Halloween Costume 2015

So for those of you who are interested, here is my "Evil Little Mermaid"/Siren Costume
Here is the skirt before adding the tulle fin:

Here it is after the tulle fin was added!

Here are the ears in production:

Here they are painted and bejeweled:

Here is my make up close:

I paired it with my black corset and the awesome pearls I got from my best friend ALICIA. 

And here is the spectacular picture from the party photo booth:

Evil Little Mermaid Costume

Okay so I don't know if y'all know the REAL story of The Little Mermaid, but you should look at it to understand how epic my costume will really be.

Here is a brief summary of the story:

The Little Mermaid dwells in an underwater kingdom with her father (the sea king or mer-king), her dowager grandmother, and her five older sisters, each of whom had been born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is permitted to swim to the surface for the first time to glimpse the world above, and when the sisters become old enough, each of them visits the upper world one at a time every year. As each returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the world inhabited by human beings.

When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she rises up to the surface, watches a birthday celebration being held on a ship in honor of a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a safe distance. A violent storm hits, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here, she waits until a young girl from the temple and her companions find him. To her dismay, the prince never sees the Little Mermaid or even realizes that it was she who had originally saved his life.

The Little Mermaid becomes melancholy and asks her grandmother if humans can live forever and if they can breathe under water. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolks' 300 years, but that when mermaids die, they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch in a dangerous section of the ocean. The witch willingly helps her by selling her a potion that gives her legs in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting and beautiful voice in the world). The Sea Witch warns that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Consuming the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her body, yet when she recovers, she will have two human legs and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, she will constantly feel as if she is walking on sharp knives and as though her toes are bleeding. In addition, she will obtain a soul only if she wins the love of the prince and marries him, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam upon the waves.

The Little Mermaid agrees to this arrangement, and the Sea Witch cuts off her tongue. The Little Mermaid swims to the surface near the palace of the prince and drinks the potion. She is found by the prince, who is mesmerized by her beauty and grace, even though she is considered by everyone in the kingdom as dumb and mute. Most of all, he likes to see her dance, and she dances for him despite suffering excruciating pain with every step. Soon, the Little Mermaid becomes the prince's favorite companion and accompanies him on many of his outings. When the prince's parents order their son to marry the neighboring princess in an arranged marriage, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, who he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess from the neighboring kingdom is the temple girl, sent there only temporarily to be educated. The prince loves her, and the royal wedding is announced at once.

The prince and princess celebrate on a wedding ship, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has sacrificed and of all the pain she has endured. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters rise out of the water and bring her a dagger that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long, beautiful hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the dagger and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid once more, all her suffering will end, and she will live out her full life in the ocean with her family.

However, the Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his new bride, and she throws the dagger and herself off the ship into the water just as dawn breaks. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warm sun and discovers that she has turned into a luminous and ethereal earthbound spirit, a daughter of the air. As the Little Mermaid ascends into the atmosphere, she is greeted by other daughters who tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to obtain an immortal soul. Because of her selflessness, she will be given the chance to earn her own soul by doing good deeds to mankind for 300 years and will one day rise up into the Kingdom of God.

So my version of the Little Mermaid is the Little Mermaid did in fact use the knife and kill the Prince. She is more warrior mermaid verse flippy dippy singing all the songs with long red hair mermaid.

The makeup is intimidating to me already...

As you can see, I will have a mermaid tail skirt. I didn't get the typical mermaid scale fabric, instead I got something I bit more reptilian which I feel gives it a nice edge. Then I will use my old black satin corset and use the fish netting at one might use a leather strap or belt. The pauldron will be crafted from craft form and then shells will be added to it to act as my armor. I will be constructing some mermaid fin ear cuffs to add to my other worldliness as well as making gauntlets that have a webbing effect between my fingers. Lastly, I will hopefully have enough time to create a red coral knife.

After this is started, I will need to get to work on Pigeon's costume, the stabbed and drowned prince.

Until next time, craft it up!

PAX Cosplay Pictures

There were some solid Cosplays at PAX Prime this year so I figured I should share with y'all my favorites.

Mad Maxxing it!

Mad Max ala Mario Brothers.

Some rad cosplay thanks to Magic the Gathering Booth.

Courage the Cowardly dog with Muriel.

Hagrid enjoying one of the PAX 10.

Bender living on the edge.

An amazing Red from Transistor

Master Shredder looking for some youth to corrupt.

My attempts at cospaly: Ellie from The Last of Us.

...and my personal favorite: Miss Frizzle goes to PAX Prime.

Pax Cosplay: Val from Table Titans

So another Cosplay I decided on was Val from Table Titans. No, she is not from a video game, but she is from a Web Comic that is an affiliate of Penny Arcade, so I feel like she will be a good choice for PAX. Here are some pictures of her.

Here she is realizing that as a Dwarf, she does in fact love a troll. 

