I swear, these SEGA community days just keep outdoing themselves! It's been a couple of weeks now since we got home but I wanted to spend some good time trying to remember all the details of what was a brilliantly fun trip. I mean the SEGA JoD demo in my house thing was epic enough but then this SEGAfest of community love was something I wish happened every other weekend! The whole thing was really quite surreal… and trying to find a place to start from is hard when it was 48 hours of madness. But lets start from the very beginning…
The invites.
Were we excited? Why yes we were! Though… when SEGA threatens to 'take you away' after months of you irritating the hell out of them with NiGHTS DLC emails you get slightly worried. DiGi considered this SEGA's revenge since DiGi and rollercoasters do NOT mix. There were quite a few jokes going around about 'technical difficulties'.
A press release appears what will you do?
Sonic The Hedgehog spins into Alton Towers Resort!
Alton Towers Resort teams up with the world’s most famous hedgehog to revamp classic attraction
This February half term, Alton Towers Resort’s famed attraction Spinball Whizzer will be receiving an exciting makeover. The Resort has teamed up with iconic video gaming character, Sonic The Hedgehog, to be the new face of the ride Sonic Spinball, opening on 13th February 2010.Since 1991, SEGA has sold more than 60 million copies of computer games featuring Sonic The Hedgehog worldwide. Famous for his incredible speed and spin attack, this gaming icon is the ideal character to re-launch Spinball Whizzer.
Spinball Whizzer was one of Alton Towers Resort’s much loved attractions. Opened in 2004 and with an impressive drop of 54 feet, the coaster gives each rider a unique experience by spinning and dropping in different directions, allowing you to ping and spring your way around this pinball-themed twisted track that is full of surprises!
Alton Towers Resort’s guests will also have the chance to relax in the Sonic The Hedgehog room at the Alton Towers hotel. The rooms will be fully themed around the Sonic universe. Guests can also enjoy playing the latest Sonic games in the dedicated gaming area of the room.
Morwenna Angove, Sales and Marketing Director at the Alton Towers Resort, said: “It’s a great joint venture between the Alton Towers Resort and SEGA. The affiliation of both brands will add to the great family offering at the Resort for kids seeking fabulous family fun and adrenalin addicted adults”.
Escape to the Alton Towers Resort this February Half-Term and enjoy an early preview of Sonic Spinball as well as some of the Resort’s best attractions before the main season even begins!
So we didn't sleep much that night. Mostly due to the fact that DiGi always leaves his packing until the last second. One of the main things we had all been worrying about was the weather since it had been snowing and pouring down with rain on and off in London. As fun as rollercoasting with snow in your teeth would be we weren't really feeling the extreme weather thing. But lo and behold SEGA must have some kind of Weather Control Emeralds because the next morning the rain had almost vanished (almost).
The trip on the underground to the meetup point consisted of DiGi joking about everything that can go wrong with rollercoasters and how I wasn't going to get him to go on ANYTHING even if I got pouty about it. The man was determined, you gotta give him that. But I am a TRiPPY and I gets what I want
So we wandered around outside the infamous Ritz in central London trying to find anyone that remotely resembled a Sonic fan. You can usualy find them wearing a lot more blue than usual. NiGHTS fans are easy to spot by their disregard for clashing colors and dayglow hair. Both fanbases have that distant 'I'm an admin online and I lost my soul' look in our eyes. Then from out of the station bops AAUK and Echohawk with their posse, all looking suitably blue. We then proceeded to annoy the general public by all standing in the middle of the pavement chatting about the trip and things that had conspired a few days beforehand. Our little group started to get bigger as more and more familiar faces arrived from both the Sonic community and gaming press. Soon we were a veritable mob of chattering flashy nerds as our private coach pulled up down the street and we all climbed onboard. It was later revealed to me that our awesome driver did infact look a lot like Man of Arms from He-Man (thanks Rory).
I will drive you by the POWER OF GREYSKULL!
When I was first told about this trip I didn't realise that so many people were coming along from the media, which was really fun, even though most of them take ages to get on a bus. There were people from magazines, newspapers, websites all sitting on this big coach with us community guys ready for the journey ahead. Alton Towers is a fair distance from London (around 142 miles) so you can imagine the fun of being stuck in a bus for around 4 hours with all these people. And yes, we had sandwiches, AMAZING sandwiches and flapjacks. Very nice posh lunches by SEGA, though I seemed to inherit about 4 bottles of water and apples in my handbag. DiGi decided on having -another- tuna sandwich which probably wasn't a great idea considering he was on a long distance drive and would then be straight on a rollercoaster…. yeah. But it was all very relaxing as the coach started to drive through drizzly central London and I sat eating my epic flapjack looking out the window at people walking past. In all the time I've lived in London I've never been down Oxford street on a bus, haha. So that was nice for me. Quiet morning mumbles turned into rowdy community banter as we all woke up a bit and started heading proper north. North is an amazing place, it has trees and everything.
*story ACTUALLY continued today thanks to my server letting me upload things again XD; sorry guys*
Credit goes to AAUK (SonicWrecks & SEGA Europe), Vger (EmeraldCoast), G (SEGANerds) and Rory (TSS) for the stolen photographs, because i roll like that.
First off i just want to say thank you so MUCH to those of you who sent in an email! We had a grand total of 382 fans send in emails supporting NiGHTS DLC for Sonic and SEGA Allstars Racing. That's quite a lot when you consider that's people not emails. So again, thank you
Now onto the art draw! I had an hour long powercut just a moment ago (again with timing), so as soon as the electricity came back on I got straight onto http://www.randomizer.org to do my random number chosing stuff.
As you guys know I've already completed the first picture but I'm hard at work on the other two bits of art still. Don't worry I'll add them to this post (And my DA page) as they are completed this week. Winners will recieve the real lineart on paper plus a signed print of the color versions.
Now onto the draw! Revealed after the break. Hit read more to see if you were one of the lucky winners.
The campaign forum:
Discuss and read the latest news [ HERE ]
Fan Videos:
If you have a video to add, please leave a link in the comments below.
