In the lead-up to costume con, I was posting regularly, some photo sets, some progress blogs, upcoming stuff, lots of fun. Then nothing at all... did I fall down a hole or something? Almost... I've been working my butt off to try to get my latest costume wearable for Anime North (this weekend) and competition-ready for Colossal (two weeks after AN) and I haven't even had time for upkeep on my site. Over Victoria Day weekend I managed to get the bodysuit I've been working on for the last 6 months to 99% complete, but burnt myself out on the costume in the process. So I'm putting it on hold for now. I still feel like working on stuff, just not Midna, sigh. So tonight I'm going to leave you with a collection of progress shots since my last update, as well as my AN cosplay plans*. More updates will be coming as I have just given myself some extra free time every day ^_^ *subject to change
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There's just a few days left until CC32 and I am a mix of emotions about it. As I mentioned previously, I'm not making anything new which is really one of those "disappointed in myself" things. It's not really helped by seeing so many of my friends either posting progress photos or working on things in Google Hangouts - I've also been working on costumes the last couple of weeks, but not quite with the same commitment since my next deadline isn't for a while yet and I'm doing several things at once to boot. So what have I been working on? In my last progress blog I mentioned working on bodysuits, and that's what I've been doing, although it's been a slow process. I have 3+1 bodysuits ahead, and I'm working on Midna first, though there's some simultaneous work going on for all. Unfortunately, all the suits require different patters and they all have to be hand-drafted so... I hope I'll be really good at this by the time I'm done. Progress pics of things so far below: Also, spending face-time with friends: and speaking of Costume Con... my cosplay plans are below. Aside from doing Alice on Friday, I don't have plans for which costume for which day. I'm not entering any of the masquerades, but I am going to be part of the Future Fashion Folio event on Sunday, modeling a couple of dresses for Andrea Schewe. I'm excited just because I get to wear the Cercei dress XD. I might not want to take it off LOL. Looking forward to sharing photos and maybe videos from the con once it's all over <3
Last year for my staffing duties at Anime North, I wore my Pepper Potts costume, making use of my extremely practical Stark Industries Clipboard while managing the greenroom for Sunday's fashion show. This year I'm being a runner for the masquerade and felt I needed something more practical (I did the runner job last year too, I just wasn't planning ahead for it). I decided to challenge myself to make a costume using last year's bright orange staff t-shirt. And I'll admit that for a while I had no idea what to do with it; but then Yavarice mentioned that he's making an Aperture lab coat for working the masq, and I was inspired. I bought some orange stretch sateen on clearance (not a fabric I would recommend because of the stretch factor, but the weight, colour, and price were right...) and I used an old McCall's pattern for simple pants with cargo pockets from my stash. Spent a couple of days cutting pieces and sewing things together (those cargo pockets were time-consuming!), cut up the centre front of the t-shirt (and finished the edges) and there you have it: "T-Shirt Challenge Chell"!!! I have a pair of Portal "Long Fall socks" on order and will be borrowing an Aperture tank from a friend, which will complete the look. Total cost: ~$30 CDN; time spent: one weekend. Favourite things: POCKETS!!! I never remember to put pockets in my costumes. Having FOUR generously sized ones in these shorts makes me feel spoiled. Also like the ability to put on the shirt if I get cold - sometimes the A/C in hotels is just too much for me. Now it's time to get back to more serious costume projects. Looking ahead, it appears that Easter weekend will be dedicated to making several bodysuits. Pattern drafting ahoy!!! (follow me on FB for real-time progress photo posts) Progress post time! I got back to work on Nightingale this week, since I want to enter the costume in the Historical masquerade at Costume Con 32. Unfortunately, once I started sewing I realized that I have a lot more work to do on it than I thought, and that there is no way I would get it done in time for the convention. The realization made me pretty sad, gotta admit, because I've been looking forward to entering at least one of the masquerades at CC32 since it was awarded to Toronto 3 years ago. :( I'm pretty disappointed in myself, but since I have had a LOT of difficulty getting myself to make anything lately, I'm not really surprised. I did at least finish the (first) mock-up required for the jacket. I also ended up making another set of lumas - a custom Sokka for a friend, and some more basic ones in printed fleece for various babies ^_^
The whole luma gallery is here. It's April once again, which means things are (or at least should be) in motion. Last year I participated in VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April), which was almost all cosplay-centric and is available all nicely collected into a YouTube playlist. This year, I am not doing VEDA. The video above is as close as I'm going to get! I haven't been vlogging at all since last summer, and even though VEDA is a great excuse and would make me produce some interesting content, this year I have other more important projects which are calling for my time and energy. (...if anyone cares, vlogging dropped off due to being seriously sick several times, not being home as often since I'm spending many weekends in Kitchener, losing the good light I had in my room last year, and some general apathy) However, since I am gearing up for Costume Con, I am going to be blogging more regularly this month, at least that's my intent. Immediate progress pics will be going to my Facebook Page, and I will make semi-regular recap posts here. I'm working on "Nightingale" from Atomic Robo, which I want to enter in the Historical Masquerade at CC32. I was working on it previously in the fall with the goal of having it done for NYCC, but ran into the unfortunate problem of not being able to find the fabric I needed locally. So I went shopping while I was in NYC, and found the perfect fabric at MOOD. Unfortunately I am only just now returning to the costume, with the con 3 weeks away. YIKES!
