Yet again...

Current Music: Never Knew I Needed by Ne-Yo

Progress. The word itself as well as the whole metaphysical collection of thoughts and feelings that it evokes is and always will be purely relative. In saying that I have made progress in my perpetual rhapsody of craft is a statement of both fact and abject futility. Yes, I am now closer to the end of this but there will never be a point where I can state beyond any doubt and against any and all future desires that I will be well and truly finished with this project. There will always be something that could be improved, something that could be changed for another. It is like writing. One can never be finished.

But that is a philosophical discussion for another day.

Since my last post I have finished several crucial pieces of the costume and laid the foundation for the next several layers. Perusing my other posts it seems that I have been very negligent over the past few weeks in keeping you informed.

Let’s start at the bottom this time and work up.

I finished scaling the feet. Previously all I had done was the foam work and the claws glued to one foot. But after weeks of sitting underneath my bed I have finished the scaling of them and I can say that I am quite pleased with their look. The only issue I ran into on these is the black vinyl I used as the “skin” for the feet does not like hot glue at all and goes through periods of misbehavior where the scales start to peel off. I have reached a point now, having devoted more time than should be allotted to something so minor in the whole scheme of things, that I am content to just ignore it.

I have made some small progress on the legs of the full body scale suit that I plan for this costume. What you see pictured is as far as I have gotten on the legs, a lack I intend to remedy sometime this week. While gluing theses scales on I realized rather quickly and unpleasantly that the collections of scales I had were used very quickly and the number I had already would be insufficient! 1200+ scales are insufficient!

I have glued the tail rings together with strips of elastic and vinyl. The tail looks dark due to the leg of pantyhose I have attached to it to act as a skin for the attachment of scales but later decided to forgo in favor of something more robust.

While gluing the last ring of the tail to the strip of vinyl (the white line in the picture) I burned myself when I fumbled a piece freshly slathered in hot glue. Yes, I know, not my most graceful moment. Though the blisters are small they hurt like the dickens unless I kept my hand wrapped in ice.

I had more luck in avoiding burns when I glued strips of the shiny green fabric over the gaps between the rings and stuffed the whole thing with plush to give it a more robust constitution. I also found, unfortunately, that the fabric and stuffing made the tail quite stiff and therefore not nearly as biologically accurate movement-wise as my tiger tail from last year. Oh well, you live and learn.

As you can see from the picture I painted the tail mace the same color as the horns and attached it to the tail. Here is the finished tail hanging again from my bookshelf. Yes, just in case you were wondering, I used the red cloth for the base intentionally.

The wings have been a bit of a trial for me. It is becoming one of those things that don’t exactly fit with the image you have of it in your head. It is still good, but not quite there. I constructed the “bones” of the wings using a set of aluminum tubes I ordered from a hobby/craft shop online. I then cut them into pieces, drilled holes in the ends and bolted them together in the shape of a wing.
I have a plan to make the wings mobile rigging them in such a way that when you pull a cord the wings open. At this point I have only gotten to rigging one wing with eye screws while the other is still in its separate pieces waiting for the holes for the eye screws to be drilled.

The wings will be attached to a hinged block on my back that is attached to me with a series of straps: two over the shoulders, two from the bottom of the block around to the front of the belt, and one down the spine for the tail to attach to. Getting all the pieces together will probably be a weekend of work by themselves.

Next is the neck of my costume. As I am pulling a bit of personal cosplay here and going as my character Summerbreeze I recreated the necklace of silver scales that she wears. Originally the scales which look like a “three pointed flame” were in a shape kind of like a bird track with the three points all being about the same length. I re-imagined the concept and this is what I came up with:
Quite a bit more elegant than a collection of bird tracks, I think. In pairing with the necklace I have wrapped the Shi’thara’ben crystals with silver wire and they are ready to attach to the chain.
Moving forward to the part I am most excited about: the mask. While I had a good number of trepidations about building a mask in the way that Canine Hybrid’s YouTube videos show I can say that I am very happy with how it has come out so far. Unlike the masks of my previous two costumes this mask is soft and very light. Constructed mainly from foam and a balaclava (aka head sock) building the mask this way granted me a kind of freedom that I did not have before when working with plaster and cardboard. I can literally sculpt the pieces of foam to take on the shape that fits with the picture in my head. If only I had known about this technique before! This next series of pictures are my work over an all-nighter I pulled on the Friday of Conference weekend.
The black thing on my head is the balaclava and the white part is a strap of elastic to keep the chin tight against my face. It is important to making the moving jaw later.

