[update, fanart, cosplay] September 2024 bullet journal layout and cosplay

It’s that time again, the monthly bullet journal spread! Notice I titled it update before fanart and that’s because as before, I used an official piece of stationary as the main decoration instead of my own fanart (although in the end I drew a tiny chibi to take up space because I had no other choice of decoration left that would fit). And you may also notice there’s a cosplay attached to this post. The reason being last month in August I made a One Piece layout, but if you followed my cosplay journey closely, I’ve never done a One Piece cosplay, and I said all of my layouts would be based on a series that I liked enough to cosplay. Well I’m sure no one noticed or would comment if they did notice lol, but the answer to this unasked question is I didn’t look like any One Piece character enough to cosplay despite buying wigs and fabric for potential costumes so I never did (my main issue is being ridiculously short and everyone is so tall and lanky lol). But I technically did cosplay a character before from this month’s series, and that is Obanai Iguro, the Snake Hashira from Kimetsu no Yaiba or Demon Slayer.

Starting on the left page, I used these beautiful gold foil washi tapes of Tanjiro’s haori and Nezuko with flowers from Wisteria Fables, a fairytale Demon Slayer fanzine. I also used washi tape from a candy (?) from the Japanese grocery store that had anime screenshot portraits of some of the characters. I included gold foil snake washi tape from Kiriska because I didn’t have that much snake stickers apparently. The tiny Obanai chibi in a bento was from the Demon Slayer food zine, and the cute fork sticker was from jxiongart.com to represent yummy foods that Mitsuri enjoys such as Western food. I have no idea where the Mitsuri sticker came from, I think it was a freebie from when I went on a shopping spree in 2020 for Inosuke merch, but I didn’t take pictures so I can’t remember the artist. Finally, the tokidoki kimono girlie eating dango was from Daiso, with dango being one of Mitsuri’s favorite foods (although sakura mochi is the source of her hair color but I didn’t have a sticker of sakura mochi somehow, so the 3 color dango is the closest in spirit). As usual, the remaining planner stickers were from Michaels and Joann’s and some Korean stationary stores and probably more Daiso. Lots of hearts and love themed stuff to match with Mitsuri, who is the Love Hashira after all. The “Love Life” was especially humorous because, if you finished the manga, you know what I mean. I drew a tiny chibi of Obanai in his demon slayer uniform because the rest of my Demon Slayer stickers, while amazing, were absolutely massive, and I already had to cut Mitsuri in half to fit below the calendar.

On the right side, I used this promotional free postcard of Obanai from Kinokuniya, I didn’t even ask for these, they just gave a handful to me free with purchase of a Demon Slayer notebook and tiny tote bag. I was actually working on a sketch for this layout for hours but nothing was working out, and then I suddenly remembered I might have Obanai on a postcard. When I found the postcard, I thought it was too cute to languish in my files and not use in a layout, so here he is, wearing a casual version of his striped haori and painting an umbrella with his white snake watching. To match, I cut out the decoration printed on the notebook pages, focusing on the rest of the hashira, and used floral origami paper that had a little bit of wisteria, which is the symbol of the Demon Slayer Corps, as more decor.

Anyway, love this layout, although I probably could color in the greyscale hashira chibis on the right page to make it less out of place against the bright deep colors. I had no real reason for choosing Demon Slayer for September, I guess my brother also likes the series and his birthday is in September? And Demon Slayer feels like an autumnal series to me, it has that melancholy solemnity to it that best fits September rather than other months, although I guess wisteria bloom in the spring so it could also be spring, but clearly I had better choices for spring layouts. Anyway, I hope I can actually finish my aborted sketches for the 2 months I’ve missed already, but never fear, I did draw artworks for those skipped months, I just haven’t posted them yet due to AI and plagiarism, etcetera. I will post them soon, promise!

Now for the cosplay photo, to prove that I did cosplay from Demon Slayer (…a few days before September started lol). This was my anime cosplay for San Japan and one of the four I planned to finish in 2024 to 2025. But I only wore it briefly because it was sooooo hot in San Antonio, after one hour of being steamed alive I changed into a short sleeveless dress, didn’t even bother with a wig beyond the hotel room. This is the bathroom photo before at my house. It is indeed much more accurate than the cheapo costumes you can buy on ebay; for one thing, his uniform is navy, not black like the others, but my painstakingly hand-painted creation is not S-ranked quality by any means. Regardless, I am determined to resew a perfectly functioning jacket and make historically accurate hakama and maybe something more screen-accurate than an N95 mask which I wore to the con because covid is still a thing despite what the government says.

Stay tuned for the full cosplay rundown once I fix those mistakes, which might be never because con season is over for the year hahaha. But I will fix at least one thing in the next 2 months, I’m pretty sure.