So the jacket is my current/next big project. Wish me luck XD This coming weekend is Ad-Astra which is being held in Richmond Hill this year. I will be there on Saturday and Sunday, though I'm still trying to decide which costumes to bring with me. I'm leaning towards Either Alice or Crystal on Saturday and Alice or Mrs Impossible on Sunday.... I always have a really hard time deciding though. Argh. And the last bit of news, as per the video above, is that after Ad-Astra, CostumeCon, Anime North, and ColossalCon.... I will be officially on hiatus. No more con plans, being a guest/panelist/staff/volunteer/etc. I desperately need a break from going to conventions; I'm so burnt out (which is a big reason why the number of costumes I've made has been decreasing in recent years while the cons I'm attending is going up). Will still be making costumes, but on a vastly different schedule, and hopefully, with a much better attitude ^_^
Today I bring you a brand-new video project from The Video Ninja and I: a documentation of the construction process for Mag, my Katamari cousin costume. I think it's pretty self-explanatory LOL. It's a style of cosplay video I haven't done to this extent before because it takes a lot of pre-planning and additional time to do, but if people are interested in seeing this kind of thing (following a costume from start to finish) I can definitely do more. As per usual, Stills of the costume are in my gallery. I seem to have gotten myself on a roll of being productive lately, in spite of my best efforts to be stressed out and lazy all the time ;) Not only did I finish my Stark Tech prop for Pepper Potts in time for Anime North, but I also finished my sloth onesie before the convention. With only a week and a half between the end of AN and my departure for Colossal Con, in which I suffered not one, but two injuries, I thought that there was no way I would get my Colossal projects finished. And yet, somehow, I made it happen (almost). I had two projects in mind to take to Kalahari - both very casual costumes which would be appropriate to wear at the water park. The first was Kim Pine's bathing suit from Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together, which I have wanted to make since I started cosplaying her. Yellow isn't my best colour, but I love the cut/style of the swimsuit that O'Malley designed - it's exactly what I, Jen, want to wear in a one-piece. Unfortunately it's not something available through retail, so I figured I'd try my hand at making my own. I started years ago when I found some yellow swimwear spandex with a neat texture, but I ended up getting bogged down by the way I interpreted the seams. I figured that Colossal - a convention at a water park - would be a good time to try again. Two nights of cutting and sewing later, I had a new bathing suit and matching headband. Unfortunately, I worked right down to the last-minute with sewing the bathing suit so I didn't have time to cut/style the wig that would turn swimwear into a costume. The second costume was yet another outfit for Triana Orpheus from Venture Bros. In a second-season episode (Assassinanny 911) she and her friend Kim hang out with the Ventures to use their pool, and I thought it would be fun to pull together her ensemble from that episode to wear to the pool/waterpark at Colossal. My Triana wig is looking a little ragged at this point, so I didn't mind if it got ruined by getting wet >_<. Painting the t-shirt was a pain since I had to pile the pink on REALLY thick to get decent coverage on the dark grey, but fortunately that was the only difficult part of the whole outfit (aside from finding dark purple shorts, which was impossible within my time frame *sigh*). We don't see Triana's actual swimsuit in the show and I didn't have time to make something custom, so I just picked out something I thought she'd wear to go with the rest of the costume. Unfortunately, my wig wouldn't stay on in the water, but in the end, that didn't really matter. I got to do a small photo shoot with SolarTempest with the costume, so look forward to seeing those in the future! Full sets of both photos will be posted in their respective series galleries at a later date. In the meantime, enjoy the gifs that Featherweight made for The Video Ninja, Whitless, and I today <3 (There's a second one of me because clearly just standing there behind the camera is not an accurate portrayal of reality ~_^
Well, Anime North is once again approaching fast. I mentioned in my last post that I'm working on a prop for Pepper, but I'm putting some finishing touches on a few other projects too. You might recall from VEDA that my Midna bodysuit got stained at PAX East a couple months ago - I've kept working on cleaning it since that video and I think it's as good as it's going to get now - hardly noticeable. So Midna is pretty much ready to go. I'll be wearing that costume only at the Cosplay for a Cure booth in the photo alley on Saturday. I'll be there from 1:00 (if not a little earlier) until.. I need dinner? lol. I'll be staying as long as I can; it will be several hours at least. Photos ops at the booth are available for a $2 donation, which goes directly to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. On Friday I'll be wearing my Katamari Cousin Mag along with Chibik3r0's and Scapegoated's Miso. I've made minor repairs to the head, and before the weekend I plan to finally make some bloomers to add to the costume, because they're cute and the costume's leggings don't fit very well XD Assuming I get both the tablet and bloomers finished in time, I also want to get my onesie's hood done. That's a much bigger challenge since I haven't even gotten it past the sketch phase and into the pattern phase, but it might be possible considering I have the holiday Monday to work with. I want to get that done to have something comfy and cute to wear in the evenings when I'm done with Mag and Midna. We shall see... While on paper I have 3.5 days to work on all this over this weekend, which should be more than enough, I keep ending up with more things to do, like helping out with a video project that Doc is doing, going to a volunteer event on the Hello, Harto! tour, and the last AN staff meeting before the con! (wish me luck ^_^) One last thing - I debuted my Splicer (Bioshock-inspired) at Anime North last year, so it seems appropriate to finally update my costume gallery with group photos from SolarTempest, as well as photos of the "disgusting" FX makeup I did for the Silver Snail Halloween party. Check it out!
On a lark I decided to try to dress as Pepper Potts to go see Iron Man 3. Nobody else was dressing up, we weren't seeing the midnight showing, but Pepper is pretty "normal" as far as costumes go. I pulled appropriate clothes from my closet, printed a tiny Stark Industries logo to glue on to a pin to wear as my only identifying feature, and set off. I figured I'd see if any of my friends even noticed what I was trying to do, since I was coming from work and wearing nothing particularly strange. As soon as I arrived they noticed - within seconds! I shouldn't have underestimated them ^_^
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