Mind The Gap

Woo!  Ryan took these before I left for work this morning.  Hopefully we’ll have some more pictures (like of other people’s costumes, for instance) after we go out Halloween-ing tonight.

And a closeup of the goggles:

Costume is all done.  Hope to get some pictures of it tomorrow.  I haven’t yet worn all pieces of it at the same time, so I’m gambling a little.  We’ll see how it goes.

The presentation for my group’s next case assignment is pretty much wrapped up too, so that’s pretty good.

Also, here’s a funny picture Shannon took of me when we went to that football clinic a while back:

That’s one of the championship rings, wearing it was fun.  God it was soooo unbelievably hot that day…I still remember it vividly now, some months later.
And here are some pictures Tara posted from our big group night out at Market Street when she was in town:

So, for the steam punk zombie hunter getup, I now have guns. We found some really cheap water guns, and painted them up. Today I rigged up some holsters for the larger ones (there are a couple smaller ones left over that I’ll just shove in my boots or something).

Pics:

Original Gun

Priming and Base Color:
    
Detail Color:
     
Holsters:
   
Pretty stoked.

Did some more work on the zombie head.  All that remains is to mount her on a plaque of some sort, and set up the remaining worms crawling to her.

Check it out:

I’ve been working on guns for my costume.  Ryan and I found some cool (and very cheap) water guns at K-Mart, and I’ve been painting them.  It’s painstaking, but they are starting to look pretty cool.

I couldn’t find any holster set up that I liked, so I’ve bought brown canvas and strapping and I’m just going to make one.  Should be ok.

Still need to find some appropriate khaki pants, and sort out some kind of sash and vest/jacket.  Will probably be a vest because I do not really feel confident enough to sew a jacket, and I want to use this cool fabric I have, so just buying one is not optimal.

I’ve also been finishing up my zombie head that I started a while back.  Still need to work out the plaque/frame/whatever to mount it on, but everything else is done.

Will post updated pictures of everything before too much longer, I hope.

I felt like straight poo this morning (my back was hurting off and on all weekend, and last night it decided to interfere with healthy sleeping habits), so I didn’t get anything accomplished.  I called in, took some medicine, and slept until about 2.  After that I felt better, and worked a bit, did homework for a bit, and went back to costuming.

I finished the falls, sorting out the extra bits of elastic, and attaching the combs.  I also rigged up a headband using some tweed-ish fabric.
I also finished modding the corset (it’s one of the plain cheapo black brocade variety that I bought for last year’s Halloween costume).  I tried to bleach it in order to dye it brown, but the synthetic fibers could care less about bleach.  So, plan b.  I watered down some brown acrylic craft paint, and slathered it on the whole thing.  This was messy, but resulted in stiffening the fabric, and also changing the color just enough.  From there, I watered down bronze metallic paint, and sponged it on here and there with a damp paper towel.  Then I did the same with copper and gold metallic craft paints, respectively.  From there I sewed some pretty glass beads (which I’ve had since I think Christmas) along the top, slipping some hot glue behind them for extra staying power.

Here are some pictures of the updated fall and corset.  The glove will definitely be in the final costume, but the rest of the outfit shown (the shirt/sweater and skirt) probably won’t.  Those were grabbed from the closet for a quick pic of the corset and falls, due to them fitting the color scheme, but i think the outfit will have pants, and I may opt for a shirt in a color other than black (the black lace over a white tank just comes out looking blue, and I’m not so cool with that).

Note the puppy.  Goggles are right side up this time as well.

Moving the falls closer together totally fixed the coverage issue I had in the test run yesterday.  As did switching to a wider headband in a coordinating color.

Never did get around to summarizing the trip really…fortunately Ryan did, and I think I’m just going to cop out and link to that. Sorry Shannon. You deserve more content.

Just finished the major stage of assembling the falls for my Halloween costume. First set I’ve ever assembled, so we’ll see how they turn out in practice, I do like the way they look. I would like to have them bigger, but with my hair being so short, I don’t think they’ll support the weight well, so I left them a little more sparse (I’ll neglect to mention that I’m also out of fake hair, and tired of back combing, twisting, and steaming).

The falls have dreads from light blond, light brown/blond, and dark brown synthetic hair, some soft fluffy yarn that I really liked, and some gold ribbons. I bought a cheapo pair of goggles at the costume shop that I painted. I still need to work out a headband that matches the costume, and decide whether to buy/fabricate a fringe, or just pull my bangs down and do something fun with them. I’m leaning towards the latter on that one, since my bangs are brown with a blond streak, so the colors will go fine.
In addition to tying around a bun/ponytail, I’ve also got combs to mount to the falls, to provide extra support (since my hair is, as I mentioned, very short). In the test run tonight I just tied the falls to the combs, which worked out ok, but I don’t see as a permanent solution.

Here are some photos from the test run — which was immediately upon assembly, I’m impatient .

If I work out a headband that coordinates, I can tuck the visible elastic into it to make it, uh, less visible…I think I’ll try to move the pig-tails closer together to get better coverage in the back.

Not too long ago I was working on costumes, for the guys for dragon con. I ended up being so busy doing that, and having little unexpected things take longer and longer to sort out, that I ended up having like 2 hours to work out my own costume, so while I had a good time and was proud of the guys’ costumes, I was pretty frustrated and displeased with my costume. I’m making up for it now by starting work on my own Halloween costume, and not making any costumes for anyone else so I can spend it all on myself (yeay). Ryan was just figuring on reusing his dragon con getup anyway, so that works out ok, methinks. If I like the costume well enough, I’ll finish/improve features I have to cut for Halloween, and reuse it for dragon con next year.

Very sleepy. Good night internet.