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Fanart:
Send us your NiGHTS into ASR related artworks.
Join the Facebook Group:
Remember to invite all your friends!
Twitter Tag:
What the campaign started from, a simple hashtag.
#DontForgetNiGHTS
Ok. As of this point, what is about to happen right now will be the LAST and final stretch of the Don't Forget NiGHTS campaign. This moment is potentially crucial and i would appreciate having as much of your attention as i can for this. Forgive the length in which this post may be but try and read all of it.
This campaign has brought us acknowledgement from SEGA/SUMO in the form of NiGHTS becoming a flag-waver in All-Stars Racing. The news was fantastic and it made a lot of fans VERY happy to see this kind of response from the companies involved. However, we do have our goal to get NiGHTS playable via DLC. And this is what the last stretch is based on.
There will be one last wave of emails to show support for NiGHTS Downloadable Content HOWEVER (and it is important you read this part) we will be handling the wave of emails differently this time.
We are very appreciative of NiGHTS becoming a flag-waver and of S0L to come here and give us an exclusive. It proves we have been heard and therefore i don't want this final wave of emails to be a nuisance.
Last time we listed a number of different email addresses and i asked you all to individually email them yourselves. This can become annoying, especially to busy companies like SEGA/SUMO. Having hundreds and thousands of emails come in all over the place again will just cause irritation and that's not what we want. However, we still want to show support for DLC without offending the company so how do we conduct this last wave?
We send one single email containing ALL the emails from you, the supporters.
This is how it will work -
We will ask you to send us your emails in favour of the campaign, we will round them up into one file documenting all the support we can get for NiGHTS DLC and i will personally direct the email to SEGA myself. I will send it through a route to the company in which i believe will get forwarded to those who need to read it most.
The reason for doing this last wave via this method is as i said before, less of an annoyance yet it will still contain the same amount of numbers that SEGA might need to see in order to convince them that NiGHTS is still a worthy investment.
Why are you continuing the campaign even after NiGHTS has appeared as flag-waver? -
The flag-waver is a step in the right direction in the company listening to the outcries of the fans. However, our goal stands on having NiGHTS as a downloadable playable character. And there are reasons for this -
- 1 – DLC does cost money to make. To make NiGHTS dlc SEGA would need to consider it a worthy investment in that it would make a profit. By showing support for NiGHTS dlc it proves to SEGA that NiGHTS is a worthy investment as people would buy the dlc.
- 2 – By showing that NiGHTS is a worthy investment it'll also make it known to them that the character is still a worthy part of their catalogue, therefore these kinds of incidents happening again in the future will be less likely to occur (some people still can't believe NiGHTS is not playable).
- 3 – This will further push things like porting the NiGHTS remake to XboxLiVE/PSN in our favour (but we'll get on to that kinda campaign later after this out the way ;P)
Why are you taking our emails? Why can't we email SEGA ourselves? -
As i've previously stated, we are thankful for the flag-waver making an appearance and do not want to offend the company by sending loads of emails in their direction. It's messy and it's annoying. We don't want to disrespect them however we still want to show support, so gathering everybodies support in to one single email means we're still showing numbers but in a more tidy manner.
It's just a racing game. All this fuss over NiGHTS in a racing game? -
As i briefly mentioned before, this will stem further than ASR. For now, ASR is where it has started as NiGHTS was rudely misplaced. By showing support for NiGHTS (and further more actually buying DLC of him) we are giving SEGA an understanding of how much we support the character. This can strengthen future petitions like ..
Why make fuss over ASR? We should have just asked for NiGHTS into Dreams ported to XboxLiVE/PSN -
..like this, for example. People couldn't understand why we were not petitioning for this instead and the reason for this is because there had never been a reason to worry about NiGHTS' status until this incident happened with ASR. If we know where NiGHTS is and the company understand how we feel about the character, if sometime down the line we ask nicely for NiD to be ported then we'll most likely be heard out, rather than if we just started asking out of the blue. As i said before, this situation had me worried and so i acted to try and fix it. From this point onwards things have at least the possibility to move forward in regards to other things involving NiGHTS.
Still, it's just a racing game -
But it's a very FUN racing game and i have a feeling it will sell quite nicely. It would be a shame for NiGHTS not to be part of the selectable roster in something like this.
What if DLC is already planned, won't we just be bothering SEGA? -
On the contrary. This is another reason why i want to send everything in one email. If NiGHTS dlc is happening then we're doing nothing but further showing support for the cause and reassuring SEGA they're making the right move. If NiGHTS dlc is not currently being planned then we're giving SEGA some more numbers to check on in hopes of convincing them to make it happen.
No harm is being done with this last wave.
Why are you only campaigning for NiGHTS? What about Ristar/Vectorman/ToeJam&Earl/TheOriginalOutrunFlagman/MARIO? -
…dunno if you noticed but we're a NiGHTS community?
In all seriousness though, for the character that we are fans of of course we are going to campaign for that character. However, there's nothing stopping anybody else out there asking for other characters via DLC. If it's any character that members of this forum are also fans of i'd encourage them to join those campaigns too. At the end of the day i'm a fan of SEGA but this is the community and the fans i work for and i'm campaigning for that character.
NiGHTS dlc NEEDS a show of numbers for support of it. This last wave can really make all the difference. If you have emailed before we strongly encourage you to email for this last wave too.
DLC costs money, we need to show SEGA that money on NiGHTS can be well spent. This community would not survive on it's own if NiGHTS really wasn't as good a character as we know he is. The NiGHTS property just needs to be handled with a little more care, that's all
SO …how do you show support via email? Well, here's what we need you to do -
Similar form as before, copy and paste this into an email -
Dear SEGAI am writing this message to show my support for NiGHTS in hopes that you can make him become a playable character for Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing via Downloadable Content. I will support NiGHTS dlc by purchasing it should you make it.
Please let NiGHTS race in All-Stars Racingyours sincerely
-
(your name)
This is the base form of the email. You can add upon this message should you wish to have more to say in your own words but this is what you need to be telling SEGA. A copy-paste is an easy option but it might be worth more should you build upon it a little. Either way is good though.
