Hello again. I am back again with more resolve to post here more often. Life has been kicking my butt. However I have renewed motivation and plan to try to keep this thing going. In order for that to happen, I have made a plan. Bwuahahaha.
So...

Plan 1 - Post here 2x a week, no matter where I am at.
I am hoping by making myself stick to a pre planned schedule, things won’t fall through the cracks. I have several SCA events to get ready for this summer, as well as Norwescon in April (if it isn’t cancelled) and Rose City Comic Con in September. I also have some stop mo’s I want to complete. They are all written, I just have to construct the puppets, sets, props etc and film. Hwat I work on will be dependent on time, energy, joint flare ups and money for the pieces I need.

Plan 2 - Post a vlog on You Tube either once a week or every other week.
I set up a YouTube channel for bloggy things that are not actual stop mo things. I will embed the videos here. We shall see how that goes.

For now, let me get you caught up.

I have so many projects. I think I will just list them here and break them down into the different parts.

1. SCA
I am going to just concentrate on getting a set of camping event garbs to wear to events this summer. This is going to consist of
-Elizabethan peasant garb
-1 or 2 chemises
-2 or 3 kirtles
​-an apron
-2 or 3 coifs with forehead kercheifs
-a tie on collared partlet
- Possibly either a flat cap, straw hat or both

Elizabethan peasant garb seems fairly straight forward. I am basing my basic design on this:

Basically the blue one. I don’t want to mess with back lacing while camping alone. This is also slightly earlier than my period, but it is the basic jist of what I am going for. I also want to make fake padded braids to wear under the coif to make it fit right. Cause my hair is sparce at the moment.


2. Cosplays
I want to get Talleg done (yes, STILL), and I need to fix Aoifa. I am thinking of just leaving it at those. Because I don’t have a lot of spare money right now, and Norwescon is in a month, I am just going to concentrate and those two for now.

Aoifa
-Fix her corset. Either try to make it a real corset or figure out how to sew the cardboard together so it won’t pop
-Remake her horns
-Make a padded circlet to go under the wig, so the horns look like they are growing kut of her head. Seriously that circlet is a joke.
-Figure out how to incorporate the dragon eye from the current circlet
-Sew the fur collar to the cloak. It is currently hot glued, very badly
-Repaint the spider broaches so the black doesn’t chip off
-Figure out a better sleeve configuration. Or learn how to glue them to my skin so they stay
-Figure out how to install the ears, and how to makeup them

Not much. 😒

Talleg
-Finish breastplate
-leg armor and arm armor
-Gauntlets
-Finish +1 mace.....MAKE IT LIGHT UP

​I think I will break this down futher in my video. When I get that done.

It has been a while. Still working on school work. Still working night shift. Still still still. :P I have had a few more inspirations for what I want to do for the upcoming cons.

This first one is from the game Hollow Knight. I broke down and bought myself a Nintendo Switch. I love playing it. The first game I got was Hollow Knight. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this game! It is pretty, it is open world, it is cute, it is fun. Here are some of the referance pics:

I will need to figure out how to do the mask. And the cloak. I will wear a black long sleeve shirt and black pants for the base. I also want to make the sword...which in game is called a nail...

I want to make the one on the far left. The cloak is just a bunch of strips sewn together. I think. I don't sew well. We shall see if I can pull that off.

The other one...well...this one...a few weeks ago I went to the Portland GeekCraft Expo. I walked past a booth that was selling this print. The artist is Brandi York. You can find the original and all the others in this series HERE.

This....this is me. She is shaped like me. She has red hair. But look at her eyes. They are fierce. She exhudes inner and outer strength I wish I had. I cried when I saw this. And of course I bought it. And also, I NEED TO COSPLAY THIS. I do not think this is a choice. It is mandatory.

I am going to have to sew this dress. I have a feeling I won't find it anywhere. And I want to paint a cabashon to place on the chest. I don't know how to make it strong enough not to buckle under the weight of the cabashon, though. I can't really tell if there are straps on the dress or not, but I will have to add straps. Nothing stays on me without them. I can't go barefoot, escpecially walking a con...so I think what I will do is make boot covers that look like feet and then the wrappings over it. I don't know if I will go with cloth, or make em out of EVA foam and paint it to look like cloth strips.

