# of pieces, size of work in relation to amount of detail, etc.)

*Difficulty/variety of design elements used—variety of motifis/ how they are combined

*Difficulty/variety of techniques attempted—elements/motifs/stitches

*Difficulty/variety of media, materials, tools used—e.g. velvet, metallics, handspun, etc., are harder)

*Extent of original work or ideas

WORKMANSHIP 1-5 pts. Rank the quality of execution and success of the entry. Judge the entrant at the Intermediate level, based on the following:

*Effective use of tools, methods, and execution

*Techniques, handling of materials, etc.—tension, starts, ends, neatness, evenness, finishing

*Design: period aesthetics, motifs, design (note: period sense of balance and proportion is not necessarily the same as modern) etc

*Form/Function: does it do what it should do and look as it should look?

*Period styling or personalization or special embellishment

OVERALL QUALITY 1-4 pts. Evaluate the work as a whole, rating the aesthetic effect and appeal beyond the mere technical proficiency. Consider how you react to the entry (intuitive response) and other items not previously addressed. This is the 'wow' factor; following are some examples to consider, but the category is not limited to these.

*Completely authentic from the ground up

-OR-

*Unique or outstanding display or attempt at period presentation

-OR-

*Logical creative endeavor within a period methodology (creativity/individuality)

-OR-

*You want to take it home because it is really outstanding

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.

SCA Judging Critera: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Novice

I was looking up embroidery competitions, cause I'm thinking of entering my kimono's in one after I get them finished, which is maybe a year or so down the road, but if I want to enter I need to know the rules before I start! Well, I'm copying the rules here to my blog, from their web site so that I'll be able to reference them. Here is the Novice Rules:

SCA Judging Criteria: Embroidery, Counted and Free Form: Novice

DOCUMENTATION 0-8 pts. Judging and scoring for Documentation is based on a graduated level of knowledge and discussion of the components of the item. For Novice level, a 3x5 card is the minimum required, but more is encouraged. Any discussion beyond listing of the criteria below, on period practice, any conscious compromises or research is encouraged and should receive higher points than simply listing the information. Verbal feedback during the judging, how well the entrant understands the process of the creation of their item beyond what is written, can enhance the Documentation score. Give score based on the following:

*Description of entry including some of the following: country of origin, period of origin, characteristics of style for that period.

*Lists materials and skills used to complete the project

*Lists methods and tools used to complete the project

*Research and reference: cites at least one source and one visual or descriptive reference, or two of either.

AUTHENTICITY 0-8 pts. Judge this at the Novice level, keeping in mind any plausible/explained deviations or substitutions from authentic period equivalents (reasonable substitutions for elements that are too toxic, too expensive or too rare). Efforts to achieve a completely authentic item (except those items that are unsafe) will score best.
* Form/function—is it a period item and does it work in a period way (apparent knowledge or application of period practice)
* Methods of creation— handwork vs. machine work, any charting, transfer, pattern, etc.

* Materials used—stitches, pattern, backing and thread material (linen, silk, wool, vs. DMC floss, etc.)

*Design, style--period design or style or gives a period effect

COMPLEXITY 1-5 pts Rank the ambition of the entry, not the workmanship, based on the following. Judge the entrant at the Novice level, keeping in mind that not all period items are complex.

*Scope of endeavor (# of pieces, size of work in relation to amount of detail, etc.)

*Difficulty/variety of design elements used—variety of motifis/ how they are combined

*Difficulty/variety of techniques attempted—elements/motifs/stitches

*Difficulty/variety of media, materials, tools used—e.g. velvet, metallics, handspun, etc., are harder)

*Extent of original work or ideas

WORKMANSHIP 1-5 pts. Rank the quality of execution and success of the entry. Judge the entrant at the Novice level, based on the following:

*Effective use of tools, methods and execution

*Techniques, handling of materials, etc.—tension, starts, ends, neatness, evenness, finishing

*Design: period aesthetics, motifs, design (note: period sense of balance and proportion is not necessarily the same as modern) etc

*Form/Function: does it do what it should do and look as it should look?

*Period styling or personalization or special embellishment

OVERALL QUALITY 1-4 pts. Evaluate the work as a whole, rating the aesthetic effect and appeal beyond the mere technical proficiency. Consider how you react to the entry (intuitive response) and other items not previously addressed. This is the 'wow' factor; following are some examples to consider, but the category is not limited to these.

*Completely authentic from the ground up

-OR-

*Unique or outstanding display or attempt at period presentation

-OR-

*Logical creative endeavor within a period methodology (creativity/individuality)

-OR-

*You want to take it home because it is really outstanding

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!







-------------
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

All about Lord Sesshomaru's garb & Making a Lord Sesshomaru Costume. Plus, Sesshomaru & Rin and making Rin's Costume; and this is for anyone who needs help Creating Character Profiles for their stories or for their SCA persona.