Send your email to our address here -
[email protected]
We will include your email address in the email we send to SEGA along with your message. After that we will no longer keep hold of your email address, we just want to get these number counts to SEGA so they can see the support. We will not forward your email to any other company other than SEGA themselves. It is purely for the sake of this campaign and showing support.
There is a deadline for these emails to reach us.
The deadline is the 25th February. Right in the middle between the USA release and the UK one.
In closing, i have one last thing to say in regards to this last wave. If you ever cared about NiGHTS' past and/or future, if the character has ever meant anything to you at one point in time, push aside all the things that went wrong and just notice the character for what it means and/or meant to you.
Support now to have NiGHTS get his DLC and support now to get us ready for the future.
It doesn't take 5 minutes to copy, paste and send us an email. And every single email will make a difference, believe me.
Let's try and make this happen. We are so close to reaching our goal.
EXCLUSiVE: SEGA & SUMO Digital speak- ‘We DIDN’T forget NiGHTS!’
Right then – first off… We didn’t forget NiGHTS!
Just since you've all been trying to make him out from that blurry capture from Youtube, I figured we better put a nicer shot out! Consider this an exclusive
We've given NiGHTS a very important role. He starts all the races, and also finishes them too! He also resides over Time Trial, whenever you set a new lap record, you'll have NiGHTS flying along with you celebrating!
I have to admit the main reason he's in was after we saw your heartfelt pleas, especially those of DiGi and TRiPPY, we had to make sure NiGHTS was in and played an important role. After all, we really didn't want them to burn all their collection now. So whilst he's not playable, he very much made it in, and as a result of the huge amount of support for the character that you all showed.
Does this mean that NiGHTS may not be in future DLC? Well who can say. That's a question I can't answer right now – it all depends on how well the game does
Anyway -“ cats out of the bag, so I figured we best make it official!
Now, I can look forward to yet more -˜Don't forget Flagman!- posts I'm sure
—
S0L
—
SEGA have invited DiGi and I to a two day mystery trip to Alton Towers next month. To say we're excited is an understatement. More details as we get them!
Read more in our forums [ HERE ]
(This is vaguely reminding me of Charlie and the Chocolate factory lol)
March the 18th 2008- DiGi and i were invited by SEGA to come down to London and represent them in a large Guinness World Record attempt. The record chosen to set for future cosplayers was 'The most Games characters gathered in one place'. An easy record to beat since no such record previously existed! Hah!
What unfolded in those 24 hours was perhaps the most fun I've ever had on 48 hours insomnia. Besides… what kind of SEGA fanboy would you be if you could soundly sleep in SEGA HQ? I kept having to pinch myself and check DiGi wasn't just a hallucination brought on by the inflight meal.
From finding out Sonic hides Scottish heritage to being gatecrashed by Richard Jacques. Singing Sonic R songs badly late at night, being on TV and DiGi getting nekkid under a bridge… it was the stuff of DREAMS.
So here is the essential NiD.Com Guinness Report! Enjoy.
Forged documents. Check.
So Sunday night we were phoned by ArchangelUK making last minute checks with us about our flights, what we'd be doing etc etc. It was at that point we were informed that BBC 1's children's Newsround was also going to be in the media crowd attending. This of course made us laugh our faces off because DiGi had just had to study the show for his college course and my brother thinks Lizo is THE MAN. (Newsround is pure 90's British nostalgia). Suddenly the rumor that the famed Paul O'Grady show was going to be there seemed small in comparison to the MIGHT of NEWSROUND. C'mon! So with this in mind we continued packing our suitcases and skipped dinner entirely. Probably not the best of ideas.
That night I'd gone to bed super early… like some kid at christmas willing time to go faster. DiGi however had just signed up for a subscription on Phantasy Star Universe (AotI) and sat up to 3am hitting ugly things with sticks for money. He then came back to bed at said time to tell me i had an email. I get a lot of emails. This one however was from my pal Jess so i sat up in a drunken haze to read the thing. I returned to bed to find i couldn't get to sleep again. So for the remaining hours spent in bed i stared at the ceiling trying to think of a million witty things to say to reporters who might ask about my costume or NiGHTS. I swear i had a ton of them. Like how to promote NiGHTS in under 10 seconds using flowery words like 'unique' and 'masterpiece'. Needless to say i forgot all of them by the time 9am came around.
Up and at 'em DiGi dear!
We waited for what seemed like an eternity at Edinburgh Airport for our mysterious BA flight to appear, only to realise we were so early the self service machines wouldn't let us check in and then proceeded to malfunction. Cue some sleeping and sitting around for over an hour. There was an incident at an 'EAT' cafe where DiGi tried to explain his real name to a woman bringing us a cheese sandwhich… who i think just chickened out and saved her grace by waving instead of shouting. Pity really, the pair of us get cruel lollage from having crazy surnames to torment people with.
One bottle of caffeine later we were on our merry way! On takeoff we were treated to the most amazing view of the River Forth as the sun cast big shadows of the bridges across the water. It's an odd thing sitting on an airplane munching on a sandwich above the clouds at sunset realising that SEGA are paying for you to be a few thousand feet in the air (It's at that point you get worried lol). That sort of set the mood for the rest of the trip really, SURREAL.
Like i said. Surreal.
After much running down subway tunnels and a crazy amount of trains… no REALLY we found a train in a WALL at the airport!, we arrived at SEGA HQ. Immediately it became obvious that compared to other offices I've seen- this is a place where WORK gets done. I could tell that by the mini golf setup on the floor. Arcane scribblings on the walls, sacred Virtua Fighter plushies… A COPY OF THE HURRICANES ON THE MEGADRIVE. These folks mean business! Joking aside i was very impressed. The urge to go all-out ninja and dig for an beta of NiGHTS 8 the second Kevin turned his back was very tempting, but we were distracted by the decapitated head of Sonic on one of the desks. I then proceeded to steal Sonic's shoes for a bit… which actually didn't look too weird on me (should i be worried?).
