Update!

The con is less then a week away, I need to attach V's cuffs, and give the masks a coat of poly.  Kusanagi needs to have her zipper put in.  Seras needs buttons and some tweaking to her collar plus a hem, and Tuxedo Mask needs a jacket vest and cape.  Yes I'm stressing.  However I'm not going to think about it for a few minutes. 
I know I have posted saying we are going to Dragon Con but I thought I would update you on what costumes I will be taking.  Obviously Hawkeye will be going, but I have one new one and one update.  The update is Ivy.  I have a couple figures of her in a bikini rather then the leotard type thing, and I've really wanted to do the bikini version.  I think I'm going to take both versions though.  One night the group I'm with is doing a villain get together, but it has to be from the comics no movie or cartoon editions.  So no bikini Ivy for that.  But for a Superman/Batman type photo shoot I'm going to wear it.  ^_^
The big one I have to announce is Nahrees of th Inhumans.  Now I didn't know who she was, I simply asked if anyone needed someone for a group and after a few minutes of deliberation they all said I would make a good Nahrees.  Best thing about her costume is that I'll be able to wear the same wig I'm wearing for Hawkeye. 
Lets see, currently I have a commission I need to get started on next week, plus Hawkeye to get going on once this con is over.  Her debut is a local con so if its not 100% I won't be to upset, I mean I will be but I'm more concerned with her for DragonCon.  I think I've already said I'm going as Revy for OMGCon, Pip is going as Chang/Rock.  Speaking of Pip I dunno what he's wearing to DragonCon.  He wants a Shadow costume and I know someone in my group was talking about brining a Margo if he decided to.  And wow I'm totally scatter brained.  -_-" I have 3 things to organize at KawaKon, costumes to do and the brakes on my Jeep just went to shit.  Yea I'm swamped. 
Hopefully the Jeep won't be to expensive to fix.  I was wanting to use my tax return for a netbook, and since the government saw fit to take $400 more then they did last year I'm not exactly hurting for money, but the little amount I had saved up for KawaKon looks like I will have to use for something else.  And of course if one thing goes wrong with the vehicle 5 more things will.  >.< I don't make enough to pay for all this shit!!!  Ok rant over.  If I quit sleeping and keep breathing I may make it though.  Cross your fingers. 
I probably won't have the time to update till after the con, I'm at work and posting atm.  If all goes will I will have the chance to update my flickr during the con but we have a pretty set schedule so no promises.  Otherwise next week I should have a ton of pictures. 
We do have another guild weekend planned for the weekend after KawaKon.  I'm working a local home and garden show though, I will probably pop in for the evening though.  I'm sure we'll have more pictures from that.  Busy, busy, busy!

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Update!

Yet again more snow. Joy. Exactly do I have to slaughter to get rid of this stuff? I’m tired of it ten times over. It makes getting to work a pain, it makes getting to the gym even more of a pain, and it’s messy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty but I can do without it. I vote we just skip to spring. Anyone else with me?
But on to better things. I’ve been working diligently on the costumes. V and Tuxedo’s masks are nearly finished. They need another couple good sandings and we need to get one more piece around the eyes cut out on each, but the tool we had been using couldn’t get into that small of a spot so I think Pip found something else that will work.

 If the weather isn’t to yucky tonight I may try sanding on them… unno Mom is home I still need her opinion on Seras. Ok I’m rambling. Back to V. Let’s see I still need to buy some gold spandex for her costume and her shoes, if all goes well I’ll be doing that this week sometime. I started sketching out a pattern for her collar, I’m having issues getting it even though. I figure I’ll have to scratch my current sketch and start over, I can’t tell where my new lines are and my old ones are >.< And I need to get going on Tuxedo, Pip finally bought pants so I need to have him wear them and go to the fabric store with me so I can find something to make his jacket and cape out of. I mean I could use anything so long as its black I guess, but I want them to be at least close. I did work on V’s shoulderguards this weekend. Have a coat of primer on them and gave them a good sanding, but they will need more.
Kusanagi has finally seen some progress, I found a pattern online that I think I will be able to mod, so while I’m at the fabric store I need to get some white gabardine or something that I can use as a base for the satin. But that being said I did get her contacts in last night. They look a little orange in the pictures here, I promise they aren’t in real life. Or at least they won’t turn that way when I put them on (I haven’t yet).

Seras hasn’t seen any progress, at least noteworthy. I started spraying the other side of the Harkonnen and ran out of paint /epic fail. When I’m in town Friday I’ll try to pick more up, it didn’t take long at all to paint, and it felt like I had enough in the can but I guess not. And the patches should be in the mail, I can’t wait to see them. I hope they look a little better than in the pictures, I figure they will and if worst comes to worst I can always grab a sharpie or white paint and clean them up a bit. But the good news is Pip’s wig is styled! It took me a couple of hours because this wig was MASSIVE, and it tangled SO easily. I ended up giving the entire thing a really good coat of hairspray and that seemed to help. The braid was tight against his head but it looks really loose in the picture, it kinda worries me, but I think I’m going to let it sit awhile and see if it won’t take to the shape a bit before I try messing with it.