Just so you know, I did not move the eyes to look at the camera. The eyes are made to track. They will seem to look at you no matter where you are standing.
After a lot of sculpting with scissors and a few bouts with an Exacto knife the mask is coming along great. Here I am gluing on the eyebrow ridges. Due to the insulating properties of the foam the hot glue takes a while to fully cool and set. I have found uses for these clamps everywhere. I love them! Over the course of this construct I am afraid that I began to get a bit delirious due to lack of sleep and more than once I found myself talking to the mask. In truth that is the only reason I have this picture. Because I looked at it and said “That must be painful” and decided to take a picture. To be honest I am not sure if I have even recovered fully from that night. Still a bit delirious.
With the horns.
With the jaw glued on.
The mask with the foam work more or less finished. Cool beans! At the bottom of the previous picture you can see parts of the finished ears. Here is a better picture:

I covered the back of the black blanks with a neat shimmery cloth I found at JoAnn’s that already has a scale pattern on it. I made the fringe by tying loops of white and green string through plastic mesh. The roots of the ears are springs so that when I attach them to the mask they will have a realistic movement. Yes, that’s right: moving ears. (I know, my dedication to something so ultimately frivolous sometimes scares me too.)

In addition to the ears I have also finished the horn rings and medallions to hang from them. In my book the medallions hanging from the horn rings display the dragon’s clan. In Summerbreeze’s case it is the Fire clan.

The horn rings have a fun spiral pattern on them that you can’t really appreciate from the pictures.

The last part I want to show is the one that has been giving me the most frustration. Not because of any real difficulties figuring it out, just that it is taking so stinking long to get it finished. Holding to the look of my character, the mask will have a mane. I have devoted more than 24 hours to JUST the mane and it is still not completely finished. But I have resigned myself to put it aside for the time being in order to get other more important parts finished first. It is passable as it is and thus the freedom to set it aside.
You can see from the picture the pattern of dots on the underside of the strip. Each of those dots is a separate knot and each knot is four strands. There are fifteen different colors of string in the mane and two separate lengths of string. It is thick enough to stand up on its own. (I wish my own hair was like that!) My hand is there for scale.

So now that I have devoted nearly three hours to writing this I will bid you adieu. Until next time.

Current music: The Promise by When in Rome

Costume Update

Current Music: Beyond the Sea by Celtic Woman

This costume had officially taken over my life. It is slowly, bit by bit infringing upon my space, creeping out from under my bed and overflowing my craft table. I cannot say how glad I am that I bought that bed from my roommate instead of staying on that air mattress. If I had not I don't know where I would keep all the supplies, craft bits, and miscellaneous odds and ends that I seem to attract like a magnet while I am working on this. It is really quite terrible.

...and I love it.

As things usually go, I am still digging through the smaller, detail bits before I start on the bigger, less detailed parts like gluing all those scales on! Yikes. I finally got the balaclava today that I will be using as the foundation for my mask, so I can finally start on the meat of that. Hooray!

I have all the detail parts of the mask more or less finished now: the eyes, ears, teeth and horns.

I am really happy with the eyes, even though they came our more gold then green. These also have the tracking effect like the blue one I showed you before. The green is iridescent also, though you can't really tell from the picture.

Those black things at the bottom are the foundation for the ears. The picture does not show their detail very well. Eventually the ears will be covered with scales and have a fur fringe along the bottom edge. The ears will be attached to the mask with springs so that when I shake my head the ears will move. HA! I saw the idea online and loved it. Both the horns and the ears are made from sheets of craft foam. It makes them very lightweight but also surprisingly durable. I painted the horns about three times. Primer and two coats of glossy grey. The foam sheets are very absorbent and it took a surprising amount of paint to both cover them and make the glossiness come out.