I didn't notice she has braids attached to her face. I guess she is supposed to be a dwarf? I think instead of doing that, I am going to make them part of the wig and pull them forward. Or maybe I will try making separate braids and glue them to my face. I was thinking the neck thing was a gorget, but it looks more like cloth. I wonder if it is a cowel or a scarf that flows down the back? I think I will treat it as a face covering demi cowel, like a ninja mask or something. I also need to decide if I am going to make the cuffs more like gaunlets or fabric cuffs. I think making them leatheresque looking painted gold may be pretty.

The length of the dress is a bit unrealistic. I will make it shorter. I am thinking shorter in the front and swooping down a bit in the back. Not beyond my feet, but maybe just barely to. Front make it midcalf.

Wigs....well, I am unsure how to get the right color. THIS ONE may be too light. THIS ONE  may work. I may need extensions as well. Also I need to remember I can darken it if I need to. I may also need to get extensions in order to have enough for the extra braids. THIS ONE is the same one I got before, but in a different color. It may be more the length I need. And if I decide to make it shorter I can use the extra to make the braids.

OK...need to get working on school work. But now I have some of my ideas down maybe I can move a bit further forward. Feel free to comment with suggestions if you have any.

Bet you thought I abandoned this blog. No such luck. I am still working hard at trying to finish up my last term. Starting Sunday I move to night shift at work. I haven't had the time, energy or mental bandwidth to do anything really. Da Kitteh is getting so big. She is almost too big for my keyboard cover. Doesn't stop her from trying though. :)

This year I am planning on attending several cons, and I have decided I want to cosplay at all of them. I am still in the deciing phase of this though. So I thought I would do a stream of consciousness and talk myself through it. The cons I am planning on are Rose City Comic Con, Steam Con, Norwescon. There are a few more, but I am not sure what I am going to be able to do. Norwescon is in Seattle Easter/Passover weekend. I am going with one of my Eugene friends and her friend who lives in a different state. We are sharing a hotel room. That one is a literary heavy con, so I am thinking the one I make new for that con should be literary based. I am kind of leaning towards something from the October Daye world by Seanan McGuire. I don't know what to do though. It would be a fun one to play around with making masks and prosthetics, as evenually I want to make myself a Madam Vastra mask. That will probably be years downt he road, though. I think I need to go through her character respoitory again and decide what I want to attempt. I may end up doing 2 for this one. Though anything I make that is done before then I can use there too. I am hoping to get Talleg done soon so I can use her wherever. Rose City also has some awesome actors. Christohper Eccelston will be there. He was the first reboot Doctor from Doctor Who. I am thinking I need to do something from an episode of his series as well. Or maybe I will be more creative than that and research his other roles. I seriously considered doing some kind of take on the Steampunk Tardis, which I could also use at Steamcon. Researching it though so many people have done it. I don't want to do another tired out cliche. I need to think harder on this.

Well, I did do a little bit of narrowing down. I will leave you with a gratuitous kitteh pic.

It has been a very very busy month. I can't believe I have not posted in so long.

So, today I am going to share pics of my in progress rebuild of my breastplate. I am so tired. I finally got my stuff out of storage. I had to empty the Pod container all by myself, and ever since my joints have been randomly failing. I can't do anything to make it better. Carrying around heavy things is something on the rheumatologists no-no list. But Pods really soaked me on "fees" and I had no money left to hire anyone to help. I don't really know many people here, and didn't feel like guilting my coworkers to help, as I have to work with them in a small room in the middle of a noisy data center. This morning I was going up the stairs to do my hair before work, coffee cup in hand, when my right ankle and left knee gave out and I fell down the stairs and spilled my coffee everywhere. Da kitteh was SOOO excited. She found the biggest spot and hunched over it, growling if I got close.

Did I mention my kitty LOOOOVES coffee? She is so funny. The first time I drank coffee when she was living with me, she kept trying to put her head in my coffee cup. I explained to her that coffee is for closers, and she was a kitty so would never be a closer. She looked at me a second, meowed loudly then walked away. Ever since she has been desperate to get coffee. She will sneak over my shoulder and try to drink from my cup. She will sneak in the side and try drink it if I hold it too low. I have to hold on to my cup or put my hand over the top or she is drinking it. :/ I dropped some coffee beans. She found some I missed. She licks them or sucks on them...never chews them. I thought I confiscated all of them, but from time to time she shows up with one and starts tearing around the house.

Anyway....

So here ya go. I decided to tear apart my breastplate because it was ugly and not very functional. I couldn't find my dome patterns, so I just cut apart the old ones and used them as a pattern. I think it looked ok.