So let’s see I’m down to:

V
Make top
Make bow
Buy Shoes
Get shoes dyed
Make toppers on gloves
Finish shoulderguards
Tweak Mask

Kusanagi
Buy Gabardine
Buy pattern
Make top
Finish Tachikoma

Seras
Finish top
Finish Harkonnen

Tuxedo Mask
Make Jacket
Make Cape
Tweak Mask

And I have about a month. Wish me luck!

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Progress galore!

Oh I feel so much better I needed those days off and I have gotten quite a bit done.  ^_^  So here goes the rundown:
Codename Sailor V: Masks are currently drying a la a coat of sandable primer.  First pic here is after a coat of plastic primer the second is after one layer of sandable primer. 

 They will still need quite a few more coats and a lot more work before they are glassy smooth but I now am not concerned with them becoming smooth.  I think the next step will be to decide where we need to add on Wonderflex to my Sailor V mask and if he needs to add anything to Tuxedo's.  Then give it a couple more good coats.  I really don't want to have to bondo the gap between the two if I can help it.  The broach has gotten another coat of poly but it doesn't look much different then it did before.  I figure it's helped all it can so I'm going to leave it be and call it done.  ^_^   One a slightly related note, I did find some stuff to paint my shoes with, probably will order it next week, I think my paychecks are pretty much allocated this week to fabric and some other pieces. 
The tango, has made great progress (I lump it with the Sailor V/Tuxedo Mask costume only because we will be wearing those for it).  The song is just a lil over 4 minutes and we have a good 45 seconds of it solid.  We would be farther but I wasn't expecting him to take to it as quickly as he did so I didn't have quite enough material to teach, that and I'm needing a bit of inspiration.  I want flare, I want flash and I'll be damned if I won't get it.  The part we have done is awesome.  Take a look at this from 1:28 to 1:54. 



Yes we can do that.  Yes that dip is backward, and its by the neck.  And I'm looking forward to showing it off.  Now I just need to get the other 3 minutes up to that caliber...
But as for Kusanagi, we finally got my glasses adjusted so they fit basically straight on my face.  I'm happy I bought them, and actually I did it last year with the idea of wearing them with my Hawkeye costume, but that didn't happen (part of the reason I'm so dead set on doing it this year) but I'm happy they could be used for something else.  I just hope it matches my wig and doesn't clash.
As for Pip and Seras, lots of stuff going on there too.  The fabric for Seras arrived Saturday, sadly I haven't gotten to actually cutting it yet, but I did get a pattern (or 5) that should prove useful, plus I got buttons for her.  The pictures I took of those didn't turn out very well but they are a shiny button, I plan on going over them in a matte gold paint but if I'm careful I will be able to keep the shiny insets on them.  They have a crest of sorts on them ... yea you get what I'm trying to say. 

 Anyway I'm psyched.  My wig is still on the way but Pip's arrived today.  And get this the UPS driver not just is used to delivering to my place, he remembered my name and when he was dropping off some stuff for the store today brought in my package too.  Talk about service.  ^_^  Here it is, still in the box with the hair net on it.

 Now on to a couple costumes I haven't gone into as much detail about.  First what I will (hopefully) be wearing to the rave.  Now I believe I've gone over my whole fox idea but I was unsure of what I wanted to wear.  Well I finally have a bit of an idea.  I'm planning on using this pattern as a top only making it cropped.  So think of the pattern crossed with the second image. 

 I want that strap around my waist but I want the back and neckline to be interesting too.  As for the bottoms I'm thinking a pair of white dance shorts and this over the top, a la Alice from Resident Evil or more likely using it as a practice run to make Hawkeye's skirt on her costume. 

There's a shot of the red fabric I got for the skirt.  As you can see by the comic, the layer on the left is fairly see though, doubled up it isn't.  We'll see when I get the shorts in how I decide.  I'm not really needing it for coverage, more for effect so I'm leaning toward one layer and using the rest of the fabric somehow on the top...
Now Hawkeye.  Where do I start?  I wanted to make the Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) costume since least year's comic con.  But I ran out of time and money and ended up just making Spectre.  But this year I think I have enough time (and no other ideas that I like better) to work on.  Now don't get me wrong I love Kate, she's one of my favorite heroines, I'm just not looking forward to walking around the con and everyone asking if I'm Green Arrow's sidekick (He's DC people!! She's Marvel!!) or simply being like 'cool costume, but who are you?'  -_-"   But we'll see how it goes, that costume is more for me then anything so as long as I'm happy then it shouldn't matter.  Now if anyone knows where to find/have made custom sunglasses drop me a line, I've tried Oakley and I don't mind paying the price for it, but they don't make lenses in the color I need.  Her's are purple.  Not red/purple, not blue/purple, but purple.  >.<  Why do I always pick the hardest costume ever?  If all goes well I'll be wearing that one to my local con and if things go better to Wizard World Chicago this year.  The owner of my local comic shop is wanting to get some of my pics to send into Wizard and as he went last year to the show he may take me with him (Take me with you Jack!!) And actually since they moved the date back from April to Aug it works better for me both money wise and con wise.  I like having them spread out so I have time to work on others/tweak what I will be wearing.  So cross your fingers both for me to go to Wizard World and to get myself in the magazine.

