@@

8 more hours until we leave for the airport and I'm feeling a bit frazzled. I managed to forget my Katara tunic when I was packing initially. I don't even know how.

Progress towards July

So taking two accelerated grad classes in the month of June while working on the majority of my costumes is probably not the best idea ever. But I'd like to be done with school by next Spring so them's the breaks.

Since the last time I updated, I finished a bunch of pieces for the con.
Lots of pictures below the cut.

Updated to do list

So the boy is taking a math class and my commission is bigger than I thought it was (because people weren't clear at the number of girls). I'm revising my to do list because I get asked to explain problems in the midst of sewing.

Rainbow Dash:
- Finish dyeing feathers
- Assemble wings 
- Finish coloring wig
- Add elastic to waist and ankles
- cutie mark stencil!

Articuno:
- Add snaps to overskirt, belt and tabards
- Make hair accessories

Ash (gen 1 variant):
- Make doofy shirt/vest
- Find and alter green gloves

Zuko (Blue Spirit variant):
- Add zipper, hem and fit shirt
- Add elastic and hem pants
- Add bracers and shin pieces 
- Bandolier
- hood
- mask ties
- Sculpt, mold and slush cast mask 
- paint swords

Zuko (Team Avatar variant):
- Add snaps to belt and shirt
- Add elastic and hem pants

Katara (Battle/Invasion variant):
- Bending Pouches
- Finish gloves (sort of; Finished wraps. need to buy gloves)
- Finish pants (hem and waist band)
- Finish tunic (all of the white parts)
- Make greaves and gauntlets - needs painting and elastics attached
- necklace - needs painting both to be attached together

Katara (Fire Nation variant):
- Add snaps to tabard, bracers and necklace
- Find gems for necklace
- Finish altering shoes
- Make bicep and ankle rings
- style wig

Bloo (Human closet variant):
- Stencil shirt (bought shirt!)
- Find wig

Commission
- Finish cutting and serging fabric parts
- Assemble armor
- Order hardware

Can I do all of this in less than three weeks? I sure hope so.

I.. Uh.. WHAT?!

I just got the "Your trip is around the corner!" notification from my friendly neighborhood airline.

Shit just got real @@

It's about a month away from the con and I'm quietly panicking inside. I don't know if this is a good change or a bad change from the "I can get everything done!" mentality. I've been freaking out privately to Akira (and I'm pretty sure she's pretty tired of listening to me go "I HAVE THIS LEFT TO DO.")

(P.S. THIS WOMAN IS A SERIOUS BEAST.)

Her suggestion was to list everything that I have left, as it is helping her time manage between her insane workload for grad school. I really don't have any excuses as to why I'm not further along, aside from working a full time job and my various physical activities to get me into con shape.

Every year I tend to start out ambitious and things change. This year was no different. Instead of Connor from ACIII and Alita, the boy and I are going as Zuko and Katara from Avatar: the last airbender. Two costumes each, though. And I also got a commission from my dance teacher who will be performing at Massive this year at the same time as AX.

Wooooo boy. So here's my seriously scary to do list.. With an approximate time required

For myself:

Katara (Fire Nation Disguise)

- Top (30 to 45 min):
 - Sew top seam
 - Add rib cage band and "ties"
 - Sew snaps  (Finished 6/6. I ended up having to remake this damn thing and it ended up being two hours)

- Skirts:
 - Finish adding on the swirly decoration (10 minutes)
 - Hand beads the swirl (... 2 hours total?)
 - Waist band/assemble everything (20 minutes)

- Pants:
 - Add Snap (less than 5 minutes)
 - Hem (see above)

- Accessories:
 - Make necklace (1 hour)
 - make gauntlets (20 minutes)
 - Make bicep rings (20 minutes)
 - Make ankle decorations (20 minutes)
 - Buy flip flops and modify (1 hour)

- Style wig (a day?)

