Halloween-Time Photoshoot

I really wanted to shoot here but we were asked to leave since there was no photography allowed T_T This was the only photo we got.


Back around Halloween, I modeled for a few photos for a contest I wanted to enter. I had a lot of fun working with two great artists, Eric Maruscak of Pepperink.com and Jason D. Moore of Jason D. Moore Photography and would love to do it again some time soon. I'd like to share some of the photos with you!

-Photography by Jason D. Moore Photography

-Photography by Pepperink.com

They have minimal editing other than being taken with HDR technology, which from what I understand, is when you take three or more images with different settings so that you can edit the photos that are identical other than the lighting together, taking only the best parts from each photo. For example, the last photo above is comprised of the three images below.



It's pretty neat. I'm in love with the end product it produces. It's so hard to stand perfectly still for so long though!

Halloween!!!!

For Halloween, I didn't do a whole lot. The day before however, I had a very small get together with a couple of friends. We all dressed up as pirates and did very un-pirate like things such as have dinner at Denny's and watch The Running Man. I was mostly happy to get to wear a bunch of my new items (and old items actually), that I have never gotten to wear yet!

Coord Rundown!

Blouse/Socks: AatP
Shorts: h.Naoto Gramm
Shoes: An Tai Na
Bag: BTSSB
"Corset"/Hat: Offbrand
Eyepatch: Handmade

As always, I'd love to hear what you think. Did anyone else do anything fun for Halloween?

5 Lolita Pet Peeves

A little while ago, a user on EGL "challenged" us lolita bloggers to do a small blog on what we dislike in lolita. I've got a few pet peeves myself so I thought I'd make my own ^ ^

1) Cake Hats
I've hated cake hats since the very first time I saw one. I also place those awful ice cream cone headdresses that AP put out with Milky Planet in this category. This is my number one pet peeve in lolita

2) Wigs
I like wigs a lot actually. It is always really annoying though that it seems without a wig, one's outfit just isn't really considered complete and seems to be lacking something. I wish more people would show off their real hair.

3) Wa-Loli
When I first became interested in lolita, I desperately wanted to be a wa-lolita. I loved all those bodyline yukata dresses. Part of me is very glad I never was able to get one. I like them on rare occasions on an asian girl, even then though, I couldn't imagine wearing them as a daily fashion. I think western girls look very out of place in them.

4) Blunt Bangs
Again, I like bangs, but I feel like you are expected to have blunt bangs in lolita. I've never been a fan of myself in bangs and every time I wear lolita I always worry that my lack of bangs makes me look strange in the style. I understand that they aren't necessary, but I wish there were more bang free lolitas.

5) Bonnets
Lastly, I hate bonnets. I always have and probably always will. I think they look goofy and just ruin the whole look. Half bonnets have the possibility of looking less ridiculous, but still rarely look good.

NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 2

I'm getting a little behind on these blog posts (Oh nooooo! T_T) . I think it's about time I get back on track before I forget all the fun little details that were the NYCC/NYAF.

I started the day out by heading straight to the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show before the con doors opened to wait in line, and I'm glad I did. While the show wasn't as full as it could have been, the room's layout didn't lend itself well to tons of people. I got a seat in the front row right where the models stopped for a photo-op. My camera seems to be on its way out so I'm glad I got seats there or else I may not have gotten any photos. Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with this collection. There were a lot of really nice individual pieces, but I guess I just wasn't feeling the actual coordinates. Maybe this type of punk just isn't really my style... Either way I did get a few photos and I've picked out a couple pictures I liked best.

Shortly after the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show, I met up with a bunch of other lolitas and we had a little swap meet. While I didn't actually sell or trade any of my stuff (T_T) I did pick up a few new things. I got a couple of pairs of socks from BTSSB and Meta, some Meta jewelry ,and an offbrand blouse. I was tempted to buy a couple other things (I'm far too good at spending money -_-') Luckily for my bank account, I realized that the dress I was looking at was something I probably wouldn't actually wear... Crisis averted XD. While I don't think I got the whole group of us in the photo we did manage to get at least one group photo before the con staff headed over and shouted at us to move. I guess we were blocking some invisible entrance or something...

