Cosplay Photography Round Up

With summer fast approaching (if not already here), here’s a quick rundown of the cosplay images we have released this Q1, 2019:

It’s only as of late when we get to pump out cosplay shots on a regular basis, given we all do this for fun and in between jobs. For those who have missed how we pulled off some of these images, check out the video links to my YouTube!

If you also notice, both Rikku and Yuna cosplay images have been updated with Paine added in the background. Was able to find a Paine cosplayer as of late, and good thing Dinny and Foxrots were game enough to go back to the studio and shoot again for material.

Model Portfolio: Enji

Ok, Enji has been one of my dream cosplayers to work with ever since she become popular for her Supergirl costume. She has gone around the SEA region, often not getting invited to Manila for a convention. Luckily, she had the chance to be part of a con, and arrived in town a week before the con weekend.

Took this chance to bring her to the beach for some chillax time before the mayhem started.

Make-up: I-ann Monzon
Shoot Production: Carlo Ocampo
Styling / Model: Enji Night

Of course Enji attended Comic Con Asia last March 2018. We made sure to shoot some cosplay while we’re at it. Check out our video when she donned her iconic Supergirl costume!

Cosplay Shoot: Supergirl and Superman

This Supergirl shoot took 7 years in the making. When I first saw Enji put on this cosplay as Supergirl… I was begging for her to come to Manila so we can shoot it. Enji has gone to several countries around Asia, but lucked out from passing by Manila. So during the last Comic Con Asia, we thought of inviting her over as one of the featured guests.

Enji was such a dear to work with. This is one cosplayer who is super down to earth, and not in any way a diva. We had fun taking her and Nana (Kuronoma) at the beach prior to the shoot, so the girls had fun there as well. But that’s for another blog entry for you to read…

This piece is inspired from one of Artgerm’s awesome rendition of Supergirl. Artgerm (asides from Jim Lee) is one of my comic book artist heroes. Hahaha. Such is my frustration with illustration; I ended up compensating it with photography.. in that quest to turn photos into art work. I’m not going to bother much in writing how we did the shoot, since we have it all in video. Just watch below.

Enjoy!

What how we did this shoot here:

Production Credits

• Make-up / Hair: Models’ Own
• Costume Production / Styling / Models: Enji Night / Gerard Sison
• Art Direction: Jay Tablante
• Production Design: Carlo Ocampo
• Digital Imaging: Ghani Madueno

Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Cosplay Shoot: Psylocke

Psylocke has always been one of my favorite mutants. She’s a character I don’t mind shooting over and over in various concepts.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for sexy Asian assassins with a psychic blade. The latest iteration of Psylocke was cosplayed by my good friend (and an amazing singer at that), Nicole Asensio.

The gallery below shows some of the inspirations for the image we did.

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Ahri Cosplay Shoot

I’ve always wanted to shoot Ahri ever since I did this Smart Game X campaign with Alodia and other cosplayers. Too bad she wasn’t one of the selected characters to work with at that time, and I never really bothered making a huge effort in pursuing this concept until as of late.

Lhea (model, now gamer girl) contacted me and wanted to do a cosplay shoot. She wanted to do Ahri, so voila! I found a reason to revive the concept now that somebody was willing to cosplay her character.

Check out the behind-the-scenes video we did on the shoot as well. Enjoy!

Production Credits

• Make-up: Ara Fernando
• Hair: Toni Reveler
• Costume Production: Badj Genato
• Production Design: Carlo Ocampo
• Digital Imaging: Ghani Madueno
• Model: Lhea Bernardino

Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Cosplay Shoot: Starfire

This cosplay shoot with Myrtle took years in the making. Not because it was hard to make, but our schedules never seemed to match up until as of late. It was from our shoot with Ginebra (the 2018 calendar), when we finally decided to lock down on a date for this cosplay shoot. This shoot was a series of three (3) costumes by the way, but I decided to break this own into several posts since each cosplay took a different route in shooting.

You gotta hand it to this girl for jumping in heels.  If you are not used to doing this, I do not suggest jumping in heels unless you want to sprain your ankle.

