All right lots to say lets see how much I can get out before I forget everything I was going to say... First, a new con added to the usual lineup.
OMGCon. Its in Paducah, which for me isn't that far away. I've wanted to attend for about three years now but something kept getting in the way. (Yes Rob I'm still upset you had to pick THAT WEEKEND to get married. :p) But I have mine and the new b/f (yes, yes we'll get to him in a bit) badges bought. So no skipping out this year. Its June 11-13 for anyone interested, and if you get on it quick badges are $25 till Dec 31st.
Next on the agenda, the costume list for Kawa Kon has been revised. Remember how I said I was just going to do two costumes? I lied. -_-" No I didn't lie, I was talking to someone on the forum and they are doing an Alucard costume and it just so happens that I'd already be attending with a Pip, then they told me that they had an Integra so it only seemed natural to be Seras. Anyone shocked? No I didn't think so. I'm planning on going with the yellow costume, and keeping it very close to the manga. Meaning black and white patches. What's that you say? Black and white? Yes if you look at the front cover of the second issue you'll notice Seras's patches are black and white and not in color as seen in the ova.
Picky detail I know but I wouldn't be me if I didn't worry over such things. Currently I'm hunting for said patches. I'm not having much luck, most places that will take custom orders require a minimum order and as between Pip and I we will be needing a max of 5 or 6 that doesn't work. Hopefully someone on etsy will be willing to make some for me. Dunno if I'll be making the Harkonnen, at least in time for the con. Unfortunately I have a lot of work to do with Sailor V and Kusanagi, so it will depend. I do want to have it for photos though. And am I the only one who hears Harkonnen and doesn't think Seras but I think House Harkonnen i.e. Dune? I read (most) of the series years ago and loved it but in my world Harkonnen=bad. I know I'm crazy. But as for the creation of the costume itself I think I have it pretty much mapped out. Some stretch twill for the uniform, I'll be able to reuse Kusanagi's boots for this costume and her and Sailor V's contacts (red and blue respectively) which will make for some neat pics. I think I'm going to go with white gloves a la the cover I posted above. I know a lot of Seras cosplays I've found on Cosplay.com have gone with brown boots and brown gloves with a black belt. Unfortunately I have this issue with black and brown being on at the same time so therefore I have to do black or the fashion ninja's will get me >.> <.<
Thankfully the cost of Seras's wig won't be up there with Kusanagi's or Sailor V's. A very nice lady on cosplay.com who has already done a Seras cosplay was nice enough to respond and tell me where she got hers and what she did to modify it.
You can find her on Cosplay.com under the s/n
DestiniteLuna. But not to nitpick but you can see see did the brown gloves, which is correct if you do the OVA Seras, but I'm (as always) being different and doing the manga. You'll also notice her Pip is in green, mine will be in khaki. Why? Hell if I know. He saw some picture of Pip a year or two ago when he made the costume in brown and loved it. It worked on him first time, I'll just need to find him the scarf and a few other minor things for this time.
But while I'm on the subject of Seras and Pip I ran across a couple rather racy pictures of the duo someone did (I can't find credits). Dunno if we'll post them but you can bet we'll probably do our own variants of these:
And how are we going to do these semi racy photos? Well ladies and gentlemen you'll be happy to know that we're investing in a new SLR. A Sony 330 to be precise. We're picking it up Thursday. Sadly I don't think we'll have any fun lenses before the con, maybe a filter depending on price. But they will be coming. Splitting the cost of it made it a lot more reasonable for both of us. And my bff has one as well that we can use if we need a second camera (why we'd need a dual camera shoot is beyond me but I'm just the stupid model he's the photographer). And yes that's pretty much how it will be. I don't mean to be egotistical but expect to see a LOT of me and very few of him unless he has a mask on or is facing away from the camera. For whatever reason he's mega shy about cameras. /shrug
But as I'm thinking about variant costumes, have I prattled on endlessly about my Sailor V Artemis Variant? No? Hope your seated, this will take awhile. The costume idea started when I was telling ... how should I refer to him... my photographer? No. My b/f? No, even though he is. Pip? Meh its short, it'll do. It all started when I was telling Pip about the plushie I commissioned for my Sailor V costume. He loved the idea of doing some pictures with the plush then we started acting ... like ourselves and came up with this shoot I cannot wait to do. Ok you all know the whole Family Guy Peter vs the Chicken thing? Yea, same idea. V vs Artemis. Me 'fighting' a stuffed animal. Figure first time V will win and he'll have to continue being the sidekick, but what if he won? And had his own Sailor fuku? Well then V would just have to be the kitty... Ok so imagine this
Only in white plus ears and a cat tail. Expect to have a good laugh once we're done. I'll post more details about the Sailor V Variant later have other things on my mind.