After the swap meet, I wandered around and did a little bit more perusing in the Dealer's hall. I ended up picking up a pair of wrist cuffs at the Kinokuniya booth since they were pretty and not overpriced like the rest of the booth. I also picked up the most adorable skirt from the Ichigo Black booth for my niece. Unfortunately, my niece was not a big fan of the skirt. She liked the skirt but didn't like that it had people in the print of the fabric -_-''' I guess you just can't win with 8 year olds... At least my nephew LOVED the Call of Duty blanket I found for him. I did okay with not spending TONS of money the first two days of the con.

I met a large panda whilst shopping!

I didn't spend a ton of time chilling with Eric on Saturday. I did get a chance to offer to get him food or a drink, but that was the extent of it. He was a lot more productive than I was, which he was really stressed about. In the end it worked out quite well. He had the YuGiOh logo just about finished before we took off to have dinner. We had dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant. I got some really tasty chicken dish that I've never heard of and no longer remember the name of (other than the word "pollo" was in it XD). I know you don't care about my dinner though, so on to the mural photos! As always, if you'd like to see more of Eric's work (and I know you do!) Visit his website at Pepperink.com

This is about where he ended on Day 2

Saturday, I wore my beloved BTSSB Pockets Embroidery. It was great to finally get to wear it in a full coord. The blouse is AP and there is some Meta jewelry. Everything else is offbrand or a replica.

photo by frozenmotion9

Bag and skirt detail. photo by frozenmotion9

Bling Bling! - Photo by frozenmotion9

On the subject of lolita, I saw a lot of awesome lolitas again on Saturday. Just like last time, I'll post up a few of my favorites. I was very pleased with the number of good lolitas I saw throughout the whole weekend. ^ ^

Me with frozenmotion9 with are netted headdresses ^ ^

Twin Irongates!

Sweet lolita in Wonder Cookie. I love the AP envelope bag ^ ^

A cute classic lolita

Lastly, I wanted to showcase a few cool cosplays I saw. I was kind of all about lolitas on Saturday and Sunday so I didn't get very many cosplay pics. I heard that there was a lot of awesome stuff out there I must have missed. Check out the pictures!

A cute Disney Alice ^ ^

This kid has a really cool mom!

These guys visited Eric twice during the weekend and stayed in character. It was hilarious XD

This was probably my favorite cosplay of the entire weekend. I really like how the flash washed her out.

Thanks for reading this portion of my recap. Day 3 will be up soon.

NYAF/NYCC '10 Recap: Day 1

Well... NYAF/NYCC is over. It was a really good time and equally exhausting! All three of my days start with getting up super early so I could catch a cab with Eric down to the convention center. I wore lolita all three days so I had to get up even earlier than I normally would so I could be ready in time. We got to the convention center around 9am but ran into a couple minor issues involving our badges, but things got fixed fairly quickly and easily. Eric ended up starting on his piece around noonish. We had to wait for electricity and all our other typical fixings to arrive which led to a bit of a late start.

Being the lolita shopping addict I am, I wandered away from Eric fairly early to scope out the dealer's room for any lolita related goodness. I was fairly disappointed. Kinokuniya had some stuff from Baby that seemed to be mostly leftovers and were a little overpriced in my opinion. I did buy a bolero coat because I had been looking for one exactly like the one they had. I was lucky/misfortunate enough to have the h.Naoto booth right by Eric's work. I was lucky because I hate having to search for booths when I like to keep visiting them and unfortunately because they had a lot of awesome stuff I really wanted to buy. I liked seeing the Hangry and Angry mascots keep walking by.

I imagine it sucked to wear them as I assume they were blind since they had to be led around while wearing them. On a non lolita note... I did buy a Squishable T-Rex. He's very bright but I need a name for him. Any ideas? Once the convention had been open to the public for a while, I did head down to the anime Artist Alley. I checked out Lolitas and Cream and bought some really cute stuff from them like a broach and a huge cupcake ring. Every year I see their booths at conventions their stuff looks better and better!

I eventually came back to check in on Eric (I am supposed to be assisting him after all) He had gotten quite a bit done on his mural, but as Eric always does, he was stressing about finishing on time. In reality, it looked great and he finished perfectly on time because it's Eric and that's what he does. Most people were really pumped about the subject of the mural being YuGiOh. I personally am not a fan but it was fun to hear all the people yelling out things and almost reliving their childhood. I think the best part was when a younger kid (probably around 8 or 9) got upset on the last day about the mural stating that it is the 10th year anniversary of YuGiOh when the copyright dates that were also in the mural said that YuGiOh was created in 1996. He was pretty pissed off and immediately went to Toonzaki to question them as to what the hell that was about. He was on a mission, but since Eric was really just recreating the art we didn't have an answer for him.