Much talking and laughing was done, then we ended up creating something of a veritable monster of a podcast show for you folks. LIVE TO AN AUDIENCE OF ONE! Poor Echohawk… XD Anyhoo, the podcast is now available for download down at the media section on this page. It involves hilarious singing and harassing various members of the Sonic community to ask us questions via MSN. I don't think an anonymous 'WHERE IS JACKLE DAMMIT?!' to Iizuka would have went down so well a second time. So that didn't happen, but it's fun all the same.
After all that talking we were pretty parched so took a magical trip to the SEGA kitchen. Yes a kitchen… but not just ANY kitchen… this kitchen has GEORGE FOREMAN GRILLS. TWO OF THEM. DiGi instantly flew into a fit of jealousy as see, his life ambition is to own such a wonderful piece of kitchen godmodery. Also, SEGA seems big on recycling, in every room, kuedos SEGA, save those trees!
Anyway, just before DiGi and i tried to catch 40winks i had a highly amusing run in with one of the latenight cleaners in the mens bathroom (who i felt obliged to say HELLO to since i was probably the only woman in the entire building, with red hair, in a trenchcoat, lol). As i skuttled to my chair for the night i suddenly became paranoid that the office was haunted since A- it was so cold and B- The radio in the main office had turned itself on for no reason. But spooky thoughts were quickly replaced in my brain by the LARGE LOOMING MEDIA EVENT that was taking place in under 6 hours.
I started getting dressed at about 4:30am just to be on the safe side as knowing my luck my costume would explode/burst into flames/stop fitting me after 24 hours. Unfortunately i was ready about 3 hours too soon so we sat watching the World Ping Pong Championship on the big plasma TV at the end of the room. SEGA have a thing for pingpong i swear. It was in these bizarre early hours of the morning while half asleep i decided one day I'd work here come hell or high water as it was such a nice place. With a George Foreman Grill. I could totally man the kitchen.
I could also totally clear them out of cool shoes and merch.
I had only just started to nod off when the first manager type person walked in the door. The sight of the three of us drooling in our sleep, a decapitated Sonic, suitcases all over the floor and NiGHTS with what looked like a hangover probably woke him up pretty fast. He was a nice guy, pleased to see we were helping out and quick to tell us the big boss was due in in the afternoon. Needless to say getting to say hello to Mike Hayes whilst dressed as NiGHTS, representing you guys, would have made me look like a fruitcake with a slice of lemon on the side, so luckily we left the office a little bit earlier than we should haha. It was really funny walking down SEGA's corridor to the lift dressed as NiGHTS, i got some priceless looks. But everyone seemed really laid back and nice. Sort of what i imagined the offices at STC Fleetway to be like when i was 12 and didn't realise what offices were actually like. Pfft.
A lot of subliminal marketing to the confused general public of London, walking and trying to keep my balance later, we found a Taxi and were whisked off into a chilly Tuesday morning.
Our enthusiasm knew no bounds. We got there over an hour early! Sonic (bagged and tagged) took up all of the room in the taxi so i was happy to get out and walk again. Even if it WAS freezing and windy and right beside the River Thames. I'll be honest, standing outside of the Tate Modern gallery it looked bleak… we were the only ones there. The situation was becoming funnier as tourists walked past waiting to get into the art gallery behind us. I'm walking art baby! But i figured the more confused people got the more they'd remember NiGHTS, so it was all good. At one point it became so windy we used Sonic's bodybag as a windbreaker, it didn't do much, so i gave up and put my hat on. Rendering myself deaf but toasty.
And then LO! From out of nowhere a nice young chap sat beside us and started to get changed into a costume. SCORE 1 FOR TRiPPY. I'd been trying to advertise this event in any way i knew how… so this guy was like finding the golden fleece. We all turned our attention to the Millennium bridge, keeping an eye out for anyone in large dayglow costumes. Often mistaking members of the public for cosplayers who were just wearing mad coats. One by one our little group got bigger (and more hyperactive). We were then bestowed with the presence of Mr Gordon Freeman complete with crowbar in a bag. Then it all sort of got VERY busy in the space of 15 minutes with cosplayers turning up left right and center! It's amazing how friendly cosplayers are, nobody seemed to feel left out or awkward, everyone was just having so much fun!
At around 11am Guinness turned up along with various members of the press. But… the Sun bus was nowhere to be seen. DiGi started to look positively mortified. There was no way he could get changed into the Sonic costume inside the Tate Modern… so we had to be RESOURCEFUL. I think the resourceful came from Arch' as it involved DiGi getting his kit off a few feet away under the Millennium Bridge XD; Sonic really IS the fastest thing alive when its a breezy day in London and he's wearing boxers. Fastest costume change EVER. As soon as we walked back to the cosplayer crowd he was instantly mobbed by fans wanting photos.
The next few hours were a colorful blur of posing for photos, being interviewed by magazines and nearly having my chest gemstone snatched by overcurious Final Fantasy cosplayers. Shiny is hypnotic.
When my fellow cosplayer Orihime turned up dressed in her infamously cute Amy costume i skipped over to say hi… completely OBLIVIOUS to the fact I'd left mute DiGi standing with Mr musical manlegend Richard Jacques. Well it's not every day Richard Jacques teleports out of nowhere to say hello. I recognised him instantly but because i was so tired i think my brain was telling me he was something of an illusion along with the 80something game characters jumping about.
LEGEND
Eventually it turned out the Sun's bus was actually THERE… just parked very far away from the Tate Modern. So after being subjected to a media PIT while being squashed on the millennium bridge i had to guide DiGi through some backstreets to the big red bus. Our costumes meant we couldn't actually FIT on the bus, so we got to stand at the front, which worked out better in the end. Although the very cute (and scary) Mario Army decided to ask Sonic some very personal questions while we were supposed to be posing for the press. One kid even tried to start a fight with him, ahaha.
That's a look of FEAR.
