To keep up with the Tradition to  post things way too late I present you today the pictures of the Dokomi which was held at the beginning of June. These Pictures have actually been sitting on my Flickr Account for quite some time but my Flickr WordPress Plugin died on me recently and I didnt feel like inserting them manually.  In the end I decided to do this post anyways since there were some pretty nice Cosplays attending. Hit the Jump for the pictures!

First off I have no clue if these pictures might be too big for the screens of some of you.If this should be the case be sure to drop a comments so that I know for future posts. As of now there doesnt seem to be any other proper plugins that would take this workload of me.

This was my second Dokomi and while the program of the convention wasnt any special ,which is to be expected of such a small convention, there sure were some really nice Cosplays present to make up for it. Overall this years public interest was far more than expected and the  loaction was loaded with people. I expect the organizers of the even to switch to a different location next year since there isnt any room left to grow which in itself is a good thing.

I was in the lucky position to make my bro come with me as my lackey which isnt fun since it includes  hauling a softbox around and  reacting to my commands. I dont think that he really did mind though. The next convention ill attend ill have to make do without a Flash-Boy/Girl  and Im sure that itll be an adventure itself…

The weather was a fierce mix of heavy  bright sunlight and  some rainshowers inbetween and it was hard to get the right settings for  these pictures so some  are a lil bit too blown out. Furthermore I  realized that my D3000 is reaching its limits since it isnt offering high speed synch and therefore I am limited to a rather closed aperture on such days without any nice Bokeh.Its a real shame when you outgrew your camera in some areas but are still not up to better ones in other areas so I am really pondering if I should invest into a new body. Guess that this all depends on my next tax refund

One of my biggest flaws yet is still the ability to see what makes a good picture and turning it into reality. Most of the time it ends up in mere Portraits since I know jack about poses or composition.This is something I try to work on yet have problems with to turn into action. I think my pictures are getting better over time on the technical side but this  more creative side seems to be my weak side.

One of the good things that came out of the Dokomi is that I was able to  make some contacts with nice people and that ill be able to take pictures with them in the future which is always a good thing since its really limiting when you are  taking pictures at conventions only.

Before you start to doze off I better start posting pictures though huh?

Lets start off with this group of Guilty Gear Cosplayers. I started to fangasm when I saw them and I hope that I didnt scare them off to much with my enthusiasm. I am really lucky that Ill be able to meet them again at the Gamescom with even more Guilty Gear cosplayers <3<3<3

Millia Rage is definately one of my fav characters. She was really happy I recognized her

Next up is everyones favorite Trap

My absolute Highlight of the group was A.B.A though <3

As you probably noticed the light on the GG Cosplayers is rather harsh thats because Iaccidently set my DSLR to 1/250th and my Cam is only able to synch up to 1/200th ^^;;;;;

Next up are two Highschool of the Dead Cosplayers I encountered and luckily I was also able to talk with them a bit and  well be able to take some more pictures  next weekend. Hopefully these will have a better background than these:

I admit that I dont really like either Character but the girl doing Rei is cosplaying as Saeko next week <3

And since all good thing happen thrice Ive met yet another group, this time from Kannagi, which Ill be able to take pictures of later on aswell

Yeah, I sucked ass with the flash in these pics ^^;;;

This is my absolute favorite out of the Kannagi set. The lighting on her is so nice~ I wish I could have done the same with the other girls ^^;

Kami-nisama and Haqua from the World god only knows

Beatrice from Umineko

Kino from Kino no Tabi

The Great Murdercase with the culprit from Gintama, the victim from Naruto and the investigators from Ace Attorney XD

Emma Skye eating snacks way past their prime

Pearl trying to be cute

Pearl trying to be angry

Hakufu and Mou-chan

And then I stumbled across a Gintama Group and I was sure that this was such a successful Convention in tracking down stuff that I like. Even if i can appreciate good cosplay its still the best for me when its from a series I like.

Do you notice something?

Maybe now?

I expected so… Since this always happens to me. These two revealed to me that I photographed them the other day too! Its Kami-nisama and Haqua XD

Aww Kyuubei why must you be so hot? <3

The Birako arc was actually more enjoyable than I thought

Maggie Byrde, Maya Fey and that weird ass cook from Ace Attorney

The Sperm Girl from Touhou err I mean Yomu? I think XD

Rachel Alucard from BlazBlue

DRRR!!!

And now something for the Ladies:

FREAKAZOID!

QUAILMAN!

I always liked the Persona Designs but sadly I have no clue who these two are cosplaying ^^; Oh WAIT! A Bird suddenly told me that its nameless Maincharacter Dude and Mitsuru Kirijou

To round this off ill post some more pictures of the  Girls that opened this post:

I still dont know what to make out of that pose ^^;;

Oh man inserting these pictures manually took me more than an hour. Please tell me there are still some Flickr Plugins that are working with the newest  WordPress Version. Otherwise my desire to post will drop even more….