Katara (Water tribe/invasion battle outfit)

- Robe:
 - Finish hemming (5 minutes)
 - Add white lapels (30 to 45 minutes)
 - Add bottom white border and swirl design (30 to 45 minutes)

- Pants:
 - pattern, sew and hem (1.5 to 2 hours)

- Gloves:
 - pattern and sew (2 to 3 hours)

- Boot covers:
 - pattern and sew (2 to 3 hours)

- bending water pouches
 - pattern and sew (2 to 3 hours)

- hardware (gauntlets and greaves):
 - pattern, make and paint (4 to 5 hours)

Articuno Gijinka:

- Overskirt (an hour total, depending on if they cooperate):
 - Sew petals together and iron
 - Add snap to waist band

- Top:
 - Pattern (20 minutes)
 - cut and sew (1 hour)

- Tabards:
 - Pattern (30 minutes)
 - cut and sew (2 to 3 hours)

- Waistband:
 - pattern (10 minutes)
 - cut (20 minutes)
 - sew (2 hours)

- wig and hair accessories:
 - buy/figure out if I can get away with using my own hair
 - make hair doo-dad with three long trailing pieces for the forehead feathers (2 hours?)

Rainbow Dash
 - Finish coloring wig (4 hours if I'm diligent)
 - Make and assemble wings (maybe a day including drying time)
 - make tails for all four people (idk)


Bloo

- Closet version;
 - Find a blue shit and stencil "sly bloo" face on the front and "BLOO" across the butt of the shirt
 - Find a blue wig
 - make crazy blue accessories/blue arm warmers.

For the boy:

Zuko (team avatar variant)
- Overrobe:
 - hem and finish decoration on the bottom (and iron) (20 minutes)

- Pants:
 - hem and add elastic (5 minutes)

- Belt and shirt:
 - add snaps (10 minutes, but I need to fit to boy)

- Boot covers:
 - Pattern and sew (an hour)

Zuko (blue spirit variant)

- Shirt, belt, hood and pants:
 - Pattern and sew (total of ten hours)

- Hardware (gauntlets and greaves?):
 - Pattern and make (total of two hours active)

- Mask
 - sculpt, mold and slush cast (1 hour to sculpt, 1 hour to cast, idk how long down time)
 - Paint mask
 - Add ties. (5 minutes?)

Special commission:
- Pattern harness and hardware (maybe 30 minutes)
- make above (maybe an hour for the harness and who knows for the hardware)
- prime hardware (maybe two hours?)
- make sure that everything fits.

My goal is to at least get all of the stuff that requires the machine done before the middle of the month, which will leave me a little more than two weeks to work on the hardware, wigs and what not. Push comes to shove, I can leave the painting of the Blue Spirit mask to the night before the con. I'm more worried about not being able to finish everything and panic at the last minute like last year (though, last year I managed to whip out two sets of simple armor within a week) or the year before (that was a shit show).

.... I'm going to go stare at the wall and whimper some more (or pattern like a mad woman and try and get the patterns I need traced out at least).

Anime Expo in a Month!!!

As usual, real life reared its ugly head these past few months. Since I started grad school, I was extremely busy with papers, readings, and presentations. Only these past two weeks have I been able to make everything in lightning speed.

Picture heavy post below the cut.

Progress for PAX East 2013

Goose and I are attending PAX East this year and one of our friends had asked if I would put together some Jedi Robes for him, specifically Obi-wan Kenobi from Episode 2. I said that I would make them for him as a belated Christmas gift.

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Obiwan1.jpg

Picture Heavy Post after the break

AX Wig Progress Shots

Akira has made some progress on the wigs for Moltres and Twilight Sparkle for AX.

Progress shots after the jump...

An Open Letter to Katie Bair

Warning: This post contains a lot of pictures and writing from a fairly dissatisfied customer. I'm not even sure if this will get to Ms. Bair, but I need to get this off of my chest.

Swag, AX 2013 Plans, and Update

Finally an update! 
Goose and I got a ton of things from this year's Otakon.

SWAG!

 (Warning! Picture heavy post ahead!)

WIP: Rainbow Dash

Firstly, Akira is the one to take credit for the idea of the ombre dyeing the wigs, seeing as she tried it first with her Moltres wig before I even got the sharpies for RD. She's amazing and fantastic and I don't think I say it enough, nor does she give herself enough credit for her creativity. Without her inspiration, RD would look a lot duller.

This was after about three episodes of Bones and two episodes of my little pony, with a lot of fiddling and adjusting the other ponytails to pull the fibers out of the way. I still need to go back through the section that's going to be yellow with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip to get rid of the orange pigment that rubbed on there.

Wig was purchased from Epic Cosplay at Otakon. I believe this is their 18"-incher in snow white.

Orange (which is incredibly red on snow white fibers) at the roots, followed by 1" - 2" of peach, another 2-3" inches of leg warmer orange and the rest with tangerine (dear sharpie, thank you for making the 80's glam series right before I decided to mostly hand color my wig. Three of the colors are coming into use). The colors had a decent amount of blending and overlap to get the gradiated effect.