Now to break this image down. Of course there are no perfect jump shots, so this final image is a composition of several takes Myrtle had to do. We comped together the arms, and legs as well as the hair.  As for the sun and the stars? Did you know there is a PS plugin for that? Check out flaming pear.

Wanna see how we pulled off the image? You can check out the behind-the-scenes here.

Production Credits

• Make-up: Ara Fernando
• Hair: Toni Santos
• Costume Production: Badj Genato
• Production Design: Carlo Ocampo
• Digital Imaging: Ghani Madueno
• Model: Myrtle Sarrosa

Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Cosplay Shoot: Cindy Aurum

I haven’t played FF XV. I know. It’s a tragedy. But I am aware of the game, and watched Kingsglaive. Some good friends have played and finished it. But I will find the time to play this some day. Playing FF for me would just suck me into a void and disappear from society for several days until I get it done. I can’t afford something like that for the mean time. Maybe perhaps during the Christmas season.

At first I had misgivings about FF XV being a sausage party and all that, but that quickly dissipated when Cindy finally got into the picture, albeit an NPC. We just had to do a cosplay shoot with her. So Raffy gracious contact Katie again for a shoot. I’ve worked with her before on a Harley Quinn cosplay shoot, and she is a shoe-in for Cindy. The main challenge was finding the right venue who would lend us the space to shoot in. I remembered a good contact in the car restoration business, Alex. We were both tapped as brand influencers for a clothing brand some time ago. Good thing I kept his contact details since. He usually works on high end and vintage cars, which gave quite the texture.

Check out the video below and see how we came up with the shoot!

I took a different approach to shooting this cosplay, patterned after the last collaboration I did with Chris Cantada. More of an editorial feel, and less of the hyper-realism techniques we have been known for the years.

Image Gallery

Production Credits

• Make-up: Ara Fernando
• Hair: Toni Santos
• Costume Production: Badj Genato
• Model: Katie Kosova
• Special Thanks: Alex Restoration, Roosevelt Ave., Quezon City

Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Cosplay Shoot: Harley Quinn

Katie rose to 9gag fame with her cosplay shoot of Harley Quinn some time ago. So when she started working as a model in Manila (thanks to LVX Talent Management), we just had to do something along the same lines.  So cosplay was the theme for my second shoot with Katie.

I got the bikini from the DC booth in SDCC last year knowing it was the same costume used in this comic book cover. That Suicide Squad version has been to used and abused ever since the movie came out, so to deviate a bit we went for the comic book inspired bikini design.

Since Katie was already dolled up as Harley, we pressed with the idea further and thought of putting the Harley look various situations.

This last bit was out of the original plan. There was a plaid shirt lying around the studio, and Rosie the Riveter got in mind. Characters such as Harley (and by extension the Joker), can impersonate other notable characters, spoofing them in a sense. So yeah, we tried experimenting with the Harley look making a parody out of Rosie.

I know I’ve posted this before but better to accompany it with the end-result photos.

Production Credits

• Make-up: Ara Fernando
• Hair: Toni Santos
• Styling: Hannah Kim / Raffy Tesoro
• Production Design: Raffy Tesoro
• Digital Imaging: Ryder Aquino
• Model: Katie Kosova (LVX Management)

 Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.

Cosplay Shoot: Chillin Like a Villian with Lord Drakkon

Scratch one off the bucket list! Finally got the chance to work with Chris Cantada for an editorial style cosplay shoot. It’s been awhile since I’ve shot cosplay again, so this is a welcome respite from the usual work.

I took another route from our known style, and did something a bit more editorial in nature. Minimal post-production work, and no image composition. It also helps that Chris’s costume is on-point, so there wasn’t much tweaking needed as well. If there was any Photoshopping done, I just took out the latches from the helmet and the opening where the helmet splits.