Then I took some armatur wire and plied it and made a frame. I used a glue gun to glue the boob cups in, then started to cover it with 2mm foam. I haven't finished that part yet. My idea for the rest of it is to cover it with kelp leaves. I was originally going to sculpt kelp leaves out of Foam-Mo. However that did not work out so well. So I ordered som plastic ones off Amazon, and I have started spraying them down with black primer.

So it has been a few weeks. I have actually been sort of productive. Along with working full time, trying to get my household sort of settled, studying to take the AZ 100 exam, and trying to finish my schoolwork, I have also been inspired to work on my Talleg cosplay.

If you remember, I kind of was at a standstill for a while. I am struggling to make the spoon maille work. I am struggling to make the chaine maille work. The breastplate was a travesty.

So...I was watching a Twitch streamer make some of her EVA foam armor, and I got inspired. I also got inspired to pull out the makeup and play around with it.

I have never been good with makeup. As a teenager it annoyed me, and as an adult I just never got it. This does not help with doing cosplay makeup. At this point all I do IRL is some coverup from time to time and lipstick. To be fair I love dark lipstick. But that is about all I do.

So this is the 3rd time trying to make it work, and I think I am getting a bit closer to ok. Here are some before and after pics of this time.

Better. Not great yet though. I went a bit too heavy handed with the dark blue for contouring. Under the eye is supposed to be a bruise. Yeah....noooo. Looks like blood though, so I may use that technique. Just not for a bruise. I think it needs more yellow and purple, maybe. And a little less heavy handed. My lips are also very lopsided. That is because they are. Looks like I have had a stroke or something. It is waaaay more pronounced in the makeup. I need to learn how to make that less obvious.

And the worst thing...the eyes. I have always reacted badly to eye makeup. I finally found stuff that will be ok, and I have no fucking clue how to apply it appropriately. The blue face makeup needs to get closer, and I need to learn how to do eyeliner.

I have a blue wig that goes with this, but I could not find it before I took the pics. I am still unpacking moving boxes and hadn't found that particular box yet. I did last night. I guess I need to try this again so I can see the full effect. I also need to get finishing/fixing spray and face primer. Those are both easily doable though. Just not till the next paycheck, as I am still trying to get my Pod outta hock. Well, not hock technically, just out of storage. They are expecting way more than they quoted when I first started storing it. I am hoping to get it and have all the contents by the end of this month.

SO the next thing I am working on is redesigning and redoing the breastplate. Because she is water genasi, everything in her armor is nuatical/water themed. I was watching this Twitch person making her breast armor, and got inspired to try something new. I found this stuff :

That is all for now. I will update as things progress. Which is slowly right now as I work through a ton of life stuff.

It has been a while again. I have been so busy trying to find a job I haven't had time to do much else.

I have lost a lot of wieght, as a consequence clothes fit me that did not before. Last summer I ordered a bunch of clothes online that were really really cheap, but despite being size 3x they didn't even remotely fit. They were more like 14-16, which is in the Large/Xlarge range. At this point things are starting to actually fit. This weekend is Kumoricon, and I haven't had time to do much cosplay building. I was just planning on going, playing DnD and taking cosplay pictures. But this jacket now sort of fits, and it is kind piratey....maybe? It had a really crappy zipper on it that wouldn't stay together even if I zipped it up without putting it on so there was no pull on it.

For some reason I didn't think of getting a pic before I started working on it. First I just cut off the zipper. Then I reinforced the button area. I have pinned all the buttons on, and sewed about 3 of them. I will then make loops to hook over the buttons. I have no idea what else I will do with it. What will I wear under it? Skirt? Pants? Will it easily lend itself to being turned into a cosplay for an existing character? I dunno. It is 3/4 length sleeves. I have a ton of silver buttons. Originally I was going to put buttons on both sides and lace it together. However I do not have enough of the same kind of buttons, so I decided to do the button loop thing. I have these pirate skull and crossbones buttons. Not enough for the sleeve cuff buttons, but that is ok. I will put dragon buttons on the sleeve cuffs. The color matches. Sort of. I also found a bunch of Halloween themed stuff I bought on sale last year. I have no idea what I will do with them yet, but I am sure I will think of something.

I need to get back to job hunting. If I come up with something cool I will post it.

So I have a ton of holes in my armor that look really bad. I am running out of time to complete this, as the con is 7th of Sept. So I decided to just try to make some easy simple 4-in-1 chain maille to fill in those spots.