I also went to the Lolita panel on Friday. It was a little bit boring, but it was really aimed more at girls who were just starting out in lolita. I met a few other lolitas who were really nice at the panel though and they did have a giveaway. They gave away a ton of stuff and I thought that it was quite nice that a lot of newer lolitas seemed to be the ones winning the prizes (even if I didn't win anything XD)

While the panel was a little bit uneventful, I did get to see a lot of lolitas on day 1. They were all dressed quite wonderfully. I figured I would just post a few photos here of some of my favorites. If you see yourself and you'd like your username posted or a blog linked, please let me know in the comments!

Frozenmotion9 making AatP look stunning. This was my favorite coord. hands down. I would love to have that whole outfit XD

This girl had so much poof under her skirt. It was pretty amazing!


A girl from Tokyo Rebel. I loved everything about her outfit.

A really awesome mostly offbrand coord.

A really nice handmade DBZ JSK. Fantastic!

I did also run into a few nice cosplays that I took photos of. Same policy stands here though, if you'd like me to link to you please let me know in a comment!

I love seeing Utena cosplays ^ ^

A really HUGE Chewbacca!

The Queen of Hearts

A fantastic Captain America

Probably the best cosplay of the show!

All in all Day 1 was great. I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. I'll be posting Day 2 and 3 recaps ASAP so please keep an eye out for them. And please check out more of Eric Maruscak's work at Pepperink.com!

A Trip to the New York Renaissance Festival

Yesterday, I went to another Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, NY. This was my first time to this festival and aside from some terrible parking, it was a very enjoyable experience. There is a decent walk from the parking lot to the actual festival, but if you want, you can take the shuttle bus. We decided to walk it. I say we, but I really mean Travis, I wanted to take the shuttle because I was wearing my new shoes and didn't know whether or not they would be comfortable for the entire day. Luckily, they ended up being decent walking shoes.

I was surprised that at the entrance someone recognized my JSK immediately as lolita and asked me if it was Angelic Pretty. Another girl later correctly identified it as BTSSB. Usually when I meet someone who is familiar with lolita, they comment that they recognize the fashion. It was pleasant to hear people recognize that I was wearing an actual brand. We went from the entrance accidentally headed right to the joust. We had good timing as it was just about to start.

The joust itself seemed a lot less planned out than the ones I've seen at the Sterling Renaissance Faire. I'm not sure if this was for the better or not. Both shows are quite nice. I noticed that the commentary and the lines from the knights (whether scripted or unscripted) were a bit more adult oriented than the ones at Sterling. At one point, one of the knight's horses threw him, but the horse also fell backwards on top of him. I'm not entirely sure it was a part of the show, but the knight got right up and continued with the show like nothing had happened. What a champ either way, I can't imagine having a horse land on you is fun.

After the joust we wandered around a bit and just checked out the vendors. I liked that this festival had a very large number of vendors. It seemed to also help keep the prices down as well since there was more than one shop selling most wares. They also had a little pathway where there were a bunch of psychics to do tarot readings, palm readings, and other divination. The games section was also pretty large too. We stood and watched the tomato man for awhile. He was way better than the one at Sterling this year but the one that was at Sterling last year was the best.

After wandering for a bit we went to the food court area to get something to eat. I got a pickle and something to drink and then we did some more wandering. This place is huge. There are a lot of shops to see. After finishing my first pickle and wandering even more, I decided I wanted another pickle. We lucked out and ran into another pickle guy. He told me I had a pretty smile and should wrap it around a pickle. XD As creepy as this pickle dude was, the second pickle was just as awesome as the first. After some more window shopping, we found a shop that sold "dragons" which was kind of cute. They were actually geckos, since, you know, Dragons don't actually exist.

After we felt we had sufficiently wandered the faire, we decided we'd head out. We walked the hilly path back to the car and then found that the cars had been parked three deep. Luckily we were on the edge and were able to get out without much difficulty despite having a car parked next to us on all four sides. I really enjoyed this festival. I hope I can get back there next summer. It was well worth the 2 hour trip. I'd recommend you go!

Now for the quick outfit rundown!

JSK and Bag: BTSSB

Socks: Meta

Shoes: Montreal

Everything else: Offbrand