Tails however fared a little better. I swear down, Vger was the best Tails EVER. EPIC TAILS. He was completely crazy (all cosplayers should be like him!) From bizarre dance routines to accidentally forgetting to take his Hawaiian shirt off, he was gold. When i look through these photos i still can't stop laughing.
As things wound down after lunchtime people started to head home while we hung around for a little bit longer to get DiGi out of the costume. As soon as the giant head was off he finally got the chance to say hello to Richard and shake his hand. Smiles all around and the promise of breakfast DiGi, Arch, Sonic and I fell into the nearest taxi and returned to SEGA HQ. After packing all our luggage back up we were introduced to the best sandwich shop ever with a mighty selection of cakes. We said our sad goodbyes to Arch' and set off in an ever so emotastic way to catch our plane.
Our journey back to Edinburgh involved missing an airport train to gatwick and getting lost in the underground, so it was all a bit hectic. But seriously, one of the best days of my life. Being able to represent NiGHTS and SEGA to the media and public was fantastic and I'd do it all again at the drop of a hat… most probably not my own hat though as it got a little bit squashed in my suitcase thanks to the BA luggage people. Which i suppose is an excuse to start working on a Journey of Dreams cosplay at some point… hmmm…
24 HOURS OF AWESOME
Video and Press links
Photographs taken on the day (50 total)
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Thanks to: MCM Expo forums, Amecon forums, Sonic Stadium, Cosplay.Com, SEGA and everyone who turned up on Tuesday!
*section under full reconstruction*
NiGHTS into Dreams… OST
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The NiGHTS into Dreams 'Original Soundtrack' was released under the PolyGram label on 7.10.1996. Credits to Tomoko Sasaki, Naofumi Hataya, Fumie Kumatani. Catalogue No# POCX-1038. It contains a lovely 14 page (16 including the cover) full color glossy booklet (in full Japanese) which alone is worth buying a hardcopy for. Rare. Mint copies are hard to come by and come with a protective slip and an Obi spine card. This CD can go for over £100 on Ebay.
No.#
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Track Title
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Length
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MP3
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1
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*NiGHTS
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4:21
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2
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Gate of Your Dreams
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1:33
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3
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Paternal Horn
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2:03
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4
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The Dragon Gave A Loud Scream
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2:57
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5
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Take The Snow Train
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2:32
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6
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The Mantle
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2:09
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7
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Message from Nightopia
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2:54
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8
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Gloom of The N.H.C (National Highway Corporation)
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2:11
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9
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E-LE-KI Sparkle
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2:19
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10
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The Amazing Water
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2:20
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11
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Deep It Lies
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2:05
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12
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Dreams Dreams ~In Silent Memory~
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2:30
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13
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Suburban Museum
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2:11
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14
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She Had Long Ears
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2:10
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15
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Under Construction
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2:16
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16
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NiGHTS and Reala
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2:10
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17
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Growing Wings
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2:13
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18
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NiGHTS and Reala ~Theme of a Tragedic Revenge~
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1:54
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19
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D'force Master
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2:30
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20
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After The Dream
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2:20
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21
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*Know Thyself !
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2:00
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22
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*Sowing Seeds
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1:11
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23
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DREAMS DREAMS
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5:49
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24
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Fragmented Nights
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0:46
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(*) indicates a new track that wasn't playable on the original game CD. |
U.V Eye Makeup
I'm only doing ONE eye as i dont want to waste all my stuff for just a test. Also excuse the bad photos, this was from back in the day when i only had a webcam.
0.1. CONTACT LENSES. PUT THEM IN. (Time reduces pink eye).
1. BASE
You start like anything in art with a BASE. Make sure you cleanse your face first of any flaky skin or spots. Then i took white Grimas pro clown makeup and applied it, by DABBING (not dragging) a sponge lightly on my skin. To get an equal purewhite porcelin finish you have to do it in layers. Dry then apply. Until flat white. Then i used a rather gothy white face powder i own to make the paint matt. This also helps it stay in place longer. And a shiny face looks bad. Especialy under lights. So you cover the paint in powder. Then using some blue eyeshadow i dusted over my eyelid socket to give a slight shadow. taking a pale pink powder i started to dust upwards towards my hairline. people used to do this in the 80's a lot i seem to recall, lol. DONT go over your eyebrow line or it looks fugly. And dont go too far down your face either :p
2. EYEBROWS
Now in the final cosplay i will be bleaching my eyebrows platinum blonde to match my wig (and because NiGHTS doesnt actualy HAVE eyebrows, thus pale eyebrows work well) But for the sake of this i used a goldy brown pencil and extended my eyebrows as far as they would go. This is a trick for making your face look sharper and your eyes bigger. Plus if you have big lashes and short brows it looks crap. So you want really stylised brows. Now since i err have jetblack brows i colored them up with gold hair mascara to look lighter XD IT WORKS! Just dont get any in your eyes. Because it burns horribly. So go full Spock and make your eyebrows funky.
3. SHADING and GLITTER !!!1********
Most art has shading. Makeup is no exception. basicaly you stick darker shades the further in your eye you get. In the corners and arches especialy. So i took dark pinks and blues and using a BRUSH i blended to give myself a 'hawk eye' appearence. This means i drag the powder down over my inner eye. Most evil badguy anime charcaters have this kind of appearence, it makes the eyes look sharper and a bit more demented, lol. I do this really obviously with any Reala makeup i do. Remember- MARENS HAVE HUGE EYEBALLS, so you have to make do with humansized piddly small ones and try to big it up as much you can.
NOW. GLITTER. My fave part. I use loose fine glitter. Makeup glitter- NOT crafts glitter. If you stick craft glitter on your face the color will bleed into your sweat, run down your face, stab you in the eyeballs and possibly blind you. So no doing that. I use glitter in little pots i bought from Accesorise years ago for like £1 each. I have a lot of different colors for different effects. The multi white stuff is best because it looks like fairy dust! And you can shove it on everything including your hair and its so damn sparkly. But yeah. THE SECRET TO STICK ON GLITTER GOOD= LIPGLOSS. Use a lipgloss stick and shove it on your face where you want the glitter to stay, and it will STAY. Like making sand pictures as a kid. Blow the excess off. I used dark pink glitter here.
