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Guys GUYS SUWABE JUNICHI IS COMING FOR AFA!!!

How sly of them, letting the news out through animax first ahahaha I might get a chance to have a photo with him. Oh man that would really be a great present. How long will the happiness last I wonder ^____^

Hello Sunday Night

Time is flying, I'm actually feeling a little depressed about fyp right now. Prof is really nice but I dread seeing him now. The weeks just seem to pass by without me accomplishing much. I'm having trouble getting my last set of mutations in the right vector and this is the most pressing issue. Darn ittt why can't I even do simple cloning stuff. Results aren't coming to me. I'm not getting anywhere.

Had a relaxing weekend, got some revision done for tumour bio and watched anime. I'm on a baseball craze right now after watching Ace of Diamonds. Went on to watch One Outs and I have this urge to re-watch Ookiku Furikabutte again.

The weekend has been cooling but I resisted the urge to take naps. That's it, that's my weekend :')

Photoshoot over!

The photoshoot is over! One of the more comfortable costumes out of my recent coses, but has it's own set of problems as well.

Appearance of the cookie monster lololol and I look like voldemort in the top one

It was a novel experience shooting in a studio, with limited space, impressive reflectors, huge flash (i don't know what all those things are called), backdrops and stuff. I'd be honest, it was a precious and valuable chance which I should be soaking in and appreciating with my whole soul but I was in pain and very uncomfortable for most parts T_____T 

My left eye was giving me hell and the irritation just refused to go away. I took off the lens, washed and put it back on a few times  but it still didn't work. That's the first time something like this has happened :( contacts used to never give problems. I suspect it's because of my 'no contacts, spectacles only' operation which kinda made my eyes unaccustomed to wearing contacts, especially a 16mm lens so suddenly.  

Many many factors lah, I never used to order ifairy lens because I thought they would be too huge for my tiny eyes. I don't know if this is a one time event or it'll happen every time I wear larger lens....... hopefully it'll be ok next time, because I will definitely be encountering these lenses again T___T so yea my eye kept tearing, smudging my eye liner. The crying also gave me mucus which I needed to sniff  up continuously and wipe, smudging my make up again. 

My eyes were red and teary as a result.... the others kept telling me not to cry lol. Immediately took off the contact lens after the shoot, so I was half blind. Luckily I had a ride home and could sit back and close my eyes during the trip. The pain persisted until I fell asleep yesterday, and my eye was seriously swollen. Fortunately it's much better today and the swell is almost gone. I will need to try the contact lens on again after my eye has recovered to see if the irritation is still there though :(

On to problem 2 which can be solved more easily I hope.. My wig kept sliding back urghhhhhhh. My fault entirely. I need to tighten the straps -__- quite angry with myself for not adjusting, especially since I kept taking it off due to the sliding problem and had so much time to make adjustments but I did not. Oh wells. Also need to improve on the styling omg it's unacceptable even by my noob standards. Yup so wig was a second major problem, I kept pulling my wig and rolling the spikes together even when taking photos, it was quite bad. I'm actually quite afraid to see the official photos... 

Make up problem was still there but not as bad... I tried to recreate what liz did for me when she stayed over but failed terribly. She helped me again after that, but it was after my solo shots so too bad for those photos hehe. I tried contouring...... it was ok for a first try I guess. Much to be improved on. I know my character is a bishie character but that's still no excuse for looking so girly. Ah wells.

Here's a manly photo though :D taken from Kai Lin who was a great help with everything!!! Here you can see my attempts at contouring. I darkened the eye to nose area, hair line, jaw line and tried the hollows of the check. Too heavy at the cheeks and it didn't join to the right part of the hair line whoops. More on the eye to nose area next time! :)b

No make up face yo!!!

I know I've been going on and on about the gun but here's the rest of the outfit, taken the night before the shoot. I made the dog tag necklace, belt, shoulder and hanging thingies myself :D the shoulder part was a pain but I managed it!

So all in all, the props and costume turned out to be the least of my worries (first time sia!) haha I'm really really glad that I joined the team, the people and characters I took on helped me improve so much and gave me the chance to try so many new things. Prop making, costume making, make up, photoshoots (Y) very very lovely, funny and cool people in the team who help one another and are so good at cosplay :Dbb   

Updates~

Today I collected my jacket from the tailor auntie at amk, in time for the photoshoot next next week. Because there's not much time left I really need to work and get the shoulder part out... I actually have most parts ready, just need to piece them together and that is the toughest part x_x then again when I get down to it, things may not be so bad :l

Will need more velcro. Hey it's a level up :D I used to tape everything when it comes to clothes. Now I'm  turning to velcro. When will I switch to sewing? Hehehe when I get a sewing matching perhaps,which isn't going to happen in the near future.

When it comes to props I hope to experiment with wood and plastic someday (Y) oh btw I made improvements to the gun. It's a long story-- I know I said I wouldn't touch it until the shoot but a friend from the team came over to stay the night last sat and she gave me so many suggestions which were also improvements I would have wanted to make eventually. Like adding details to the back portion.