I used mini hair clips to keep the fibers I wasn't working on out of the way. In order to get even coloring, I worked on each layered individually and picked out 0.5 cm sections with a large blunted pin. Fine tipped sharpies turn on the side = a decent substitute for chisel tipped sharpies.

Tip: if you're going to watch something while working, make sure it's long episodes... and something that you've already seen. I had to switch back to Bones after two episodes of MLP: FiM because I wanted to watch the damn series >>

The wig has about 1/4 of the green done as well. By a 1/4, I mean half of the green streak that is on the same side as the orange streak. Waiting on watermelon red and sun yellow wig dye for the red and yellow (and I have banana clip yellow for low lighting on the yellow). The rest will be hand colored.

Let AX 2013 planning commence!!

So right now we're super motivated and getting our ideas together for next year's con already! We'll see how long this keeps up for me >>

This is our costume list for now. We're doing an MLP group and a Pokemon group as well. I'm also going to be making a Battle Angel Alita/Ganmu costume. As in Gally in the Last Order series with the crazy damascus blade butterfly knife.

So onwards to reference photos!

(I may or may not be slightly buzzed from inhaling alcohol fumes while cooking, and Nave had me try one of his favorite beers. Beer + Me = CAPSLOCK)

Post-con thoughts

Call me jaded, but Otakon is actually getting less exciting year after year. I've only missed two since 1999 (.. derp) and things have changed. My con group has changed, I'm getting older, my focuses and costumes have changed along with it.

This year was still fun, though, aside from some incidents such as nearly missing our early as hell flight to Baltimore, last minute but manageable costuming, terrible lack of respect from one member of the room group and last but not least: my friend getting pick pocketed.

Not freaking cool.

We've decided that we're going to to check out the scene on the west coast next year and see if people on that seaboard are more classy.

Mare's Leg, Part 3

In Part 1, we found a toy Mare's Leg gun, filled in the gaps, and created a two-part mold.
In Part 2, we resin cast a solid Mare's Leg.

Now for the finishing details!

Lots of pictures after the jump.

Last Minute Progress

Here's a quick list. I'll post pictures when I get a moment to breathe.

Kaylee's jumpsuit, pouch and belt are all complete and distressed.
Wash's jumpsuit just needs to have the patches, pocket and shoulder details hand-stitched on.
Wash's harness needs to have one more area stitched, then all of his details glued on.
Zoe's vest and pants are all done. All the pleather pieces are darkened and weathered, but I need more snaps for the shrug and to attach it to the vest. The holster is mostly complete, it just needs the parts where the gun holds on.
Zoe's gun needs one or two more coats of paint and all of the bullets are painted and drying.

18 hours until Goose, Madhouse and I are on the road. Still need to shop for supplies, do the laundry, make the apartment ready for the weekend for our fur-babies, and pack!
Running on less than 5 hours of sleep today, but it's all worth it in the end.
Can't wait for Otakon!

Mare's Leg, Part 2

In Part 1, we sourced a toy Mare's Leg gun, filled in the gaps, and created a two-part mold.  Let's see how it turned out...

Lots of pictures after the jump.

Mare's Leg, Part 1

Part of Akira's Zoe costume is her signature Mare's Leg gun, which we have been working on for the past couple weeks.  Not having to worry about Ilo Milo means a lot more work has gone into it.

Lots of progress pictures after the jump.

Another to do list...

I really should be sleeping right now, but I think the coffee I had earlier in the afternoon kicked in oh.. about two hours ago? This is normally where I would say FML, but I'm not complaining.

Brain dump, because I will forget x_X:

To buy before Otakon:
- New foundation. So Akira and I have the same sort of awkward problem: the skin on our faces seem like they have a different color base than our arms/wrists/where ever we compare colors for our foundations because colors don't work :| Plus I blush really easily/stay flushed for some bizarre reason. Anywho, thanks to Nave dragging me outside more often in this ridiculous heatwave, my needing to throw out my liquid foundation from years ago, and disliking using the mineral foundation that I have now because it's so drying here where we live.. I need a new liquid foundation.
- Lip plumper for Akira. Do I need to say more?
- Potentially a new make up carrying case/travel bag. The one I got as a free gift from Lancome a few years ago (and not supporting them anymore. Animal testing bastards.) is getting kind of groady.
- If I can find an affordable hard side suitcase.. that would be fantastic. Or I may end up taking the chest plates on my duffle bag carry on just to make sure that the plastic doesn't get bent/damaged/tossed out of shape. I only have a soft side suitcase and I'm worried :|