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Progress

Okay I have made a bit of progress on just about every costume, now if I just had every day off between now and the con my costumes would be amazing, but since I don't have that much spare time this will be short.
Sailor V has seen the most progress, I worked on the broach and the mask.  Just put a simple coat of poly on the broach, when it arrived it had some minor I wouldn't call them scratches but minor imperfections in the surface.  It looked like they had tried to use a buffer or something on it to make it shiny.  Anyway a coat of poly got it a lot shinier so I figure it'll get another one or two so it will look more like a jewel and less like a piece of plastic.

That's before, and this next one is after.

The next one is the masks before we really got going on them, I had already mulitated mine.

The next is my mask about half sanded, and the last is how they look before we quit last night.  They will need a coat of plastic primer and then a coat of sandable primer before we continue.

As for Sailor V's shoes, those were a trial.  I had three pair to choose from.  The first pair I bought for my cousin's wedding last year and although the right color, they don't have a strap around the ankle and they are about half a size to big which would make dancing in them rather uncomfortable.  I bought the white pair for the Artemis variant of my Sailor V costume and really like the way they feel and they look like hers, problem was I couldn't get them in blue so I found another place that sold a pair very similar to them, or so I thought.  They ended up being to dark and the toe WAY to long.  The fabric in my hand in the picture is a swatch of the skirt fabric, just fyi. 

So, verdict?  The white pair.  Looks like I'll buy another and figure out exactly how to paint/dye them. :( more work.  And I hoped this would be the easy part of the costume!

As for Kusanagi, she got the least amount of love, but I can at least show off the jacket as I wore it the other week and have a picture, now its not the most flattering of me but the jacket does look awesome.

The next one is of Seras, well her boots.  I was kinda afraid her stockings would go see though in a flash so we played around with the camera trying to get them to do that and thankfully they ended up being solid.

And here I ninja'd Pip's hat for a few.

Now I do have some progress on Hawkeye, who I will explain at another time, I'm kinda running later then I hoped today.  But this is a swatch of the latex I will be using for that costume.  I just can't decide .30mm or .40mm? 

But I had to post this one, we took Lucky out in the snow yesterday and he had a big time. 

More of my progress pictures can be found on my Flickr, I just posted the ones I felt most relivant to what I was talking about.  Hopefully I will update in a day or two, I'm off to Pip's place to work on other pieces, work on that tango >.< (we did make some progress on that yesterday tg) and to buy some other pieces!

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Sooo Cold

I am so freaking cold, the high today isn't supposed to make it above freezing nor is it for the next basically week.  /cry.  I am so not meant for this weather.  I want my sunny and 70 degrees please!  But more costume updates, and I'll give you the low down on the camera.
I'll break it down by costume because I've made a lot of progress on some and not so much on others.  Let's start with Seras.  I bought a belt for her Friday?  Maybe it was saturday?  Either way one more thing to check off.  Also ordered 5 yards of yellow stretch twill for her outfit, along with a yard of red.  I wanted a half hard since the only red is on her arm, but I couldn't get anything less then that.  I wanted to order some white stretch twill too but they only had off white so I decided to wait till her thigh highs came in to see if they were artic white or more off white.  Of course I have a feeling it won't match, just cause that's my luck.  And speaking of thigh highs I ordered those last week so they should be arriving hopefully sometime this week.  I ordered her wig last week as well, so she's coming together quite quickly.  Only thing that is causing me some issue are her patches.  I'm currently in contact with a couple of people who may be able to make them for me but you would think these things would be easier to find then what they are!  Sailor V hasn't seen much progress though, I bought a masquerade mask that I'm think of using as a base for her because the one I bought is just HUGE.  I mean hers is big, but this thing looks retarded on me.  I think I'm going to start sanding on it this weekend, hopefully dad can find his dremmel so I can expand the eye holes.  And as for Kusanagi, I ordered the light purple thigh highs at the same time I ordered Seras's and I finally ordered her boots last week, according to amazon I should see them Wednesday.  So, not much real progress anywhere but I'm getting there, not as quick as I'd like but... I would much rather have them all done and be tweaking on them. 
I am going to have dad do some reasearch on the Wild Geese, since Pip is the leader of them and see if they have any special patches for Pip's costume.  Hopefully he will have some success only because I would find that more interesting then just me throwing random patches on it.  Of course we are going to put a G.I. Joe patch on it, just for shits and giggles.
Now as for the SLR

Yes that is me modeling the new camera.  We already have over 100 pictures on it, mainly us playing with different ISO settings and with the flash, etc.  And don't ask me why I'm holding my hand like that, I think I was trying to get the strap around my arm or something... unno.  Now as for actual functionality, its fun even though we're still figuring it out.  And I think its going to be able to do everything we need for sometime.  I mean when you can take a picture of a fan going at high speed and its not blurry or anything, but perfectly clear.  Oh yea ^_^

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Yay for more cosplay updates!

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. 

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