Let's start backwards to try to catch up some.
So last post was about Halloween and figuring out what to be. At one point in the middle of the night, or perhaps while riding my bike around, I decided to go as Snake Plissken. I waaaaanted to do Escape from LA since I live here now, but NY is by far the more superior film.
This is a rather easy costume if you have the patience to thrift around and do some modification.
One of the hardest items to find was the camo pants. I finally found the right color and pattern in a size that looked like it might fit. However the particular thift store had no fitting room, so when I got home I found out rather fast that it was one size too small. I just snipped a section of the waist in the back, and added about a 1/4 inch of fabric and they fit great.
For the boots I got a pair of women's knee length "hooker boots". They were a size 11, and I am a 6 1/2.... So I "skinned" the leather off of the heal and epoxied it to an old pair of chucks I had around. This not only worked great with the size now that I was converting a pattern from heel to flat, but it also made a MUCH more comfortable shoe. For the shin guards I just cut up some coke cans, folded them to shape, and epoxied them to the boot with a flexible epoxy. Worked pretty great.
The gun was probably the easiest piece of this costume. There is some strange ordinance in my neighborhood that they cannot sell toy guns. Since I don't have a car here yet I found myself pretty limited on options. I took a bike ride to Spirit Halloween thinking they would have something, however they weren't open. So I wandered into the K-Mart (OMG they exist out here!). I found in the toy section this M-16 with a scope and "rat-tat-tat-tat" sound effects.
I figured if it were hollow id be able to saw off the scope while keeping the wiring in tact, flip it, re attach it, and paint it to be close enough.
Annnd huzzah! That was the case!
Finally, for the watch/count down I didn't have the time to make a working model. However I was able to find a nice leather wrist cuff and a brass light switch plates that I cut into shape, covered in electrical tape, and painted the two minute's left on it.
Final product:
Overall it was a really easy and fun costume to make. I had a blast wearing it out and it was well received. To grade myself Id give it a 7.5, which is good considering the time and limited resources.
As far as costuming goes I have been working on sketches still for some conventions coming up. I had to scrap my large plan once more, but it might be for the best since I don' know what finances I will run into in the next few months.
I am still teetering on my second project (cause I can't just have one). Traditionally, I want to play a male role because let's face it, guys ALWAYS get the best roles and the BEST villains. We'll see....
In the animation realm I have started some early design work for animating my children's book. I want to really push the style to be more textured and mature, since the book was too.. soft?
Here is a page from the original book:
And here is a *TEST* that I am playing with:
I'm not sure If i want to go full texture, or with texture BG and cel animation... Hrmmidy hmm. I also don't have a character design picked out really.
This project is crawling, but since the Holidays came right after I decided to work on this, I blame them... I think maybe I can pump this out by mid/late Feb if I focus.
Speaking of the holidays taking up some of my creativity... I had a freaking BLAST making two gifts in particular.
I'll share the one I thought of almost at the last dang minute first. I decided to make a Spider Pig from the Simpsons movie since the receiver was a fan of said pig.
When I thought about this going with a stuffed critter seemed like the best method. Since this was from scratch there were no patterns for me to look at. I studied the character design from watching some clips and looking at screen grabs. I sketched him out to get a feel for his dimensions and then studied my stuffed corgi to see what shapes the manufacturer made to create their product. Honestly I shot at the dark and made a blue print on some paper bags, cut them out, pinned them together, and seeing a pig like shaped shrugged and dived into the project. There was a certain learning curve since I have never made such a fat or three dimensional stuffed animal before. I also do not have my sewing machine here, so this was all done by hand with my few hours after work before I would pass out with my bed covered in needles... ugh. My biggest mistake was that is back strip was too large and instead of keeping his nice fat shape, he came out square, and his eyes laid flat and looked TERRIFIED. So i stripped his face and back and cut a smaller piece. In the end I'm not happy with his face because it's a bit off model. But I AM stoked about the tail... heee.
Photos:
Now, the "big" gift that I was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally excited about making this year was the taxidermy moused dressed as Fat Elvis. Now.. yes... I know this is what crazy people do... But.. The first time I met the person this was for, we had talked about a shared love of taxidermy weirdo stuff and they mentioned wanting a mouse angel. Later down the road, knowing they were a big fan of The King, I decided to combine the two. I contacted a taxidermist in Virginia who agreed to pose a mouse mount as Elivs for me. The woman was incredibly nice and a pleasure to do business with.
When he arrived he was smaller than I had really expected in my mind.
Wee-ooo! I started with the wig... which was one of my first of many moments going "what... the hell... am I doing..?"
You can see that I made a lei for him, but it felt too crafty/tacky so I left it off.
I set out the make the worlds smallest elvis jumpsuit... It was a little bit of a challenge because I had t be delicate with the mouse, while making sure the suit was snug and wouldn't fall off. I also had to do very close stitching because of the scale and went a little cross eyed from it. The best part was glueing the sequins on, staying true to the pattern on the King's suite. I only with i could have found star shaped sequins small enough to go the full way. And his hip chains... yeah, they loop the right amount of times...
Honestly, this was probably one of the most fun project's I've done in the last few years. I think this might be something I pursue more..
For Christmas I did get my Mac Shipped to me and a table to finally work on. But not just any table. Oh no. One with a Corgi Knight "Snorgles the Bold" painted on it. Yes folks, this makes me happy...
So I have finally set up shop again after my 8 months out here, and I expect to do more work :)
Ok.. Enough for now... Next time: More animation, more costume talk, and maybe even some talk about something i recently gained interest in... painting minis... dun dun duuuun
