Saturday, March 30, 2013

Huzzah

I signed up for the Realm of Venus Costume Contest.(link) I've been wanting to compete for a while, and now the chance has come, or will come April 14th. Do expect a lot of ramblings between now and mid-August, when the construction deadline is.

My goals are three fold: to a) finish my outfit, b) accrue at least 100 points by the scoring system and c) have a new outfit for Comic Con. Fingers crossed.

Monday, March 18, 2013

A Palette Cleanser


To save my wrist from another repetitive strain injury, I'm taking up the slips on days I'm not making Serenity. Right now I'm just doing a long line of chain stitching. It's not the prettiest, but I doubt anyone will be looking so closely. If they are, I think I have reason to scold them for being rude.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

The First Foray




This was made when I was in high school. I hadn't sewed since grade school, and my mom's machine loved to fight me. I seriously doubted my patience to hand sew an entire outfit, so I cast my mind about for what I could cosplay as.

Rei's plugsuit seemed to be the best idea. All I had to do was paint a unitard, and it wasn't so hard to find reference images. Finding all the appropriate fabric pens was tricky as I didn't know where to look, and the pens I found hated me. The either blobbed paint, or ran dry. After a while I ended up using highlighters as it seemed simpler than trying to finding more pens. To eliminate the possibility of undergarments being visible through the material, I painted the area opaque with white paint.

I did do a little bit of sewing for this costume. After purchasing the wig, I stitched and painted the little bobs you see on top, and sewed them on. I bought gloves and made fat cloth bracelets, but they were awkward so I left them off.

 I also gathered some white cloth and ribbons to simulate her head bandages, and at this outfit's debut, someone was kind enough to give me his spare ace bandages so I could wrap myself up even more. Hence I found that having only one eye open upon entering a dark room makes night vision tricky, and removing the patch after hours of wear is a mildly trippy experience. This outfit lasted for two conventions and one Halloween, but it did not store well. All folded up, the paint ran where it shouldn't, making the thing a bit of a mess. As I don't have the heart to throw it away, it lives in my closet on permanent retirement.

While not the best cosplay, it's still my first, and for that I have a soft spot for it.


Saturday, March 2, 2013

Head of Serenity


There was an unplanned blank space in this blog due to life and internet issues getting in the way. It also delayed my printing of the Serenity pattern and the start of making it. The good news is that I've now started, and hopefully I can finish it by the due date.

Most of the head took a day to create, and much of that was during my commute. Aside from a notation I was unfamiliar with, it was pretty straight forward.

The less than great news it that it requires bulky yarn to be done up on size 3 needles. I must pace myself or I'll wreck my wrist.