{COSPLAY} Fairy Tail: Freed Justine

I'm back for my first February blog entry which shows that so far I am in keeping with my New Year's resolution to keep on blogging. XD

My eighth Japanice Resolution for 2013 is to improve my cosplay. I got to realize that I really need to start on going down to the details of my cosplays when I cosplayed Freed Justine from Fairy Tail. I noticed some details that I fail to give attention at.

Jellal and Freed Justine

When I think about it, failing to go to the details are most of the times brought about by the fact that I have to change into costume either in a cramped rest room or in the mall's food court (when I wear my costume in the food court, I need not "change" but rather just simply put on the costume). The point is that I don't really get the luxury of time and convenience to get all things and parts of my cosplay completely done and made. I don't even put on make-up aside from a quick application of basic foundation. That is why I would admit to always falling short of doing a perfect cosplay. But then again, having imperfections would always mean lots and lots of rooms for improvement. Improvement in itself is always a welcome challenge for me. So looking at the brighter side, I can expect that I have always something to work at.
 

For this blog entry, I would also be sharing how I made the sword-props for Freed Justine. Freed's sword is a rapier which he uses both as a weapon and as a pen with which he writes his Letter Magic especially during battle. This is just the second time I made a weapon-props. The first time was when I made a quincy bow for my Uryuu Ishida (Bleach) cosplay. I think I made a satisfactory job with the sword except that the blade was too wide.
 
 
 
The materials I used for this sword are as follows:
1. All-purpose cardboard;
2. A round tension curtain rod;
3. Masking tape;
4. Silver spray-paint; and  
5. White, blue and green all-purpose paint.

Most part of the props-making involved cutting and shaping the cardboard into (1) the blade, (2) the hilt, and (3) the decorative Fairy Tail insignia on the hilt and "wrapping" the sword handle.
 
The curtain rod serves as both the skeleton of the blade and the sword handle. After assembling all the parts of the sword, I wrapped everything in masking tape and painted the blade and hilt white.
 
It took so much time before the white paint completely dried and then I noticed that the surface of the sword seemed to have "runs" or it became uneven, primarily because of the masking tape getting wet, I thought. It made me think that I should have just directly spray-painted the sword silver, without first coloring the masking tape white, to avoid getting the surface uneven.
 

 

After spraying-painting the sword blade and hilt silver, I proceeded to design, cut and paint the Fairy Tail insignia that would decorate the cup hilt of the sword. Notice that "tail" of the insignia functions as a knuckle bow that adorns sword handle. I wrapped the cardboard cut-out in masking tape before painting it green.

 

Lastly, as the final detail, I attached a small rubber ball at the tip of the sword handle and colored it blue. Actually, it's not a ball but an Animax rubber cellphone stand that is attached to the flat and smooth backside of a mobile phone so that it can stand. Luckily, I just to insert it in the hole of the curtain rod and it attached perfectly. =D



With other Fairy Tail cosplayers during the Ozine Anime Figure Special 2012
 

Now going back to my concern on attending to the details, some of the details of my Freed cosplay that I did not do, both intentionally and unintentionally, are (1) Freed's bangs are swept to the right and covering the right eye, I swept mine to the left XD, (2) I didn't tie my hair to a low pony tail, (3) I didn't put a mole under my eye, (4) I didn't have Freed's signature lightning hair strands jutting out backwards from the sides of my head, and lastly (5) I no longer had time to make a brown scabbard for the sword. XDD

 

Anyway, I want to do an improved cosplay of Freed Justine again with a Laxus by my side. =D



Character: Freed Justine

Series: Fairy Tail
Cosplayer: Hiro
Venue/Convention: Ozine Anime Figure Special, December 2012
Photos: Mark (aka Kram)
Costume: Commissioned Tailor
Props: Hiro