Note the green dress with fur lining. In this rendition, I assume she has either pants or leggings on that are dark green.

War version of Val

This is how she envisions herself while she is playing DnD. I love the fur lined boots as well as the additional fur lining on the bottom of the dress. The bracers and belt look great too,

That hat though!

So I decided that I would do a version of her in her green, fur lined (both neck and bottom) dress with Brown fur cuffed boots, a brown belt, and then her little horned helm as shown in the last picture above.


I found this dress ($3) at the thrift store:

I removed the arms and cut the neck out just slightly to give it a bit more of a plunge. I then added the fur neck line and bottom ($2 for fabric). I paired it with my thick brown belt.

Here is the fabric I chose. 

Partially cuffed! 

Fully cuffed with belt option!

I then found a pair of brown boots (Dr Scholl's!) at a thrift store ($13). I took a holey pair of Husband's socks and cut out the feet (too thick of a sock for basic wear). I added a fur cuff to them and tadah! I have boots that LOOK like they are fur cuffed, but aren't so I can still use them this fall time!

I can wear them with most any boot!

Ta-dance!

Here is the start of her hat!

And here is the last of it! 

(I will add freckles with my eyeliner pencil the day I wear it.)

Looking forward to seeing how this looks all together at convention!!

Yay PAX!

Glo Run Team: ELECTRIC PINEAPPLE

So I have never done a "theme run before" let alone done a run with people I don't normally run with. You can imagine my excitement for the Glo Run that I will be joining in on in August with my Step Sister, Niece, and friend Mel.



Mel and I decided we wanted to make team shirts so we got sizes from the rest of our "team" and I got some Glow in the Dark Tulip Paint and we went to town. We knew we wanted the statement "You glow, girl" on the shirt in someway, but that didn't seem like a team name. After a glass of wine, we decided that "Electric Pineapple" was the best name ever. Thus our team name became epic.



We decided that, obviously, we needed a  glow in the dark pineapple on the back of our shirts:

Pineapples on the back!

Here is our inspiration.

Here are the shirt fronts: (In white paint we have the "You Glow, Girl!" written below the Electric Pineapple title.

Oh, the delights of DIY

Pax Prime Cosplay: Ellie

So Pax Prime is coming up soon and Husband and I are attending with the Daves. As I have a) never been to Seattle and b) not been to PAX Prime, I am thoroughly excited about this trip! At the last PAX Convention I attended, I cosplayed as Roxy Ritcher.  This time around, I know better. I will be cosplaying as Ellie from "The Last of Us" as well as a character from a Web Comic that is a PAX Affliate. That one will come up later.

As you can see, Ellie is a 14 year old girl who is pretty much wearing stuff you can find right now.

Fortunately, I have a pair of jeans and a black long sleeved thermal already. All I "needed" to get is a pair of black, blue, or brown Chuck Taylors (which I wanted anyway, though I ended up using my orange high tops as I already had them and Chucks are expensive), a dark green backpack, and a shirt that looked like the red shirt she wears throughout the game. The backpack easy and cheap ($13) thanks to Amazon. The shirt, on the other hand, was harder. I COULD buy it for like $25 and it wouldn't look vintagey. Why in the heck would I do that?



Thus begins the Arts and Farts and Crafts time!




First off, I found the graphic online. I printed out 3 copies on thick grade cardstock. Using an Xacto knife, I cut out all the parts that needed to be black on one, all the parts that need to be blue on another, and all the parts that needed to be yellow on the last one. Then I laminated them and cut it out again. I did that just to give the stencil a bit more firmness.




Then I hit of the thrift store and got a shirt for $1 that was close to the right color. Boom! Not $25 spent! SO I got together my paints (already hade, but they were $2.50 for the 3 colors), sponge brush ($1), an old magazine (to put in the shirt to keep the shirt from drying together) and masking tape (had). I taped a guide for my stencils so things could line up nicely and put the magazine up the shirt as a firm surface for my art work. I started with the Yellow stencil as it is the lightest color (easiest to apply color over) and the background of the palm trees.

The tape lines are for lining up my homemade stencils!

Gotta stay in the lines!

First level! Tadah!

Then I let the yellow dry completely. after a couple hours I went back and added the light blue waves.

Now on to the second color!

Waves!

After letting the blue dry, I added the black layer. Unfortunately, on my first try, my sponge brush had water in and the black lines are not crisp for the most part. I tried to dab up some moisture, but for the most part, I thought the shirt was ruined. I let it dry and tried the black layer again with a DRY sponge brush and it turned out ok. Her shirt is filthy during the game and it kinda added to the "not brand new" styling I was looking to get.

Boom, Cosplayed!

I will post some pictures of both of my Cosplays from Pax when I post pictures from said convention.




Keep it real, y'all...