It looks much shinier now, though most of the shine was painted on haha! She also helped me try out the eye make up for Laguna, it's the first time I've done eye make up specifically to look like the character. I've always just been doing generic looks, being the noob I am. It was awesome, no photo though because I was zzzzz. It was close to 2am when we stopped the make up experiment and moved on to the gun.

Also I'm so proud of myself for altering the jacket today. It's a simple alteration, using safety pins at the back to make the jacket more open at the front and fitting to my body. Proud because I copied this exact method from another awesome coser whose shoot I helped out with last week and it turned out surprisingly well for a first try. Honestly I looked rather out of proportion due to the jacket almost overlapping with my belt. I'll have to wear the belt super low to create the illusion of a longer body but this in turns shortens my legs. URGH I give up. Maybe things will balance out when I put on the boots. If not, sorry guys you're stuck with a short and sulky Laguna hahaha

School wise... I'm considering the option of continuing with phd after honours. I had always wanted to work after graduating and never gave further studies more thought because my grades aren't that good anyways. But after finding out more about the conditions and benefits from the phd student in my lab, this option sounds really tempting. And I received so much encouragement blabla saying that I'm suitable for phd and so on. Not sure how much of it was true or just flattery but yea now I'm thinking about it :) 

:(

I've decided not to play for the band concert this semester. I've been harbouring this thought since school started but whenever I see my friends during practices I realise I miss them so so so much, I just can't bear to leave.

The first time I met the band peeps again after my total absence during the 3 months holidays, I felt so emotional because I missed them so badly. It wasn't about the saxophone or the music making any more but my section mates and all the people I knew throughout my 3 years with the band.. Sigh 

I could have dragged it on and eventually played for the concert.... but Sunday practices which start tomorrow is the breaking point. I haven't been to a single sectional this semester-- the first time I was very sick, second week was e-learning, and the latest session I was busy with lab which ended late so I decided to skip and go home even though bus D2 which goes to the band venue came first. As I watched the bus leave I knew that I wouldn't be playing with the band this semester.. Aiya sorry for being so drama but I'm really sad ok :'(  

I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I skipped a combined practice deliberately so yup rather than miss the sunday practice, I smsed my SL to inform her.. My conductor is in better health so I won't be so worried about him. The sax section has quite a few new members and is in good hands under the SL so all will be well :')

Hope I won't regret this decision. 

It's done!!!!!

I fixed on the final part yesterday-- too excited to post after taking the photos this morning and I forgot to add blings or cartoons. Disclaimer: This is a toy made up of mostly foam okies

The back portion looks really flat and I can definitely improve on it.. but nope i'm not going to be touching it these 2 weeks until closer to the photoshoot.

Probably going to hold it like this lol. Good thing it's quite light, if not my right arm is going to become more muscular then my left with all that lifting.

There's a mini crosshair thingy lmao, hope no one gets a close up of it because it's really badly carved.

I spent..... like a couple of months on it? Took a long break in the middle after covering the whole thing with black foam because I was stuck at finding the best method to make it shine. In the end it was back to the principle of getting down to doing it because you never know what works and what doesn't until you try. Sniff sniff if I had started experimenting earlier I would have been done earlier as well. 

Same for the belt and the shoulder thingy. As of now, belt is done but shoulder part is not!!! HELP

Learning points: 

PVA glue is wonderful

Acrylic paint is wonderful as well and can paint almost anything

Use nail polish remover to clean paint brushes

Priming the foam does help with spray painting afterwards but not much. Multiple coats are a must :(

Updates on lab:

PI is away so we're out to play! No lah, just that I'm more inclined to leaving early once i'm done with the experiments for the day. And no lab meetings! So I can wake up later :'') I appreciate that very very much.

Prop progress

Have I told you about my love hate relationship with all my weapons and props, especially this one 

Unbelievable number of coats of paint and it's still not smooth and shiny.. All the cartoons and bling are to make it look cute and un-threatening so I won't be arrested for making 'firearms' hahahaha. Please arh, it's 2 bits of pipe thingy, foam, glue and more foam-- can't shoot and if you use it like a stick to hit people it'll probably bend or break.

The right side was already ok by my standards but while spraying the other side, the paint kinda dripped over and caused it to stick to the newspaper. Now I need to spray it again urghhhhhhhh endless frustrations

Anyways :) this baby is longer than my arm and I spent really long on it (procrastination included) I really wanted it to be shiny and since I made the effort to make it shine, I hope it will pay off and the gun will llook beautiful and shiny during the photoshoot+ event 

I'm stressed over the weirdest things.. A few days ago I woke up at 3.10am and couldn't get back to sleep because the lab was out of maxi prep tubes and I really needed to get my plasmid preps out. I got out of bed to get some water and suddenly The Conjuring popped into my mind O_O was trying to recall in the movie what the timing which all the clocks stopped at was..  I also dreamt that I was so tired that I completely forgot about my lab meeting and only barely made it to school for my infection and immunity lecture. It was a terrible feeling OTL