Miyavi Cosplay Tips!

MIYAVI COSPLAY: Tips and Tricks from Gen

So you wanna cosplay the meevster, huh? Well, maybe I can help by sharing my experience cosplaying the world famous NEO SAMURAI Japanese guitarist.

'Who the f*** are you?'
I'm Gen. Hi. Due to a few years of excessive fangirlism, i managed to pull together a few Miyavi cosplays and created a successful fanpage because of them. I've been featured in music Japan plus, Five For magazine, and am generally well known for my unabashed camwhoring, cosplays etc. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy with the response i've gotten!!

I won't be able to cover ~EVERYTHING~ but I might do a second post if there is a demand.
I kept this stuff to myself for a long time, mostly because I was lazy and also because I was afraid people would judge me when they saw how obsessive and meticulous I was @_@

I should also mention that I don't cosplay Miyavi anymore, so if you want to know about future myv cosplays i'm planning dont get your hopes up kay? ><''

Lastly, this is by no means the only way of cosplaying. I encourage experimentation! I didn't like the tutorials I found online so I built most of my cosplay through trial and error.

aaaanyways tl;dr

#1 THE LIP PIERCING

It took me three different attempts to find the right spiral lip piercing. I'm not kidding.. it was really difficult lol. The reason is, most of the twisters always spiral the wrong way!!! Make sure you pay close attention before you buy, because most of the time they aren't cheap and you wouldn't want to waste money.

CORRECT

INCORRECT

I bought all my piercings from Body Jewellery Shop, which i highly recommend for their affordable prices and fast delivery :) (and no, they didn't pay me to say that)

My lip piercing is gauge 14, black titanium. I am unsure of the internal diameter, so I wont write something that could potentially be wrong :P

MYTH: I once read somewhere that Miyavi has a vertical labret piercing. Meaning, not like a normal lip piercing but a little closer to the surface. I don't believe this to be true ><. It may look this way in some pictures, but really... its more likely just a regular lip piercing that migrated a little over time. Piercings due that on occasion, so I dont believe whoever pierced him originally made a mistake etc. etc.

#2 HAIR

Okay okay, so Miyavi has had every fucking hairstyle under the sun -- and then some. So I'm just going to focus on his moehawk for now ^^;

Honestly, having my moehawk was the best :D Since my hair was quite long, I could hide my shaved sides whenever i needed to be proper, and then put it up in a ponytail to spice things up. It was such a versatile and unique haircut, I loved it very much :']

When i got the first side done, the shaved section stopped above my ear. I later noticed that Myv's moehawk goes past the ear and behind so I corrected mine to be more accurate lol. Just a tiny detail incase you care that  much :P

When I put my hair in a ponytail I used clip in human hair extensions to give it more volume since my hair wasnt that long. I positioned the clips directly under where the ponytail would be so as not to show.

I also could reuse the clip in hair extensions (including the hand dyed ones) to make Miyavi's loose hairstyle (when he was on tour and travelling etc.)

Temporary color hair spray can also be used since his hair had silver-ish accents. I sprayed some lightly on my ponytail and then separated chunks to make it look more like highlights instead of one big spot of silver :P 

Pink and blue spray can also be used since he has those colors as well. However, I hand dyed some blonde human hair extensions and used those instead (its less messy and faster in the long run)

I eventually accumulated a whole collection of temporary hair color sprays, since I also used them for my Freedom Fighter Cosplay.

Be warned: This stuff is MESSY! and it smells nasty too. It's best to do it outdoors. 

#3 CONTACT LENS

I spent a long time trying to find the right style.

My first and favorite lens was Neo Vision's 'Sunflower' series in grey. Boy did they ever sparkle!! I had been looking for something with a thin black limbal ring and that didnt enlarge. i also wanted a design that showed the flecks and lines running through the eye as opposed to flat opaque color. 

 (Once again, I was major perfectionist when i first started cosplaying xDD)

In later cosplay, I opted to use EOS's 'Adult' series in Grey. It also has an almost unnoticeable enlarging effect and give the eye that 'sparkle' look because of it's shimmery design.

I hope that helped a little!! Feel free to ask me questions~

I may or may not make another post. I still have a lot of tips to share regarding;

• Tattoos
• Other piercings
• Clothing
• Makeup
• Possibly other things lol

Happy cosplaying~!

