I’m now well rested and ready to work on improving COSMODE Online! I learned something very important over the weekend: don’t go to any beaches near Tokyo. I went a beach 2 hours from Tokyo; I thought that was far enough to find a decent beach to body board. Guess not. The waves were nice and big, and I had a great time - but the sand was black (it wasn’t a black sand beach) and the water felt slimy on my skin.

OK, back on topic. I got the sample issues of COSMODE Online #003 ready for you guys so enjoy! You guys (more…)

What a loooooooong 2 weeks! (Or even month!) My eyes hurt; my stomach aches; and I need a shave…

Working 12-hour days for that long isn’t healthy, at all! Translation, editing, digitizing… But, ya know, it’s all worth it when I see the finished product, hear feedback, and, of course, have the beer that’s been waiting for me. It feels good to make something. It’s probably the same feeling you feel after finishing a costume.

Now for the description of COSMODE Online #003:

70 fully-loaded pages of Cosplay!
Feature Photos: Hellsing, Final Fantasy and more!
COSMODE How-tos: The Complete Guide to Making Wings, Easy Costume-making w/o Patterns
Cosplay Snapshots: Snaps of Cosplayers from the Various Events Around Japan
COSMODE Life: Weird skills from Cosplaying? Shocking Cosplay Stories!

Click here to view it now!

For those of you who haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so from your control panel. I’ll have a free mini copy of the magazine out maybe next week.

I’m really busy with translations right now, so I didn’t have time to write a proper article; but here is the making of the commercial below. I thought it was all done with CG like in Beowulf, but each character was done using special fx makeup. I was really surprised that each character is done in full costume - not just the upper body. In an interview, Shun Oguri said that the actress cosplay took the longest taking 6 hours.
Which one do you like best?

I saw this amazing commercial on TV the other day - yes I know it’s all CG - and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually be able to do something like this.

For those of you who went to the Anime Expo, I hope you had a great time - I sure did.  I’m going to start posting on the blog for real - not just for announcements like I did before - so let me first introduce myself.

I’m Philip; I turned 23 during AX on July 3rd; I was born in New York and raised in Hawaii; it’s my 5th year living in Japan. At the moment, I work for OverDrive Inc. translating, digitizing, editing and marketing COSMODE Online - as well as update the website/blog. (Yes, I know it’s not a one man job)

Day -1
I arrived on July 1st in LA 2 days before the event; I needed a little time to assimilate back to American culture and brush up my driving skills.

It was pretty much an eventless day - except I was lost for about an hour after renting my car. ^_^;;

Day 0

This was the setup day. But first, I had to pick the OverDrive crew up from LAX. As I was waiting for them at (more…)