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.

Wow. Over a month, once again. I need to get better at posting. I keep saying that. Yet it never happens.

Right now I am in a bit of a time crunch for shcool. I have to complete my degree by September. I have 64 credits left. I am sure I can do it, but that means I will have less time for other things, like building cosplay or other crafty things. I am not going to have time to do anything for any film festivals. But once I am done with my degree I will be able to get a higher salary and be able to work on all the stop mo I want, so I am trying to keep my eyes on the prize so to speak.

Have done a project I have wanted to do for a long time. Originally the idea was to take these cheap flat cnavases and photo transfer some of my favorite photos I have taken onto them. My printer is an inkjet printer, and I can't afford a dry toner printer and am too lazy to find a place by me that can print out dry toner pictures, so I decided just to Mod Podge them to the canvases. Craft Warehouse had them on sale at or under $1 a piece. Also, Dollar tree had them in packs of 2-4 for $1 for the ones under 5x7.

I just painted the egdes black, put down a layer of Mod Podge, added the pic I printed out, let it dry, then put another layer of glossy Mod Podge over the top. I am very happy with the results.

I gotta go study, but here is a photo dump for ya.

Hello again.

Once again, I have gone a month without an update. Sigh. It has been busy. I have not gotten much done this month. I got my stuff from the Pod, so I needed to get it all organized. Which is still happening. I need money for organizing furniture. A friend got a job up here and needed a place to live while he waits for the first few paychecks, so he is currently crashing in my bedroom. I am crashing in my craft room. Which means I have no room in which to do anything. This makes me sad. It also means I can't get to anything, because it is all crammed together. Whatever is in the closet or in boxes is unreachable at the moment. I hate this, but I really don't have a choice for now. My friend has no where else to go. This arrangement will be temporary, so eventually I will get to go back to creative pursuits.

For now I am planning and doing other stuff. There is a Krampus themed animation short film festival I have decided to make a video for. I think it would be cool. Anything creepy or Krampus themed. At the moment I am working on sketching out the storyline, and deciding on the different scenes. We shall see how that turns out.

Last few days I was sick, and I haven't figured out how to get some animating done yet, and I need practice, so I pulled out my Apple pencil and iPad and tried to play around with drawn animation. I cannot draw worth a damn. I know it. But by doing that I can practice timing, and movement. I have done 2 so far. I will embed them below. Next I think I will try to do some rudimentary lip syncing to practice that.

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.

Soooo....been nearly a month, once again. I am now all moved and partially settled in. I haven't done much right now. I need to revisit Talleg's outfit. I need to decide the next one and start on it.

I have been streaming again on Twitch, under Teaweaselstopmo. Feelf ree to come by and see. It has been mainly gaming, as I still need to get my shit together for my cosplay.

But really, for now, that is it. Not much else. Weebly iPad app has beena cting up. If I can get it to go I will do some more updating at work today.

So, as I suspected, I have not had time or energy to blog or to create. Job, w00t. :P I do have an income, which is nice. Also....I am moving. Tomorrow I go sign the final paperwork and pay my deposit for a townhouse over in Beaverton. I am excited to have my own space again. As far as housing in Portland goes, it is fairly large for the price. It is fricken hard to find a place to live here. People were either not getting back to me or they would disqualify me over the phone because I have been at my job such a short time and it has been a bit since I last rented, and before that I spent 10 years going from one room rent to another, not really renting my own place. But someone finally took pity on me, and I will be moving the end of this week. Yeay!

That means that once I get settled, I will start doing more cosplay stuff. I will do more creative streams on Twitch. I will play more games. I will be able to settle in a bit. I also have decided to try FAWM. YET again. I probably won't finish this year either, but it is worth a shot.


Also....KITTEH!! I mentioned her before. She is cute and intelligent and funny and frustrating, and a total love. I am happy to have her in my life. I am really really glad I was able to find a cat friendly place to live. It would break my heart to have to leave her behind. Because I really don't have much to add here, you get kitteh pics.

Also...Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. I hope yours was a good one.

I missed the whole month of November. :( To be fair it was a very busy month. I did not really get any arty stuff done. I did some photography. But I really had to concentrate hard on school and getting a job. Which proved successful. I am now employed. I started last Wednesday. Now I have to get ready to move. So this month will probably be light as well.

I did get some ok photos this month, and I tried my hand at compositing photos. I intend to do more. Here is a bit of what I did.

I also took some spider pics. I have a spider living just outside my window I have named Jeff. Every time I approach the window his legs start flailing. I was watching The Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy at the time I noticed. He has a giant Fleur de Lis on his back. So pretty.

Also I have an addition to my family. Her name is Grainne Mhaol, after the Irish female pirate. Pronounced Grawnye Wail. She is a cutie and I can go on and on and on about her. I will just post a couple of pics and will drone on about her in a different post.

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.