WORLD DOMINATION

Personally speaking, this is my first trip outside the country. Special to the organisers who made this trip possible (ultimate leech mode in terms of managements). Well the usual thing for first-timers like us (yeah, I’m not the only one) is to compare — compare everything from cosplay, food, transportation, buildings, malls, people, etc! Ending with common conclusion — I wish our country is like this (not totally of course).

Anyway enough with patriotism and lets continue with the trip!
We arrived in SG the during the event period of Anime Festival Asia. I can’t recall if its the first or the second day because I was too exhausted all I wanted was to rest!

We attended the convention on its last day (officially?). I find it really tough to fanboy because I’m used to attend a con just to chit-chat with friends. But after a few hours (I think) I was able to talk and get some proper snapshots with the cosplayers.

Here are some of the photos:

PS: We got lost after the convention because we rode the wrong bus. :v
PS2 : We are coming back for more! See yah this coming December SG Friends

Aside from SG trip, we had a lot of random trips earlier of 2013. During these moments, we (taga-gloria, Frame-kun, alpombra-inthedesert, & LeNekoPotato (me)) bumped-in to this manly disney princess cosplayand randomly (YES RANDOMLY) we just said “Lets do this sometimes in the future!”.

That FUTURE arrives as we discuss our year ender activity at CosPhotogPH group. In a blink of an eye, the casts and characters were decided. The preparation commenced from that day on! — design search, cloth hunting, costume & props making, and growing of beard & moustache (YES! natural beard / moustache is required!).

Here’s the output of our project~






taga-gloria - Jasman
Frame-kun - Snow White
alpombra-inthedesert - Pocahontas
LeNekoPotato (me) - Ariel (BOLD)
alainbrian - Anastasia
markysampson23 - Rapunzel
Aljohn - Alice

Photo by emptyfilmroll

Many thanks to our Fairy God Mothers seseostara, nekomiKasai, amakurareika, & yefa for the make-up, costume, wig styling, cloth hunting, etc.

PS: We got featured on so many pages, blogs, websites —WORLD DOMINATION it is!

A COLD START FROM HIBERNATION

I started my new year in photography and cosplay (2014) with another trip to the north. Together with my YOLO friends, we invade the Summer Capital of the Philippines — Baguio City~!

Well, the objective of the trip originally was to attend the “Black Carnival” — a cosplay ball that will be held on that weekend. But who cares? We’re here for the LOCATION, FOOD & GOODIES!

ALL HAIL FOR THIS AWESOME LOCATION !!

THE RETURN OF THE COMEBACK

Aside from me having my mood back in photography this year, someone from the depths of Aincrad had made his return too — KiraHokuten.

Kira hibernated in photography from late 2012 and has been inactive since then.
With him being active again, means it’ll also be an active year for the gang.

One of these was covering major cosplay events — such as ToyCon (The Philippine Toys, Hobbies and Collectibles Convention) and BOA (Best of Anime). For me it was a challenge because my camera its not made for these kind of tasks — because of fix focal-length & low battery life. But hey I chose this hipster life. Sometimes, I’m thinking of getting an upgrade again because of these limitations but at end of the day I chose not to.

Anyway, here are some of the photos from Best of Anime 2014:

PS: There were moments that my battery gave-up on me. But LUCKY I found a random outlet to charge it up.

Thinking that the busy season was over, few weeks later another event was held --- Cosplay Mania 2014. Well, it was light alright because there was no Cosplay Snapshot this year. Therefore my task is simple, get back to my friends I missed taking photo because of our busy schedule this past few conventions. Here are some of my favourites:





Well, that wraps-up my review for the last few monthssssss of being inactive.
As closing, I’ll share some tips in photography I shared with my friends earlier this year.

BENEFITS OF SHADOW

Since the break of dawn (of me learning how to post-process), I've been relying to shadows more to give my work a different kind of feel/story. Well, because back then, I only used Lightroom to process my works. I find it as part of the basic a photo artist have to consider in taking & processing photo.

Here are some of its uses that you might want to consider before jumping into complicated processing:

1. Adds Drama - it gives emphasis to what your viewer wants to see.
2. Control to Shape - contrast gives illusion to shape
3. Alternative of Liquify - refer to no.2
4. Hides unwanted details - self explanatory
5. For quick snaps - If you don't want to go liquifying things up, you can do this approach straight from the camera.

PS : Keep the face/costume well lit except your trying something else.

ADDING ELEMENTS

Well, I don't usually share how things works on my post-processing/editing in public (usually its just around circle of friends or when someone ask me to) because of personal reasons. But since someone asked me to, I did a mini tutorial earlier this year and since I usually give tips here in my DA, I decided to post it here too. Also I'm not saying I'm all good on this. Personally speaking, I rarely photo manipulate things (like add this and add that, remove this and that) because I suck on it.

But... for the sake of sharing! XD

Anyway here it goes.
First how did I end up with that photo output. I added the BTS so that I can show you how or where that white BG thing came from. Basically I aimed for the hi-key approach with one umbrella in front. I end up framing that way too because we have very limited window space.

Then deciding what should be the best layout for the photo (Cropping, orientation, etc) -- which you can see STEP 2.
Step 4 is checking the SIMPLE THINGS that is awkward on the photo and STEP 4 is deciding what do you want to happen or what should've happened.

"What should've happened" is usually the basis why you want to enhance or edit on your photo. After seeing the awkward part on your photo, maybe at the back of your mind you'll say "it could've been a better if this and that happened".

It is my personal preference that when I edit or photo manipulate, I still want to keep things natural or something that still sticks with reality that's why I end up looking for possible enhancements of the photo.

At this point, I wished that someone flipped the models hair.
So I drew and sketched up where the hair should flow, cloned/duplicate some samples from the model's hair, and lay this out to the pattern.
Final touches would be adding the right highlight to the hair and the background. (Duplicate -> Overlay -> Mask)
WOOOLAAAHH~! There goes the final output.
Yeah its not that detailed but I hope this one helps some. For the PROs, sorry, feel free to add inputs on this.

Click to View/Download the Hi-res.

That’s all~ my premium is expiring!
Watch out for our halloween project soon!
...AND SEE YOU FRIENDS IN ANIME FESTIVAL ASIA SINGAPORE THIS COMING DECEMBER