4. MORE GLITTER.
You can never have enough sparkle XD So i take the OMGWHITESTUFF and cover my entire upper eye with it. Then i use dark violet glitter and do the shading in thing. Blend it cuz nothing looks worse than solid big dods of makeup >_< Lots of lipgloss later i have a very glittery eye. And i am happy.
5. EYELINER FUN.
Never ever use a black pencil for doing sharp lines around your top eyes because it smudges horribly and melts. I always use liquid eyeliner. Use the kind with the BRUSH not the felttip thingy. Mines is like an actual paintbrush (which is pretty useful) XD
Now U.V NiGHTS is very birdy based as you may have noticed. So i try to give his eyes a sort of 'swallow tail' look. Big ol' anime eyes are best done with liquid eyeliner because it looks like ink. It takes a steady hand and a lot of practise to NOT BLINK or SNEEZE. But paint it on like you would on paper. I always draw false lashes to make my eyes look bigger. Its something i was always told to do when preforming on stage. Actor makeup is always overdone to show up your features under bright lights so you need to have your eyes outlined properly. Or you will bleach and look kinda faded with tiny eyes. Be careful when underlining your bottoms. The tiny little lashes tend to catch the brush and spray everywhere. It takes practise like anything.
6. GIANT EYES OMG!
The secret to big exagerated eyes is drawing your liner bigger than your eye. You'll notice i made the inner eye come down to a point. Well thats because i then get a tiny brush, with white facepaint and paint in the corner of my eye to hide the pink skin bit. It stings but it makes your eyes look wider by about a CM. And thats a good thing. *points to corner* see? Its white now. And from a distance that pink bit wont show up at all.
7. A USE FOR EYE PENCILS.
The only thing i find pencil liner good for is smudging a smokey undereye effect. So i done it here. Blend it like you'd blend pencil on paper. Dont use a sharp pencil, melt it a bit.
THEN WHEE. GLITTER STAR. I used lipgloss and glitter again. I applied it with a small brush
8. MASCARA AND LASHES.
The best bit is the mascara because it instantly makes you eye cleaner and bigger. Its like inking in an artwork to tidy it up. Always do both sides of your lashes and be sure to brush them UPWARDS to open the eye.
Then the BEST EYELASHES EVER. Feather lashes. Now ANNOYINGLY while i was doing this i realised i couldnt find my eyelash glue ;_; so i had to kinda just shove them on without ANY adhesive at all and hope they stayed for the screenshots.
When you DO have glue, make sure you dont get it in your eye. Glue eyeball= not fun. But yeah, there's my eyelashes all done.
CONTACT LENSES ARE NOT FUN SO PUT THEM IN BEFORE STEP 1.
And remember to follow the safety instructions on the packet. Do not – do NOT overwear your lenses. If they have been worn out throw them in the bin. They lose the ability to stick to your eye and can give you a horrible infection and even cause you to go blind if misused! So don't take any stupid risks. (Especialy not for cosplay!)
So taaadahhr. Thats a piece of NiGHTS face art for you there. Hope this was helpful for whatever reason.
Tutorial © of TRiPPY.
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How to make a Maren Hair/Horns combo… meal.
Nobody really knows what a Maren keeps under it's hat, if it indeed IS a hat, lol, we all like to argue. For those of you who want some pointy ram type horns here's a tutorial to show you how easy it is to make some. They can be used for cosplay, for Halloween and for Ren stuff. They can be made in all shapes and sizes, don't just go copying the examples i make, try experimenting. These horns are made from papier mache, not clay. Clay in small amounts can be seriously heavy and isn't the best material for head ornaments. It's possible to make 2 molds and cast them in resin or fiberglass but this is the cheap, simple and chipper way. Plus i suck at sculpture. These horns are recommended for use under a wig, not actually UNDER a hat because of the fact the weight wouldn't work (Unless your skull likes staples). These are still kinda heavy, and to be honest I'll be looking to create a new method soon. List of things you'll most probably need: -Lots of old black and white newspapers (color bleeds into white paint) Okay that's all the junk i remember using. As i'm talking through how to make these i'll suggest other alternative materials too. You'd be amazed at how old things in a trash heap can be turned into something pretty awesome with enough glue and sparkles! Things you should aim for when making horns-
Step One- I HATE FOAM. Foam is like the bane of my existence. It's impossible to sweep up, you find it sticking to your head 3 weeks later and it makes you sneeze a lot. So first before you begin, clear your workspace, use a FLOOR because it will get messy, do NOT use a carpet. Put down a sheet of newspaper or something. There! Okay the non fun part. Take your big bit of foam that should look like this stuff HERE—> Then take a felt tip pen or an old eyeliner pencil or something and draw a BIG curved 'L' shaped horn on it. Think of the shape of NiGHTS or Reala's head (Jackle is harder) and try to put it onto the foam. Then you want to take the stanley knife and cut right through the foam as straight as possible until you end up with a big ugly looking foam thing that bears striking resemblance to a moldy banana! Flip it over so it's on it's opposite mirror image side and use it as a template to trace your other horn onto the foam with your pen. It's important that you flip it over or you'll end up with two left horns instead of symmetrical ones. At this point you'll have these two big huge misshaped flat bits of foam and you'll hate your progress. I did too. Feel loved i hate YOUR progress. Anyway! Take your two oversized foam boomerangs and using these photos as something of a bad guide cut the squareness away from the sides of the horns using the big scissors (or carve it with the stanley knife) It's sort of like peeling an apple or sharpening a stick. But be careful with the blade. You don't want to