Forever and a Day

Cool But Random: Nau Ubergreen Urban Clothing. What you get when you type in meatfish.com. Irony much?

Wow, it's been a mad few weeks since way-back-when I used to sometimes post on this blog. Yeesh. So, update: Costume was a bust, Connooga was a blast, I managed to spill all of my bubble solution right in front of the booth for a webcomic author I admire... and school swallowed me whole. I'm pretty sure I'm in the lower digestive system now, so hopefully this won't last much longer. I'm just not sure yet whether that's fresh air at the end of the proverbial tunnel or, well, the inevitable end to my first metaphor.

I'm excited about a lot of things I'm learning in art, though. Carving has been a blast, and I kind of want to do a series of figures over the summer. But getting a job has become my priority for the moment-- that and getting my GPA up into the slightly-less-pathetic range. Which sadly means my creativity must be limited for the most part to homework for the moment. So until I'm really free, farewell.

Two Weeks Till Connooga!

  
  
Cool but random site of the day: Feed the Head. It's an interactive acid trip.

There are two weeks until the convention here in Chattanooga, and it's getting near crunch time for poor cosplayers such as myself. So I have to finish the clothes for my competition costume, the makeup for my second one, and learn how to blow gigantic bubbles, without completely flunking out of all my classes. I've also found out that on a technicality I'll be going into the Advanced level of competition at the cosplay contest, even though this is my first attempt at a competitive costume. Yikes!

I'm about halfway done with the moccasins for the Katara costume. I'm using an online native american moccasin pattern that I'm modifying slightly for this project. I've also started work on her underclothes. I'm remembering the hard way how difficult it is for me to machine sew, especially something as complicated as clothes. This project will definitely test the limits of my skills in that department.

I'm also working on my Kilka costume (if you haven't heard of her, don't worry, not many have). I've started working on the ears and nails, and I need to finish modifying the wig. I'll probably do a separate post on her when I get closer to finishing.

Here's the update on my grand bubbling plan:

After hearing I could get glycerin relatively cheaply at CVS, I decided I might try to make my own mix after all. So (after enlisting the help of a friendly CVS employee, who in turn called on at least three other people) I finally got a little bottle of glycerin, ignored my dignity and bought lubricant from Walmart, and scoured the soap aisle until I found non-ultra Dawn. I'll be mixing these up tonight according to the soda bottle recipe at the bottom of this page (which is also an excellent place to learn about bubbles), and I'll post the results here.

Meanwhile, my Fan Yang bubble solution came in the mail, and I had loads of fun last night sending beautiful six-inch bubbles drifting down the hall. I also discovered that bubbling is extremely messy, so I might not be able to use it the way I wanted to. Oh, well.

While I did build myself a giant bubble wand, because of the weather I couldn't try it out outdoors. So instead I looked up a quick howto and tried doing it by hand. I found this worked better with a combination of hand or dish soap and the bubble solution, probably because the water on my hands was making the solution by itself too thin. After some practice, I was able to blow lovely six to twelve-inch bubbles and even bat them around like liquid balloons. I think fingers will become my favored bubble maker in the future.

Soap Magic

A scientific phenomenon. A pastime of the ages. It's something that no matter how we analyze and explain things like adhesion/cohesion and whatnot, never loses its magic.

So for my next trick, the theme will be...bubbles! Not just any bubbles, mind you. But uber-durable, gigantic ones.

After watching a few videos like this one, I was completely hooked on the idea. It sounds like a great pastime for the windy hilltop where I live, and ties into another project of mine as well.

While there are plenty of sites that teach you how to make your own solution, I'm going to be busy with my cosplay project, so I'm just going to make things simple (for once) and buy some good stuff off the shelf. I settled on Fan Yang by Gazillion bubbles.

The bubble maker itself, though, is a different question. You see a lot of people making gigantic bubbles with the one this guy uses, which various people also have for sale. But it doesn't look to hard to make. A little string, a couple of sticks, can't be too hard, right?