How to Make a Cosplay: Hiccup

As you all know, I enjoyed Comic-Con 2014 this past month. I wanted to give y'all an idea of what it took to take an idea from spark in my mind to reality.

An Example

First off: I cut my hair for Wigs for Kids in late March and ended up loving it. After a couple days, I suddenly realized that most of my cosplays were created around what I could do with my long brown hair. "Uh, Oh" I thought... I figured that my hair would grow out enough for Captain Jackie Harkness and Roxy Richter has a wig. I figured I could do lady Mario again, but I wanted to pull out something new this year. So I brainstormed and though of Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon (thanks to best friend whose favorite movie is said film). 

This is the picture I used for inspiration/a guide.

First off, I started hitting the thrift stores. I found a long sleeved, olive tunicish shirt for $6 (50% off day so $3). On another trip, I found boots for $9 (40% off so let's say $5). Unfortunately, the boots are size 8s. I wear size 6s at most normally. So an insert or two, plus an extra pair of socks were needed to wear them. I then hit up Joann's and got the fur for $14 (30% off so $10), lining for $4, and light brown felt for $3. Then came the hard part...construction: 

Using tissue paper, I created the vest pattern.

Using chalk, I outlined the vest on the pricey fur fabric.

I had a sash belt which I attached the felt to in order to make the belt.

The boot cuff was sewn to the sock to keep it in place while walking the Convention floor.

I used olive oil to dye the boots a different color (there was a stain on right toe that needed covering up).

COST

Shirt - $3

Pants - Already owned

Boots - $5

Felt - $3

Fur - $10

Lining - $4

TIME

Shirt (30 minutes)

Hemming slits cut- 20 minutes

Adding strings - 10 minutes

Pants (10 minutes)

Adding lace up detail to side - 10 minutes

Vest (3 hours)

Perfecting Pattern - 45 minutes

Cutting and basting lining for initial example- 30 minutes

Cutting and pinning fur to lining - 30 minutes

Sewing Vest together - 1 hour 15 minutes

Boots (20 minutes - active work)

Dying boots a darker color - 20 minutes

Socks/Cuffs (40 Minutes)

Cutting and designing pattern - 10 minutes

Sewing and hemming fur to socks - 25 minutes

Belt (20 minutes)

Cut and pin felt to belt - 10 minutes 

Sewing felt to sash belt - 10 minutes 

Total Cost - $25 dollars / Total Time 5 hours

So the main costume was a deal when it came to cost and, though the time frame was about what I expected, I am very happy with my first sewing project with my mother's machine.

Horned Helm and Shield 

A lesson in paper mache.

I thought everything was going super until Bro Bro pointed out that I didn't have a Horned Helm. 

Just look at that thing...how can I compete with that?

Thanks to Pinterest, I gathered some decent ideas of how to do a Paper Mache helmet. Most suggested using a wig head form thing or a balloon for the base. I didn't have either at home so I got experimental and made head form from tinfoil, duct tape, and gaffers tape. 

Now the aliens can't get into my brain!

I paper mached a skull cap, for all intends and purposes, from my super awesome head form, letting the firt layer dry atop the form itself to keep the right shape. I then gave it 2 more layers (allowing drying time in between each layer) of paper mache as well as a layer of Mod Podge Outdoor sealer stuff to ensure that it would with stand a day of being worn at Con and all the bumps and sweat it would undergo.

So Much Hot Glue!

I then crafted horn outlines with cardboard and, using gaffers tape again (thanks Husband and your career in lighting), I filled them out with newspaper. I then added 2 layers of paper mache (again, allowing drying time in between each layer) around each horn as well as a layer of Mod Podge Outdoor sealer stuff and then attached the horns to my skull cap.

Then, I hot glued the horns on, holding each horn in place while the hot glue cooled. After the horns were hot glued on, I paper mached around them at the base to secure them extra. Using cardboard, I made the rim/form on the armor on the helm.

Metal Casing...aka cardboard.

I then paper mached over the form and then hot glued rope around then base of the horns and paper mached over it to give the feeling of mounting for them. I then painted the heck out of the helm and sealed it again with Mod Podge and then added felt in the inside of the hat to keep it comfy. 

Making it work...

Check out this stuff!

I also made a shield. I used 4 layers of cardboard, glued together with wood glue and then pressed for several hours with heavy books. I then paper mached 3 layers (focusing on making the edge smooth and look like one piece) as well as a layer of Mod Podge Outdoor sealer stuff. 

DJ helped me do the outline.

 Primed it white, drew the design, and painted in with several coats of acrylic paint and, again, Mod Podge sealed it up

Looking good!

For the hand/arm holds, I covered cardboard with fabric, form arm loops out of them, then hot glued the holds to the back of the shield. I am pretty stoked with how it has come out even though I decided to not lug it around the Con.

I let things dry in the Bathroom. What?

There will hopefully be a photo shoot for this cosplay in August with Kris. More photos to come.:)