trim TOO much of the foam off or you'll end up with skinny rubbish horns that will just snap in half. Voila! You'll see there that i've smoothed/carved off all those nasty flat square edges and now the foam is slightly rounded. You'll also see that i've cut out two big triangle wedges about half way along the underside of the horns. This is so they don't stick straight out (like picture two) and so you can be crafty and make them curve inwards/outwards/wherever like proper Maren ones (like the arrows indicate). Push them in two and you'll see they curve better now. Your aim is to take the needle and thread and stitch the big triangle gap closed so they STAY in a bent over curved horn position. Use a LOT of thread and don't be afraid to make a mess, as long as the stitches hold. I think that's the hardest part because the thread will keep tearing through the foam, but persevere and eventually you'll have sewn the floppy bits tightly down against the rest of the foam. It should now look something like THIS—>
Now, Pastry horns may be okay for bad Reala jokes but we want shiny, rustic, bricky, shelly, CONCRETE HORNS YEAH. We want horns that will take out the eyes of our younger shorter siblings when we turn around at a Con too fast. We want horns that will get us jammed in doorways and leave us in embarrassing headlocks with fellow Maren cosplayers! So onto the next step! Actually, no, before the first step let me explain something i keep being asked a lot. The reason U.V's horns are a different shape from his hat is because the last angle in his hat is just full of his hair winded around. DON'T QUESTION THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE Step Two- TIME TO MAKE A MESS
Grab your big bowl, your packet of flour and about half a cup of water. Mix the flour and water together until you have a thick non lumpy watery paste, thick but not dough. Then add in some PVA glue (or marvin medium) and mix it thoroughly. I also added some fizzy lemonade… i know that sounds weird but apparently sugar makes the paste stronger. SO you have this bowl full of gunk. Put a lot of newspapers on the floor and rip the rest of them into short strips. Then slowly, and carefully, dunk the strips into the mixture and wind them around the horns. Repeat this until the entire horn is covered. Repeat until you start to lose your mind, which should take about 2-3 hours of constant layering. You want THICK papier mache. Not thin breakable horns because eventually the foam is going to not be there and the shell that's left has to be hard wearing. I really hate doing papier mache stuff because it takes an age to clean up afterwards. Waaaaaaaaait you think as you notice that your bumps you made with the sellotape winding seem to be for naught and the thick layers of paper cover them entirely! Never fear they do have a purpose.
So you have your two paper covered horns, they look ugly and smell like cookies. But don't eat them. Let them dry for a few days. OR! Be an impatient fool like me and blast them with a hairdryer for a few hours then leave them for one day. What may look dry on top will still be soggy underneath. Remember that foam absorbs like a big sponge so your molds will retain moisture for a long time. Best to leave them for a few days and forget about them while concentrating on another part of your costume or learning how to tap dance or something. When you return in a few days you feel a small shred of pride that you past the hardest part of making NiGHTS horns and the rest is plain sailing. You cosplay nerd you.
Now because i'm lazy, i only done one horn and only just started making the other one last night, i kept putting it off. So just pretend that in the following photos i have TWO identical horns. Yeah. Also can i just say it's nigh impossible to have two perfectly matching horn shapes, so don't get too frustrated mines are a bit wonky too. Remember my Art motto- GLITTER CAN MAKE CRAP LOOK GOOD. People get blinded by sparkly and ignore the shortcomings. SO as long as you have 2 horns that look somewhat similar, you're fine, honest. Just try to make them the SAME SIZE/SCALE/LENGTH. Wonky curves are fine. So you have your newspaper horns. Get your needle and thread again and wind VERY TIGHTLY like you done with the sellotape down each horn, giving you back your horn bumps. Stitch it at the end so the coils don't just unravel. THEN you get your floor varnish and thickly coat the horns making sure the varnish gets in all the thread grooves (it makes the thread stick). Speed dry it with the hair dryer or leave it for about 40minutes until completely dry. Don't let them get too hot (fire is bad m'kay) and have good ventilation (fumes are BAD for you). Then when the varnish is dry give your horns a base coat of gloss paint in the color you want it. I chose white because U.V's horns are, well, white. So yeah. The painting here doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to give the paper more strength. Leave it to dry. Then repeat the windy thread tactic AGAIN over the groves you made the first time. So it looks like this. Step 3- Tactful Tissues. Right now you're going to make even more of a mess. You're going to cover all your hard work in tissue paper (the stuff from the bathroom). Use the PVA glue and layer mushy tissue onto the bits of your horn that you think need more definition. Then when you have all the major lumpy bits done finish it all off with another thin layer and completely cover it in PVA glue (use an old paintbrush). It will dry shiny thus adding to the overall hard as nails texture. Cover them in another layer of paint for good measure. Just make sure your thread ridges are still visible. They serve a purpose! Step 4- Make or break time. The part i dreaded. The bit where all your hard work can go completely wrong. Now originally i had decided to just leave them, shove some glitter on and leave them at that, but Blu moaned at me saying the twisty swirl lines going around the horns weren't deep/defined enough. So my horns looked like this. Just kinda subtle ridges—>
Ideally i wanted them to look like Kichi's 3D model horns. Like this.
