Javert - Finished

Finished!

Okay, so technically, I promised a hat, but I'm kinda ready to move on to other things.  Honestly, he'll probably go hat-less until they release the next Les Miserables movie trailer, and then I'll get all worked up and excited about the movie again and decide make his hat.

The only difference between the finished product and the last time you saw him is that trim and buttons have been added to his uniform.  The trim is slim, silver ribbon that's been glued on.  The buttons I actually purchased as do-it-yourself covered buttons, meaning they're meant to be covered in fabric, so that they blend in with the material of the clothing.  But I had no intention of covering them.  I needed smooth silver buttons for his uniform, and buying covered buttons was cheaper than buying the real thing.  The buttons come with a front, that gets covered, and a back that pops into place afterward.  Since there's no fabric, I hot-glued the front and back together and then sewed them on as-is.

And that's about it!

Now that I've got Javert done, and I've got Tokyo in Tulsa out of the way, I feel like I'm open to start up new things.  I'm not totally sure what I'm going to start on, since I have a few different ideas of things I'd like to do.  But I do know that I'd like to get started on some writing.  (Remember earlier when I said my muse wanted me to write stories about some guy named Charles?)  I need to get all my ideas written down and organized, and I have a lot of research and world building to do before I start actually writing.  I debate a bit whether or not to post my writing as I go, but I doubt I will, mostly because I have a habit of getting half-way through a story and then deciding to make major changes to the characters and plot.  If I posted it as I went, I'd end up saying, "Um... guys?... Pretend the last chapter didn't happen.  Also, Riley's name is now inexplicably changed to Emma.  For reasons."

So, yeah, that's where I am.  We'll see what happens from here.

Peace out!

Tokyo in Tulsa

I got back from my weekend at the anime convention Tokyo in Tulsa this afternoon.  I always aim to post in my blog once a week, and I was going to skip this time around because of the convention.  But while I was hanging around the place I thought, "How about why I go to these crazy things?"

So, for anyone who might be curious, here are:
3 Reasons I like anime
3 Reasons I attend anime conventions
and
3 Reasons I dress up for conventions

Anime:
1. Whatever it is you like, there's an app for that anime for that.  Anime is made for all ages: little kids, older kids, teens, and adults; and there seems to be a lot of it that isn't really very age specific.  Kids and adults could both watch and appreciate.  Anime also seems to come in every genre imaginable: fantasy, sci-fi, drama, comedy, historical, heck, even sports, and some shows that I don't even know how to categorize.  I once watched an anime version of "The Count of Monte Cristo"... sci-fi edition.

2. Anime is a window into Japanese culture.  And Japanese culture is a whole different world from American culture.  You'll see things that are distinctly Japanese, and they can be as small as how one character addresses another, or as big as a fantasy creature that stems from Japanese mythology.  The deeper you get into anime, the more you get to learn about Japan.  And the more you learn about Japan, the more you'll appreciate the things you see in the anime.  It's a spiral of awesome.  And learning about other countries, other cultures, and other ways of thinking is always a good thing.

3.  This is something that probably applies more to me personally than it does to other people, but I think one of the reasons I like anime is that I like animation.  Maybe it's because I'm an artist and like drawing.  I don't know.  But to me, animation is just as legitimate a way of telling a story as live action, and I appreciate the chance to see a TV show with a serious and complex storyline presented in that medium.  I also think there's some freedom to animation.  The special effects can go as crazy as you like, while in live action, how much and how good the special effects are is linked directly to the budget.

Conventions:
1. It's an excuse to hang out with friends.  We're all so busy with our own lives, sometimes it seems like we need a date set months ahead of time in order to actually get together.  Conventions give us a time and a place, and it also gives us something really interesting to do once we're together.

2. It's an escape.  For a few days, you get to leave behind the "real world" and live entirely in a world that revolves around something you love and that's populated by people who love it, too.  A job?  What's that?  I'm sorry, I forgot anything else existed besides those "Doctor Who" dalek plushies.