Heres one last picture for the ladies of an especially sexy fella

EDIT: Damn the dark BG makes those highlights really pop out…. ^^;;;, On a light BG they look just fine …. Another lesson learned XD

Annelotte  is the main heroine of the Queens Blade Rebellion storyline and shares as Leina, the heroine of the first Queens Blade, the same fate of beeing a a pretty boring, good hearted maiden that moves out to change the world for the better. I sometimes wonder if theres some sorta secret requirement for main characters that they must be as interesting as plain joghurt?

I assume that even Hobby Japan realized that a Character without any distinct characteristics makes a boring  heroine and  decided to add a little flavor by giving her a “dark” secret. The Character with dark secret itself isnt terribly exciting but if we stick to the joghurt metaphor were having strawberry joghurt now.  It wont make your tastebuds explode by its flavour but its better than plain joghurt any day.

Hit the Jump to find out more!

Before I continue with this post Ill put this  warning ahead: QB Rebellion is the follow up to QB and therefore some of the information in this post may be considered spoiler.

If you are interested in a short rundown about the general setting of Queens Blade Rebellion I encourage you to read this post beforehand.

Annelotte is the heir to the Magrave-Kreuz Kingdom and was for some unknown reason raised as a boy infront of the public eye. It was after her kingdom and the people living in it were crushed by the new Queen of Gainos,  Claudette , that she decided to stop hiding her gender and to fight for justice by founding an Rebellion Army.

These are the rather uninteresting facts about her so lets take a closer look at the more interesing  (spoilerific) ones:

Annelotte is a Maijin which is a half-breed between a human and a demon which are tremendously powerful and coldhearted when awakened. Sounds familiar? Aldra, the former Queen of Gainos, was also a Maijin and was in search of her younger sister. It probably doesnt come as a suprise that Annelotte has a older sister whose whereabouts are unknown.  HMMMMMMMMMMMmmmm….

Did I also mention that she can summon her steed Ambrosius from the Underworld at will? That sounds pretty awesome to me!

Annelotte has been designed by Eiwa and her Maijin Blood only shows twice in her Visual Combat Book. Her full Demon Form is visible behind the Dustcover as her 2p Version including her goldenn Armor :

Regular Annelotte

2P Annelotte

In a more subtle way her rotten blood also shows in the reflection of a enemy blade:

Notice how her  armour remains the same? I assume that even when she isnt in her demon form her reflection will show her true self sorta like with vampires or whatever it was.

Back when Annelotte was announced I was a bit on the slow side and missed out on ordering through a proxy and feared that I might miss out on her. In the end I had to order her through Toyslogic. I had my fair share of trouble with them and to be honest I wouldnt be doing business with them again. I dont know what theyre smoking in their warehouse but I bet it would sell pretty well on the street.

The Figure is like all QB figures cast-offable and in the Megahouse tradition its an absolute pain in the ass. Unlike with real girls its pretty easy to take her clothes off but getting them back on is where youll sweat tears. Not only did I break off one of the pegs while I was trying to get her skirt back on, I also had some golden paint transfer onto her skin while I was trying to slide her skirt under the top part of her armour. Luckily you wont notice the broken off peg nor the small paintmarks and like hell Id ever cast her off again but still its annoying to know that you did some damage to a limited figure.

This is where I am sometimes questioning the neccessity of cast-off but then I am remembering that people like boobs.

One of the first things that people think when seeing Annelotte is that shell become a leaner but I cant notice any change after 1/2 year of displaying her. One should be rather on the lookout for how she is attached to the base: her foot slides into a little plastic part that is then attached to the base. Id support Annelotte with one hand while moving her around to prevent her from falling of the base since the little plastic part is rather loosely attached to it.

These are the only negative things about Annelotte though since Megahouse`s Kibayashi Norio did a very eyecatching job with her.In fact they even sculpted her a new  awesome face to accurately represent her Demon Form including pointy demon ears.I admit that I was a bit indifferent about her Original Sculpt but the pose works alot better with her 2P Version and its sinister face. This way I imagine her leaping infront of her prey shortly before striking it down while I cant really tell what original Annelotte is supposed to do there ^^;;;;;

While I like the details on her armour and sword one of my favorite things about her,besides the face, is the flow of her long black hair.

The Paintjob is excellent and while a golden armour would normally break the balance of a figure it works out very well with her since it underlines her very pale skin beautifully. The very onesided colour theme of gold and pale makes her eyes pop out even more and something subtle as the colour of her lips asks for attention.While not subtle at all the biggest speck of colour on this figure would be her purple underpants which I absolutely approve of.

I can see alot of people disliking this figure for its more radical theme but thats where the beauty of her lies in for me. Pale Skin,Black Hair, Sinister Face  <3<3<3<3

Its been some time since Ive dont a figure review so it was quite hard to get this together and even then I feel like the review part of this is way too short. I hope to get back into this quickly but then theres hardly any figures I have on preorder atm and Ill have to rely on my backlog until then.