To do before Otakon:
- Make sure that the armor, a special package and whatever random other thing I need to have fit actually can fit into the suitcase with padding. If not, maybe something will go into the overhead bins...
- Garment bag everything and anything for each of the costumes. Having two almost identical but size costumes for the two of us this year will be.. well, interesting to say the least..
- Charge my Nook for the airplane
- CLEAN. My sewing loft is a freaking explosion right now.
- Find a kitty sitter for the princess, or someone who will check in on her at least twice while we're gone.
- Laundry.
- Give myself a manicure/clean my nails properly. Working in a lab that generates a lot of dust in the sample processing, painting(!!!) armor pieces and being so busy means that I haven't been keeping my nails as clean as they should be.
- Actually sit down and clean my new make up brushes. And swatch the MUG shadows I got. Initial impression of the latter is pretty good! Full review to come.

GAH

Brain dump/to do list because my white board isn't big enough and Nave keeps his homework assignments there

Inara -
- Finish painting designs on the vest
- Add fastners and hem the vest
- Paint the damn skirt 
- NECKLACE
- (check the wig and make sure it doesn't look too derpy. Bring curling iron and hair spray just in case)

Malcom -
- Hem the coat
- Add cuffs to sleeves
- FIND A RED SHIRT
- Add eyelets to belt and weather
- Seal, paint and assemble the holster
- .. weather boots, but that's Nave's job.

Lanfan -
- Finish hemming gloves -DONE
- Seal and paint the glove decorations - DONE
- Seal and paint boot decoration - DONE
- Add fastener to leg greaves (redo leg greaves in wonderflex? - DONE and painted >>) - DONE
- Add edging to chest and back plate  - DONE
- Paint shoulders, chest and back plates -DONE
- Add final ties to chest and back plate and fasteners - holes are drilled? needs to be assembled at the con because of fitting issues
- Finish and paint mask -DONE
- Attach boot and glove decorations
- Tack hood in place
3 of 10 remaining

Old Man Fu -
- finish hakama.
- Hem gloves - DONE
- Seal and paint the glove decorations -DONE
- Seal and paint boot decoration -DONE
- Add fastner to leg greaves (redo leg greaves in wonderflex? - DONE and painted) - DONE
- Add edging to chest and back plate -DONE
- Paint shoulders, chest and back plates -DONE
- Add final ties to chest and back plate and fasteners
- Finish and paint mask -DONE
- Attach glove and boot decorations 
- Make headband -DONE
- Buy a ridiculous mustache and powder it white.
3 of 12 remaining

All in all, maybe a little less screwed than I think I was going to be. I hope to have all of the bolded stuff done before the weekend is over (.. between my part time desk shift on Wednesday nights and a Harry Potter party on Thursday...). The necklace isn't going to be too bad, but I need to have time to sit down and do it all at once.. this may be the last minute thing at the con ;;

The plan is to get white school glue and seal everything that I need to seal tomorrow night, and add some more apoxie sculpt to the bridge of the nose and shape the brows. (Edit: while glue sealed craft foam may be a good idea at the last minute, you're almost better off just making it out of the wonderflex you have lying around.)

OH OH. Keep an eye out for two reviews and a "what's in my kit" post next week before we leave for the con. I finally bit the bullet and got a set of quality make up brushes and a set of neutral eyeshadows that I'm fairly excited to play with (and using for Inara). The "what's in my kit" is a basic convention prep and make up advice for a newbie cosplayer/non-make up user.

Changing Plans AGAIN

With all the progress Goose and I are making on our Firefly/Serenity cosplays, we feel bad if we sacrifice quality for quantity. I don't know why we try to plan more than one costume to build per year. Maybe if we get more diligent next year we can plan more, but for now, it would be better to stick to one costume each to work on. We are going to hold off Ilomilo for another con (especially since the weather looks like it will be very warm at Baltimore next week) and make our Kaylee, Wash and Zoe that much better.
Goose and I will post soon about our progress!

Massive Productive Weekend!

This past weekend was the only full weekend that Goose and I had for cosplay, so we made the most of it by working from 8 am to 10:30 pm on Saturday and 7 am to 10:45 pm on Sunday. Here's what we did!

(Warning! Image heavy post after the jump!)