:(

I'm currently in the airport posting this from my phone. My update is that I suck and wasnt able to complete it to a satisfactory level. It's about 90 percent done, but Im not content with that last 10 percent not done. also, my sewing machine began malfunctioning around 5am. Oh ya, I didn't sleep :/ what a waste. I suck

Next year, this costume will be mind blowingly perfect since I have a year to do 10 percent and perfect the rest

Did I mention how much I suck? :(

P.s. check my Flickr if you want to see a few pics I took from my phone this morning of progress I did last night ._.

One last update before blizzcon

The only reason I'm updating is because I'm on supper break at work.  Sadly I work until like 8pm or so tonight, cutting a couple hours of work time off.  I honestly don't know if I can get this done this year... see my to-do list for progress.

However, here are some update pics that I took on my phone (hence the junkier quality).

Below are accent pieces (for the boot capes, head piece, cape, etc), mostly made out of craft foam.  Heated to reshape, backed with fabric/glue, and coated with sealing mixture, and then texturized with fabric paint.  These are all painted now, but I don't have a picture of them completed.  oops.







The gems in the last picture are homemade (/jewelcraftinglevelled); they're more purply in real life though.

Here's the base of my shoulder (thank goodness that isn't plural!):



And finally, here's the painted staff head. Yes, the sphere does illuminate. Big props to my friend Mark who's been helping a ton, specially with the staff and cape accents.




And I got my official Blizzard email saying that I did NOT get into the contest this year as more than 100 people were eligible before me. I'm supposed to check in at 2pm to see if enough people cancelled so as I get in. I don't know how far I am down the waiting list. =( Well, if I don't get it this year, I can always enter this costume next year too. We'll see!

I still don't even know if I can finish ._.

Wish me luck!!!

i'm going to die =(

2 more nights... and I really would like to sleep the night before we leave this time =(

Sorry no picture updates... too busy working...

Also, I'm not in the contest this year, unless enough people who got accepted back out ._.

Lots of partial progress, nothing done =(

Too lazy to write much of an introduction to this entry, so here's just what's had progress in the last couple days:

"Boot Capes"

Here's the frame for them, out of my favourite material to work with lately: craft foam.

Sorry, dark picture is dark... but you can see how I am making these capes.  The tan fabric is then wrapped around the back and tucked into a second craft foam frame, making a finished edge on the inside and out.

Sadly, this process was pretty dangerous with the amount of hot glue I used on the inside and I ended up burning my finger.  QQ

 

Staff

The staff has now been carved and paper mached.  Big thanks to my friend who's been helping out with that as I fight with craft foam!

The plan is still for the globe in the middle to light up!

Oh, and I found something that could work for the orb.  I thought finding clearish plastic balls would be easy, but it's been the hardest material to find yet.  I did find this Christmas ornament though; however, I'll have to sand off all the sparkle crap that's on it before I can paint it!

Cape Details

My friend is a genius and found this technique using insulation foam and my newly purchased heat gun to tame down carved edges.  It looks fantastic!  Just have to make a ton more and prime and paint them...

These will also have gems in them (not light up though).  Gems that I'm making myself! =O  /jewelcraftinglevelling

Craft Foam Fun

Here are the wing things that go off of the headpiece.  The ones on the right are ones that I warmed up over the stove to reshape.  They'll be stiffened, textured, and painted.

I'm also working on those metal-looking pieces on the boot cape out of craft foam. 

So much to do....  ugh...

Did I mention I caught a cold? =(

My Less-than-a-week-to-go To-do List =(

Okay, I'm beginning to panic and not sleep in order to get more done.  Like last year, here's my to-do list that hopefully I can cross of multiple things each day =(

Hair:
-make hair accessories
-cut and style

Headpiece:
-make
-paint

Neckpiece

Shoulder:
-make
-paint

Staff:
-finish carving
-paper mache
-paint
-figure out lighting
-make in 2-3 pieces attach/detach

Orb
-paint
-lighting

Chest piece:
-stitching details

Jacket:
-beading details
-finish sleeve gold accents

Skirt:
-stitching details

Belts:
-finish making
-buckle

-attachments: scrolls, cape

Cape:
-make rugged
-detailing accents
-gems

Boots:
-foot pieces
-boot capes
-boot bracers (with lighting)
-gems for bracers
-accents

Bracers

Other:
-get tights
-practice tattoo makeup

Goodbye Brain Cells =(

So, I've been pretty much working with contact cement all day.  I have such a killer headache as a result =(

Sadly, I didn't get nearly as much accomplished today as I was hoping - this piece took a whole lot longer than expected.  I spent almost all of today working on the collar of the vest - that piece that kind of looks crown-ish but is attached to the jacket collar.

I made the base out of craft foam (see last post's pictures) and also used more foam bits to give it some texture.

