Hello everyone!

Welcome back to Lara Novales' Cosplay Misadventures, where I talk about cosplay (duh), anime, events, and more!

Today I want to touch base on MAKE UP. 

Until very recently I've always done my own make up with what little knowledge I had. It was just powder and eyeliner for me when I started out as a teen then next came theatre make up which included dramatic use of products and exaggeration of the eyes and all that since your face needs to be seen from the audience in the back seat and through the harsh lighting. Then I went into cosplay and everything was about giving the illusion of having HUGE ANIME eyes and having fair skin. 

Basically I knew nothing at all when it came to makeup, not until that fateful day when my best friend since I was 9 years old or so asked me to fill in as a model for her make up course in CAS. I said yes, since she is a very very dear and super awesome best friend of mine. 

When I got there I was so surprised at the amount of things I have been ignorant about when it came to make up. Brushes, palettes, tools and techniques I never EVER knew about. I observed how she did things and applied products to my face and I didn't mean it but I listened in when their instructor spoke and gave them tips and instructions. It was amazing! It was like my eyes has been opened to a whole new world of Make Up artistry. 

The look they had to do for the first part of the day was the "ponds girl look" then transitioned to the night time office girl look. GC Make Up Artistry started prepping my face and all that. I never realized that the "no make up/natural look" actually required SO MUCH MAKE UP! it was insane! She fixed my brows which I had shaved close to just half because of cosplay. Then she made my face look seemingly flawless which was amazing!

Here are some of the photos of her work on me. 

I don't remember ever looking like this in the past and I was just so stoked when I saw the transformation in the mirror. Because my best friend did such a wonderful job on my look I got so interested in delving deeper in the cosmetics realm. (I mean which girls doesnt anyway?) 

The next time around she asked me to model for her class I said yes with almost no second thoughts. 

I will write more about that in the following posts. Stay tuned. 

Share your make up evolution from when you were a kid/teen till the present. I am very eager to know about it. :) 

xoxo

Lara Krystle Novales

a.k.a. Khaleesi-Chan

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One beautiful spring day in Beijing there was supposedly an event I wanted to go to. I decided to just costrip this time since I had just used Moka Akashiya just a few weeks before.

I went to the RenMin University Cosplay Fair. I took the subway wearing my costrip outfit. Sure enough there were a lot of people looking at me but it was okay. I wasn't sure where RenMin Da Xue was so I had to rely on street signs (in Chinese  and maps and asking around. But finally after wandering about in that University district I finally found the place. I was so stoked when I finally arrived. I went inside and the security didn't even ask questions AT ALL. They didn't ask for identification or anything like that. Another great thing about Beijing, there are no stupid rules about entering university grounds. 

So I walked around a bit, trying to look for the exact event tent but I found none. While I was walking around and double checking the maps a person approached me and started speaking to me in Chinese. I understood him a little but my Mandarin wasn't exactly the greatest in the land. It was a good thing he can speak English. He asked me if I was going to the Cartoon Exhibition (Cosplay convention in their terms). I told him I was and I was actually looking for the place. 

We ended up looking for the event together. And after asking around it seemed like the Cosplay Fair has been cancelled due to some college Basketball competition. It was a huge bummer. The man I met turned out to be a photographer and told me that we can just make our own event. He didn't want to be left empty handed after having traveled from the outskirts of the City only to be met with certain disappointment. He told me since I was dressed up we can just take photos around campus. So here are the photos he took while on Campus.

My sister loves fashion designing among other things. And she loved to draw so I told her to challenge herself and I and draw something I can cosplay. And that she did. As seen in the photo above. She drew this and we put together the clothes needed for it. 

She had no name for her O.C. (Original Character) so I just dubbed her Kuma no on'na no ko or in other words "Bear Girl" (for a lack of a better name).

We went out to one of the SOHO building near our place in Beijing and made that our shoot location. 

As I have mentioned before. The nice thing about Beijing is that photography is not prohibited at all. You can take photos and use almost any location as your playground. More often than not, you are given photography freedom. And to think they are a communist country... supposedly. 

So we had ton's of fun during the shoot. I had a lot more photos but as I also mentioned in the past, my external hard drive is busted and all my precious files are gone. These are the very few I managed to salvage.

xoxo

Lara Krystle Novales

a.k.a. Khaleesi-Chan

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Being new at cosplaying I did not posses a lot of costumes nor the knowledge on how to make or obtain it and other material used for the art.  I haven't gone to enough conventions nor did I know a lot of people, but because I was now part of a group called Cosplay Le Familia I felt more comfortable. 

While on my vacation in Manila back in winter 2012 (though there is no winter in the Philippines) I wanted to attend as many conventions as I can, bond with my new friends and get inspired by other cosplayers who will be attending said events as well. So I tried to stay well informed through cosplay blogs and facebook pages and I saw that there was going to be an ANIMAX CARNIVAL while I was still in Manila.

I checked my bare cosplay closet for something, anything that I could possibly wear. And I found my old Yukata that I bought one spring day in Beijing. A beautiful dragonfly and bamboo hand painted traditional Japanese Yukata. 

The outfit I wore during the Animax Carnival 2012 was something that is usually labeled as "costripping" since it wasn't really any character in particular. I wore it anyway because I just wanted to have fun and dress up. I didn't own any wigs at the time since, like I mentioned, I was basically a beginner when it came to cosplaying. I was learning as I went. 

I went to the Animax Carnival and met with a few of my friends who introduced me to their friends. Since there were too many people in the main area we escaped and headed to the rooftop and that was where we just chilled, took photos and had lots of fun. 

The following are some of the photos I managed to salvage. It really sucks because my external hard drive is completely busted and ALL and I mean ALL of my photos are there.... my entire life... so I have to rely on my few upload I had posted a while back and from friends.