Katara: Fur or Faux?

One of the trickiest parts of the Katara costume is going to be the furs. Coat, boots and all, it'll require about thirty feet of fur trim, varying from one to six inches in width.

The first thing I had to decide was real or fake? Though this isn't the first time I've considered using real animal parts, before this little escapade I had no idea where I stood on the fur farming thing. So I did some research. While I found a lot of disturbing and graphic videos on Youtube from animal rights activists (like PETA, which I'm not going to link to due to its bloody content), it took some digging to find anything from the other side. What I found there was a community that seemed very kind, respectable, and proud of their work. While neither party is all innocence, PETAesque campaigning gets very ugly in its tactics. Not exactly incentive to go vegan, is it?

After web research (this article was especially helpful), talking to a lot of people, and reading some scripture, this is the conclusion I've come to. Remember this is based on the fundamental belief that God created man as a being distinct from and over the animals.

- Animals are not people. Killing one is not like killing a human. This is backed by scripture.
- As humans, we have a responsibility to treat animals kindly
- Regardless, animals can and should be used to benefit humans

So yes, I'll be using fur in my costume, along with a considerable amount of leather and other organic materials.

Vacuuformer (making plans)

Vacuuforming is basically warm plastic + suction = instant molding technique. It's been around for a long time in the plastics industry, and geeks inevitably found a way to do it small-scale at home. The homegrown version is best known for recreating Stormtrooper armor for Star Wars fans.

Naturally, I'm very interested in anything that looks as easy as the first ten seconds of this video.

There are limitations to what this can do, but the potential for capturing detail, creating multiple copies in a short amount of time, and the relatively inexpensive materials (plastic and foam as opposed to, say, resin or kiln-baked clay) make it a very attractive crafting method.
 
The link leading from that video is the simplest (and cheapest) vacuuform tutorial I could find, and even that I'm probably going to simplify (making my own window frames to hold the plastic will have to wait). As soon as I can get my hands on an old vacuum I can really get started.

Costume project - Katara

Katara is a character from the Asian-inspired American cartoon series called "Avatar: The Last Airbender". The show is funny, charming, and full of epic action-adventure, and if you haven't seen it yet, you should. I decided to try making Katara's costume, since I match her physical description fairly well. I've decided to do most of the work myself because I want to be able to enter it into a contest. Making all of those close will be interesting, to say the least,since I've never used a sewing machine so extensively.

 I want to challenge myself by doing every layer of this costume, which includes:

- Underclothes
- Dress with long-sleeved undergarments
- Coat, mittens, gloves and shoes of outer layer.


At this point, I'm shopping around for different fabrics that will work for each layer. I want to have a lot of visual interest in the fabric itself, so I'm steering away from plain cotton. The biggest challenge here is probably balancing my love of authenticity with my budget.

Steampunk watches

Instead of a doing a long, boring introductory post to this blog, I'm just gonna jump right in.

Steampunk is a concept I've only recently come across, and I'm intrigued by the idea, so I decided to try a few projects to explore the concept. Thus, the steampunk watch!

Really awesome people have done things like this:
link
A lovely skeleton-movement watch  by Etsy's tempusfugit, or this:
link
where watch parts are used decoratively.

I like the idea of something being functional, but I have no skill at all in metalworking, so I started looking at creative ways to get around this. I decided to start with an existing watch and modify the casing to follow the steampunk style. The first step was to find a decent pocket watch, easier said than done. I did a lot of browsing, and narrowed down my options to a few Ebay sites and this seller on Ecrater. The wood-encased pocket watch in particular caught my interest, since I can do a lot more with wood than metal.

I did a few sketches, and came up with this:

I think the leather strap is a pretty unique element, and with a little distressing, everything will look nice and antiquated. I'm not sure how quickly I'll get to this project, but I'll put up another post when I start working on it.