I finally, FINALLY got to dye my fabric for Kusanagi tonight. I'm testing out a satin. I plan on using the dull side for the costume but I can't find any satin in my hometown in a pale purple like hers so I bought a white and some purple RIT dye and went to work. The first piece I used came out way to dark which was a major shock because about two years ago when I was making my Nariko costume I had to dye some satin to be the shade I needed and for the life of me I couldn't get that stuff to take color. I ended up just having to setting for a paler color then what I wanted. So knowing that I made it at full strength, and left the fabric in the dye bath maybe two minutes, pulled it out and rinsed it just out of curiosity. The stuff was way to dark to salvage. Before I gave the next piece a try I dumped about half of the dye out and refilled the pot with water so it was at about 50% strength. This time I dipped it for maybe 30 seconds before I pulled it out and rinsed it. It matched the thread I bought which is a very, very pale purple. Which is what I'm going for. I hope it dries that way. See my idea is when I'm wearing the 1st gig outfit (the bikini bottoms and thigh highs) for the top to be questionable if its white or purple, but if I'm in the 2nd gig outfit (the white jeans) then it will be obvious that it is a very light purple. So cross your fingers that it dies even and the color I need. Otherwise I just wasted 3 yards of satin and a box of dye on nothing. :/
Alright on to the thing that most of your probably suspected from the last post but wasn't confirmed. No I'm no longer single, but no I'm not telling you his name. We'll just call him 'Pip' and be done with it. Yes for those inquiring minds I'm extremely happy and finally able to gush this as we will probably still have ex-bf problems for awhile. Hopefully he will get it that I'm done with him before the local con so we can hang out again this year. I feel kinda bad I didn't mean to break it off with him the way I did, but I was unhappy and frustrated and didn't see things changing. I felt it was better to nip it in the bud, besides he started the whole 'where are you and who are you with' type line of questioning and the only person who can ask that is my mother and she doesn't even do that. That and he asked for me to 'think long and hard on if I wanted to be with him' I think he expected me to say yes so it was a major blow to his ego when I didn't. But as for what happened with Pip, it was a total accident. Just kinda happened, and although I'm extremely happy about it a certain part of me has reservations about it, I'm afraid of something going wrong and loosing a friend that means the absolute world to me. (And no I'm not talking him up or exaggerating, we went 3 months without talking once and I was about to loose my mind I missed him that much.)
But one last thing and I think I'll have caught everyone up. Christmas presents. I got many, which was unusual, last few years have been... blah. A Kohl's gift card and some amazingly warm socks from the paternal grandmother, a beautiful vase and a Hancocks fabrics gift card from Dad, a pre-paid gym membership from Mom (I may just be in Kusanagi shape yet!) and some money toward the white leather jacket (which was the only thing I asked for). An XM radio from one of my jobs which in turn was a present from my grandmother because she didn't have anything for me under the tree so she gave me some money for it even though my boss gave it to me as my bonus o.O yea that was a twisted one. $100 from the grandparents as well, $50 from the aunt and uncle (all of which is going toward the SLR), a funny little outdoor spinny decoration from my cousin (I'll post a pic when we get the new camera, it'll be something to take a picture of) And a kickass mug from Pip, with a quote from Alice and Wonderland "Somebody's head is going to ROLL for this!" Anyone who knows me knows how true that is in the morning. And the very best present of all...
Everyone, let me introduce you to the newest member of my family, Lucky. My parents found him when they were leaving my Grandparents Christmas day, he was running in the field covered in ice from some of the cows, which apparently thought he was a towel wearing terrorist. And as soon as I set eyes on the lil guy he was adopted. He also is going to be my Hellhound for my Seras cosplay. Oh yea, double duty. But in all seriousness he's the cutest and sweetest puppy I've been around since Rex was born.