I used the contact cement to adhere fabric onto the foam.  The first side worked well since I could just fold over the fabric and glue it (this is where a big time sink is as I had to snip and notch the edges so they could fold over properly).

For the second side, I just cut out a piece that fit it exactly; I just hope the glue holds in the edges from fraying =/  I'll cross that bridge when it comes I guess.

Also, INPUT PLEASE:  I hollowed out the holes on the top of the collar, and I'm thinking of filling in with hot glue to give a translucent-gemlike look (and I need something light for this).  I was thinking of some sort of cellophane, but I thought of doing it this way.  Thoughts?  Does it look okay?  Another option is leaving it entirely empty.  Picture of glued centre and empty centre:

Productive Day was Productive

I mostly finished my chestpiece today, with the exception of the detailing work between the tan lines (braiding of leather cording will be added). It's surprisingly non-slutty when I wear it too, so I'm feeling okay about wearing it in public, haha.

I'm also working on finishing the vest (the crown-collar, detailing on the sleeve, and beadwork at the triangle trim pieces). Here's the crown shape. I cut it out of foam and I'll be covering this with fabric on the lower sections, and probably painting the top.

I had forgotten how awesome foam is. I cut up a bunch of insulation foam into triangular strips to be covered in a metallic fabric I bought for the detailing on the purple sleeve. I'm thinking I'll also make the headpiece with foam as a base as well (well, the wing/ear things).

Also worked on the belts (yes, plural) today, but the pictures of them aren't very interesting yet ;p

In sad news, I feel a doozey of a cold coming on. It hurts to swallow =( I hate how I get sick in these last stretches. The lack of sleep has nothing to do with it >.> So, tonight I'll make sure to get a good night sleep. /sigh

Staff beginnings

Last night, after finding a bamboo pole for the shaft of it, the staff began!  A friend was over last night and likes crafty stuff, so he was able to help with the base of it, and I think he'll help out with the carving/painting too!  (The person who make my feet last year just hours before my flight because I was running out time).

Here's the base of the top of the staff:

The circular hole in the middle will be where the gem goes, and the plan is that it will light up! We found a child's toy that had a clear sphere on top that had spinning lights inside, but just decided it was too intense, even though we tried painting over it with red nailpolish to subdue it with the red. It is fairly mesmerizing though.. I'll have to get a pic of that up too...

And for the fun part, we covered it in expanding foam to carve (same technique as last year).  The other side will be covered when this side is done.



I think this year's staff will be better than last. Last year after carving expanding foam, I did layers of paper mache and then gesso to make it paintable. This made it solid enough, but it wasn't a very smooth finish. This year I'll add a layer of paper clay, or experiment with a paper mache mixture I picked up and just make it a super thick goop and a layer of just than, and then sanded down. We'll see how that goes!


Oh, and also, I don't really know how to create the affect of the chest cups as I see on the picture... so I'm taking creative liberty and just making a design on them. The design will be the dark brown fabric that I used for my skirt.




Less than two weeks to go.......... /panics

Also, my wonderflex won't arrive until the end of next week probably... If that doesn't come in soon I'm going to have to rethink how to do my shoulder, bracers, boot bracers, and helmet -_-

can i haz superman cape?

Tonight I worked on my cape, which was pretty terrifying to be honest.  I had just enough fabric to do this, so if I screwed up... well, I'd be screwed.  You'd think it'd be easy - just wrap fabric around your waist, but fabric does this funny thing when you do anything with it but make it flat and all of a sudden you have to account for all these strange curves and whatnot.  So, I did it in 3 pieces, with the length of the bottom 3 times that of the top so it'd get the flowy affect, and just not the towel-around-you look.

Yes, I know the concept art is more orangy than this, but I could not for the life of me find fabric I liked that was the right colour.  This may be too red/dark, but it has a fantastic finish that is shiny and distressed all at once.  So, I'll settle with a less than perfect colour.

Here's  the jacket with it... Sorry, it was getting tricky holding the cape and wearing it all.  The cape will attach to a belt soon =)

Thank goodness for Cutco Shears

In my continuous fabric hunt to find something, anything, better than the crappy vinyl I've been trying to use, I stumbled across this "stretchy-pasticy-I have no clue what this is" stuff and voila, my skirt (sans detailing):

I've also been working on my jacket - added the trim and the extra sleeve the base I made a while ago.  It kind of looks funny now, but I think once I add the detailing (don't ask me yet how... I haven't figured that out yet haha) it'll look good.

