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Halloween in Madison post!
So, this is a compilation post of what I wrote in my blog to give context, and lots of pictures. Some of the pictures are huge. And my formatting on this page sucks. TOO BAD.
Feel free to leave comments/ask questions regarding the costumes, etc.
We'll start with my pumpkin to pique your interest:
That's the pumpkin I carved for the Anime News Network pumpkin carving contest.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year. I guess I hadn't realized how complicated my Japanese geisha girl costume was going to be, but Steph had thought of all the details and brought me all kinds of stuff. She had to wrap me into the kimono, hehe. The obi wrap that goes around the kimono is surprisingly tight - I'd say just as bad as English corsets - it was shallow breaths all night, and difficult to eat a full dinner. It's kind of strange. I was wearing lots of layers so it didn't really do much to accentuate the feminine figure, but it was still tight. Also, it really sucks not being able to touch your face all night for fear of smearing the white paint. The liquid eyeliner stuff was pretty cool, though. Maybe I should wear eyeliner....anyway. I put my hair up, which I was pretty proud of, and Steph put all of the decorative pieces in it. I liked the way the curls looked on the camera, so I put in some close-up shots of my hair.
Me as a geisha:
Geisha pose 2:
Hair close-up 1:
Hair close-up 2:
Hair close-up 3:
The Fuu face!
Here we see that Gordon's camera is much better than mine. I am dismayed by the fact that the geta shoe broke. Paul looks on in a bemused-sort-of-way (Paul = Sergeant Pepper, Beatles, duh). Also, you can see the glowstick that we added to my obi in this picture. I thought it was a nice touch, ;)
Louise was a shinengami from Bleach, and her outfit was pretty kick ass. Steph and Gordon were Raquel and Shannon from Scrapped Princess, and they looked so cute! Unfortunately, my camera ran out of space fairly early on, so I only have one picture of Steph. I'll post links when I have images of Gordon and Louise.
The first event was Anime Club, which was fun. Gordon showed presented his proposal to move the club forums to a different server, and I'm really excited for it. Gordon is so cool! Then we went for chili with Creighton and Carolyn, which was also very much fun. Then we watched a small bit of anime, and then there were contest results for the costume contest. There were a lot of cool prizes from Japan. I won second place! I wasn't expect it at all because there were a lot of really good costumes. I got to pick between two prizes, and I found this really cute book illustrated by CLAMP: Unfortunately, it's in Japanese, but Steph hopes to be able to translate it one day. But the cuteness makes up for this technicality, and there are a lot of illustrations to look at in the mean time.
Here, Gordon gives his powerpoint presentation for the Anime Club forums dressed as Shannon, from Scrapped Princess. Creighton is apparently excited that I decided to take a picture.
Accompanying Gordon was my roommate Steph, who dressed as Raquel, Shannon's sister (little weird since Gordon and Steph are dating, but oh well!):
Apparently there was somewhere around 100,000 people on State Street last night. I was with 6 other people, so things were okay. Many lewd costumes, and lots of 80s costumes this year. Basically what happens during Halloween on State Street is that the sidewalks, and for the most part the street, are packed with people moving from one end to the other, with exceptions for people waiting in lines at bars. Everyone is pretty jovial - if you see a costume you like, you yell out the characters names and exchange exclamations of "Dude! Awesome!" A couple people told me that I was pretty, so that was really cool, as it's not a regular occurance. There is a disgusting quantity of tasteless, slutty outfits, though. I cannot fathom why parents take their small children up and down State Street. It is not the place for little kids! Anyway. Met up with drunken high school friends for about 5 minutes, and walked around for a while more. I think we left around 11:00 or so. The cops were very friendly while we were there - they didn't care about underage people being drunk. All they were doing was making sure nobody had any glass with them. We stopped at McDonald's, which was weird because they had a security guard at the door making sure nobody was bringing alcohol inside.
Gordon's house was a lot of fun. Steph's grandpa has a farm, so she had brought pumpkins for everyone to carve. I don't remember ever carving a pumpking....maybe I did some time when I was really little and someone helped me a lot, but it was never really a tradition in our family. Taking out pumpkin guts is disgusting! But anyway, Anime News Network is holding a contest in which you can win a crapload of anime for carving an anime pumpkin. I carved this image on to my pumpkin, 'though I rounded out the breast a bit, 'cause that was kind of weird, hehe. But it turned out surprisingly awesome! I was proud of myself. We were at Gordon's until like, 3:00? I don't even remember. And that's post-Daylights' Savings thing, so it was actually 4:00 or something.
Here is Steph's Sadamitsu the Destroyer (you should watch this, it's so good!). It turned out blurry, but we hope to take better pictures of it tonight.
Details better seen here:
Kevin did Kenshin:
Louise did Alphonse Elric, from Full Metal Alchemist:
Apparently, though, there was stupid stuff going on on State Street after we left:
Link 1 - containing 5 short "movies" of the police clearing State Street with tear gas after 2:00 am. You could tell who the police were by these blinking red and blue lights they had clipped on their shoulders, as obviously some people dress up as cops for Halloween.
Link 2 - is a Wisconsin State Journal article that explains exactly how the so-called "riot" occurred.
Link 3 - Even CNN covered us, :O
Link 4 - Coverage by The Daily Cardinal; the student newspaper that I copy edit for. It kicks ass.
Feel free to leave comments/ask questions regarding the costumes, etc.