3. It's the only place I can find myself in large crowds without feeling uncomfortable.  I'm introverted, and I find crowds exceptionally awkward.  At cons we're all geeks, and we all know we're all geeks, so we're all friends here.  I suspect that as geeks we're all used to being judged, or worrying about being judged, and so when we go to conventions we look around at the crowds and think, "Yes!  I'm surrounded by people who understand!"  (Besides, when you're in a place where adults are dressing as pokemon, it's hard to feel self-conscious.)

Cosplaying:
1.  Making costumes is fun.  Planning out how the costume is going to go together, busting out the sewing machine, scouring the internet for the right accessories, building props, and, of course, putting the whole thing together in the end and thinking, "Hey... I did pretty good!"  It's just fun.  That's just all there is to it.  It's fun.

2.  It's a confidence booster.  Cosplays take a lot of work to put together.  Sometimes, they take a lot lot of work.  Then you hear, "I like your cosplay!  You look great!"  "Can I have a picture of you?"  "Wow, did you make that yourself?  Awesome!"

3.  It's a chance to express myself.  I'm used to getting really into to things that everyone else either hasn't heard of, or doesn't get; and often the worry of one or the other keeps me from talking about it or doing things that openly show my love for it.  Cosplaying is a way of openly showing my love for something.  And on top of that, I get to connect with other people who like the same thing I do, even if it's just briefly enough to give me a compliment.  When someone says, "I like your cosplay!" what I hear is, "You know that thing you're too afraid to talk about because people will think you're a dork, even though you really love it?  I love it, too."

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By the way, here's my friends and I in our My Little Pony costumes.  This is the best picture I have showing the full costumes of all three of us, although I think the picture is pretty hilarious because Twilight (purple) looks like she's about to go postal on Pinkie Pie (pink).

 Here's Twilight and Pinkie Pie for reference.

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Okay, done rambling.  Peace out!

Javert Plus WIP (almost done!)

Javert is almost done!  His clothes are assembled, but his top needs some mild tweeking, and needs all the buttons and trim that go on it.

I got pretty lucky because I saved the pattern I used for Vash's coat and was able to tweak it into what I needed for Javert.  Which is kind of funny, because I seem to remember packing away Vash's pattern and thinking, "Why am I saving this?  I will never sew Vash's coat again."  But I'm one of those people that keeps random things because I think it might be useful someday.  I think this is the first time something random actually was useful later.

(Why is it that when I look up reference pictures for anything, I end up getting sidetracked?  While looking for references for his uniform, I ended up learning that Philip Quast, a fan-favorite actor for Javert, used to be on a preschoolers' show in Australia.  I watched a clip in which he sang nursery rhymes and then pretended to be a cat.  My brain is having a hard time coping with that.  The idea that super serious, uptight Inspector Javert and the grown man pretending to be a cat are the same person is refusing to sink in.)

In unrelated news:
This has nothing to do with the ongoing battle between Wolfwood and Ezio, but my sister made fairy wings out of a pipe cleaner and tried them onto Wolfwood.  I'm ridiculously fond of those wings.  I think I'll just leave them on forever.

That's all for now!  Peace out!

Painted Cork Board

This week I hung up pictures in my bedroom (finally).  I have a cork board that's been hanging around for a while now, and I wanted to hang it in my room because it's so darn useful for pinning up stuff that I have no idea what else to do with.

Originally, it was just a cork board with a wood frame, the wood being about the same color as the cork.  A while back I painted the frame blue to make it... prettier, I guess.  But blue isn't one of my colors I (try to) use in my bedroom, so I figured I'd use the day off for Independence Day and give it a repaint.

My bedroom is roughly Japanese themed.  I've got a few pictures with bamboo and kanji and that sort of thing, some hanging lanterns, a katana sword, etc. and I try to go for a color scheme that's cream, bamboo-green, and maybe a little red here and there.  So, how about a cream colored cork board with a green boarder?  Then I thought maybe I'd take it a step further and paint some kind of picture or symbol onto the face of the board.  I decided using a picture from a hanafuda card would be cool.

Hanafuda is a deck of cards from Japan that uses pictures rather than symbols and numbers.  I've loved them ever since I was introduced to them, because I think the pictures are gorgeous.

The cards are organized into twelve suits (with four cards per suit), each with a different plant/flower.  Each flower corresponds to a month in the year, so to narrow things down, I went with my birth month of February, which is plum blossoms.

Thank you hanafuda.com for this picture.  You're a life saver.