I've really got to start thinking about my props (Staff, orb, headpiece).  I ordered something called "wonderflex" at the beginning of last month, but it was on back order and should ship this week.  That'll make the "cuff" parts on my boots, sleeves, maybe part of my headband too.  I really hope it gets here soon... I'll have just a few days with it -_-


p.s. the title is because I didn't want to wreck my fabric scissors on this plastic type fabric and it's frustrating to cut through.  And yes, I did sell cutco for a summer... we shall not discuss that... but I do have freakin awesome knives (and scissors!) as a result ^_^d

Vinyl sucks... unless it's formed into records

I spent today working on the chestpiece, for lack of a better word.  I bought some brown vinyl (think the stuff used to upholster kitchen chairs.. sometimes) a couple weeks ago from walmart because it was 8 dollars for 2 metres thinking it had kind of a faux-leather look to it and would be good for the skit and chest piece.  I tried to make both the skirt and the lower half of the chestpiece but the stuff just doesn;t move.  The skirt was stiff, looked awkward, and just didn't move as I moved. So, I picked up assorted leather scraps and some random other fabric so between all of that, hopefully I can find something that works!

So, that being said, here's the "progress" I made tonight, which is really just a whole lot of experimenting.  That seemed to be half my efforts last year, if you'll recall ;)  I picked up a front closing bra that I'll modify into the shirt thing.  I covered the cup with painters tape to make my pattern from what I need to cut.  I also added a couple inches to the top and inside in efforts to be a tad more modest/a tad less slutty.

In the next picture, you can see how I was experimenting with how different fabrics used.  The black stuff is some scrap leather just to see how that looked (I didn't want to mess up with the limited brown stuff I have) and the brown fabric is a fake suade.  I like the suade, but it's a bit soft and doesn't hold its shape well in the areas higher than the bra (although, I didn't try it on yet... there are pins jabbed through it holding the fabric in place while I fiddle)

In the concept art, there is definitely some sort of design/pattern on the cups... kind of spirally too?  So I tried making a pattern for that, but it just kind of looked ridiculous and like there was a target on the boob.  I also tried randomly putting on layers of leather and fabric, but it just kind of looked weird too, so I'm giving up on that for tonight.

Instead I tried working on the stuff in the torso region.  You can kind of see what I'm working towards here.  I'm attempting to still use the vinyl because it was cheap and I have a bunch of it, but doing it in strips so hopefully it's more moveable when I'm wearing it.

It's obviously not going to be that shape, but you can see the layering concept I'm trying to go with, and what the detailing will look like (the X-stitches on the scrap).  That will be within the layers.


Oh, and also.. here's my wig!!!  So fun.  I kind of want to wear it all the time.. but that'd be weird -_-

Reverse Engineering: Boots

Ok, so maybe "engineering" is a stretch, but I have completely disassembled boots, only to rebuild them again.

During the summer, I found these *almost* perfect boots:

I say almost because they're black... not brown.  Even though they were the wrong colour, I bought them because the height, design, and top fit exactly what I wanted (and they were cheap at some clearance place!).  I looked into the possibility of airbrushing, painting, and dying this fabric, but nothing seemed possible, especially since it's made of some crappy synthetic fabric.

Soooo.... I picked up fabric that I like and then cut up the black boots carefully, using the fabric I cut out as a guide of what to cut from the brown fabric:

I sewed the pieces back together and used spray adhesive to stick the brown fabric back onto the base, giving it that wrinkly look.  I used painters tape over the toe and heal part to help create my pattern for those sections (as you can see the beginnings of in the above picture).

The trickiest parts were around the zipper (you can't see in these pics.. they're on the lower insides of the boots) and along the back... I just wasn't sure how to make this look nice since I can't really maneuver around the inside of the base boots with my sewing machine.  However, this is one thing I learned from last year.  Last year I was so anal and meticulous with minor details, that NOBODY NOTICED. 

I want to get this done, and so spots you can't see, I'm not going to stress about.  I'm pretty pleased with results.  Still lots to go, but here's the base of the boot (as compared to the original):

Year Number Two?

So, we managed to snag Blizzcon tickets again, and barring me not being able to get off time from work, it looks we're going to California again in October.

So, the question is, do I put myself through the ridiculous nightmare that was making a costume last year, again?  Dan thinks I should rework and improve on my priest t10 costume from last year, but the idea of that is very unappealing to me, tbh.  Parts of it got damaged during the trip and to rework it seems more daunting than starting from scratch.

The obvious choice would be to do what my priest wears again (tier 11), but I'm not a huge fan of the caterpillars-overlooking-toilet-bowl shoulders (my shoulders on a night elf, for reference). 

I'm also toying with the idea of the female Diablo 3 Wizard, from concept art:

  

Not sure if it's more than I'm capable of, but hey... I thought that last year too =P

Also, I imagine I'll have less reasons to play this summer (a good friend I often play with isn't around... /sadface) so having something to distract myself with in the evenings is a bonus ^_^

Thoughts?  Or other suggestions for other costume ideas as I'm not yet entirely committed to this one.