The teeth were a fun project by themselves. I ordered a wolf jaw-set from a taxidermy website, sculpted the teeth the way I wanted, made a mold with OOMOO 30 silicone, and then cast them out of white plastic. It was very satisfying to make for some reason. perhaps because they look scary. Heh. (That blob of yellow on the right is the clay-stuffed original teeth model with the top and bottom pieces stuck back to back.)

I have made some progress on the feet. Originally I was thinking of making digitgrade stilts to go with it, but after I went through all the time and trouble to buy the stuff to build them I decided that stilts would be uncomfortable and a little overkill. I mean I am making articulated wings! If that is not already overkill I do not know what is.

So the feet look kinda like clown shoes (at least they are long enough to feel like I am wearing fins.) Since this picture was taken I have added green vinyl to the bottom with "gecko pads" to give the bottoms a reptilian look. I have also since added a black vinyl "sock" that covers the ankles of the feet and gives me a skin where I can glue on scales.

This is the progress so far. I really need to just sit down and glue the scales to it and get it over with. Having an artsy-fartsy brain is both a boon and curse. You get all these amazing ideas on how to make the project look cool, but the hard part is deciding which idea to keep and sometimes even how to do it. That is where I am now with the feet. I have the vision, just not so much the ability to get it there. Oh well.

I finished the claws by making a mold of my original Sculpey model and then casting a whole bunch in black plastic. The foot in the picture above is sporting some of them. My goal is to get the claws glued to the gloves tonight. It shouldn't take too long.

Casting the claws was an adventure. I discovered that my bathroom makes an ideal impromptu ventilation chamber for such odoriferous projects as mixing and casting resins. Just pop a fan on the counter, keep the vent running and you are good to go.

Because my mold was only for a single claw I had to mix the plastic for each one. All those cups along the back are individual mixes. The plastic sets up really quickly so practically as soon as I was done pouring the leftovers in the cup were beginning to solidify. After five minutes the sticks were glued to the cups. I finally cast the resin parts of some of the jewelry, if you can call it that. The blue piece is called Shi'thara'ben and the green is the accent stone. Once they finally cure completely I will wrap them together using silver jeweler's wire.

That purplish blob in the bottom of the picture is the silicone mold for the green accent stone that is sitting on top of it. The funny thing about casting resin, the smaller the piece is, the longer it takes to cure. I cast these pieces almost a week ago and the green one is still sticky.

So that is what is taking up my free time. I have started on the wings, and hope to get the skeleton together this weekend.

Current Music: Un Giorno Per Noi by Josh Groban

My Current Distraction

Current Music: Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson

I realize that I have not been very consistent in my posts and I blame that partly on my current project. I know that it is more than two months away, but I thought that it would be a good idea to get started on my...taadaa! Halloween Costume!

For the past two years I have put a lot of effort in creating elaborate Halloween Costumes. Don't ask me why, cause I don't know. The artsy bug has some really strong poison if you ask me. And it tends to lurk.

The first cut (2008) was a wolf where I constructed the mask of cardboard and plaster in about two weeks--faux fur is kinda hard to work with I found. On the side as part of the costume I made a velvet cape which was easier that I had thought when I began--go figure.

The next year (2009) I went a little farther and more elaborate in my "Shadow Tiger" outfit that had a mask (with teeth), a half body fur suit, and an articulated tail. This costume took me a solid three weeks of late nights and long weekends to get together and even then it came to the wire. A good friend of mine helped me with the jewelry on the mask which was nice.

This year though I will not be pulling something together in the final few weeks prior to the night of happy haunts. THIS year, I am going all out with a full suit, mask, tail and...wings! I am pulling a bit of personal cosplay and will be going as my character Summerbreeze Firefall, who is a dragon and the main character for my novel (currently still in progress).

