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)

FMA progress, an Inara vest and a Malcolm coat!

So ever since I got this new phone, I've been taking a lot of my progress shots on instagram and posting them on twitter.

Warning: IMAGE HEAVY!

Here's what's been happening:

Inara earrings/tutorial post

Completed earrings!

Disclaimer: I do not own any sort of rights to the character, Inara, who was developed by the wonderfully amazing Joss Whedon. Also, I am a small potatoes blogger who does not and will not be asked to do product endorsements or site advertisements in the near future. I am a hobby jeweler and costumer. All opinions and mistakes are mine. 

So those earrings only took me a night! I am so proud of myself for actually pulling off (mostly.. sorta.. kinda?) screen accurate with artistic liberties taken earrings for the training house costume. For those of you who have seen the movie and squinted at the screen shots, you know that there really isn't ever a clear shot of her earrings.

Or at least, I can't tell what the earring bases are. The most I could see was a fluer-de-lys design near the top.

Here is the materials break down and techniques for those who actually do find the blog and are interested in how I made these.

Tomoyo Deconstruction

So I finally started poking at the behemoth of a head dress.



I'm not kidding when I use the word behemoth. I'm about 5'1" (if I'm lucky), which means that this head dress is between 2 feet to 3 feet wide. I'll have a better estimate of how wide it is once I figure out what everything looks like based on proportions and how it looks on me (edit: it's going to be just under two feet wide). In order to save sculpy and sanity, I'm using manila folders to measure and gauge how big things should be by sketching, cutting, taping, staring at a mirror critically, adjust or keep and move on.

So far, I have three attempts on the middle piece (two on the spikes alone) and working on attempt number two of the "bow."