Construction Details:

Completed January 2005 Kenshin is one of my favorite characters of all time. I've done the regular manga and TV series variations, but I wanted to do a fancier version of Kenshin, and I had never seen anyone attempt this one ??? to this day I haven???t seen any others, either, so it???s pretty unusual and different. This version is featured on the artbook cover and there's only one piece of art for it. I went a bit more traditional with this version than I did with my other Kenshin projects. This was the first costume I ever did any kind of research on to try to make it accurate to the existing garments. The hakama-shita is authentically constructed ??? I also used a dull sheen satin fabric imported from Japan to use for the hakama-shita (the blue top) and a soft cotton to line the garment with. It features a gusset, and functions a lot how you would see an actual hakama-shita and is less costume-y. The band is interfaced, and the garment is fully lined. I also made an entire separate white haori (I used white twill fabric for this garment) to wear underneath instead of 'faking it' with using white trim around the neckband and wrists. All of the seams are finished with serger for the haori. I hand-painted on all the flowers with acrylic paints for the hakama-shita, and it took a couple days to finish them. There are 74 flowers total on this. I used a custom-made stencil to make the job a little easier, but each flower had to be painted over a couple times at least to make it opaque enough. The hakama pants were made out of cotton twill fabric and were constructed using the Folkwear hakama pattern as a guidline. The zori are also authentic and from Japan. Tabi socks were purchased. His feet do not show in the one piece of art that exists for this version so I went with colors I thought would compliment it (and purple certainly would not, though that is the color of his standard socks in the TV Series). The scarf is made out of Casa satin. YES, THIS IS A REAL SAKABATOU (AKA reverse-bladed sword) USED IN THESE PHOTOS, exactly like the one Kenshin uses in his peaceful days after the Bakumatsu war. I cannot bring in to cons but do use it for photoshoots. As for the cross-shaped face scar, that was applied using makeup pencils (brown shade) and some reddish foundation towards the center to make it appear like a scar that has long-since been placed on my face. Wig was styled into layers on the top to achieve Kenshin's poofy-top look and sprayed with Got2B to hold a nice shape. The photos were taken in a wooded area by me, much like the wooded scenery you see throughout the manga and TV series, it really helps give the perfect feel to the photos. This is one of four Kenshin costumes I've made, I really do love him! Also, 2011 is the year I turn 28, the same age as Kenshin (and hopefully I look as youthful as he does, haha). :)

Personal Thoughts:

I love how it is a rare variant of Kenshin, but still recognizable as Kenshin - mostly because of the iconic red hair and cross-shaped scar. I have a shoot coming up the weekend of March 12th to get shots in the woods with my sakabatou, something I never quite got around to doing. The Kenshin contest was added motivation to get that done. ;)

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