-Gen Ishihara

Must.. post.. more..

I keep seeing all these awesome blogs and thinking 'Man, I should really write something too...' and then I never do. I never even posted about my Anime North experience >_<

Here are some pics of my side of the Crafter's Corner table, courtesy of Katrina Duda :)

 That's me up there wearing Jewelry Jelly in sax ^

 Ice cream scoop rings! I sold almost all of them >_<

Some of my gothic stuff. Those necklaces you see all sold out!! They were very popular and I should've made more D:

Milky hear rings, Simple heart satin ribbon chokers, Creamy Jelly Jar necklaces (I only have the blue one left!), Oh and some macaron rings!

To keep it brief, it was a really great learning experience. I made a thousand dollars that weekend, off my crafts, my Nominoichi sales (Flea market, used anime stuff) and last minute sales for fellow cosplayers in need of emergency wigs! I had a really great time selling with my good lolita buddy, Aya. If you stopped by our table, she was the one with medium length blonde hair and pigtails (her natural hair, not a wig!) Her brand is called Dolly Pink! (click on the link to go to her blogger).

This is Aya! Isn't she cute?

She sold my stuff for me for a few days since I wasn't able to stay at the table for the whole weekend. She was an AMAZING 'saleslolita' (lol). I always under price my crafts and she bumped up my prices for me and got them to sell! I'm so grateful for that T_T

Did you know,  my parents and family all call me 'The Doll'? It's kind of a personal secret lol and I used to be embarrassed by it when I was punk etc.. but now that I'm into lolita I don't mind it xD
Apparently they first started calling me Doll before I even had the name Gen, because they hadn't decided what to call me yet.....

Small business rant:

I've recently had to raise my prices since shipping costs have gotten higher and if I kept them at the old prices I would lose money, as I'm making only a tiny profit from each wig.. People don't really know and it makes me flustered when they complain about prices >_< I just can't compete with e-bay pricing because they are usually the factories themselves selling, and they deal with large quantities which means lower wholesale prices... while I deal with small quantities and that means higher wholesale prices T_T

 /rant

Anyways... That aside, I wanna show everyone my new necklace design! 

Demon Star Necklace! Available in custom colors!

I had quite a few people tell me that there wasn't enough original gothic jewelry out there for lolitas, which I also found to be true. I guess this is the reason why all my gothic stuff sold out at AN xD It seems to be more popular than sweet styles! I'm usually thinking up sweet designs, but now I'm doing my best to develop some more 'dark' themed pieces.

The truth is, I find gothic to be difficult to design with because when it comes to symbols, I think it's more limited than sweet style. 

For example, 

Sweet Lolita has all kinds of cute symbols: Candy, cute animals, hearts, stars, lacey things, cakes, pastries, ANYTHING that tastes sweet.

Gothic has: Bats, roses, crosses, ravens, coffins, cats.... chandeliers/cages?? Its limited...

Regardless.. I'll do my best to come up with some cool designs. Just promise me you'll buy em!! haha jkjk

Next post, I'll be giving some Miyavi cosplay tips!! Look forward to that haha~
 

I call it my 'Miyavi angle' LOL

Keep rockin~!
-Gen

oops!

Hahahahahahahaha

It's been two months since my last post xD

I've had so many blog ideas and I didnt post ONE THING.

But, I did make a header image~
what do you think~?

Anime North is coming up!
come and see me if you're going!

Cosplay schedule

Thursday

Casual Toshiya outfit for slumber party

Friday

Miyavi casual (for Nominoichi! Come buy my j-rock stufff)

Saturday

Mikuo (visual kei vers.) group cosplay

Sunday

Toshiya (obscure PV) group cosplay

Intro Post

Hi! I'm Gen.

I'm really excited to start this blog! It's been on my mind for a while.

I'd like to share my cosplay tips with beginner cosplayers, as well as art tips (even though I'm still learning myself!) and anything else I can help with~.

I'm by no means an expert in any of these fields, but I do have some interesting experiences and info to share! I hope we can all learn some cool stuff together. Feel free to ask me anything, I'm friendly :)

Cheers,
-GEN