Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Oh shit. Not another lost post. I finished doing this one, a really long interview, when I lost the entire thing again. I must really remember to save stuff.

Anyway, I’ll just reproduce the gist of the conversation I had with Lenneth, the Ignis Cosplayer at the recent Cosfest 07. She was the Kino, Saya and Diva cosplayer featured on this site a while back. She looks as though she’s really serious, stoic and violent, due to her only having cosplayed such characters. But she claims to be a hyper, friendly and fun regular girl…allegedly.

All the pictures here were taken with my own camera except one. My pictures are quite shitty obviously.

Here’s where you can find out more about her, her Ignis costume and beyond! If you have any burning questions to ask her, we can pass a message…

Someone in the previous post shared this link, but I couldn’t find the photographer who took this picture. I’ll just put it up until he complains I guess. Great pic though.

How did you decide on Ignis for cosplay? Were there any issues during the production of the costume?

I saw Ignis as a figurine once and her costume was just too beautiful. I decided to cosplay her right there and then. But the tailor I got to make her costume did a terrible job. Not only did she make the top really short, but also added wrong details and omitted others. For an expensive price of 180 dollars, all I got was a plain bustier and a four-panelled skirt. Also, I gave her the materials back in early June but she only started work in July and obviously it was a rushed job. I had to re-alter it myself the day before. That’s why I had a serious lack of sleep.

The costume is actually a two-piece, a top and a bottom. Thanks to the bad measurements of the tailor, I had to squeeze hard to get into the top. The four skirt panels are held together via a cloth round the waist fastened by Velcro.

The patterns on the cloth were a pain in the ass to paint really. White paint on black cloth is annoying. For each butterfly, it took me 1 hour. So about 15 hours of painting went to creating the skirt. I had no time to do a proper pair of glasses, which was quite disappointing really. And the little batwings too, no time for those. To paint the patterns, I referred to figurine pictures. The official game CGs were no good because they were not realistic portrayals of fabric.

The sword is fucking awesome. HOW??
For the sword, I knew my previous props were not that good and so I commissioned a prop maker to do the basic frame of the sword for me, which I modified and painted into the Ignis version. I didn’t think this sword was perfect though, it felt a little too thin and short for me. I shall use this sword as a reference to learn how to make better props myself next time. Btw, it’s all wood.

Wasn’t the wig heavy?
For my long red wig, I had 15 pins securing it to my head. Personally, I felt it wasn’t that good and improvements could’ve been made. But long wigs like these are really hard to maintain, like I just sprayed 1/3 of my wig conditioner on it.

What’s like it baring so much flesh in front of a zillion otaku cameramen?
Honestly it took me a lot of courage to decide on this rather high cut and revealing costume. I’m from a conservative family and I’m also not exactly proud of my own figure. I guess the lure of the pretty costume was too much. I did the necessary precautions though, like taping the bustier to my chest and wearing stockings, to prevent any accidental exposure.

Overall, how would you rate your Ignis cosplay? Any future cosplay plans?
I would rate my Ignis cosplay as only 5/10. Seriously, I didn’t feel too good about it because of the lack of time. Thanks to the tailor. But since it couldn’t be perfected, it’s not really good. This year, I’m doing about 10 other costumes, some from Code Geass, Persona 3, Hitman Reborn, Demonbane etc. These aren’t as complex as Ignis though. I’ll be both Lelouch and CC!

To cap it off, who’s your favourite cosplayer for Cosfest?
My favourite cosplayer for Cosfest was the Chise from Saikano. I have a soft spot for machinery and her gun really impressed me!