So it was back to the drawing board, or rather, washing line. Now there was no way in hell i could ever copy the complex multi swirl Kichi done so instead i opted for the next best thing, a continuous single spiral. I asked my mum for her old washing rope. But still there was the PROBLEM of them being way too heavy because the foam had absorbed so much mixture of glue and varnish. The only way they'd be lighter is if i somehow got the foam base OUT and left them hollow. I didn't know if this would work or not, but it does, or at least mines did. I was worried the shell wouldn't be strong enough or would cave in when cutting it up. Hard scary part!- Be very very CAREFUL. Draw a thin line down the underside and top of your horns. You're going to cut them in HALF! So draw from base to horn tip (not across the way). Then taking the stanley knife slice away at the line until you reach the very end. Pull the shell apart and remove the foam. The foam will be stuck in parts with glue or whatever but just snip it with the scissors. So eventually you have two halves of one horn. Cut your washing rope in half, first make sure it's long enough for the amount of spirals you need. Place the two halves closely back together again (throw the foam into the trash). Then insert one end of the rope into the very tip end, bend it back and start to tightly spiral the washing cord back along the hollow shell, letting the thread ridges guide the rope. Use them as tracks. The rope should be tight enough and secure enough so that it doesn't unravel. When you get to the opposite end of the horn you need to tie it once then bend the remainder of the rope into the mouth of the horn and tape it down. You'll find that the rope alone actually holds the cast together. But it looks dumb with a great big line down it so out comes the magical tissue paper again! Cover the rope and the join line, infact the entire horn, all over again, with generous layers of tissue paper and glue. Use a little tub of water and a paintbrush to make the glue easier to work with, so you get in between all the ridges. You want the rope to look smoothly joined to the horn surface, not like a rope wound around a cylinder. The tissue paper will be what will keep your horn together securely and hide all the flaws on it. To give you an idea of how much tissue i used to cover the rope i went through half a roll. Don't roll it on though! Paste it on in squares using a brush. When it's all dry you'll be left with the perfect horn shape to paint and decorate! Step 5- Finishing up. Give it a final coat of paint, making sure to cover any discoloration and make it look smooth. Then re varnish. It may seem like a lot of layering, but it's all that paint that makes it sturdy and holds the thing together. And yeah (AS USUAL) one of my horns turned out really heavy compared to the other, i must have some kinda symmetry dysfunction >_> At this point you can do the following things while the varnish is still tacky and semi dry-
Whoever thought the above could come from an old sofa, heeehe. The last things i did to complete my creations was i used some old dark blue/black eye shadow and dusted it in between the rope gaps to add to the shading. I also filled the horns with some pillow stuffing to neaten them up. NOW! I shall devise a contraption to hold this entire thing on my head under my wig without falling backwards. I have a few plans already but when i find something that works i shall write up a tutorial on how to do it. This is going to involve a lot of metal hair bands and wire. . . I hope this helped give you a better idea of how i make my horns ^^ It's not that complicated. You just need a lot of patience and a good sense of balance. -UPDATE- Ok now that's all very well, but how the heck do i get these honkin great big ol things to stay on my skull?
So i tried wire. Don't try wire. Trust me on that one. I nearly gave myself a DiY lobotomy. Then i tried stitching the horns to a skullcap… thing, which was nigh on impossible due to the thickness of the horns. Then i went HAIRBAND HUNTING and blessed be, Claries Accessories merchandises small miracles (they were lacking miracles the last time i was employed by them >_>; ) If you go to the neglected section up the back of most stores that sells the boring weird hair bun holders, non working ponytail devices and pointless centerparting zigzag stencils (oh god) You'll find one of THESE wonderful things that you'd never buy at any other time in your life BUT for NiGHTS cosplay. Honest.
Then you take your 4 shoelaces, stab holes in the tops and sides of the horn bases and tie them to the plastic part of the hairband. I won't lie, it's not the best setup in the world and the weight hurts your scalp. Backcomb and hairspray your fringe so the comb slides through less (you don't want them to slide backwards). Then you end up with magical 'hah TRiP defied gravity' funhouse horns! It's IMPORTANT that you wear your hair back in a ponytail as that's what gives the hairband extra support.
Now you figured out that part. Now is the part where you mess with the hideous world of BIG HAIR. HAiRSPRAY Buy your wig. Buy the most expensive wig you can afford, otherwise you'll end up with a £15 godiva wig that's made out of crimped plastic, looks like hamster bedding and hangs like a fat pair of curtains.
People pay up to £200 for a decent cosplay wig, i would have too if i'd known how rubbish this wig would be. But even though i was horribly disappointed i decided to try salvage it and turn it into something pretty and sparkly. Take heed! Sometimes you can make bad into good. Now i don't have any hairdressing experience or skills other than cutting and dying my own hair since i was a kid, but it's simple enough to give a wig a good trim in sections, thin it down and cut it into layers. You'll need a wig head, or a… whatever to put the wig on, or get some poor sibling to wear it while you work on it. Don't cut off their ears. That would be bad. I used a statue Blu gave me. Shh. Separate the entire wig into long sections, lots of them, and tie them with fabric/ribbons to stop them being mixed up. Using hair-elastics on a wig will make it messy and tuggy. Tie it instead. Get a non plastic comb (plastic causes static and frizzies) and work from the bottom to the top. Use the end of the comb to unravel knots instead of yanking away and tearing chunks out of the wig. It helps if you use hair oil or frizz gel or something slightly greasy on your hands. The wig wont absorb it like real hair would (plastic isn't hair), but it makes it easier to work with. And on the theme of PLASTIC ISNT HAIR. Pay attention. Don't use heated hair appliances on plastic wigs. It will melt, clump, go on fire and waste your entire project. Plastic styles with hairspray and wrapping hair tightly in curlers for a few weeks with hairspray. Don't treat it like real hair. It's barbie hair. All you need is a lot of patience and a lot of hairspray. Speaking of patience.
Even the most hopeless wig can be turned into a thing of beauty.
Tips on choosing a wig to work with would be, the cheaper it is the worse it is. A godiva length wig shouldn't be under £50 if its good quality. (afterall more hair= more money). If buying on Ebay only buy wigs that have closeup photos, you should be able to see the hairstrands defined and slightly glossy. If the hair all blends into one big straight cut blob you know its a bad buy. Here's an example of wig fibres.
The unrealistic frizz on the right is my wig. The hair on the left is high quality hair. You can also buy human hair wigs and extensions but the price for human hair is madcrazy and you can end up paying over £300 for a full wig. Extensions range from £20 upwards. Make sure you shop around and know the bad from the good, otherwise you'll be wasting money. If you have long hair and your wig is short or medium length, wear a wigcap! And always gel down your hair under the wig. Don't be afraid to attack it with long hairpins in order for it to stay on your head. Now getting back to the horns you need to do something crazy and possibly hazardous to your beloved wig. You need to slice two holes in the back of the scullcap and then push the horns through, leaving the hairband contraption on the other side. Putting all this onto your head requires a LOT of effort, patience and some mild discomfort, but then you get exactly what you want-
I hope that sheds some light on the wig thing. Just use LOTS of hairspray. And if you're having problems styling a wig then be sure to visit Cosplay.Com's forums for advice. |
Tutorial © of TRiPPY.
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