All I have is shiny aluminum 16 gage wire, and I have no more money to buy any, so that is what I used. I am in the middle of the second sleeve. I figured I would make a strap to tie them together and strap em to my person. That may not be what happens after I try it out, but that is the plan.

The principle behind the 4-in-1 is to put 4 rings onto 1 ring, then attach those 5 ring sets together to make the piece. It took me a while to get it, but after I finally wrapped my head around the concept it went fairly smoothly.

I am running out of rings, and I have completely run out of wire. I still have torso and legs to cover. So I have some 18 gage wire, so I guess that is what I will make the lower body chain maille out of. It'll be fine, right? I still intend to finish the spoon maille. I just haven't had time and I won't have time to complete it before the con. This is just intirim stop gap measure maille.

Neglectful blogger has been neglectful. But busy.

Talleg is supposed to be done for Rose City Comic Con, which is here in a couple of weeks. I do not think I will get the spoon maille done. But everything else is progessing nicely.

Mainly done, I suppose. The vambraces need leather straps and buckles. I am waiting for leather strapping to come in from Amazon. I am also going to replace the belt strap with leather before I attach that belt buckle. I am working on the thigh armor, which will look exactly like the vambraces only thigh sized. And I will rivet it in the middle as well as the edges. That too will need straps. Then I will just need to decide how to do the upper arms and torso. Cause those will eventually be the spoon maille. I may just try doing some kind of intirim maille look thing for now. I also need to get my +1 mace done. I am making it light up and it will be a flange mace with angry waves as the flanges. I am kind of excited.

But seriously...I am really really happy with how the gorget turned out. That is the last pic in that bunch of pics. I had a few false starts, but it got there in the end. I used a SCA leather gorget pattern and modified it. The first one I did out of 2mm foam. It looked great, except the trim looked like it had been done by a drunk person and it felt like it was too flimsy to last long.

I opted to use real rivets. They are cheap leather rivets, meant for decoration only not real work, but they will do. For $8 I got a set that had a hole cutter, 30 rivets and caps, an anvil and a setter. Amazon has those cheap buckles for 50 for $10. They are all different sizes, which is what I needed. I intend to use them for the vambraces, leg armor, etc.

OK this is getting long, so I am going to leave it here. One day soon I will do a post talking about the silver gilders wax I used to make the armor shiney. But for now, I need to get back to it.

Ok....so I really ahven't done much this week. I have been playing around little with photography, though.

I really want to be able to do cosplay photography. I have been working at learning what I can when I can. I have not had a ton of opportunities to practice, though, so I find my skills lacking still.

I took my camera with me to VersusCon. I had some issues, and it was clear I did not have the best equipment. And it was clear I am still struggling to remember all the technical stuffs. I think the more I do it, the easier it will be to remember.

So here are a few of the pictures I took. They are....ok. My lens decided half way through the day that it did not want to focus. I also was having issues getting it to be unmushy. I don't have a light. I need a light. I am aware of this. I look at my pics and can tell where it could use a fill light. Also...going full automatic did not improve the pics any, so I think overall my camera was unhappy and just crapping the bed.

I tried to edit where I could. There are still several I think I may be able to salvage.


So I was talking with a friend of mine, who suggested a speedflash with a triggering system. I found some cheap online and ordered them. A bunch of other people online suggested I invest in a 50mm 1.8/f lens. Found one of those cheap too in a bundle deal with the speedflash.

Turns out the triggering system, though it says it is compatible with Canon, is not actually compatible with Canon. After some frustrating stops and starts, a friend helped me figure this out. The speedflash works, though, if I use the on board flash to trigger it. The issue with that is the onboard flash leaves wierd shadows from the long lens or lens hood, depending. I would rather just be able to use the external flash by itself. but I chose to get a Canon so unless I have the money to invest in a Canon brand triggering system it isn't going to happen.

I tested it out with the puppers. These are with the kit lens (18mm-55mm, 3.5/f).

Still not great, but I think I am moving in the right direction.

So Friday I got the lens and did some testing. I really like the 50mm 1.8/f lens. I need to play with it more.

I think I am starting to get it. I do need to get more people to let me take thier picture though. As I practice and get better, I think it will be apparent.

One thing is certain, though. This is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than a point n shoot. I don't think I can go back to a point n shoot. And I have a Nikon point n shoot.