After that, I chose the card with the bird on it, because... birds are cool, that's why.  After a little research I learned the bird is a Japanese bush warbler.  They're a common and popular songbird in Japan, and hearing the warbler sing is one of the first signs that spring is on it's way.  Since plum trees bloom so early it's practically still winter, both images on the card are associated with early spring in Japan.

And a partridge warbler in a pear plum treeeee!

So then!  Ready!  Set!  Paint!

Here you can see the color the cork and the frame were originally, and the new color for the cork.

Once the cork was painted, I drew the image on with pencil and then outlined it with sharpie.  I knew as I was outlining it that I would end up painting on the lines on accident and would have to redraw the lines.  Honestly, though, I'm such a sucker for being able to see my progress that sometimes I jump the gun.

The image got painted and the lines cleaned up.  Painting was pretty easy because the cards have a limited color pallet, so pink flowers are shown as red, and there's no shading or color variations.  For the green, I had to add some gray to the paint to keep the bird from being neon, but for rest of the colors I could use the paint straight out of the bottle without having to mix colors.

And the frame was painted the same shade as the bird.  All done!

All painting was done with acrylic paints and just slapped on there without any prep work or post work or sealers or mediums or any of those darn fangled contraptions.  Just good ol' paint.  That's how I roll.

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In other news:

*I've got my saddle bag for my Fluttershy cosplay.  I went ahead and bought the purse I had seen at Walmart.  Then I cut a butterfly out of felt and glued it on the front.  Nothing really special, so no picture.

*Javert-Plush has pants, and a pattern made for his top.  Pants aren't really all that exciting, though, so no picture, either.  Once he gets his whole outfit, I'll post a pic.

That's all!

Peace out!

My Little Pony: Cosplay is Magic!

Remember when I said I was going to make a costume for My Little Pony, and I had a bubble-gum pink wig?  Well, I've gotten pony ears, pegasus wings, a dress and shoes.  All that's left is deciding what I'm going to do about a cutie mark (the picture the ponies have on their flanks).

Okay, ready?

The skirt of the dress goes down to a few inches above my knees.  You can't tell in the picture, so just thought I'd say.  With the skirt length and the spaghetti straps, and how skinny I know I am, I feel like I'm a dress with noodles sticking out of it, like one of those awkwardly lanky teenagers.  Oh well.  Whatever.

My shoes look like this.

I was after flats or sandals in yellow or pink, and I think I checked every single place in town that sold shoes.  Stage, Maurices, Penny's, Factory Connect, Payless, Brown's Shoes, Chapman's Shoe Emporium, (That was an interesting place.  They sold every kind of shoe, some sports stuff, and skateboards; and it looks like it might be converted from an old steakhouse or something.) and Walmart.  They either didn't have anything in pink or yellow, or they were ugly.  (There's a certain shade of pink that just shouldn't happen in shoes.  Neither should neon yellow.)  Finally, I was at Walmart, and was at the stage where I'm ready to throw my hands in the air and shout, "Whatever!  I'm going home!" when inspiration hit!  I grabbed a cheap pair of flip-flops and found the flowers in the craft section.  And there you go: pink, flowery, slipper, flip-flop, feet protection devices!

I want to carry Fluttershy's saddlebag with me, as a place to put money, keys, a camera, etc. while I'm roaming around the convention.

I'll wear it as an over-the-shoulder messenger bag.  I was planning on making one myself, but while I was at Walmart, I saw that they had purses that were pretty close to the right design.  I may just buy one of those and add the little butterfly to it.

Then I'll be set to go for Tokyo in Tulsa this month!

A couple of friends are also going as ponies.  This will be my first time being part of a group cosplay.  I'm excited about that.  Because, you know, friendship is magic and all that.

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The credit where credit is due section.
Wig: www.thefivewits.net
Ears/Wings: Ya Ya Han's cosplay store.  Her website is down right now, but here's her deviantart account: http://yayacosplay.deviantart.com/
Dress: bought through the brand's store on Amazon.  http://www.amazon.com/TRIXXI-Stripe-Floral-Burnout-2489786BAI/dp/B0082F2Q7U/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_t_1
Shoes: Walmart

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Peace out, guys!