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.

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.