We'll start with my pumpkin to pique your interest:
That's the pumpkin I carved for the Anime News Network pumpkin carving contest.
Halloween was a lot of fun this year. I guess I hadn't realized how complicated my Japanese geisha girl costume was going to be, but Steph had thought of all the details and brought me all kinds of stuff. She had to wrap me into the kimono, hehe. The obi wrap that goes around the kimono is surprisingly tight - I'd say just as bad as English corsets - it was shallow breaths all night, and difficult to eat a full dinner. It's kind of strange. I was wearing lots of layers so it didn't really do much to accentuate the feminine figure, but it was still tight. Also, it really sucks not being able to touch your face all night for fear of smearing the white paint. The liquid eyeliner stuff was pretty cool, though. Maybe I should wear eyeliner....anyway. I put my hair up, which I was pretty proud of, and Steph put all of the decorative pieces in it. I liked the way the curls looked on the camera, so I put in some close-up shots of my hair.
Me as a geisha:
Geisha pose 2:
Hair close-up 1:
Hair close-up 2:
Hair close-up 3:
The Fuu face!
Here we see that Gordon's camera is much better than mine. I am dismayed by the fact that the geta shoe broke. Paul looks on in a bemused-sort-of-way (Paul = Sergeant Pepper, Beatles, duh). Also, you can see the glowstick that we added to my obi in this picture. I thought it was a nice touch, ;)
Louise was a shinengami from Bleach, and her outfit was pretty kick ass. Steph and Gordon were Raquel and Shannon from Scrapped Princess, and they looked so cute! Unfortunately, my camera ran out of space fairly early on, so I only have one picture of Steph. I'll post links when I have images of Gordon and Louise.
The first event was Anime Club, which was fun. Gordon showed presented his proposal to move the club forums to a different server, and I'm really excited for it. Gordon is so cool! Then we went for chili with Creighton and Carolyn, which was also very much fun. Then we watched a small bit of anime, and then there were contest results for the costume contest. There were a lot of cool prizes from Japan. I won second place! I wasn't expect it at all because there were a lot of really good costumes. I got to pick between two prizes, and I found this really cute book illustrated by CLAMP: Unfortunately, it's in Japanese, but Steph hopes to be able to translate it one day. But the cuteness makes up for this technicality, and there are a lot of illustrations to look at in the mean time.
Here, Gordon gives his powerpoint presentation for the Anime Club forums dressed as Shannon, from Scrapped Princess. Creighton is apparently excited that I decided to take a picture.
Accompanying Gordon was my roommate Steph, who dressed as Raquel, Shannon's sister (little weird since Gordon and Steph are dating, but oh well!):
Apparently there was somewhere around 100,000 people on State Street last night. I was with 6 other people, so things were okay. Many lewd costumes, and lots of 80s costumes this year. Basically what happens during Halloween on State Street is that the sidewalks, and for the most part the street, are packed with people moving from one end to the other, with exceptions for people waiting in lines at bars. Everyone is pretty jovial - if you see a costume you like, you yell out the characters names and exchange exclamations of "Dude! Awesome!" A couple people told me that I was pretty, so that was really cool, as it's not a regular occurance. There is a disgusting quantity of tasteless, slutty outfits, though. I cannot fathom why parents take their small children up and down State Street. It is not the place for little kids! Anyway. Met up with drunken high school friends for about 5 minutes, and walked around for a while more. I think we left around 11:00 or so. The cops were very friendly while we were there - they didn't care about underage people being drunk. All they were doing was making sure nobody had any glass with them. We stopped at McDonald's, which was weird because they had a security guard at the door making sure nobody was bringing alcohol inside.
Gordon's house was a lot of fun. Steph's grandpa has a farm, so she had brought pumpkins for everyone to carve. I don't remember ever carving a pumpking....maybe I did some time when I was really little and someone helped me a lot, but it was never really a tradition in our family. Taking out pumpkin guts is disgusting! But anyway, Anime News Network is holding a contest in which you can win a crapload of anime for carving an anime pumpkin. I carved this image on to my pumpkin, 'though I rounded out the breast a bit, 'cause that was kind of weird, hehe. But it turned out surprisingly awesome! I was proud of myself. We were at Gordon's until like, 3:00? I don't even remember. And that's post-Daylights' Savings thing, so it was actually 4:00 or something.
Here is Steph's Sadamitsu the Destroyer (you should watch this, it's so good!). It turned out blurry, but we hope to take better pictures of it tonight.
Details better seen here:
Kevin did Kenshin:
Louise did Alphonse Elric, from Full Metal Alchemist:
Apparently, though, there was stupid stuff going on on State Street after we left:
Link 1 - containing 5 short "movies" of the police clearing State Street with tear gas after 2:00 am. You could tell who the police were by these blinking red and blue lights they had clipped on their shoulders, as obviously some people dress up as cops for Halloween.
Link 2 - is a Wisconsin State Journal article that explains exactly how the so-called "riot" occurred.
Link 3 - Even CNN covered us, :O
Link 4 - Coverage by The Daily Cardinal; the student newspaper that I copy edit for. It kicks ass.
no subject
i love reading about the culture of the geisha. they are so mysterious and intriguing. have you ever read memoirs of a geisha? if not, you should. it is one of my very favourite novels.
and your pumpkin is cuuuute.
no subject
And yeah, I loved the way the Sailor Moon pumpkin turned out! It'd be really cool if I won, but I bet some crazy artist-types will enter the contest too.
no subject