I started this costume about three weeks ago and I think I am making some solid progress. The real time consumer in preparation for this endeavor is the scales. If I use just the scales that I have cut out at this point the costume will have more than 1200 individual scales, in five separate sizes. and yes, they were all cut out by hand.

This picture is my improvised worktable in my room with the six bags of scales, organized by size. That small patch of scales on the table are size 4, where the size 3 are the main body scale size and are the full bag on the right of the picture. Yeah, that is two weeks of late nights right there.

Before I even made the scales I had Jason help me make a tape dummy of my legs. Tape dummies are simple: you wrap your body with plastic wrap, then wrap layers of tape over it. The only way out of it is to cut your way out. After repairing the cuts I stuffed it with newspaper and put the pants on it that will be the foundation of the scales I will glue on eventually.

To be entirely frank, I find the legs to be more than a little disturbing. It is almost like I have half a body lying around my room. At the moment they are collecting dust under my craft table as I have not yet started gluing on the scales. I avoid looking at them when I can.

Next I started on some of the detail pieces. The costume will be as accurate to the Summerbreeze character as possible without actually walking around on all fours as she does. In the process of creating these detail pieces I have learned a great deal about modes of artistic creation that I was not aware of before. Such as plastic resin casting.
This is my first try (the colors done quickly with some sharpies) at a resin cast eye. In virtue of how these pieces are made, the eye has a tracking effect where it appears that the eye follows you. The mask's eyes will be green and I will paint them with enamel so they stand out better.

I do not take credit for the discovery of this really nifty trick, that credit goes to another avid costume-maker who is kind enough to post "how to" costume-craft videos on Youtube: Monoyasha. (Thank you Monoyasha!) This eye is just a test I threw together to see if I could pull it off. The resin pieces that will eventually be the final eyes are sitting in a jar above my table waiting for paint.

These pieces are some of the other detail bits. They are the Shi'thara'ben model, the unbaked Sculpey model for a set of resin cast claws, and the glazed model for the green accent stone that will be a part of the Shi'thara'ben pendant. For scale the claw model is about as long as my index finger (three inches or so). Eventually I will get around to ordering the OOMOO Silicone model making mixture so I can cast these bad boys in transparent dyed resin. So those are still waiting in the wings for me to get my butt in gear.

My most recent step completed is the tail. Or at least the foundation that will be the tail. I have changed my tactics a bit from last year in the materials I am using. Last year I used thick wooden dowels as the tail vertebrae with eye screws and elastic for the joints. While that worked for a thin feline tail doing the same thing for a thick dragon tail would be both too heavy and cumbersome to deal with for an extended period of time. So this year I am using rings of craft foam to give the tail structure. This configuration is both very light and relatively stiff. (The red you see on the inside of the rings is where I glued a second layer of foam sheets for support.)

Eventually the rings will be secured to one another, probably by strips of elastic so the tail can move and bend somewhat. Depending on some tests I'll do later to ascertain its strength and durability while under stress I may add discs of furniture foam into the larger rings for additional support.

The next on my list of little details is to start working on the mask. The one part that both frightens and excites me the most. Frightens because I will be using entirely new techniques this time around. and excites because of that very same thing. With these new techniques I think I will get the best results of all of my costumes so far.

I'll keep you posted.

Current music: Yo Vivo Perle by Andrea Bochelli

Florida 2010

Current music: "Close Every Door" from Joseph and the Technicolor Dream coat

So Wednesday (August 4th) I got back from spending more than a week and a half with my family in Florida. It was one of those trips that almost require a vacation afterwards in order to recover from the first one. I had a really great time and wish I was still there. I managed to acquire both some color to my usually pasty pale skin and also a sinus infection. Yeah, I am trying to figure out that one too since I spent most of my time outside.

Among the things I like the best about Florida (besides my family being there of course) are the sunrises.

And also the moonrises...yes, that is the moon.

And while the whole family was together there was a whole lot of this:

And this:

And other like shenanigans

All with the enevitable conclusion at the end of the day: crash and burn.

All in all it was a great trip.

Current Music: "Optimus vs Megatron" from the score of Transformers