The challenge working in Mandalay is replicating the same feel of the venue into the photograph. It’s dimly lit, yet you want the cosplayer to stand out. I had to dial down my lights to their lowest power, and soften the spotlights. I can’t spread out the lighting as much or else it would appear too bright. I added some ceiling bounces with orange gels to help push the warm feel of the place. Overall, I used about four (4) lights for this image.

We just wanted to imagine how this new evil Tommy White Ranger would chillax after long day’s work being a villain.

I also had the chance to sit down with Chris over drinks (pun intented over this image), and chat with him about his passion for the Power Rangers.

I know you have been asked this numerous times, but for the sake of those who haven’t read up on your history… how did you end up doing costuming for Power Ranger shoots? It’s quite a change in career from music.

Ever since I was with Sponge Cola, I was very open about me being a Geek. I collected toys and wore Star Wars costumes. But what happened with me going from hobby to a more professional capacity was just a happy accident.

A few years ago during the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers, I started to rekindle my passion for the franchise. I was always a fan since I was a kid, but I never wore the costumes because I was overweight. And tight costumes on a chubby boy was not something I wanted my classmates to tease me about! So when the Power Rangers hype was all over my news feed, and I wasn’t overweight anymore, I decided to finally have a costume made.

But having a Power Rangers costume wasn’t enough. To make it legit, I figured I needed to have a “morph” video! So that’s what I did with my phone camera and iMovie. Something very crude and amateur like, but gets the job done. Let’s just say people liked watching those types of videos. I made more videos over the course of that year. This time though, I tried doing cosplay fan films. I slowly realized I stumbled upon this niche group of people who really supported what I did. Fast forward to today, with over 250 million views on my channel, I’m very much happy being a professional Geek.

The costumes are pretty intricate, how long does it take you to produce a new ranger?

I have these suits and helmets made by different and talented costume makers. But the one guy who made most of my stuff is a local maker named Kamen Rider Nimoy. It usually takes 2-3 months to make, since he has other clients.

How many of these helmets do you currently have?

Right now, I have about 10… and counting. Haha!

Do you get mobbed at cons even out of costume? 

Haha, “mobbed” sounds like something that can describe Alodia Gosiengfiao’s con life. But for me, it’s just very casual. They usually come up to me just to say they like my videos and cosplays.

What as the craziest thing a fan ever did to you? If there was any somebody crazy. 

Nothing crazy! But there was one endearing instance when I was in a restaurant with my wife. There was this little boy who came up to me with his mom and asked for a photo with me. The mom had no idea who I was obviously! My audience is really in that age group of kids, around 8-15 year old boys. Times like those really make me enjoy what I do.

Would you suggest picking up babes in a Power Ranger outfit? If so, how? 

HAHA. If you have a nice body wearing the spandex suit, why not? You can even come up to her, ask her for the time and when she replies you say, “No, it’s Morphin time…” HAHAHA!

If you had a chance to invite one of the Power Rangers to guest on your channel, who would it be? 

I was actually fortunate to have five Power Ranger actors guest on my channel, three for fan films and two for official interviews. I’ve had the Original Red Mighty Morphin Ranger (Austin St. John), the Red Space Ranger (Chris Lee), the Blue Dino Charge Ranger (Yoshi Sudarso), the Yellow Mighty Morphin Ranger (Karan Ashley), and Zordon himself (David Fielding). It’s a great thing when the people involved in this show actually recognizes your part in promoting the franchise in a positive way. That’s the best feeling.

Just had an absolute blast shooting with Chris this afternoon. For the heck of it, we even did some extra outtakes outside on the street in a nearby Jollyjeep. It’s not everyday when you see a Power Ranger walk around the streets of Metro Manila.

Of course this entry wouldn’t finish without behind the scenes. Watch how Chris and I ended up shooting together.

We would also like to thank the guys from Mandalay for allowing us to film and shoot at their awesome location. If you want to watch more of Chris’s videos, check out his social media details here:

Check out my youtube channel for your regular glimpse behind the scenes! While you’re at it, drop buy the online store and get goodies from your favorite models!

For those interested in my commercial work, check out pointblankstudios.net and follow us at @pointblankmnl in IG.