Check out  Animatic Figmation and Biotoxics Blog for other reviews of Annelotte!

I really,really dig her face

The flow of her hair is excellent!

My favorite shot out of the whole set

I nearly chocked on the smoke when doing these ^^;;;

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

This was the first time I was doing a figure review with the recently purchased SB-900 and I must say that I really like how these pictures turned out even though I used only one lightsource. Its good to know that the Ezybox also does a good job at home for something as profane as a figure shooting. Its far from beeing perfect atm but thats what my current setup is looking like:

I am wondering how this post will fare against all the boob-laden posts I usually do because this time its solely about a guy.He was the third Cosplayer at the Event I attented in December and of course I also gave him the attention he deserves even though taking pictures of guys wont become a favorite past-time of mine XD

Hit the Jump for some Pictures and some further rambling!

I know that this is totally out of the usual context of my blog but I hope people wont ignore it or worse just because its pictures of a guy this time.I think that he should have the same opportunity as the girls to be photographed and published on my blog.Even if this isnt your Cup of Tea i think its only fair to acknowledge that also males are cosplaying and putting effort into this.

I was rambling about how I got interested in Cosplay Photography in my other post and ill refrain from doing that again. Instead I wanna talk a bit about what I learned from the shooting and the weather we had to work in.Its pretty obvious that it was snowing around that time of december and boy was it snowing.We were pretty lucky that it wasnt snowing for the most time during the shooting and were able to have a smooth session without having to take cover or switch location.

I took my small Lastolite Reflector with me because I thought that it might come in handy because there were actually people that could hold it for me this time. Soon after arriving in Cologne I realized that it isnt needed though because the snow is of course reflecting the light, making the reflector obsolete.This well known property of snow brought up another problem I already expected to encounter: your DSLRs Light Metering System is pretty useless. The Whiteness of the snow is messing pretty badly with it,ending in underexposed pictures unless your manually correcting your cameras setting or shooting in M mode.

Throw in a bright Costume like Garuru`s and your in for a pretty hard time.I had my fair share of trouble to get well exposed pictures of him.Unlike the two girls hes covering less of the frame and as a result more snow is visible ready to mess with the my DSLRS`s Metering. Throw in the wacky yellow Jumpsuit and you get many bad pictures that sadly end up in the garbage bin.

Talking about that wacky Jumpsuit…Garuru is cosplaying a Character named Hiro-C from a series called Dear Girl-Stories-Hibiki which I of course have never ever heard of before.I tend to notice that what I like and Cosplayers like doesnt seem to be compatible at all.I guess this is mainly rooted that I feel more in touch with the English Speaking Scene and those are often limited to the german scene only.The Fact that I have a tendency to like Ecchi Series is probably also noteworthy even though I am of course not limiting myself to those only.

As you might have already noticed theres also a inconsistency of colours and sturation inbetween these pictures which werent as obvious with Hotaru & Kyouya.This is also due to the fact I had a hard time balancing exposure,colours and saturation in Lightroom thanks to the snow and jumpsuit. Its not awfully bad but noticeable and I cant see a way around it unless I tone down the pictures and take away some of the BOOM. To me Cosplays are alot about the colourful Outfits though so I decided to live with it and hope for better working conditions the next time.

What else is there to say? Its still obvious that my Composition has alot to be desired and I still have problems to get rid of pictures that didnt turn out too well but I am strangely very attached  to them.The next CFS is just around the corner and hope that my experiences from the first CFS will help me to take pictures there.

Its actually pretty hard to find interesting poses for a Cosplayer whose character you have absolutely no Information about.In the end you have to make everything up on location and that doesnt work out too well as you can see in this set.My only excuse is that I jumped into this three days before the event and couldnt look anything up about the characters.This is definately something ill have to chance for the next event.

Alright!Im finally done with my review of Nose Art Girl /MC Nozuato.This review took me quite some time since i played alot with the shutter speed and aperature.I think it was worth it since some of the shots turned out pretty well (some others not^^).I experimented with differnt backgrounds aswell but it turned out that most pictures rendered useless except for a few and the ones taken with the brown backdrop.I think i went a little bit overboard with the castoff pics so be warned that this post is NSFW!

Check her aswell as Nose Art Nida out after the Jump!

Just a few words about the figure since its quite late right now.Im pretty pleased with the overall quality,I expected the worst since i never heard of the company Runa before.The figur quality is good with some snoddy paintjobs here and there.The Castoff process is really simple and allows some fun posing of the arms.

Thats it! Too tired to write more ^^

Judge yourself

More Pics at Lylibellules Blog and Negative Zeros Blog

LOVE AND PEACE!

I tried to use a single source of light in the following pictures.I hoped that the shadows would make her female curves even more charming^^

Wait a moment! What is she doing with Nida`s gun?

Heres her Bossom Buddy Nose Art Nida!

Looks like shes a flasher!

I still cant believe Nidas head fits so perfectly! RAWR!